In the Shadow of Midnight (44 page)

“Explain,” Eduard demanded.

Brevant nodded and pursed his lips. “Gisbourne has ordered the castle guard doubled—not unexpected after the fright you tickled him with tonight. By tomorrow night, he will double it again, leaving very few heads lying abed for too many hours at a time. I know these men. Ask too much of them, press too hard, and they start fighting among themselves, missing their whores and ale, not giving a hell-fired damn if God himself was expected to ride across the draw.”

“Are you saying they would not question the appearance of an extra rider in our group?” Henry scoffed.

“Two
extra riders,” Brevant said. “The little maid goes too.”

“Marienne!” Robin gasped. “Of course she goes with us; we would not think of leaving her behind.”

Henry looked as if he was about to scowl an objection but Robin and his sword had suddenly allied themselves in the camp of Jean de Brevant. “You cannot just leave her behind to suffer the governor’s wrath alone,” he protested. “I would sooner give her my place and take my chances here, with the captain.”

Brevant glanced down and over his shoulder. “The captain will not be here, lad. He has had more than enough of the smell of this place. Besides”—the black, bottomless eyes looked at Eduard again—“as soon as the king discovers his castellan has been host to the son of the Black Wolf … he will undoubtedly loose the hounds of hell upon you. You will need an extra sword arm.”

Startled, Eduard returned the calm stare. “You knew?”

The giant offered a rare, wide grin. “I saw you run the lists once, in Bayonne. It brought me back to England with a healthy respect for the training grounds of Poitou and Anjou. Yours is a face hard to forget, despite the bearding and the armour of a humble graycloak.”

“You could have earned your own weight in silver marks had you sold your knowledge to Gisbourne.”

Brevant’s grin widened. “Aye, well, call me a fool. I would pay twice as much to see the look on Gisbourne’s face when he finds the lady’s cell empty.”

Eduard nodded. “That makes nine of us all told. Exactly how belligerent do you think the guards will be?”

“You leave them to me. Just be ready, within an hour’s notice, to be on your horses and waiting in the bailey.”

“There is one other small problem,” Henry pointed out. “Gisbourne has insisted we have an escort as far as the Salisbury road. Will
they
not notice the addition of two extra members to our party?”

“You are speaking of the king’s finest,” Brevant snorted disdainfully. “Find one among them who can count and I will find you a whore with three titties.”

Henry’s brows lifted gently. “Have they no sense of direction either? Once we leave Gorfe, we can have no witnesses to say which road we took or which direction we favoured.”

“Have you ever seen a dead man point his finger one way or the other?” Brevant demanded.

“Ahh. Indeed.” Henry glanced at Eduard and shrugged. “So much for leaving any doubt as to who has plucked the Pearl from the gilded cage.”

“If you are squeamish,” Brevant grunted, “you can stay here and protest your innocence to Gisbourne. A day or two on the rack, if you are pitiable enough, he may believe what’s left of you … enough to toss you over the sea wall, where he disposes of most of
his
unwanted witnesses.”

“How will we get the princess out of the tower?” Eduard wanted to know.

“How will you convince her to come along?”

“I will convince her,” Eduard promised steadfastly. “I will offer her something I know she cannot refuse now. Something she has wanted, needed, for a long time and is only now free to grasp with her whole heart and soul.”

“Aye, well. If luck and God be with us, I can bring her here under the guise of taking her to the chapel. Once she is here, though, it will be up to you to either persuade her to come peacefully, or to knock her cold and pack her on a rouncy with the rest of your provisions.”

A
riel hugged the folds of her cloak close around her shoulders, barely aware of the cold gusts of wind tearing at her hair, or the wet spray of rainwater blowing through the squared teeth of the battlement walls.

She had taken the cat’s climb to the roof, needing time alone with her thoughts and her feelings, hoping to cleanse both with the cold, crisp air. On a sunny day, the view of the sea below would be breathtaking. This night, against stormy skies and the gray-green luminescence of a turbulent sea, she saw nothing but nature’s anger and frustration shadowing her own. Each howl of the wind, each hard tattoo of rain that beat on stone and mortar, each rumble and crash of the sea hurling itself against the craggy coastline found an echo in her own battered emotions.

Not that anyone else cared.

Henry had gone back to the great hall with the captain, hopefully to find Sedrick still in one piece. Robin had gone somewhere with FitzRandwulf … something about a rendezvous he had arranged earlier with the maid, Marienne. They had all gone, leaving her alone. Assuming she preferred it that way? Or assuming she knew they all had better things to do.

FitzRandwulf obviously did, now that his Eleanor was on the verge of being his.

I will offer her something I know she cannot refuse. Something she has wanted, needed, and is now free to grasp with her whole heart and soul.

He would offer Eleanor himself, of course. As husband, lover, protector. And in truth, the Pearl of Brittany would have no reason to refuse him. She was no longer a claimant to the throne. The royal blood of kings and queens still flowed through her veins, but the work of a glowing hot iron had stripped her of her birthright, stripped her of any
obstacles standing in the way of a union between her and the bastard son of the Black Wolf.

How the sight of his beloved Eleanor must have shocked him! Eduard’s love for her was so pure, so noble; it went deeper than any emotion Ariel could ever conceive of a man having for a woman. Deeper than anything she could in any honesty ever hope to experience herself.

Eduard FitzRandwulf d’Amboise had never professed to love her. He had never even led her to believe he
liked
her. He may have
lusted
after her a time or two, may even have had moments when the lure of soft female flesh had been too overwhelming for his rigid code of honour. But that was not love. It was a kiss stolen under the moonlight, or a challenge answered in kind. It was the effect of too much ale and a virile male body left too long craving something it thought was too far out of reach.

Well, he could reach Eleanor of Brittany now. He could reach her and hold her and love her … and probably never spare another thought for Ariel de Clare, wife of some distant Welsh prince.

Ariel leaned her brow against the cold, wet stone and knew the ache she was feeling inside would not as easily be forgotten, nor would it be assuaged by just any man. Most certainly not a man like Rhys ap Iorwerth, slayer of fawns.

“Sweet Mary, Mother of God,” she whispered. “Why has this thing happened to me? Why now? Why with this man? Of all men … why did it have to be
this
one?”

A gust of wind whipped the wet ribbons of her hair out behind her, snatching at the folds of her cloak and belling it like a sheet of canvas under full sail. Breathless, gulping air and tears and misery, she turned to seek the shadowy protection of the covered stairwell … and slammed abruptly into the wall of Eduard FitzRandwulf’s chest.

“There you are,” he said, steadying her on her feet. “I know you told me you like storms, but is this not a little mad, even for you?”

With a gasp, Ariel sobbed something unintelligible and spun out into the rain and wind again, running farther along
the catwalk until she came to an arch of stairs that bridged the roof of one tower to the next. Before she could cross it, however, Eduard’s hands, then his arms circled her waist and brought her unceremoniously down again, pinning her against his body until she had kicked and squirmed and thrashed herself half into a frenzy.

“Ariel? What in damnation—?”

“Let
me go!
Take your filthy bastard’s hands off me and
let me go
You have what you want now. You have your Eleanor, your precious Pearl. You have your princess and I have my prince, and by God, we shall both be happy now because it is what we
both
want!”

She was strong and lithe and was able to wriggle free, breaking for the steps again before Eduard could fully absorb the thrust of her words. He made a grab for her and missed, but her foot caught in a wet twist of her cloak, sending her down on one knee before she could recover and lunge for the steps. It was long enough for him to catch up to her and when he did, he lifted her bodily against his chest and held her there until he could turn and trap her between himself and the battlement wall.

“Listen to me, Ariel,” he hissed against her ear. “You have to listen to me.”

“I
have
listened to you. I have listened and I have watched and I
know
how much you love her. I do not need to
hear
the words to know it.”

“Ariel—!”

“No!” She covered her ears with her hands and crumpled her eyes tightly shut, refusing to acknowledge his command for attention.

The rain beat down on Eduard’s unprotected head and shoulders, soaking his hair, running in chilling rivulets down his throat and under his clothes. His hands gripped her shoulders and trembled with the desire to shake her, but instead, with a deliberate, gentle strength, he took hold of her wrists and pried her hands away from her ears.

“Is that what you think? Do you think Eleanor and I …? That we are lovers?”

Ariel kept her eyes adamantly shut against the lure of his voice. “I do not have to think anything. You
told
me you loved her. You said you had pledged your life to her. You carried her ring next to your heart just as she carried yours. And now you are risking all … everything … to save her! What else should I think?”

Eduard found himself at a loss. His grip on her wrists tightened a moment, then sprang free entirely as he shoved his fingers into the wet, tangled mass of her hair. He forced her to tilt her head up, forced her to open her eyes, and meet the silvery gray intensity of his own.

“You should think …
hard
… about the difference between loving someone you regard as a sister, or a cousin, or a sweet and gentle friend”—his fingers raked deeper, lifting her face higher—“and loving someone who burns their way into your heart and soul like a flame. I love Eleanor, yes. With all of my heart. She was the first true friend I ever had, and I am probably the only friend she has ever had. We traded rings a thousand years ago when she exacted a childhood promise from me to always be her champion, to always slay dragons in her name. We traded again tonight”—he paused and fished angrily beneath his tunic-“when she made me swear to let the one true beast who is her uncle live.”

Ariel stared at the delicate filigreed ring and noticed where his own skinned thumb was once again bare. Her gaze rose slowly to his but she could not see him clearly for the sudden film of bright, hot tears.

“The way you acted,” she whispered raggedly. “The things you said …”

“I have acted like a fool,” he agreed tersely. “And I have said things I never should have said. What is more, I am probably going to do it again, now, when I confess the hunger—the
love
—I feel for you is neither brotherly nor based on friendship. It is like an open, raw wound I cannot seem to heal. It only grows wider and deeper each time I touch you, or hold you, or … dream of holding you even closer.”

Ariel’s lips quivered apart. “Me?” she gasped. “You love … me?”

His fingers threaded into her hair again, tenderly this time, more of a caress than a punishment. “If this ache I feel every time I look at you is love … then aye, I must love you. If this
need
I have to hold you and kiss you until you have not the will or the strength to refuse me what I would take from you … if this is love, then aye, my lady, I am floundering in it … and have been since the moment I saw you tilting at shadows in the armoury at Amboise.”

Ariel thought the walls and rooftops took a sudden swift dip downward and she had to curl her hands into the thickness of his surcoat to keep from staggering to her knees.

“The other night … at the inn …?”

“I should never have gone near you,” he said huskily. “Never. It only made me want you more.”

“But … you pushed me away.”

Eduard shook his head slowly. “I did not push you away; I pushed myself away.”

Ariel knew she should say something. She knew she should. But the quivering in her lips had spilled downward, had spread and become a trembling, throbbing heat that shivered into her belly and between her thighs, rendering her speechless. And because she could not speak, her eyes implored him for the truth, eyes that were wide and dark and so completely stripped of pride, they left him no choice but to answer.

He made a sound deep in his throat—a groan or a curse, she could not be certain—and his lips crushed down over hers, his response delivered so fiercely, so possessively, the shock of it left her breathless, drowning in her own heat.