Medieval 03 - Enchanted

throat.”
    Geoffrey laughed. “I shall stop it with my
rod.”
    Abruptly Ariane realized that baiting her both
amused and aroused Geoffrey.
    Nausea coiled again, more urgently. Knowing that
Geoffrey took pleasure in her feeble struggles had been one of the
worst parts of Ariane’s nightmare.
    “What? No more adorable protests?”
Geoffrey asked. “Does that mean you long—”
    “—to see the last of you, aye. Most
fervently. Are you afoot? If so, I will give you a horse if you
promise to ride it from my sight.”
    There was no emotion in Ariane’s voice. Nor
was there any in her face, save that which throttled rage streaked
in red across her cheekbones.
    “My horse is waiting in yonder woodland while
I investigate the sound of harp music I had thought never to hear
again.”
    “Then be gone. I promise I won’t
follow.”
    “I am wounded,” Geoffrey said, holding
his hand over his heart. “No sooner do I heal from that foul
sickness and come to claim you than you spurn me.”
    “I am already claimed by Simon.”
    “That coward,” Geoffrey said,
dismissing Simon with a curl of his lip.
    Ariane’s breath came in with disbelief at the
contempt in Geoffrey’s voice and expression.
    “Simon is the bravest knight I have ever
known,” she said, remembering her husband standing alone and
outnumbered so that she could flee to safety.
    “Is he? Then why doesn’t he kill his
faithless wife and throw her into the sea?”
    “I am not faithless!”
    “Truly? You came to him well-used by another
man.”
    “ Ill used.”
    “So well-used,” Geoffrey continued,
ignoring Ariane, “that you refuse to give your body to your
husband because you long for the body of your first
lover.”
    “I long to watch vultures feast on your
bones!”
    “Knowing that you are not a virgin, and that
you refuse your husband, who will believe that you don’t put
your heels behind your ears for a knight such as Geoffrey the
Fair?” he asked, smiling like an angel.
    If Ariane had been pale before, Geoffrey’s
words leached the last hint of color from her. With unnatural calm
she put away her harp, slung the carrying bag over her shoulder and
stood up. At every heartbeat she regretted leaving her dagger
behind.
    ’Tis a pity the weaver
of Learned cloth didn’t foresee the need to wear a weapon
with this clever dress , Ariane thought bleakly. I would trade my harp for my girdle and its dagger
sheath .
    Ariane stepped toward the path. Geoffrey remained
unmoving, blocking her way.
    “You are standing across the path,” she
said evenly.
    “Aye. Lift your skirts high, little girl. I
have come a long way to see your thighs open to me
again.”
    “You will have to kill me first.”
    Geoffrey started to laugh. Then his laughter faded
as he saw the certainty in Ariane’s savage amethyst eyes.
    “Have you told your husband?” Geoffrey
asked harshly.
    “That you raped me?”
    “That I lay between your thighs until I was
too weak to rise again.”
    “If my drugged memory serves, you sweated
like a pig to rise even once. Your manhood was more like beached
seaweed than the ‘rod’ you speak of so
proudly.”
    A flush stained Geoffrey’s unblemished skin.
His smiling lips curled into something more like a snarl.
    “But then, what would one expect of a craven
who first drugs and then rapes a virgin?” Ariane continued
softly. “No man would have to
stoop so low.”
    Geoffrey lifted his mailed fist.
    Ariane smiled like the witch she once had been.
    “You try my patience,” he said between
his teeth.
    “You try my stomach.”
    “Do you ache to feel my fists
again?”
    “I ache to see you in hell.”
    Spine straight, eyes unflinching, Ariane waited for
Geoffrey to lose his temper as he always had when thwarted.
    But somewhere between Normandy and the Disputed
Lands, Geoffrey had learned caution. He considered Ariane
curiously, as though he had expected to find something quite
different.
    And indeed he had. The weeping, ravaged girl of his
memories had all but crawled beneath her saddle to avoid being
noticed by Geoffrey during the trip from Normandy to England. She
had spoken so rarely that the knights had taken to placing wagers
on when she would say a word.
    “What a pity that you have recovered your
wits,” Geoffrey said. “They were always the least
appealing part of you.”
    “Thank you.”
    “Is your father here?” Geoffrey
demanded. “Is that why you’re so brave?”
    Ariane blinked, puzzled by the direction