Trapped at the Altar

She smiled. “Nothing’s amiss. It’s good news. Uncle Rolf was trying to dress me as if I lived twenty years ago. I suggested an alternative. I daresay he was about to do the same for you?”

He laughed. “Yes, but I did not have the wit to complain. Damask doublets and chin-high ruffs were on order. I confess I was unsure.”

“Well, it is arranged now. Our wardrobes will be made up in London by seamstresses who know what they’re doing, and we leave in ten days . . . just ten days.” She touched his arm. “Once we are free of the valley, Ivor, maybe we can make things better between us.”

He looked at her for a moment. “Maybe.” But she could hear no conviction in his voice. She bit her lip, then turned to walk back into the village.

Ivor looked across the bridge. A house stood close to the bridge, one he had frequented on many occasions, as had every young man in the valley and many of the older ones, too. Ariadne belonged to him, and his need for her grew more painful the longer he was deprived. She was so sure of her invincible love for her poet. And Ivor was so sure of his right to take her in the conjugal bed and make this marriage complete. He had to wait until he was certain she did not carry another man’s child, but was he supposed to contain himself until then?

He needed release, and it was Ari’s fault that he could not take it in the manner ordained by the Bible.

He walked back across the bridge.

Ariadne stopped on the opposite bank and turned. She saw Ivor striding across to the other bank and with disbelief watched him stop at the whorehouse.

What could he be thinking? They were in the morass of emotional turmoil, married yet not married. He refused to consummate the marriage unless he was certain her relationship with Gabriel had produced no consequences, and yet he was prepared to take his body into a whore’s bed while his wife lay stiffly on one side of a bolster waiting to prove to him that she did not carry another man’s child.

Angry tears blinded her for a moment. And then she realized what fueled her anger. She was jealous . . . jealous and hurt that he could so easily find solace for his own hurt pride. He was her husband, God damn it. He didn’t belong in some other woman’s bed.

Ariadne stalked back to her own cottage and stopped on the threshold. Of course, this was no longer hers. She lived in the marital home, with a whoring husband who didn’t give a damn how many children he might father on a harlot’s body. Her breath caught on a sob, and she leaned against the wall for a moment, struggling for composure. Her world was falling apart around her ears, and she seemed helpless to stick it back together again. What was happening between herself and Ivor? They had been so close, such dear friends. And now they were like angry strangers. She was overwhelmed with a wretched mix of angry and hurt feelings, all spiced with her own guilt that it was her impulse that had brought them to this pass.





NINE





Ariadne turned from what had once been her own front door and made her way back to Ivor’s cottage. Tilly was busy at the range, clattering pots. The living room had been swept and dusted, and the aroma from the bubbling cauldrons made her mouth water despite her unhappiness.

“What are you cooking, Tilly?” She hoped her voice sounded normal to Tilly, although it sounded thick in her own ears, filtered through a knot of tears in her throat.

“Venison stew. Sir Ivor had a haunch hanging in the shed, just ripe for eating,” the girl responded cheerfully. “Did you see Lord Daunt, then?”

“Yes, and he’s changed his mind. We’re to leave in ten days. You’re to prepare a simple traveling wardrobe for me, and the materials will travel with us to London, where we can get proper advice on fashions.” She moved to the stairs. “I’ll just change my shoes, and then I’ll come and help with the supper.”

“So we’re not good enough for the likes of London folk,” Tilly muttered, throwing a carrot onto the board and attacking it with a sharp knife.

“I don’t think that,” Ari said, pausing on the stair, struck by another thought. “And you will be coming with me, Tilly. Has Lord Daunt said anything to you?”

“No, Miss Ari.” Tilly scraped the carrots into the steaming cauldron and began to chop an onion.

“Well, you may rest assured that you will be,” Ari declared. “I cannot go without female assistance, and who better than you to provide it. If you wish it, of course,” she added.

“Go to London, Miss Ari?” Tilly turned from the stove, her round cheeks flushed from the heat. “I’ll be afeard in that city, full of thieves and murderers, it is. But I’ll not let you go alone, miss.”

Ariadne smiled. “And I can promise you will not fall afoul of a thief or a murderer, Tilly. And, indeed, my dear, I don’t know how I should go on without you.”

She made her way up to the bedchamber. Here, too, everything was in order, the bed freshly made, a fire laid in the small hearth. She kicked off her shoes and slipped her feet into a pair of soft woolen slippers. Ordinarily, she would be looking forward to an evening by her own hearth. She often relished her own company and the quiet privacy of her own house, but tonight would be different. It would be a quiet evening by the conjugal hearth, with the husband who was husband only in name.

If he returned from the whorehouse, that is. Tears pricked her eyes again, and she blinked furiously.

She went to look out of the small window. It gave her a direct view across the bridge to the stone cottage where Ivor had gone, like any one of the village men in search of male pleasures while their women stayed by the hearth, stirring their suppers on the range. He had entered that cottage knowing she was watching him; that seemed the final insult. Although rationally, Ari didn’t know why it should make a difference. Why would it be better for him to sneak around behind her back?

Oh, it was insupportable, she thought on a fresh wave of miserable anger. She was supposed to sit here by the fire waiting for him to leave a whore’s bed and come home for his supper. She marched downstairs. “I’m going for a walk, Tilly.”

“Supper’ll be ready in an hour.” Tilly glanced over her shoulder. “Why’re you going out in your slippers?”

“The ground’s dry enough,” Ari responded, opening the front door. It was almost dusk, and a watchman was already moving around the village, lighting the pitch torches that filled the valley with light during the deepest recesses of the night. The inhabitants of Daunt valley didn’t like darkness and shadows. They sought the night’s invisibility up above, when they went about their dark work, but in their own valley, they didn’t trust the murky obscurity of shadowy corners.

She walked along the river, aware that the temperature had dropped and she was cold, a sharp breeze gusting across the water, sending little wavelets rippling against the bank. She folded her arms, hugging her chest, wishing she had thought to bring a shawl, but she wasn’t ready to go back to the cottage yet, although the prospect of its lantern-lit, fragrant warmth was enticing.

She heard a footstep behind her, and then, before she could turn, a woolen jacket encased her shoulders, redolent of Ivor’s familiar scent. He stepped up beside her. “It’s cold. Why aren’t you wearing a cloak or at least a shawl?”

She shrugged. “I didn’t think it was so windy when I left.”

“It seems logical, in that case, to turn back,” he pointed out. “Instead of walking farther away from home.”