In the Shadow of Midnight - By Marsha Canham Page 0,62
his temples. Her lips, swollen and wet from his assault, quivered slightly as she took quick, shallow breaths to steady her own pounding confusion, and he wondered if she was going to be foolish enough to ask him again if he found her desirable.
Drops of rain, fat as pendants, began to splatter the walls and turrets around them. Cold splashes of reality broke the spell and Ariel stumbled back another step … and another.
“If you have no more questions to ask of me, my lady, I would suggest you return to your chambers.”
Ariel blinked away a heavy splash of rain and stared as a jagged fork of lightning sheared across the sky, fleeting and bright, throwing the terrible chiselled beauty of his scarred face into sharp relief. His hair lay dark against his throat, his eyes glittered with an unholy brilliance that seemed to draw the very breath from her body. Towering before her he looked like a demon. He was a demon, black to the soul, cunning and sly. Devious to the heart, mocking her with words and deeds.
“I cannot imagine myself asking another solitary thing of you,” she gasped, her lips throbbing so badly she could barely form the words. “Except perhaps that you never make it necessary for me to have to look upon your face again!”
“Would that I could oblige you, my lady, for I would do so with the greatest pleasure. I fear it will be quite impossible, however, for your uncle has asked me to personally escort your party back to England and deliver you safely into the hands of your betrothed.”
Ariel reacted as if she had been struck. “You lie! He has done no such thing!”
“You will doubtless hear it from his own lips in the morning.”
Ariel shook her head. “You lie. You lie!”
A bolt of lightning cracked the sky wide open. The rain began to come down in solid sheets, blurring Ariel’s form as she turned and fled along the ramparts. Eduard could only stand and watch. His body was coiled as tightly as a spring; a step would shatter the tension and release the pressure like a quarrel shot from a crossbow.
He turned his face up into the full force of the rain, hoping the icy needles would cool the heat of his blood. It had been a stupid, mindless mistake to touch her, for no other reason than she belonged to someone else. To her Welsh prince. A man with noble bloodlines, untainted by the sins of the past.
A sudden thought startled a laugh out of him and Eduard opened his eyes.
He had told her he was delivering her to her groom, but he had not identified the groom by name. No doubt she was thinking her uncle had chosen to bow to the king’s command and was dispatching her, under heavy escort, to Radnor and Reginald de Braose.
No doubt as well she would assume the omission had been deliberate on his part. It would set her temper on fire all over again and she would feel twice the need to seek revenge. And perhaps that would be a good thing for both of them. Perhaps it was for the best, for he had the distinct feeling he would be safer dealing with her anger than with soft green eyes and a lush, pouting mouth.
Chapter 8
Ariel launched herself through the trap-door and flew down the stairwell, unmindful of her hair and cloak snagging on the rough stone walls. She passed through her chamber in a furious blur and swept on down the main spiral of tower stairs, her damp footsteps slapping each riser in angry haste. Her uncle’s chamber was on the floor below hers and she barged through the outer door, startling a page into leaping out of his sleeping-cot as she blew past. The crash of the inner oak door sent her uncle’s ancient squire scrambling for his sword; the dramatic flinging aside of the closed bed curtains brought the marshal bolt upright and groping for weapons that were not there.
Ariel stood at the side of the bed, her arms spread wide beneath the folds of her mantle, her fists clutching the panels of curtain. Raindrops sparkled in her hair causing it to glitter like a halo in the light of the single candle left burning at the bedside. The candle was meant to foil evil spirits and keep the devil away, but as Lord William knuckled the sleep out of his eyes and stared at the bat-winged