In the Shadow of Midnight - By Marsha Canham Page 0,173

of light emanating from the cavern, moved forward with slow, measured steps. Neither Eduard nor Ariel had heard his approach over the rush of the waterfall, nor did they know how long he had been standing there observing them. To judge by the rigid look on his face, he knew they had not merely been enjoying a few minutes of private conversation. To judge by the way his fist opened and closed around the hilt of the dagger he wore thrust in his belt, he was not amused by what he had seen.

It was a reflex action that sent Ariel’s hands down to further smooth the wrinkles in her tunic and to draw the edges of her cloak over the sudden chill in her flesh. Henry’s eyes scorned the gesture as much as the grim lines of his mouth suggested such modesty was late in coming.

“Here?” he asked coldly. “Without so much as a bed or haystack for comfort?”

Eduard fisted his hands. “Since your sister has agreed to be my wife, I would advise against offering too many insults.”

Henry’s hazel eyes held FitzRandwulf’s for a few hard moments, then sought the pale sliver of Ariel’s face where it peeped out from behind her lover’s shoulder.

“Is this true?” he asked.

Ariel slipped her hand into Eduard’s larger, warmer one.

“No. The absolute truth is that I offered to be his mistress if he would take me anywhere but to Gloucester … and he refused me. I had not even dared to hope he would take me to wife, but alas—” She looked up into Eduard’s bemused eyes and smiled. “He said it was to be thus or not at all, and so dear brother, I have accepted.”

Henry opened his mouth, but snapped it shut again. His gaze flicked from his sister’s face to FitzRandwulf’s, but when he realized they had eyes only for each other, he threw his hands up in the air and turned on his heel to glare at the wall of sheeting water.

“I know I have asked this before, but have you … have either of you … any notion of what you are doing? It is all very well and good to make dewy-eyed plans in the heat of passion, but … have you given thought to what you will do when the heat wanes? Where will you go? How will you live? Good God, man—” He swore loudly and rounded on Eduard again. “Half the king’s men will be hunting for you and the other half for us. Your father and our uncle will have to publicly disown us and disclaim having any prior knowledge of our intentions if they are to have any hope of avoiding the king’s retribution. They will have to declare us renegades and traitors and will no doubt have to make the gesture, at any rate, of helping the king try to hunt us down. Had you not crippled and castrated Gisbourne, we might have been able to exile ourselves to Navarre or Aragon—or even to Rome to plead our case before the pope. But Gisbourne will want our heads to stick on pikes and John will give him full rein to chase us to the edges of the earth.”

“You castrated Gisbourne?” Ariel asked, glancing up in mellow surprise.

Eduard shrugged. “It was an accident. He fell on Robin’s blade.”

“Better he should have fallen on it with his heart,” Henry remarked grimly. “And I should still be thinking seriously of ripping yours out of your throat for doing what you have done to my sister.”

“Believe me,” Eduard said quietly. “I had not planned to take a wife back to Touraine with me.”

“And I had not planned to let the man live who despoiled my sister,” Henry countered.

“Meaning you have changed your mind?” Ariel asked, barely daring to breathe.

Henry stared. He sighed and shoved his fingers through his hair, then sighed again. “Allowing that there are now two signed, legal contracts binding you to two different men in marriage … are you certain you will not change your mind again? Are you certain this is the man you want? The life you want?”

Ariel saw her life at Pembroke flash before her—the staid, noble existence that had somehow always seemed so empty, so lacking in purpose. She had been restless without knowing why, defiant without knowing what she was striving to defy. The suitors she had rejected, regardless of the reasons, had all been alike, all come in search of an heiress of good blood and