Trapped at the Altar

“I know. His majesty issued the same command.” Ivor steered her around a splash of vomit on the gravel pathway. “The Duke of York will be there. There will be a Catholic mass in the Chapel Royal, which both the Queen and the Duke and his wife will attend, and a Protestant service in the abbey. You will go to the chapel; I will attend the other.”

“I am to make myself known to the Duke of York, then?”

“With the Queen’s blessing already bestowed, it will be simple enough. Then we see which way the wind blows.”

Ari didn’t respond, walking quickly beside him, her hands buried in her muff, her head lowered as if she were watching her step. Ivor took her hand and tucked it into his elbow. He could feel the tension in her body as she continued to walk hurriedly beside him.

“Are you finding this more difficult than you expected, Ari?” he asked abruptly, wondering if he had been mistaken earlier and she had fooled him, too, with her performance.

“No . . . no, of course not. Whatever makes you think that?” She didn’t look up as she spoke.

“Perhaps because I can feel you jangling like an out-of-tune harpsichord,” he said bluntly. “If something is troubling you, I want to know it. We are married, committed to this enterprise and to each other. Now, suddenly, you seem uncertain, and I want to know what has disturbed you.”

It had come back to her. The moment they had left the palace and the excitement of playing her part no longer buoyed her, the dreadful anxiety about Gabriel flooded back. She felt as she had as a child waiting for some misdeed to be discovered. The apprehension was almost intolerable.

Resolutely, she raised her head and looked directly at Ivor. She was ultimately responsible for her present trouble, and she would put it right herself. Somehow her feelings for Gabriel had changed. Oh, she felt a deep fondness for him, held close the smiling memory of the time they had shared together, but she was not that person anymore, no longer the dewy-eyed girl who had fallen in love with a man who embodied everything that her life had lacked: the gentleness, the softness, the finer edges.

But she knew now that she had been tempered in the life of Daunt valley. She was tough and strong and had a great many more rough edges than fine ones. Ivor was her partner, her true mate. It was for her to tell Gabriel the truth, to let him down gently but definitely. There could be no misunderstanding. She would not hurt him any more than she could help, but her loyalty was to Ivor. And the thought of how he would feel if he ever found out that she had had any contact with Gabriel after their new beginning terrified her. His trust was too new, too recently earned, to be tried.

She had to have one last meeting with Gabriel. And then it would be done.

And so she met Ivor’s gaze directly and smiled a little ruefully. “I am out of sorts, you’re right. And it is because I am a little scared of what we’re doing, of making a mistake, of saying one wrong word that will bring the house of cards down around our ears. I just didn’t want to admit it to myself.” It was so close to the truth that it sounded convincing even to her ears.

“You’re not alone, my sweet. I am always here. I have absolute faith in you.” He bent and brushed the corner of her mouth with his lips. “It’s a strain, I understand that. It is for me, too, sometimes. But we will get through it together, I promise.”

“Yes,” she murmured. “Together.”





TWENTY-FOUR





Gabriel left the palace a few minutes after Ariadne emerged from the Queen’s apartments, and no one so much as turned a head as he passed, threading his way through the throngs as if he were invisible. Outside, he headed for the green expanse of St. James’s Park. He could walk there, just one more anonymous figure in the cold gray light of a late Christmas Eve afternoon. Despite the wind and the thick gray clouds, the park was far from deserted, folk hurrying along the narrow gravel paths, walking around the canal, all within sight of the mass of Whitehall Palace, where the royal flags whipped back and forth in the wind. There were rustlings and whispers and stifled mirth coming from somewhere in the bushes that lined the paths, and a female figure darted out onto the path just ahead of Gabriel, her skirt still tucked up at her waist, showing an expanse of goose-fleshed white thigh before she yanked it down again. A minute or two later, a well-dressed young man emerged, fastening his britches.

It was a cold and inhospitable spot for such business, Gabriel reflected, but judging by the women hovering in clear invitation along the path, the weather didn’t deter customers. He turned onto the path along the canal, a pair of swans sedately keeping pace with him through the water below. And then he heard it, that unmistakable voice. She was talking softly, but he knew that light, musical voice. How many times had he heard it in his mind since that hasty parting an eternity past? The voice came from behind him in the gathering dusk, and instinctively he pulled his hat down low over his forehead, ducking his head as he stepped swiftly off the path and into a screen of bushes.

Ariadne, her husband, and a maid were walking from the palace along the canal. The maid walked slightly behind the other two. But Gabriel couldn’t take his eyes off Ariadne. He hadn’t had a close look at her in the palace, only at her husband. Her hair was elegantly coiffed, jewels winking against the lustrous black curls, and her small figure was clad in the first style of elegance, her damask skirts swaying gracefully as she walked, her arm tucked into her escort’s. She was smiling up at her husband, and Gabriel felt a deep, cold shaft in his chest that his Ari should look at another man like that.

Ivor Chalfont, the man she had sworn she had no desire to marry. Something had happened to change that. Could it be possible that once he himself was out of the picture, he was banished from Ariadne’s mind? How could it be possible after all they had shared, all they had promised each other?

They had passed him now, and he stepped out onto the path behind them. He walked behind for a few minutes, feasting his eyes on Ariadne, noting every movement of her shoulders, the easy swing of her hips beneath the rich rustle of damask, listening to the murmur of her voice without being able to distinguish the words. She turned her head to say something to the maid walking just behind her, and he gazed at her profile, the straight nose, the firm jut of her chin, the sweep of her cheekbone. And then, abruptly, he struck off across the grass, away from the path, walking quickly, keeping his hat lowered.

Just as she turned to speak to Tilly, Ariadne felt the strangest quiver down her spine, creeping up her neck into her scalp. Someone was walking over her grave, she thought, but then, out of the corner of her eye, she saw the cloaked figure hurrying across the grass. It was Gabriel. She would recognize his figure anywhere: thin, almost reedlike, the slight stoop of his shoulders, the stance of a man who spent long hours hunched over pen and paper.

Gabriel was here, in the middle of St. James’s Park. He must have been following her, she realized. After he’d seen her in the piazza, he must have followed them home, so he knew where she lived. And that meant, at least, that she would not have to go in search of him. If he was close by, she would find the opportunity to meet him in secret. The logistics for the moment defeated her, but she felt her spirits lift a little with the knowledge that she was in charge of the situation now. Now that she knew where he was, she could act.