Medieval 03 - Enchanted

laughter.
    Simon’s smile warmed.
    “I no longer think of you as the
devil’s tool,” he said to Amber. “Will you ever
forgive me for making you faint with pain and fear?”
    “Sooner than you will forgive all women for
whatever one woman did to you,” Amber said.
    The room became so silent that the leap of flame in
the brazier sounded loud. When Simon spoke again, there was no
warmth in his voice or his smile.
    “Poor Duncan,” Simon said distinctly.
“He will have no secrets from his witch-wife.”
    “He will need none,” Duncan said from
behind Simon.
    On hearing Duncan’s voice, Amber spun toward
the doorway, glowing as though lit from within.
    Ariane stared. In the seven-day she had been at
Stone Ring Keep, she had yet to become accustomed to the sheer joy
Amber took in her new husband. Duncan’s joy was no less, a
fact that was simply beyond Ariane’s comprehension.
    When Amber rushed across the room, holding out herhands to Duncan, Simon gave Ariane a wry sidelong
glance. The look told her that he was as bemused as she was by
Duncan and Amber.
    The moment of silent, shared understanding was both
warming and disconcerting to Ariane. It made her want to trust
Simon.
    Fool , Ariane told
herself coldly. The smile is but a charming
ruse to make you more at ease, so that you won’t fight the
brutal coils of marital duty .
    “I thought you were going to take all morning
listening to the serfs’ complaints,” Amber said to
Duncan.
    “So did I.” Duncan gathered
Amber’s hands in his much larger ones. “But Erik took
pity on me and sent the wolfhounds in to lounge by the
fire.”
    “Stagkiller, too?” she asked, for her
brother was rarely without his canine shadow.
    “Mmm,” Duncan agreed. He kissed
Amber’s fingertips and tickled her palms with his mustache.
“Shortly afterward, everyone left.”
    Simon smothered a laugh.
    The serfs revered Amber’s brother Erik, the
former lord of Stone Ring Keep, but they were distinctly wary of
the Learned man’s animals. More than one tenant and cotter
had been overheard thanking God that the new lord of Stone Ring
Keep was a brawny warrior not given to ancient ways, Learned
teachings, and animals more clever by half than common folks.
    “I shall miss your brother when he goes back
to Sea Home Keep,” Duncan said.
    “My brother or his hounds?” Amber
asked, smiling.
    “Both. Perhaps Erik could leave us a
few.”
    “Large ones?”
    “Does he have any other kind?” Duncan
retorted. “Stagkiller is nearly as tall at the shoulder as my
war stallion.”
    Laughing, shaking her head at the exaggeration,
Amber brushed her cheek against one of Duncan’s
battle-scarred hands.
    Ariane watched the newly married couple as a
hunting falcon would watch an unexpected movement on the ground far
below its wings. The words the lovers spoke were unimportant; it
was the way each looked at the other, the touches they shared, the
heightened awareness that flowed between them like an invisible
river between opposite shores.
    “Baffling, isn’t it?” Simon asked
softly.
    He had moved so close to Ariane that his breath
stirred the hair at the nape of her neck.
    Too close.
    “What?” Ariane asked, startled.
    It took all of her courage not to draw away as she
looked into Simon’s clear midnight eyes. But retreat would do
no good. Nor would pleas to be left alone.
    Geoffrey had taught her that, and much else that
she had buried behind walls of pain and betrayal.
    “’Tis baffling,” Simon explained,
“how a formidable warrior such as the Scots Hammer becomes as
river clay in a girl’s hands.”
    “I would say rather the reverse,”
Ariane muttered, “that it is the amber witch who is the clay
and he the strong hands molding it.”
    Simon’s blond eyebrows rose in silent
surprise. He turned and looked at Duncan and Amber for a few
moments.
    “You have a point,” Simon agreed.

“Her eyes are as lovestruck as his. Or is it
dumbstruck?”
    When Simon turned back to Ariane, he bent over her
once more, ensuring the privacy of their conversation. Before
Ariane could stop herself, she pulled away. She covered the action
by pretending to see to the tuning of her harp.
    Simon wasn’t fooled. His black eyes narrowed
and he straightened swiftly. While he didn’t consider himself
as handsome as Erik—and certainly not as wealthy in land or
goods—Simon was not accustomed to having a woman withdraw
from him as though he were unclean.
    What made the matter even