The Silver Rose

Chapter Two

"I don't understand." Ariel's hands shook slightly as she drew off her gloves before taking a tankard of the hot spiced wine. She warmed her hands around the tankard, inhaled the scent of cloves, cinnamon, and nutmeg curling in steam from its contents. She knew she must appear untroubled, no more than mildly curious. Her brothers all shared a streak of cruelty that fed on the fear and vulnerability of those in their power. And Lady Ariel Ravenspeare had never been in any doubt that Ravenspeare men controlled her existence. After her father's death, control had passed to Ranulf, ably abetted by his two younger brothers.

"It's simple enough, my dear girl. You will wed Simon Hawkesmoor. But have no fear, you will be wife only in name."

Ariel sipped her wine, hoping that it would still the tremors deep in her belly that were making her feel weak and shaky. "How could that be? I still don't understand."

"What don't you understand, bud?" The voice was heavy with cynicism. She whirled toward the door that had opened so silently. Oliver Becket, Ranulf's oldest and closest friend, lounged against the door frame, his eyes hooded, his thin, sensual lips curved in a smile that was strangely unsettling.

"I thought you were in Cambridge," Ariel said, unable to help her own responding smile despite her dismay.

"I heard that the Ravenspeare brothers were returned betimes from London, so came posthaste to hear the news." Oliver chuckled lazily and pushed himself away from the door. He crossed to Ariel, caught her chin on a cupped palm, and kissed her mouth. "Not to mention my need to see you, my bud. I find two days to be an insufferably long time without sight of you."

Ariel knew that the words meant nothing. She had no illusions about her lover's sincerity-he was cut from the same cloth as her brothers-but it made no difference to the way her body responded to his presence. Oliver was a rake, untrustworthy and emotionally shallower than a birdbath, but his touch enflamed her, his lazy voice and sensual smile sent currents of lust jolting through her belly. He was charming and beautiful, and their liaison, so long as she didn't allow herself to wish for or to expect more than he was capable of giving, was utterly delightful. It was also a relationship that pleased Ranulf.

"Your arrival is timely, Oliver." Ranulf flung a comradely arm over his friend's shoulders. "Ariel is to be wed and we must prepare a proper reception for her bridegroom. Your inventive mind will surely come up with something suitably ingenious."

"Wed?" Oliver's thin, arched eyebrows lifted as he glanced at Ariel. "My bud is to be wed?"

"Aye," Roland declared from the fire where he was sprawling in a carved wooden armchair, his booted feet on the andirons. "She's to become the countess of Hawkesmoor, my dear Oliver."

Oliver whistled through his teeth. "Ariel, bring me a glass of that excellent cognac while I absorb this."

Ariel set down her tankard and went to the sideboard, where glasses and decanters were arrayed. Without saying anything, she filled a glass and brought it over to him. He took it with a nod, sipped, then said, "So, explain how it should be that you would give a Ravenspeare woman to a Hawkesmoor."

"What's that you say?" A slurred voice accompanied the entrance of the youngest Ravenspeare brother, Lord Ralph. His wig was slightly askew, his eyes unfocused, his linen spotted, his cuffs grimy.

Ranulf wrinkled his nose fastidiously. "You reek of the barn, Ralph."

Ralph's chuckle was lascivious. "Found a doxy in the dell," he said. "Had quite a tumble in the hay." He crossed to the sideboard and, with unsteady hand, filled a glass, catching the edge of the decanter against the crystal, setting it chiming. "So, what's that you say about Hawkesmoor?"

"Ariel is to wed Simon Hawkesmoor," Roland informed him succinctly.

Ralph dropped his glass and it rolled sideways on the sideboard. Amber liquid dripped to the Elizabethan tapestry carpet. "Good God! Just because I'm a trifle foxed… no reason to make mock of a man."

"Oh, we don't," Ranulf said. "It's true. Queen Anne has commanded it."

Ralph was not exactly needle witted even when sober, and this piece of information puzzled him mightily. He pushed up his wig and scratched his shaven scalp, frowning fiercely. "The queen, you say?"

His brothers didn't bother to reply, and after a minute he swung his bemused, besotted gaze toward his sister, who was standing silent and motionless beside the table. "What's Ariel got to say to this?"

"Nothing of import," Ranulf said brusquely. "She'll do as she's told."

Ralph nodded wisely at this, but he still peered at his little sister through narrowed eyes, as if he might find some answer in the still figure.

"What did you mean about being a wife only in name?" Ariel finally spoke and her voice was flat, giving no indication of her inner turmoil.

"Now, that's an interesting twist," declared Oliver, his gaze suddenly sharp. "How d'you expect to convince a Hawkesmoor to leave his bride's bed inviolate?"

"Simple enough. His lady wife will explain that she suffers from some… some female malady." Ranulf shrugged. "She can bar her door if she wishes. So long as she remains in this house, she'll be safe from any unwanted attention. And by the time she could reasonably expect to have recovered from this inconvenience, Lord Hawkesmoor will no longer be capable of consummating his marriage."

Ariel felt a familiar graveyard shiver. "What are you planning, brother?"

It was Roland who answered her. "A mishap, Ariel. An accident. Easy enough to happen."

"You talk of murder?" she demanded directly.

"Hush, hush!" remonstrated Ranulf. "A mishap, that's all. And when you're widowed, then your dowry returns to the Ravenspeare family, without any possibility of dispute. Together with the settlements made upon you by your husband. Most generous settlements, I believe you'll find." He chuckled and exchanged a wink with Roland. His brother, ever the family financier, had drawn up the marriage contract with consummate skill, and the Hawkesmoor had had little choice in the face of the queen's outspoken approval but to accept the conditions. The earl of Hawkesmoor, however, had not given any indication that he was in the least reluctant to accede to the Ravenspeare stipulations. Something that still nagged at Ranulf. The Hawkesmoor was behaving throughout with what could only be called a degree of enthusiasm for an alliance that must be as poisonous to him as it was to the Ravenspeare brothers.

"What's this about a dowry?" Ralph gulped at his refilled glass.

His eldest brother sighed and explained, although well aware that in his befuddled state Ralph would take in very little.

"How d'you intend keeping him here after the wedding? Surely he'll want to take his bride back to his own house?" Oliver pointed out. "It's not as if it's a week's ride away. A mere forty miles across the fen."

He flung himself onto a sofa, seized Ariel's hand, and pulled her down beside him. "Come warm me, bud." He circled her waist with his arm and drew her against him, one hand cupping her breast. No one took any notice of this intimacy, except Ariel, who was always embarrassed by Oliver's public caresses but knew that to move away would merely bring ridicule from her brothers.

Romulus and Remus lay down at her feet, their heavy heads resting on her boots. Their great yellow eyes were fixed upon Oliver Becket.

"A wedding party, dear fellow." Ranulf sounded positively jocular. "Invitations have already gone out for a month of sport and feasting to celebrate the wedding of Lady Ariel Ravenspeare with the earl of Hawkesmoor. Two hundred guests should convince Her Majesty that the Ravenspeare family knows how to honor her commands. Hawkesmoor will bring his own wedding party, of course, and will be suitably gracious. It will appear to all the world that our two families have finally buried their enmity, as symbolized by the lavish celebrations… no expense spared, of course." He smiled sardonically. "The small matter of an unbedded bride might cause a little amusement, I daresay. But it will all add to the revels."

"The bride, incidentally, will be enjoying the favors of another, under her husband's eye," Roland put in, and all except Ariel laughed.

"Cuckolded on his wedding night." Ranulf's mouth was vicious. "An appropriate vengeance. His father dishonored our mother and the house of Ravenspeare. So the house of Ravenspeare will visit dishonor in its turn."

Ariel felt sick. She pushed away Oliver's arm and stood up abruptly. "I have to go to the stables. There's a brood mare in foal." She left the room, the full skirts of her dark green broadcloth riding habit sweeping the ground, the dogs trotting at her heels.

She heard their laughter, malicious, cruel even, behind her, but she didn't think they were laughing at her, only at the humiliation and downfall of an old enemy. She had been brought up to revile the Hawkesmoors. She knew the old stories of blood and vengeance that tied the families. Of how her father, the earl of Ravenspeare, had killed her own mother when he'd found her in the arms of her lover, the earl of Hawkesmoor. She knew of the land disputes, the political differences: that Hawkesmoors were Puritans, regicides, had been at Oliver Cromwell's right hand throughout the Protectorate, enjoying the spoils of power and the land and possessions of the dispossessed royalists. But with the restoration of Charles II, the Ravenspeares had come into their own, their loyalty to the exiled king throughout the lean dark years of Puritanism finally rewarded as the Puritans in their turn became the dispossessed.

She knew all these things, but her brothers were contemplating murder. And she was to be the bait. She was to be the instrument of the Hawkesmoor's humiliation, and the bait for the trap that would kill him.

Outside in the courtyard in the lowering dusk, she looked up at the castle that had been her home since birth. In the failing light it was an ominous, forbidding structure with its battlements and parapets; the arrow slits were narrow black eyes amid the dark ivy.

For nearly twenty years she had watched her brothers at their amusements, amusements that took no account of those whom they used to provide their entertainment. Many nights she had lain abed, trying to close her ears to the sounds from the Great Hall, the screams of the village girls they'd bought for their drunken orgies. She had watched them follow the hunt across fields bearing tender new wheat, crashing through carefully erected fences, trampling the produce of the small cottage gardens that kept impoverished tenants from starvation. She had watched Ranulf, and their father before him, sentence poachers to death for a single rabbit, vagrants to the whipping posts and the stocks. Justice was swift and merciless when it emanated from the lords of Ravenspeare Castle. It had once encompassed murder, so why should she be surprised that they were planning a single killing? A killing amid the bridal feasting, with their sister as the staked goat.

Nausea rose in her throat and she turned and hurried, almost running, through the gate at the side of the courtyard that led into the orderly world of the stables. This was Ariel's home. This was where she was at peace, where she could put the brooding darkness of the castle behind her-here and in the villages and hamlets of the fens where she was always greeted with warmth and the relief and gratitude owed a healer. The only Ravenspeare in a generation to be trusted and welcomed among the tenant farmers and the working poor whose lives were ruled by the house of Ravenspeare.

Her Arabians were stabled in a long low building to the left of the yard. The door was closed to keep the night chill from the delicate, highly bred beasts. She let herself into the warm, dimly lit interior, heavy with the smell of horse flesh, manure, and leather.

"That you, m'lady?" Edgar, with his face of wrinkled mahogany leather, appeared from a stall at the far end.

"Yes, how's she doing?" Ariel hurried up the aisle. The wolfhounds, well trained around the sensitive beasts, remained seated at the stable door.

"Beautifully." He stood aside so that she could enter the stall where the mare labored. "Won't be long now."

Ariel stroked the animal's nose, ran her hand over the distended belly. Then she took off her coat, casting it to the straw at her feet, pushed up the ruffled sleeve of her shirt, lifted the mare's tail, and drove her arm deep inside. "I can feel him, Edgar."

"Aye. Another ten minutes."

Ariel withdrew her arm, matter-of-factly washed it clean with water from a bucket, and rolled down her sleeve. "We could do with another stallion."

"Aye, but we'll take what God gives us," Edgar said.

"It's rumored that the queen is going to establish a royal racecourse at Ascot," Ariel mused. "If that happens, we'll be one of the few stables breeding racehorses."

"Aye," Edgar agreed stolidly. "Set your own price, I reckon."

Ariel nodded. If she could make money out of her racehorses, she could be independent of Ranulf's rule. She could leave Ravenspeare, set up her own stud, be a person in her own right. She knew it was an extraordinary idea-that a woman should support herself with her own efforts and skill-an idea so far-fetched as to be almost unbelievable. But she believed she could do it. However, she had to keep her breeding program a secret until she had sufficient funds to make her move. If her brothers once suspected there was money to be made from what they merely considered to be a harmless if time-wasting amusement of their sister's, then not only would she never be free of Ravenspeare Castle, but she'd find herself working to fund her brothers' expensive lifestyles.

And marriage? No, that was not a possibility and never would be. Men were all the same when it came to their women. She would be as firmly dominated by a husband as she was by her brothers. This prospective marriage to a Hawkesmoor was a joke, an evil joke of Ranulf's. She would just close her eyes, play her part, and wait until their lethal game was played out. What did she care about a Hawkesmoor? One fewer in the world could only be a good thing.

She settled down on the straw to wait for the mare to deliver the foal. Leaning back against the wooden partition, she listened to the snorting and whiffling behind it of the stallion who had sired the foal about to be born. Edgar didn't disturb her, merely leaned against the stable door, sucking on a straw. He was almost as fiercely devoted to the Arabians as he was to the Lady Ariel, and he could tell that something was troubling her.

What kind of man was this soon-to-be-dead Hawkesmoor? Ariel gave up trying to pretend that if she ignored the whole extraordinary business, it would wash over her without leaving a trace. Presumably he was a sobersided Puritan who considered laughter to be the devil's tool and enjoyment of any kind to be the embodiment of evil. A greedy man, obviously, if he was prepared to marry into the family whose very name was anathema to his own, just to acquire a disputed piece of land. But Puritans were greedy. They amassed wealth but considered spending it to be a sin. He would be a dour, ill-disposed, glowering man, who would demand absolute obedience from his wife in a somber household where they attended church twice on Sundays and listened to four-hour sermons.

Except that she would not really be his wife. She would not leave Ravenspeare Castle; therefore, she would never come under her husband's dominion. Because her husband would not survive the wedding party.

Ariel stared unseeing at a knot in the wooden partition opposite. She couldn't grasp it properly. It was outlandish. It was impossible. And yet it was neither of those things for those who knew the Ravenspeare brothers.

The mare suddenly whinnied and snorted, and a gush of water poured from her, followed almost immediately by the transparent caul-covered body of a foal. It slipped out easily and fell to the floor. The mare bent and licked it clean.

Ariel and Edgar watched in breathless wonder. It was always miraculous, however many births they witnessed. The foal staggered to its feet, its incredibly thin long legs shaking as they took its weight.

"Looks like you got your wish, m'lady," Edgar observed, as the colt found his mother's teat.

"Yes. Another stallion." Ariel stroked the mare, who was gazing with her head down at her suckling foal. "And Serenissima didn't need any help." Easy births were unusual, but horses generally needed less help than humans. There were few birthings that took place in the hamlets around Ravenspeare Castle at which she was not present with her bag of shiny instruments and her pouches of herbs.

"I had better get back." She picked up her coat from the straw, slung it around her shoulders, and went out with the dogs into the now full dark of the October evening.

When was this deadly charade to begin? She could see no way to avoid playing her part, not as long as she remained under Ranulf's roof. And where else was she to go? She had no money of her own as yet. Oliver wouldn't help her; he was in her brother's camp. He was her lover with Ranulf's approval and encouragement; in fact she sometimes suspected that what she had originally thought had been an overwhelming mutual attraction had actually been engineered by her eldest brother. For what reason, she couldn't guess. Maybe it was a reward for friendship, she thought now, as she reentered the castle. If Ranulf could use his sister as bait for vengeance, he could certainly use her as a gift for his friend.

She felt despoiled for the first time in her relationship with Oliver. What had been fun, exciting, and wonderfully sensual now became tawdry and sordid. She had known Oliver did not really care for her, and she had never let on that sometimes she thought she loved him. Such an admission could only hurt her. Women who loved rakes were destined for heartbreak. But her warm feelings for him had provided a luster, a purity almost, to their joyous nights. Now she could see only a squalid manipulation.

"Ariel, a word with you." Ranulf was coming down the great stone staircase as she closed the front door behind her, shutting out the night. He had several packages in his arms.

"I've been in the stables; I'd like to wash before supper," she demurred.

"You can do that later. I need to talk to you."

She shrugged and followed him back into the small paneled parlor where Ralph, Roland, and Oliver were still comfortably drinking before the fire.

"The queen, my dear, has honored you with a wedding gift." Ranulf set the parcels down on the table. "You must be sure to write and thank her." Sarcasm laced his words as he untied the string of the largest package and lifted out a mass of rippling silver cloth. "A wedding gown, I believe." He shook it out, holding it up against himself with a comical grin. "Impeccable taste, Her Majesty has."

The gown was certainly rich, but as Ariel looked closely she saw a stain on the sleeve ruffles as if they had been dragged through a plate of gravy. "I wonder who was married in it first," she observed, pointing out the stain. "I trust you will furnish me with bride clothes that haven't come out of someone else's wardrobe, brother." She turned in disgust from the stained gown.

Ranulf tossed it onto a chair, remarking carelessly, "Her Majesty is renowned for her frugality, but your maid may be able to do something with it."

"I'll not stand at the altar in someone else's castoffs," Ariel declared, unconsciously squaring her shoulders. "I may have to go through with this travesty, but I'll not be insulted further."

To her annoyance, her voice shook, but Ranulf was in great good humor and merely laughed, saying, "No… no, of course you shan't. No Ravenspeare ever went to the altar in borrowed plumage." He drew a leather purse from his pocket and tossed it onto the table, where it fell with a heavy chink. "There's gold, little sister. You may trick yourself out as you please." He picked up a second package. "This, too, is Her Majesty's gift. Is it worth opening, d'you think?"

"I doubt it," Roland said, holding out his hand. "But let's see anyway." Ranulf tossed the flat parcel to him.

Ariel wondered if she would ever be permitted to open her own gifts. Not that it mattered particularly. She looked at the string of topaz that her brother now held up. "Pretty enough bauble."

"Aye, but they're not the best stones," Oliver said, taking the necklace and examining it in the candlelight. "Badly flawed, some of 'em."

"I trust not an omen for your marriage, my dear." Ranulf laughed at his own sally. He took up the third, much smaller package. "But you'll find no fault with this. A gift from me because you're such a good and obedient sister." He pinched her cheek carelessly and dropped the package into her upturned hand.

Ariel unwrapped the tissue. Her eyes widened. She lifted out a gold, pearl-encrusted charm bracelet shaped like a serpent, with a pearl apple in its mouth. The gold was most intricately worked, the design unlike anything she had seen before. She fingered the only charm it carried, a perfectly carved emerald swan. She opened her mouth to exclaim at its loveliness, but the words remained unspoken. Because it wasn't lovely. It was beautiful, certainly. Intriguing, certainly. But she felt there was something amiss with it, and she couldn't for the life of her see where, what, or why. "Where did it come from, Ranulf?"

His eyes shifted and caught Roland's gaze, then he said, "Call it a family heirloom. If you open the little box, you will find something else."

She opened a small box. "Oh, it's another charm." She lifted out an exquisite silver rosebud; deep in its center glowed a ruby, the rich red reflected in the furled silver petals. This time her response was without reservation.

"How beautiful. It's perfect." She looked up at her brother, puzzled. Ranulf had never given her a present before, except the usual birthday and Christmas trinkets. It occurred to her that he was buying her cooperation, but why would he need to? He had only to command it and he knew that while she remained under his roof she would have no choice.

But perhaps he was afraid she might make things difficult for him. She might be forced to obey his commands, but there were covert ways in which she could sabotage his designs, or at least create difficulties.

"My wedding gift, little sister." He pinched her cheek again in a clumsy gesture intended to denote affection. But Ariel wasn't fooled. "You will play your part in Ravenspeare vengeance, and when the work is done, then you shall have another charm for the bracelet."

Dear God, he was bribing her! Was he afraid that she might slip from his control? That marriage to the earl of Hawkesmoor, even a mock marriage, might somehow affect the balance of power and control? It was a fascinating idea.

"I shall endeavor to earn it, brother," she said demurely and saw his eyes flash with anger at her clear insolence. The dogs shifted against her skirts and Remus growled low in his throat.

"Take those beasts out of here," Ranulf ordered. "And you'd best keep them away from me, little sister, if you expect them to live a long and happy life." He took up his goblet and drained its contents, his gray eyes hard as granite yet filled with malevolence as he stared at her fixedly.

Ariel was not about to push her luck further. She curtsied with every appearance of humility and left the room, the dogs pressed to her skirts.

The men wouldn't give her a second thought if they didn't see her again this evening. Ranulf had had his fun for the time being, and they would settle into their usual companionable stupors after another bottle or two.

But there was no way Ariel could keep this disastrous turn of events to herself. She hastened back to the stable-yard, the dogs still trotting beside her. She hailed a groom crossing the yard. "Josh, saddle the roan. I'm going to visit Mistress Sarah and Miss Jenny."

The man touched his forelock. "You need me to come wi' you, m'lady?"

Ariel considered. In daylight she wouldn't risk incurring Ranulf's wrath by going out unaccompanied, but he'd not want her again tonight, and once the drink took hold it would be out of sight, out of mind. And the last thing she needed was a groom kicking his heels in Sarah and Jenny's small cottage while she was spilling her news. And she could hardly expect him to sit outside for however long the visit lasted.

"No," she said. "I'll go alone."

It was a relatively bright night; scudding clouds dimmed the moon now and again, but the stars shone clear over the North Sea across the flat fens to the east. Just before she reached the village that skirted the grounds of Ravenspeare Castle, she turned the roan down a marshy track that led to a narrow drainage cut taking surplus water from the Great Ouse back to the Wash and out to the North Sea.

Her destination, a small reed-thatched cottage, stood on a hillock above the dike. It was a lonely spot. But a lantern glowed in the window, and as Ariel dismounted and unlatched the garden gate, the cottage door opened.

"Is it you, Ariel?" Blind Jenny rarely failed to identify visitors before they announced themselves.

"Yes. I'm in need of cheer and advice," Ariel responded. On reaching the woman, she kissed her cheek. "I'll put Diana in the lean-to and then I'll be in. Don't stand out here in the cold."

Jenny smiled, returned the kiss, and went back into the cottage's one room. "Ariel's here, Mother. Something's worrying her."

The woman bending over a cauldron on the range straightened. Her eyes were sharply assessing but her tongue had been locked for close on thirty years, so her thoughts remained unspoken. The door opened again and Ariel came in, the hounds still at her heels. They went immediately to a corner on the far side of the fireplace and lay down, resting their heads on their forepaws.

"Good evening, Sarah." Ariel bent to kiss the woman's faded cheek. One could see that Sarah had once been a very beautiful woman. Her features were regular, her face a perfect oval, her body tall and slender. But the eyes were haunted, the face deeply etched with the lines of endurance, the long hands chapped and rough, the once glossy black hair snow white, the supple slimness of youth reduced to gaunt thinness. But a gentleness radiated from her, and a certain strength belied by her air of frailty.

Sarah reached up and stroked Ariel's cheek, then she gestured to the chair by the fire and returned to the cauldron.

"You'll have supper with us, Ariel?" Jenny took three bowls from a shelf above the range.

"It smells like rabbit stew." Ariel sniffed appreciatively.

"The rabbit was payment for one of Mother's wart cures," Jenny replied, cutting bread, the knife slicing as rapidly and neatly as if it were wielded by a sighted person. "Ginty Greene didn't want to go to her bridal bed with warts all over her hands. Mother got rid of them for her."

"Ah. Bridal…" Ariel stood up and then sat down again. Sarah lifted the cauldron of stew from the hook over the fire and carried it to the table. She cast a glance at the girl by the fire and began to ladle stew into the three bowls.

"Would you care for elder-flower wine, Ariel?" Jenny asked.

"Thank you." Ariel came to the table and took her usual place between mother and daughter. She was aware of Sarah's eyes on her. They spoke as eloquently as any tongue. "Ranulf has decided to marry me off," she said bluntly, dipping her spoon into the fragrant contents of her bowl.

"Who to?" Jenny stared sightlessly across the table. Sarah paused, her own spoon in her hand.

"The earl of Hawkesmoor."

Sarah's hand shook and her spoon rattled against the edge of the wooden bowl, but the two younger women didn't appear to notice. Jenny's jaw had dropped and for a moment she was speechless.

Ariel, through her own shock, well understood the stunned effect of her news. She carried her spoon to her mouth and chewed reflectively on a succulent piece of meat while she waited for the implications to sink in for her audience. Then she said, "It's all to do with dowry and land and the queen."

She explained as much as she herself knew in the attentive silence. Sarah was now eating with a steady hand, sipping her wine periodically, but her eyes rarely left Ariel's face. Jenny punctuated Ariel's narrative with rapid-fire questions on both her own and her mother's behalf.

"When is it to be?"

"I don't know, but it can't happen before Christmas- not with two hundred guests to prepare for." Ariel put down her spoon and leaned forward on her stool, her elbows resting on the table. She didn't think she could tell these women-her closest friends-what Ranulf was plotting for the Hawkesmoor. She couldn't even make sense of it herself.

Sarah listened to Ariel. Her face was expressionless and the violent tremors were contained inside her now. They were in her belly, in her heart, in her head. Her hands were perfectly steady, her movements controlled. But the questions screamed in her head, fought to find utterance, and died on her locked tongue. They were not questions Jenny could divine with her customary insight, because they related to matters of which Jenny was in total ignorance… and must remain so.

This earl of Hawkesmoor was Geoffrey's heir. Was he Geoffrey's son? Had Clara finally conceived? Would Geoffrey's son know anything of that other child?

She had never expected to learn anything of the child. She had given him up to a man who would care for him, would guarantee his future. A man who would ensure that he was never touched by the horror that had befallen his mother. And until this moment, when the name of Hawkesmoor was spoken under her roof, Sarah had buried all thought and all speculation so deep in her soul it had seemed impossible it would ever see the light of day.

And now a Hawkesmoor was coming here. Now, once again, there would be Hawkesmoors and Ravenspeares together a stone's throw from her door. Her hands trembled again and she clasped them both in her lap.

"What about your horses?" Jenny hung the kettle over the fire and pulled down a sheaf of dried chamomile. She didn't know much of the science of Ariel's breeding program, but she did know her friend's goal.

Ariel's lips set in a determined line. "Nothing's going to stop me, Jenny. If I can't set up my stud here, then I'll take it away. As soon as I can make a few sales and make enough money to set myself up, then I'll go somewhere, as far away as possible, from Ravenspeares and Hawkesmoors. And I'll be myself. Responsible to and for myself. They won't stop me."

Jenny was silent. Sarah looked at Ariel with her white set face and her fierce charcoal eyes, and pity washed over her. How could the poor child even begin to know what she was taking on? Hawkesmoors and Ravenspeares never let anything stand in their way.

Ariel's eyes met Sarah's steady gaze. She seemed to read the woman's mind. "Don't forget that I also am a Ravenspeare," she said softly.