Medieval 03 - Enchanted

appetite.”
    “What of your bath, then?”
    “My bath?”
    “Aye, m’lady,” Blanche said,
irritated. “I have prepared a bath as you requested and laid
out a warm chemise for sleeping and everyone else in the keep is
already abed.”
    Blankly Ariane looked from her untouched supper to
her handmaiden’s face.
    “Did I ask that you prepare a bath?”
Ariane said, frowning.
    “Aye, m’lady. Straight after you ate,
you said. You said you couldn’t bear something-or-other
having touched your skin and you must wash no matter how late the
hour.”
    “Oh.”
    Blanche waited, but Ariane said nothing more.
    “M’lady?”
    “Would you like to seek your own bed?”
Ariane asked.
    “Aye, most certainly. If you
please.”
    “You are free.”
    “Thank you, lady!”
    Cheeks flushed and eyes sparkling with
anticipation, Blanche rushed out of the room, barely remembering to
close the door after herself.
    Ariane wondered if Blanche’s new
man—whoever he was—knew that his lover was already gone
with another man’s child. Perhaps he didn’t care.
Perhaps it was enough to share Blanche’s breathless laughter
in the darkness, to reach out and stroke warm flesh and be stroked
in return, to hold another body close and hear ecstasy in each
broken cry.
    Abruptly Ariane stood, stripped off all her
clothes, and pulled the pins out of her hair. As she shook her
head, hair like fine black silk cascaded down her back to lie in
heavy, smoothly shining waves to her hips. She gathered it up and
began braiding it for the bath, but lost interest after a few
twists. The moment she let go of the hair, it began unraveling.
    She reached for her nightdress, only to find that
her hands went to the silver laces of the Learned dress asthough summoned. She was reluctant to leave the dress
behind, even to bathe. She didn’t know why, she simply knew
that it was so.
    As though expecting the answer to be found in the
fabric itself, Ariane looked at the dress.
    And then she looked into it.
    A woman of intense feeling,
head thrown back, hair wild, lips open upon a cry of unbelievable
pleasure .
    The enchanted .
    A warrior both disciplined and
passionate, his whole being focused in the moment .
    The enchanter .
    Now he was bending down to
her, drinking her cries even as he drew more sounds from her. His
powerful body was poised over hers, waiting, shivering with a
sensual hunger that was as great as his restraint .
    Simon !
    Ariane saw him as clearly as she saw herself in the
woman’s wild amethyst eyes.
    “Dear God,” she whispered, dazed.
    Ariane shook herself and looked around the room,
half expecting to find Simon there. What she saw was a fire burned
near to ash, a bed turned down for her use, and spare blankets
piled across the foot of the mattress.
    Blankets that would become Simon’s bed when
he came to the room.
    If he came.
    Ariane pulled the amethyst dress back on and laced
it partway up as she paced the room. With each step the deep
silence of the keep came back to her ears. Then the sentry called
the time.
    Simon should have come to the bedchamber by now. He
had always come before now. Well before now, because Simon rose
with the kitchen workers at the first crack of dawn to walk the
battlements and check upon the well-being of the fields and people
of the keep. Dominic walked with him, though he never required
Simon’s presence at such an early hour.
    Marie .
    Simon is with her .
    The thought was like a dagger going into Ariane.
Without stopping to think she lit a candle and left her room so
quickly that the flame guttered. With an impatient exclamation,
Ariane stopped long enough for the flame to recover.
    Shielding the fragile flame with her hand, Ariane
hurried to the opposite side of the keep, where Marie and Blanche
shared quarters. There was no true door for the maidservants,
simply a cloth screen that could be moved aside during the day.
    “’Tis Lady Ariane,” she said.
    “My lady,” Marie said. “Please
enter.”
    Ariane slid between screen and doorway before Marie
was finished speaking. Amethyst eyes searched the room quickly,
then more slowly.
    “You’re alone.”
    Ariane wasn’t surprised to find Blanche gone.
But she was surprised to find Marie alone. The dark-eyed woman had
a lap full of sewing and a curious expression on her face.
    “Aye. I am alone,” Marie agreed.
“Is there something you require, lady?”
    “Simon.”
    “Then you will have to look elsewhere. Simon
hasn’t come to my bed