The Warrior

“All the more reason to hunt there. I should think you would consider it laudable to rid the forest of wolves.”

“Yes . . . but . . .” Ariane faltered, knowing she was sinking deeper into a morass, yet not knowing how to extricate herself.

“Mayhap,” Ranulf said dangerously, “you seek to shield someone else. Is that, perchance, where you go to sport with your lover?”

She glanced up in startlement, her eyes wide. “You well know I have never had a lover until you.”

“Castle gossip says otherwise.”

She went rigid. “You yourself saw the proof of my innocence, my lord.”

“There are ways to enjoy passion without breaching a maidenhead, as I have shown you.”

“I have never had a lover,” Ariane repeated with rising indignation.

Ranulf’s look turned grim. “Not even your father’s vassal? The prisoner you freed, Simon?”

Ariane returned his fierce gaze steadily. “Not Simon, nor any other man.”

“And it shall remain that way,” Ranulf said, his voice low and taut. “Henceforth, I will be your only lover. I will kill any man who touches you. Do you comprehend me?”

Ariane watched him warily. She could not understand his jealous fury—until she recalled the experiences he had endured at the hands of other women of her class. Ranulf thought her no better than any of the adulterous noblewomen who had filled his life with pain and scandal.

“I have no lover,” she said quietly, “in a forest or elsewhere. I only sought to advise you.”

He could not quite believe her. He had seen the guilt in those luminous gray eyes. She was not telling the complete truth, he would swear it. That she would think to deceive him filled him with bitter anguish, but her championship of his enemies would make no difference in the end. He was well accustomed at flushing out insurgents who would foment rebellion. If she was protecting Simon Crecy or any other traitor, he would find and deal with them swiftly.

Ranulf tore his gaze from Ariane. He did not want to hear any more lies coming from those sweet lips. “You take too much upon yourself,” he retorted stiffly, before turning toward the stairway. “You had best pray I find no trace of your traitorous cohorts.”

As she listened to the retreat of his jingling spurs, Ariane pressed a hand to her mouth in dismay. God’s mercy, what had she done? Arousing Ranulf’s suspicions had been inexcusably stupid. Ranulf was no fool, but a seasoned knight, experienced in dealing with enemy resistance. He would search the east wood for rebels and perhaps stumble upon the secret she would give her life to keep hidden.

Dread curled in the pit of her stomach as she thought of what he could find. Despite his past leniency, in this instance he would not be so eager to show mercy and compassion, she was certain.

“No,” Ariane whispered to herself, trying to calm her agitation, as well as bolster her courage. All was not lost. Perhaps it was even a blessing that Ranulf’s suspicions centered on fantasy rebels. As long as he was searching for miscreants, he might overlook the dire dilemma she had spent the past four years endeavoring to conceal.

She forced herself to release the breath she had been holding. She would not give up hope. Very soon she would have to discover the means to attend the wood’s inhabitants, before their plight grew desperate, but she had time yet to plan how to escape Ranulf’s vigilance.

Shewould pray, as he had suggested, though. She would pray that the secret of Claredon forest would be safe for a great while longer.

Ranulf found no trace of wolves or rebels, or any other sign of revolt in the expanse of forest some quarter league east of the castle walls, although, much to the disgust of the keepers, the hounds did seem to fear the area. They whined and snuffled and started at shadows, until finally they picked up the spoor of a wild boar which led off to the north.

The sport was good, the hunt highly successful—the party killed two boar and five hinds—but Ranulf was more relieved to find his suspicions apparently unfounded. Had he found Simon Crecy hiding in the wood, he would have run the man through with his sword without a qualm.

Such jealousy was wholly unreasonable, Ranulf knew, yet he could not contain it. He became irrational whenever he merely thought of Ariane with another man. In truth, his savage feeling of possessiveness toward her startled and disturbed Ranulf. No wench had ever had the power to move him to jealousy; he had never allowed one close enough. For all his enjoyment of their bodies, he purposefully kept his women at a distance, his heart hardened and detached.

Ariane would be no different, Ranulf tried to tell himself. She was just like the scores of others he had possessed. No, not just like the others. Her cool, haunting beauty and feminine softness, combined with a sharp tongue and defiant wit, gave her a bewitching allure that he had never before encountered—and made the pleasure far more gratifying than any he had experienced before now.

It was that allure that made him ride eagerly back to the keep at the day’s end. That allure that caused the singing in his blood as he turned his destrier over to a page and bounded up the tower stairs. His pulse was racing when he spied Ariane in the hall, supervising the serfs who were lighting the torches along the walls and arranging the trestle tables in the center.

She wore a flowing bliaud of jonquil silk over a long-sleeved crimson chainse. The golden band that encircled her forehead caught the gleam of torchlight, as did her pale, unbound hair, which rippled with copper and gold and flaxen highlights.

She was not wearing his gift, he noted with a sharp sense of disappointment, and yet she was beautiful enough without it. The sight of her took Ranulf’s breath away.

He crushed the urge to sweep her up in his arms right then, and merely acknowledged her with a lordly nod. Yet like a callow youth eager to impress a lass, Ranulf hastened upstairs to wash the worst of the dirt and blood of the hunt away, and then hastened back down again.

Ariane stood hesitantly beside the dais, awaiting his arrival. Payn, who had been laughing jovially with some of their men, strode to the table just then, and reached her first. The knight bowed over her hand and gave her a smile of masculine approval that made Ranulf set his teeth.

“You grace us with your presence, lady,” Payn said admiringly as he held out the chatelaine’s chair. “Does she not, Ranulf?”