“It is to any woman. A man may fight and compete in tourneys and travel the land. A woman has only her home and family to care for.” Biting her lip, she looked away. “I no longer have either.”
Ranulf shifted uncomfortably. He was not accustomed to feeling guilt, yet he felt a flash of it now. He had never considered her perspective. He’d thought a girl so young would be content to remain in her father’s castle, rather than be hauled off to Normandy as the bride of the Black Dragon—but perhaps he’d merely persuaded himself of her reticence to justify his delay, to ease his conscience for not proceeding with the marriage. He should have come for her sooner, certainly. Then again, Ariane professed to loathe him. She had less desire to wed him than he did her.
“You could always enter a nunnery,” he suggested lamely when she remained silent.
Ariane shook her head. “I am not fitted for the church. My lady mother always said . . .” She faltered, realizing she had strayed to dangerous ground.
“Yes? What said your mother?”
“That my tongue was too barbed for the peace of a convent.”
Ranulf’s hard mouth curved in a sudden grin. “A wise woman, your mother. I have had a taste of that barbed tongue.” He noted the flash of fire in Ariane’s eyes with satisfaction, strang
ely preferring that show of spirit to her despair. “The Lady Constance . . . I met her but once at the betrothal ceremony, she was all that was gracious. She died some years past?”
Ariane stiffened at the reminder. “We lost her four springs ago,” she said carefully, reluctant to discuss her beloved mother’s passing. What the world knew was not the truth, but it would have to suffice.
“You mourn her loss?”
“Aye . . . keenly.” That much was certainly true.
He heard the sadness in her voice, saw the grief in her eyes. Involuntarily, Ranulf raised his hand to stroke the elegant hollow beneath her cheekbone, but she flinched at his touch and pulled back.
Shifting his weight, he pushed the pillows behind his back and sat up, drawing Ariane’s gaze to his powerful bare torso, to the soft mat of curling hair on his chest. Seeing it, she recalled the feel of him last night when she had tried to ward Ranulf off, and felt a quickening in her body that was totally unexpected.
“I would rather not be doomed to maidenhood,” she murmured in an attempt to return the conversation to the subject at hand.
“Doomed? Strong words for the unwedded state.” His scrutiny turned considering, gleaming with a brightness that bespoke mischief. “One would think you regret never being bedded.”
Uncontrollably a blush rose to Ariane’s cheeks. “You twist my words, my lord. I want children. If I must suffer the physical attentions of a husband to gain them, then I am willing to do my duty.”
“Suffer? Duty?” An amused light flickered in his eyes. “Your notion of the marriage bed is a cold one, methinks. Doubtless it is your innocence speaking. If you had more experience, you would know what pleasure can be found even in duty.”
“If you hadless experience, my lord,” Ariane said tartly, “you might properly value the solemn commitment of the flesh.”
“Ah, but I do value it,” he replied, his warmth fading. “Too much so to risk an irrevocable union. While I might desire to sample your lovely charms, I have no intention of solemnizing our contract.”
“You will never sample my charms!” she retorted stiffly. “I will not play the whore for you!”
A provocative smile curved his mouth. “I would not ask you to, demoiselle. I like my wenches with more honey and less vinegar. I would have a meek maid in my bed, not a virago.”
His soft taunt did more than sting; it wounded her. Ariane’s indignation abruptly faded, swamped by familiar insecurities, but she took refuge in sarcasm. “Since you find me so unappealing, I wonder that you agreed to the betrothal in the first place.”
Ranulf shrugged his broad shoulders. “I agreed for the usual reasons. I found an alliance with Claredon politically advantageous. And your father sweetened the arrangement with a grant of land in the south.”
Intellectually, Ariane understood those reasons. And Ranulf had been bribed to wed her. He had been given, not a fiefdom for which he would have had to swear fealty and provide knight’s fees, but an outright grant.
“I never desired a bride, only your lands,” he added with chilling honesty.
Ariane clasped her fingers together to keep them from trembling. It shouldn’t hurt to hear the truth so bluntly stated, yet it did. She looked down at her hands. “Is that why you never came for me? Because my father still lives, I never inherited his demesne?”
Guilt pricked Ranulf’s conscience. He could not admit to her the true reason for his reticence: that he feared betrayal by any bride, dreaded risking a repeat of his mother’s faithlessness or his father’s violent retribution.
“Aye,” he prevaricated. “I could not gain control of the chief prize of your inheritance—Claredon—until your father’s passing, which appeared to be many years in the future. And there seemed no reason for haste. Both sides enjoyed the advantages of the alliance, without the encumbrances. And Walter saw no urgency in completing the contract.”
“But now that you have possession of Claredon, you need be encumbered by me no longer.”
Ranulf clenched his jaw, wondering how she managed to twist the truth to makehim the villain when she had brought about this predicament herself, by defying the king, by freeing a prisoner of the crown, and by supporting her father’s rebellion. “I am under no obligation to honor a traitor with my allegiance,” he replied in his own defense.