In the Shadow of Midnight - By Marsha Canham Page 0,85
not have worried. Robin, catching one look at the expression on his brother’s face, did an abrupt turnabout, veering over to where Sedrick and Lord Dafydd were finally celebrating some success with the smouldering pile of kindling and pine knots.
Eduard, meanwhile, continued to regard Ariel de Clare with a calmness that belied the very fine thread his patience was stretched upon. He was not a man to suffer too many questions where either his motives or his honour was concerned. Nor was he wont to offer endless explanations where one should have sufficed, especially to a green-eyed minx who was proving to be far too clever for her own good.
He had not deliberately kept De Braose’s name to himself; he simply had not thought it important enough to mention to her, not when there was so little likelihood of either of them coming face to face with their mutual nemesis. Nor had he been particularly enamoured of the earl’s notion to keep his niece in the dark as to their real intentions. He believed a man —or woman—walking into danger should not do so blindly, and using Ariel de Glare to shield their attempt to rescue Princess Eleanor from the king’s prison was about as dangerous a situation as he could envision. She would have to be told eventually, of course. Even the Welshman would have to know eventually, but because it had been the earl’s express wish to delay the telling until it was absolutely necessary, Eduard was, in turn, bound to maintain the charade as long as possible. Even at the expense of his patience.
“Has it not occurred to you, Lady Ariel, that I may indeed have very good reasons for returning to England; that those reasons may not have anything whatsoever to do with you or your overabundance of grooms; that those reasons might be private and personal?”
“Where a man is concerned, anything private or personal usually has to do with a woman. Is that what you want me to believe?” she scoffed. “That you are going to England because of a woman?”
Flung from her lips as a casual mockery, Ariel was surprised to see a distinct tightness alter the shape of FitzRandwulf’s jaw. Already iron-hard, it tensed even further so that each sinew was ominously well defined and the mottling of scar tissue stood out white and rigid. His eyes took on a glow not unlike the embers of a fire, burning away the thin veneer of politeness, and leaving only the cold gray ash of contempt in its wake.
Ariel, puffed with her own smug assurances, felt the strength of them leak out of her, deflating her composure as surely as if a knife had been thrust into a bubble of dough.
He was going to England because of a woman!
She was not quite certain why the idea should have shocked her, she only knew it did. Shocked … or unsettled … in truth she knew not which, but she found her gaze falling instinctively to the broad, muscled wall of his chest. The ring was not visible through the dark mat of hair that filled the open vee of his shirt, but she could sense it hanging there, ornate and delicate, warmed by the animal heat of his flesh.
“Is it so outlandish a thought, my lady?”
“N-no, of course not.”
“Or do you find it beyond belief that you might not be the prime consideration in everyone’s mind?”
She met the accusation with a hot flush of mortification, for he was smiling. Grinning, actually, even as he mocked her vanity and arrogance.
“Was there anything else you wanted to know?” he asked solicitously.
Ariel took refuge behind the rapid lowering of her lashes, and clasped her hands tightly together. “No. No, there is nothing else.”
Eduard beckoned for Robin to join them. “Hold a blanket for Lady Ariel while she strips out of these wet clothes. When she is dry, fetch some of Biddy’s unguent out of my saddle pack and see that she applies it thickly over any rashes.” He paused in his instructions and glanced at Ariel. “Unless of course you would prefer me to oversee the application myself. I would, naturally, be most happy to render my full and undivided attention.”
Heat flared in Ariel’s cheeks again as the wolfish smile broadened. Part of her knew enough to be outraged by the suggestion; another part of her shivered through a sudden image of those big, powerful hands slicked with oil, skimming over her flesh.