Medieval 03 - Enchanted

golden jesses
were silent.
    “I beg your pardon?” Deguerre said.
    “Union with a man can enhance rather than
destroy a woman’s power,” Meg said. “It depends
on the union. And the man. Since I have been the wife of the
Glendruid Wolf, my powers are keener than ever.”
    “Fascinating.”
    Deguerre frowned. Then he shrugged and went back to
the subject that interested him most.
    Weakness, not strength.
    “It would appear that Geoffrey was an
untrustworthycraven who destroyed rather than
enhanced Ariane’s gift,” Deguerre said indifferently.
“’Tis unfortunate that others must suffer for his acts,
but that is the way of the world.”
    Simon went very still. The baron was radiating a
kind of vicious pleasure that said more clearly than words that he
believed he had at last found the weakness he sought at
Blackthorne.
    “When I agreed to give my precious daughter
in marriage to one of your knights,” Deguerre said to
Dominic, “you promised that her husband would hold a keep in
fief for you, a wealthy keep that suited Lady Ariane’s high
station in Normandy.”
    “Aye,” Dominic said grimly.
    “Tell me, Lord Dominic, where is my daughter’s keep?”
    “To the north.”
    “Ah. Where to the north?”
    “Carlysle.”
    “Why is she not residing there as befits a
lady with her own keep?”
    “We are still recruiting knights for
defense,” Simon said in a clipped voice.
    “There are fortifications to complete, as
well,” Dominic said.
    “Expensive things, knights and
fortifications.”
    Deguerre looked around the room with cruel
satisfaction.
    “You shall be hard put to support two
keeps,” the baron said, “no matter how bounteous
Blackthorne’s harvest was this year.”
    “I shall manage,” Dominic said
tightly.
    Deguerre’s smile was as cold as the
night.
    “And I shall stay hard by this keep,”
the baron said, “until what was promised to my daughter is
given to her.”

31
    L ong after Baron Deguerre had been
settled in the lord’s solar with his knights, Ariane waited
alone within her bedchamber, her head bowed over her lap harp.
Silently she prayed that Simon would come to her.
    That he would forgive her.
    I should have known Simon was
too proud a man to hear of his wife’s rape and not avenge it,
no matter how carefully Meg and I planned to prevent just
that .
    I should have
known !
    But all I knew was my own
need, my own pride, my own desire to be loved by Simon as I loved
him .
    Foolish .
    Elegant fingers moved over the harp strings,
calling forth a song that had no words, simply a cry as profound
and compelling as Ariane’s love for a man who could not love
her in return.
    By the blood of all the
saints, how could I have been so selfish as to risk Blackthorne
Keep for my own foolish desire? Simon will love no woman, just as I
trusted no man .
    Until Simon. He healed
me .
    But I cannot heal
him .
    Called by Ariane’s fingers, rippling music
haunted the room as surely as she was haunted by all that had
been.
    And all that would never be.
    “Nightingale?”
    Simon’s voice was so unexpected—and so
intensely desired—that for a moment Ariane was afraid to lift
herhead for fear of discovering that she only
dreamed.
    “Simon?” she whispered.
    Gentle fingers stroked her cheek.
    “Aye,” Simon said huskily. “I
expected to find you asleep.”
    “You weren’t here.”
    Desire and something else, a hunger less easily
named, turned within Simon at Ariane’s words.
    “Dominic needed me,” Simon said.
    “I know. He will have much need of you in the
future.”
    Without looking up, Ariane set her harp aside.
    “My father won’t stir until he sees me
in a well-furnished keep,” she said tonelessly, “and
Blackthorne impoverished. My reckless desire for the truth has
destroyed your brother.”
    She expected Simon to agree, and then to turn away
from her as he had from Marie.
    Instead, Simon stroked Ariane’s hair.
    “We will find a way,” he said.
    “We?”
    “Duncan, Erik, Dominic and I. We will rotate
knights among the keeps if we must.”
    “Leaving all keeps weakened.”
    Simon said nothing.
    “My father can be frighteningly
patient,” Ariane said, looking only at her clenched
hands.
    “Aye,” Simon said.
    “He has enough wealth to stay here until he
has what he came for—a foothold in England.”
    Silence was Simon’s only answer.
    “You cannot beat Charles the Shrewd at his
own game,” Ariane said. “Unless the English king or
Erik’s father