Medieval 03 - Enchanted

children by her.”
    The forebuilding’s door opened, giving a hint
of the heat and light to be found inside. Servants hurried around,
supplying a cold supper, a hot fire, and warm wine.
    The men strode down the great hall to the
solar’s comfort. A woman stood silhouetted against the flames
leaping in the solar’s hearth. Her hair was unbound in the
fashion of a Learned woman on a quest, but the hair was as black as
betrayal rather than the rich gold of Amber or the fiery red of
Meg.
    “My lady,” Simon said quickly. “I
thought you were abed.”
    Ariane turned. She held her hand out, but it was
Simon whose touch she sought, not her father’s.
    “Word of the baron’s arrival came to
me,” Ariane said.
    Her voice was like her face, without emotion, yet
her Learned dress seethed restlessly about her ankles. The silver
embroidery glittered as though alive, barely leashed.
    Deguerre watched Simon’s fingers interlace
smoothly, deeply, with Ariane’s. With eyes that were neither
blue nor grey, but rather a shifting combination of both, the baron
measured his daughter’s heightened color at her
husband’s touch, and the subtle inclination of their bodies
toward one another.
    Had they been alone, they would have embraced as
lovers embrace. Deguerre was certain of it.
    “So,” Deguerre said, “that, too,
is true.”
    “What is?” Dominic asked softly.
    “The marriage of Simon and Ariane was for
love rather than for the convenience of kings or
families.”
    “We are both well pleased with the
union,” Simon said succinctly.
    The sensual approval in Simon’s eyes as he
looked at his wife said far more. The answering blaze in
Ariane’s eyes made them glow like gems.
    Deguerre turned his intelligence toward assessing
the lord’s solar. Though the trappings were costly enough,
they were nothing to what the baron had in his own home. For all
his power and far-flung holdings, the Glendruid Wolf was not nearly
as wealthy a man as rumor had suggested.
    Which meant that Dominic could not afford nearly as
many fighting men as Deguerre had feared.
    The baron turned and looked at Dominic.
    “I have heard,” Deguerre said,
“that your brother’s loyalty to you knows no
bounds.”
    “Simon’s love for me is well-known, as
is mine for him,” Dominic said. “Be assured that your
daughter could have no husband more highly regarded or closer to my
heart than Simon.”
    With a grunt Deguerre flipped back the cowl that
had protected his head from the storm. Hair the color ofhammered silver gleamed with reflected light. His
eyebrows were utterly black, steeply arched, oddly elegant.
    The chiming of tiny golden bells made the baron
turn quickly. Despite his age, there was a fluidity to the movement
that spoke of strength and coordination.
    “Lady Margaret,” Dominic said. “I
thought you were asleep.”
    With a rustle of scented fabric and a sweet singing
of bells, Meg walked to Dominic’s side.
    Deguerre’s eyes narrowed at the obvious signs
of Meg’s pregnancy. The only thing more obvious was the bond
between Glendruid Wolf and Glendruid witch. It was so strong it
fairly shimmered.
    “Baron Deguerre, Lady Margaret,”
Dominic said.
    “Charmed, lady,” Deguerre said,
smiling, holding out his hand.
    The smile changed the baron. He had been handsome
before. Now he had an unearthly yet distinctly sexual beauty.
    “’Tis our pleasure to welcome
you,” Meg said.
    If the baron’s startling transformation from
cool tactician to smoldering sensualist made any impression on her,
it didn’t show. She touched his hand as briefly as courtesy
allowed.
    “You have the beauty of fire, Lady
Margaret,” the baron said in a low voice. “And your
eyes would shame emeralds.”
    Ariane’s hand tightened suddenly within
Simon’s grasp. She well knew her father’s ability to
charm women. He had practiced it often enough on the wives and
daughters of enemies.
    Saying nothing, Simon brought Ariane’s hand
to his lips and kissed it soothingly.
    “Her eyes would shame more than
emeralds,” Dominic said. “They would shame spring
itself. There is no green more beautiful than Lady Margaret’s
Glendruid eyes.”
    If Meg had been indifferent to the baron’s
compliments, her husband’s words made her flush with
pleasure. For a long moment Dominic and Meg
looked at one another, and for that moment nothing else in the room
existed.
    “Touching,” Deguerre said coolly.
    “Isn’t it?” Simon said
cheerfully.