Trapped at the Altar

“There’s a bush over there,” Ari said. “Would you hold Sphinx?”

He took the reins, commenting with a smile, “You have about five minutes of privacy, I would say, before the rest come up with us.”

Ari hurried for the bush, and when she returned a few minutes later, she could see no sign of Ivor, and the horses were loosely tethered to a low branch of a scrappy weeping willow tree. She looked around for him, suddenly alarmed. “Ivor . . . Ivor, where are you?” Her voice rose a little, even as she told herself he couldn’t have gone far.

“I’m here. What’s the matter?” Ivor scrambled up the bank a few yards away, where the stream took a slight turn. “What is it?” His voice was sharp, his hand on his sword, half out of its sheath.

“Nothing . . . I didn’t know where you were,” Ari said, feeling foolish.

He shook his head and strode over to her side. “That’s not like you, Ari. To panic for no reason.” He tilted her chin on his forefinger, looking down at her upturned face. “I was just taking advantage of the moment of privacy myself.”

“Yes . . . of course,” she said, feeling even more foolish. “This place just feels so vast and empty. Silly of me, I know.” She twitched her chin from his light grasp and turned away. “The coach has almost reached us on the track. Shouldn’t we go back?”

“By all means.” Ivor untethered the horses. “Give me your foot.” She put her foot in his palm, and he tossed her up onto the saddle before mounting Turk. He gave her a puzzled look as they rode back to the track where the coach had stopped to wait for them. What had alarmed her? he wondered. Ariadne was generally fearless. Perhaps it was this strangely open space stretching all around them. When you grew up in an enclosed valley, surrounded by protective walls and armed guards, perhaps there was something intrinsically alarming about this sense of vastness, the ground meeting the sky in a seemingly unbroken horizon.

Ariadne was too confused about her reaction to Ivor’s momentary disappearance to think too clearly. It had been a stupid response to his absence. Perhaps she was coming to rely on him too much? The thought stunned her. She had never been dependent on anyone. It wasn’t practical. And yet, since she had moved into Ivor’s cottage, slept in his bed, eaten supper with him every night, somehow she had begun to think of them as joined, partnered. And after last night . . .

Why hadn’t he mentioned last night? The question hadn’t been far from her thoughts all morning. Had it not been as wonderfully satisfying for him as it had been for her? Or had it just been another experience, no different from the many he had had in the whorehouse across the bridge, not worth thinking about the next morning?

But Ivor did not dissemble; it was not in his nature. He had been as much her partner in that lovemaking as she had been his. The dominant partner, certainly, but his pleasure had been as real as hers. There simply hadn’t been an opportune moment to refer to it this morning, let alone talk about it, she told herself. There was no point in suffering wounded feminine pride in these circumstances.

Feeling much more like her pragmatic self, Ariadne drew rein at the coach. “How are you bearing up, Tilly?” she called up to the huddled figure.

“It’s so big out here, Miss Ari,” Tilly said, seeming to draw even further into her cloak. “There’s no one, nothing anywhere. ’Tis all sky and marsh.”

“It is a bit overwhelming,” Ariadne agreed, glad to forget her own earlier confused alarm with the need to reassure Tilly. “If you need to stretch your legs or find some privacy,” she added delicately, “I will come with you just over there.” She gestured with her whip to the convenient bush.

“I don’t know, miss. I’m afeard to get down.” Tilly looked around again. “But I own I’ll be glad of a privy.”

“Come on, then.” Ari dismounted and reached up her hand. Tilly scrambled down from the box. “We’ll be back shortly,” Ari informed Ivor. “I expect everyone will be glad of a short respite.”

Ivor cursed silently, but he couldn’t deny the little party what he’d taken for himself, however anxious he was to get across the Levels before nightfall. They’d find shelter of some kind in a farming village in the Polden Hills, where the ground was higher and not flood-prone, but they had to find it before dark. He looked across the plain to the faint dark outline of the hills that bisected the Levels. A good five hours’ ride still, and they would have to stop again around noon.

Impatiently, he waited for the scattered members of his party to rejoin the track. Ari was chatting cheerfully with Tilly as they came back, and the girl was looking more cheerful as she scrambled back onto the coach with a helping hand from the coachman. She was still not prepared to discard any of her many layers, despite the mid-morning sun, but she sat upright instead of huddled and looked around her with eyes that were not so wide and frightened.

Ivor was about to dismount to help Ari onto her horse, but if she saw him make the move, she ignored it, mounting without his help. Ivor wondered wryly why he’d even thought to help her. It was not his usual practice. Ari had been climbing on and off horseback without assistance since she’d first learned to ride. But he supposed she was going to have to learn to accept help ordinarily offered a lady in polite society, so it was probably as well to get some practice in before they reached London.

He took his place in the procession ahead of the coach and behind the armed outriders, expecting Ari to come up beside him. Instead, she chose to ride beside the coach, talking cheerfully to Tilly. He supposed it was right that she should be making an effort to distract the girl from her fears, but nevertheless, he missed her company.

As the morning wore on, it became clear that something was occupying her mind. Even when she abandoned the slow-moving coach and moved up beside him, she seemed preoccupied, responding absently to any conversational sally, so that after a while he gave up.

When the sun was at its zenith, he called a halt. “We’ll stop here for a half hour to take some refreshment and rest the horses. There’s a mere just over there.” He dismounted. “Release the horses from their traces, Willum, and water them.” He glanced at Ariadne, who had dismounted, but she moved past him with that same air of distraction, leading Sphinx to the small pond a few yards distant.

“Is something troubling you, Ari?” he asked directly, as they stood side by side, their horses drinking at the mere, where tall marsh willows swayed at the edge, throwing the shapes of their elegant wavery strands onto the still surface.

“Why should anything be troubling me?” She stroked Sphinx’s bent neck, gazing absently across the pond, noticing that as her eyes grew accustomed to the vast loneliness of the plain, she was less alarmed by the sense of space.

He gave an involuntary chuckle. “Oh, come now, Ari, you sound just like a woman.”

“Why shouldn’t I? I am a woman, aren’t I?” She was genuinely surprised at his comment.

“Your great appeal, my dear girl, is that you have never put on any of the airs or affectations of your sex,” he informed her crisply. “Prevarication doesn’t suit you. I know something’s troubling you, so what is it? How can I put it right if I don’t know?”