Trapped at the Altar

“But ’tis still early,” Ari protested.

“It’s dark nevertheless.” He directed them out of the palace into the courtyard. There were a few people around, and the space was lit by flickering torches.

“Chalfont, a word with you.”

Ivor turned at the voice. A stocky man, resplendent in gold and turquoise silk, a luxuriant peruke curling on his shoulders, was waving imperatively at him. Ivor frowned, recognizing the Lord Chancellor, Lord Jeffries. Not a man to be ignored if one wanted recognition in this court of favorites. He said quietly to Ariadne, “Stay in the light while I talk to the Lord Chancellor. His favor is well worth courting.”

“Why won’t he come to you?” she asked with a touch of indignation.

“Because he doesn’t need to,” Ivor said succinctly. “I won’t be a moment.” He walked across the courtyard to where the imperious Lord Chancellor stood waiting.

Ari grimaced. It was hard to accept the supplicant position when one was accustomed to being the commander. She found it hard, and she could understand that Ivor probably found it even harder to swallow his pride. But she had little doubt that he would soon enough make his mark, and people, even as lofty as the Lord Chancellor, would come to him. He radiated a natural authority.

She was cold standing still and began to walk around, staying as instructed under the safety of the torch lights, her feet crunching on the crisp snow as she stamped them to keep her toes from freezing in her thin sandals.

A slender figure emerged suddenly from the shadow of an arch. “Ariadne.”

She stopped, her heart thumping against her breastbone. “Gabriel?”

“Aye, ’tis me. Did you think I would take my congé so easily, Ari?” He came up to her, his face white and tense. He had been waiting for this opportunity to catch her alone since he’d shadowed her and her husband across the park into the palace earlier that afternoon. The long hours of waiting in hiding had taken their toll, and he was filled with a reckless determination.

“I cannot give up my love so easily, and I don’t believe, Ari, that you mean it when you say you don’t love me anymore.” He put his hands on her upper arms, pulling her towards him. “You cannot mean it. I could not feel as I do if you didn’t have the same feelings for me. Remember how we loved, how we kissed, the promises we made.” He was speaking in a low, rapid voice, desperate to say what he had to, desperate to convince her. His fingers tightened on her arms, and she made to pull away.

“No, Gabriel. Let me go. This is madness. I told you how it must be. You must accept it.” She tried to jerk her arms free.

“No, be still,” he demanded. “Please, Ari, be still. Let me kiss you just once, and you will see that it is as it always was . . . how it must always be.” He reached for her mouth with his own, and she squirmed, kicking out at his shins, wrenching her head aside.

“Take your hands off my wife.”

Each word was like a drop of ice-cold venom. Gabriel gasped, his hands falling from Ari’s arms, and slowly, her heart battering against her ribs, she stepped away from him. The point of Ivor’s sword stick flashed between them and pressed into the hollow of Gabriel’s throat. A bead of blood welled around the blade’s tip. She saw Gabriel swallow convulsively, and the blade moved not a fraction of an inch.

“Ivor . . . no,” she heard herself whisper.

He didn’t look at her. “Be quiet.”

She didn’t dare say anything, just stared at the bead of blood, at Gabriel’s complexion growing more ashen by the moment. And then Ivor said, “It is a capital offense to draw blood within his majesty’s walls. We will continue this beyond the walls of the palace courtyard. You will walk through the gate into the park.”

The point of his sword slid away from Gabriel’s throat, moved against his ribs, and the young man took an unsteady step in the direction of the arched gateway that would take them beyond the palace walls and into the park. Ariadne followed, frantically trying to think of something she could say, anything that would turn this terrifying Ivor into some semblance of the man she knew.

Gabriel was trembling like a leaf as he walked through the gate and out onto the path that ran beside the canal. He looked around, desperately hoping to see help somewhere, but no one paid them the least attention, everyone hurrying, intent on finding sanctuary from the crystal-clear cold of this star-filled night.

Ivor’s sword point pricked Gabriel’s side as he directed him off the path into a shrubbery on one side.

Gabriel felt vomit rise in his throat as he saw the lonely darkness of the place. He had meddled with the dangerous men of the valley, and all the old horror stories his nurse had told him as a child about the bloodthirsty Daunts came back to him in vivid color. He swallowed the nausea, struggling not to break down, to remember that he was a Fawcett.

Behind the shrubs was a small clearing, bathed in the sky’s silver light. He could not die in this brilliant starlight, Gabriel thought. Surely that could not happen. But the sword point had moved again, back to his throat.

“So, not content with sitting at my table and making free of my hospitality, you wish to take my wife also.” Ivor’s tone was almost conversational. “I am assuming I have the pleasure of addressing Master Gabriel Fawcett, the poet?”

Ariadne closed her eyes for a moment. She had never heard Ivor speak in that deadly tone before, but for the first time, she understood the real danger to Gabriel. Her hand moved infinitesimally into the secret slit in her wide, swinging skirt.

“Well?” Ivor demanded, so fiercely that Gabriel jumped and the sword point dipped into his skin. “Answer me, sir.”

Gabriel swallowed again, hesitantly raised a hand as if he could push the sword point from his throat. “Yes . . . yes, I am Gabriel Fawcett.”

“And not content with taking my wife’s virginity, you would now cuckold me in the marriage bed.” It was not a question. Ivor’s eyes were blue stones, his expression hard as granite. “I cannot allow that.”

“Ivor, please,” Ari said softly. “Let him leave. It is over. I told him this—”

He turned his eyes towards her for second, and she fell silent, shriveling under the burning fury they contained. “Go home. Now. I have work to do. You and I will do our own work later.”

Ariadne’s fingers closed over her knife. In her wildest, most horrific nightmares, she could not have imagined doing what she was about to do. She moved suddenly, knocking Ivor’s sword hand to one side and stepping instantly in front of Gabriel, her own knife gleaming in her hand, before Ivor could move his arm back to where it was.

“I cannot let you do this, Ivor.” Gray eyes met blue ones with as fierce a determination. “I will not let you kill him.” She was silent, watching his face, and then said with soft insistence, trying to make every word penetrate, “You don’t want to kill him, Ivor. You know you don’t.”

“And you would kill me to save your lover?” he queried, an eyebrow raised in sardonic disbelief. “Put the knife away.”

She knew the danger had passed, or at least the extreme danger. Her astonishing challenge had surprised him enough to break the concentrated power of his rage. She lowered her knife hand, feeling Gabriel quiver behind her sheltering body. She stayed where she was, still holding Ivor’s gaze.