In the Shadow of Midnight (26 page)

“Do you feel you have to prove yourself the equal of
every
man you meet, or is it just me you have chosen to plague to death?”

Ariel was taken aback. “I have not chosen to do any such thing.”

“No? You just decided to use my head for target practice this afternoon?”

“You were … being uncommonly rude and beastly to me.”

“You were uncommonly deserving. Had you truly been
my squire, you would be shy a few layers of skin on your backside for disobeying me. And for flinging the arrow …?” He shook his head and clucked his tongue softly. “Now, unless you prefer to have the buckles on your armour rust permanently closed, I would suggest you lift your arms and allow me to loosen them.”

Ariel chewed on her lip and raised her arms slowly above her head. The movement caused the flattened bulk of her hat to slide forward over her brow again, leaving only one clear green eye free to glare up at him as he began working on the row of swollen leather straps.

“I do
not
deliberately set forth to prove myself the equal of every man,” she insisted sullenly.

“No,” he agreed. “I warrant you already know you are better than most.”

The single green eye narrowed. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“It means … I have seen you wield a sword and would not be too hasty to place a wager against you. As for your bow arm, I have only seen one other woman with a steadier hand.”

Ariel glanced sidelong at him, expecting to see a mouth curved with mockery, trembling with mirth, but neither was evident, and she was perplexed into acknowledging a tiny shudder of pleasure at the compliments. Not that she
wanted
compliments from this beast. A compliment might require a friendly word in turn.

“How can you be certain it was not sheer luck that guided my arrows this afternoon?”

“I cannot speak for Lord Dafydd’s bow, but I made mine myself, and if luck was the only thing guiding your hand, you most likely would have taken off all your fingers and shot your own foot in the process of drawing it.”

Another welter of heat flooded her belly and trickled down into her limbs. When she found the strength to look up at him again, the smokey gray eyes were waiting.

“Unfortunately,” he mused, “the same cannot be said about your skill in the cooking and spicing of meat.”

Ariel lowered her lashes quickly. She was wise enough to
hold her tongue and not attempt to deny the charge of tampering, although she found she was a disconcerting flush away from returning his grin.

“You have a knack of pricking my temper, my lord,” she said finally.

“I would hazard to say we seem determined to prick each other’s,” he amended.

Ariel drew a very slow, very cautious breath, aware that his hands had paused in their duties and were resting against the side of her breast. It was ridiculous to regard it as a deliberate liberty, what with the outer shell of chain mail, the inner vest of cuir-bouilli, and the rough woolen shirt standing as barriers between her flesh and his. Yet it did not stop her skin from constricting and pulling tight across her chest as if she suddenly wore two bright circles of fire.

Compliments, smiles, intimacy … what next? she wondered. And why was it affecting her so? Why, for instance, was she having difficulty keeping her eyes from straying to the loosely opened vee of his shirt? And why, each time they did, was she having
no
difficulty remembering how each bulge and slab of satiny muscle had looked sheathed in river water and gleaming under the soft flare of lantern light?

His hands started to move again and her lashes fluttered slightly with the relief. When the last buckle was unclasped, he straightened and studied her profile a moment before giving way to the urge to pluck the sorry felt hat off her head. The long rope of her hair uncoiled like a snake down her back, the colour muted by the dampness and shadows but still an unsettling enough contrast to the drab browns and grays of their surroundings to hold Eduard’s attention longer than was comfortable for either of them.

As it happened,
he
was having no difficulty remembering the wild, silken tangle of it gilded in moonlight, cloaking her shoulders in a mass of fire and silk.

Eduard cleared his throat and grasped the lower edge of the byrnie. Ariel aided him in maneuvering the parted flaps over her head, and, when rid of the burden, was rid of a pent-up sigh as well. He helped her remove the thickly padded vest
of boiled bullhide next, granting a respite that prompted her to roll her neck this way and that, to stretch her spine and curl her shoulders forward and back in glorious freedom.

Eduard could hardly be blamed for taking advantage of her closed eyes and innocently sensual movements. Having become accustomed to seeing her muffled in bullhide and chain mail, he had almost forgotten the ethereal beauty of the woman he had met on the ramparts of Amboise. The recalled vision of her hair had stirred other memories, although now it was not the wind molding her clothes to the shape of her body, but the dampness making them cling to the round thrust of her breasts. The shirt, rough as it was, could not conceal the smallness of her waist or the whiteness of the skin revealed by the deeply slitted neckline. Even a monk, sworn to resist any and all such temptations, would have felt a distinct desire to peel away the wet cloth and explore what lay beneath.

Eduard lifted a hand and touched it to the side of her neck. Ariel froze at the contact and the fiery brightness that had begun to fade from her breasts returned with a vengeance, spreading upward to where the backs of his fingers gently eased aside the edge of her shirt and held it away from the red, angry rash on her shoulder.

“Why did you not tell someone the clothing was too coarse against your skin?” he asked with a small frown.

“Should I also have told them the horse was too clumsy, the weather too cold, the ground too wet and lumpy?”

“Requesting to have the skin saved from being chafed from the bone is hardly an admission of weakness.”

Ariel held his gaze for a long moment, then shrugged away his concern with a slight roll of her shoulder. “Would that we were all like you, sirrah: open and honest with your admissions at all times.”

Eduard met the sarcasm with another frown. “In what way have I been dishonest?”

“Oh … in the way you think of me, for one thing.”

“My lady … I think of you in the manner which I am bound by oath and honour to think of you—as Lady Ariel de
Clare, niece to the Earl of Pembroke, intended bride to Prince Rhys ap Iorwerth of Gwynedd.”

“How very proper of you,” she murmured.

“To think of you in any other way would be … rather
improper
of me, would it not?”

“There would be nothing improper in treating me as if I had a brain in my head and a spine in my back. Pushing me behind trees to hide and speaking of nothing more sinister than the weather when I am in your company does more to prick my temper than any ten challenges to prove myself equal.”

“Henry did warn me you had no love for bird songs,” he mused.

“Nor do I have a love for riddles,” she said flatly. “Or
secrets.”

“Secrets, my lady?”

“Secrets. Whispered confidences. Conversations that cease abruptly when I come near. Sketched pictures in the dirt that a boot discreetly scrubs away before I look too closely.” For a moment, just a moment, she thought she had caught FitzRandwulf off guard with the charges and her unexpected success emboldened her. “You see? I am neither blind nor stupid, and if you are plotting something that involves me in any way, I have a right to know.”

“My lady …” He spoke slowly to give himself time to adapt to her quickness. “The only plotting that involves you has to do with the oath we gave your uncle to see you into the happy arms of your groom unhurt, unblemished, untouched. If we whisper among ourselves, it is because we discuss the ways and means of doing so without causing you undue concern. If we draw lines in the dirt and erase them, it is from force of habit, nothing more. With spies lurking behind every tree and beneath every rock, it has become necessary to keep a private thought private.”

“So now you accuse me of being a spy?”

“No. No, of course I do not think you are a spy …”

“Yet you do not trust me?”

The steely eyes widened guilelessly. “Demoiselle, you
wound me. I had thought there was a possibility we could become fast friends.”

“Friends?” she scoffed. “You dream, my lord.”

“And you imagine conspiracies where there are none.”

“Are there not?” She allowed her smirk to tell him she believed him as much as she believed pigs could fly. “Why did you not tell me you were acquainted with my intended groom?”

“lorwerth? I have no knowledge of the man other than what his brother lets slip.”

“Not
that
groom,” she said irritably. “The other one … Reginald de Braose.”

Ariel had struck a second, unexpected blow to his composure, undermining it enough to put a sudden tautness in his jaw and bring to life a fine blue vein that throbbed in his temple.

“Where the devil did you hear about De Braose?” he asked harshly.

“Does it matter? The point is, I did not hear it from you, which I find odd in the extreme, considering how
earnest
you pretended to be that night on the ramparts … how very apologetic you were for the misunderstanding in the armoury … how very forgiving you were even after I called you a bastard in front of your peers.”

“I
am
a bastard, my lady,” he said, bowing sardonically.

“You are also adept at changing subjects when you do not wish to discuss them.”

Eduard smiled faintly and turned his head enough for the light to glint gold on his lashes and to trace over the puckered flesh of the scarred cheek. “You are absolutely correct, my lady: I have no wish to discuss Reginald de Braose with you.”

“Why? Because of what he did to your face? Or because he is somehow a part of the other reason why you are going back to England?”

“Other
reason?” he asked carefully.

“My uncle tried to tell me your presence on this journey was crucial because of your familiarity with the land and your
friendship with the rebel lords of Brittany. As such, it was a reasonable explanation, yet lacking several merits.”

Eduard crossed his arms over his chest and found himself almost as intrigued with the way her mouth formed the words as with the words themselves.

“Go on,” he urged. “You have won my complete attention.”

“The first incongruity,” she said evenly, “is that you have not, by your own admission, been back to England in thirteen years. Not since your father rescued you from the donjons of Bloodmoor Keep.”

Eduard’s gaze made the slow climb from her mouth to her eyes. “Robin,” he mused. “I am glad he has been keeping you entertained with our family history.”

“Some of it I knew already, but he is justifiably proud of his father and half brother, although it would be difficult for him to feel otherwise, I would venture to say, even if only half of the accomplishments he credits you are true.”

“You are too kind,” he murmured dryly. “And is that your dilemma? Do you find these stories hard to believe?”

“Not at all. I believe every one of them. If anything, I find it difficult to believe you would ever want to set foot in England again—for any reason. And please, do not patronize me by quoting any more oaths of honour. An oath to see me safely to the coast at St. Malo would have been sufficient. An oath from Henry and Sedrick to see me the rest of the way across the Channel and into England would have been equally sufficient.”

“A fair point to argue,” he admitted, “but hardly enough proof to condemn us as plotters and conspirators.” “I have more.”

“I am, dear lady, breathless with anticipation.”

“Breathe a little longer, my lord,” she pleaded sweetly, “and I will tell you what I see before me. I see a man who has no love of England or its king … truth or falsehood?”

“Truth,” he admitted after a moment.

She copied his stance, folding her arms over her chest and squaring her shoulders. “I also see a man who has—also by his
own admission—no vast knowledge of England’s roads and byways.”

“North is north in any country,” he reminded her. “What is more, your brother has been scratching out such faithful maps these past few nights, I feel I could find my way to Gwynedd … or Radnor … with my helm on backwards.”

Ariel dismissed his sarcasm with an airy wave of her hand. “I also see a man who has only the prospect of being entertained in one of the king’s prisons as his reward for being recognized or caught on the other side of the Channel. I see all of this and I am forced to wonder why you would do it. I am driven to wonder what other reason is taking you so far from a home and a battlefield where your vaunted talents could be put to better use. I had thought revenge to be part of the motive when I first heard of the connection—dare I say coincidence—with De Braose. But no. Somehow it seems too petty an impulse, too lacking in the glory befitting such a noble champion.”

Only Eduard’s jaw flexed in response to her sarcasm and he wondered how someone could change from being an object of lust one moment to an object sorely in want of a good shaking the next. His hand did shoot out, but not to strike or throttle. He had caught sight of Robin returning to the pilgrim’s hall and wanted to halt the boy before he came close enough to interrupt.

He need not have worried. Robin, catching one look at the expression on his brother’s face, did an abrupt turnabout, veering over to where Sedrick and Lord Dafydd were finally celebrating some success with the smouldering pile of kindling and pine knots.

Eduard, meanwhile, continued to regard Ariel de Clare with a calmness that belied the very fine thread his patience was stretched upon. He was not a man to suffer too many questions where either his motives or his honour was concerned. Nor was he wont to offer endless explanations where one should have sufficed, especially to a green-eyed minx who was proving to be far too clever for her own good.