He pushed the opened shift off her shoulders and she stood naked, except for her stockings, gartered above her knees. He ran his hands down her sides, into the deep indentation of her waist, over the slight flare of her hips. Still she didn't move, but he could feel the warmth of her skin, sense the tremble of sensation deep within her. Her eyes were closed, her lips pressed tightly together, and Simon knew she was determined to deny either of them the satisfaction of her natural response.

Well, so be it. He drew her toward the bed and she fell back beneath the pressure of his hand. Anger at her obstinacy warred with desire as he looked down at her creamy, sinuous form spread upon the quilted coverlet. Still she wouldn't open her eyes.

Grim-faced now, Simon mounted the bed. He ran a hand over her body, hoping for one flicker of acknowledgment, but she gave him nothing. He moved her legs apart and knelt between them. When he touched her, gently parting her petalled center, he found her moist, swollen, eager. And his anger suddenly fell from him.

"You are the most obstinate little witch, Ariel," he declared with a quiver of amusement now in his voice. He slipped his hands beneath her buttocks, lifted her to meet his thrusting entrance, and slipped deeply into her. He felt her whole body shudder and tighten around him. He looked into her face. Her eyes were still firmly closed, her lips still pressed together.

Smiling, he wondered how long she would be able to withstand her own pleasure. He ran a hand over her taut belly and her muscles jumped. For an instant her teeth bit into her bottom lip, then she had returned to passivity. He drew back, holding himself at the very entrance to her body. He felt her tense, her inner muscles nickering, the exquisitely soft and sensitive skin of her secret places coming to life. He gripped her bottom tightly and eased inside her again. This time he heard her swift indrawn breath as she took his full length within her.

"Open your eyes, Ariel," he commanded, withdrawing again with infinite tantalizing slowness.

Stubbornly she kept her eyes shut, and her head moved in a sharp negative.

"Not giving an inch," he murmured, but as if it amused him. He withdrew completely and her eyes flashed open for an instant, and their surprised dismay was so vivid that it made him chuckle.

Reaching over her head, he pulled down the bolster, lifted her hips, and thrust it beneath her. "I need both hands," he informed her conversationally, "and I prefer to have you at a slight angle." He watched her grit her teeth and grinned. Kneeling up to ease the pressure on his leg, he slid within her again, and when his flesh was deep inside her and he could feel the little ripples of her muscles against him, he began to play with his fingertips on the erect, swollen little nub of her sex, sliding his free hand down and beneath her into the cleft of her buttocks.

She bucked against him, her hips arching, the muscles of her belly and thighs taut as drum skin. Simon felt his own climax rushing upon him. He held himself back, the tendons of his neck standing out rigid with the effort, sweat breaking out on his forehead. He drew his finger slowly upward from her bottom, lightly tapped the nerve-stretched softness that surrounded his own thrusting shaft, and then, as her body flew apart, he gave himself up to his own delight.

Ariel came to her full senses a few minutes later. She lay savoring the sweetest sensation of fulfillment. Never had she experienced anything like it. And she had fought so hard to keep from yielding, to give him nothing, not one iota of satisfaction.

She turned her head languidly on the quilt. Simon was asleep, or unconscious, beside her, lying on his belly. His short hair clustered in tousled curls at his nape and around his ears. His arms were flung above his head. She had hated him when he'd marched into her chamber and declared his intention with such cold assertion. And she had seen how he had hated what he had nerved himself to do. She'd seen it in the way the scar stood out livid against his pale, drawn cheek, in the angry distress in his eyes.

But something had changed.

"Oh, Christ!" Simon suddenly rolled over, his eyes stretched wide in an expression of anguish. He struggled to sit up, bending over his leg, rubbing at his knee, desperately trying to straighten it against the excruciating waves of pain.

"Here, let me." Ariel knelt up on the bed. She pushed his hands away. "Lie down again. I can't straighten it properly when you're sitting up."

He fell back on the bed with a moan. His face was white, his mouth set in a rictus of pain, sweat standing out on his brow.

Ariel felt the bent knee, her fingers probing even as he swore at her under his breath. She pulled something, pushed something, and drew his leg flat on the bed.

Simon exhaled. It was still agony, but it was bearable agony. "I've never been broken on the rack, but it has to be something similar," he mumbled, when he could speak again. The agony had happened once or twice before after lovemaking, but this time he hadn't been ready for it, so intent had he been on achieving his object. An achievement that so far transcended his hopes that he'd fallen into a satisfied stupor without thought for how he positioned his leg.

"Perhaps now you'd let me do something to ease it." Ariel hopped off the bed. "I have some salve."

He lay back and let her rub a strong-smelling ointment into his knee. It had a strangely warming, numbing effect. "What is it?"

"Dried mullein mostly."

"Are you a skilled herbalist or do you buy from one?"

"Sarah taught me everything I know."

Simon frowned, remembering a conversation he'd had with Edgar the previous day. Simon had asked him if he knew of a woman called Esther in the neighborhood. A single woman of good breeding who would have come onto Ravenspeare land from Huntingdon some thirty years earlier. Edgar had denied all knowledge of such a woman. But he had talked of dumb Sarah and her blind daughter-the only single women in the area.

"Sarah? Is she the dumb woman with the blind daughter?"

Ariel wiped her greasy hands on a towel. "Where did you hear of Sarah?"

"Edgar told me. I was asking if he knew of a woman called Esther in the neighborhood."

"Who's she?"

"I don't really know," he replied. "I suppose you haven't heard of her."

Ariel shook her head. "No. And I know most people in these parts. Why are you looking for her?"

Simon frowned. "I have reason to believe she may have had something to do with my family. There was some mention of her in my father's papers… but it's all very vague." He shrugged. "I suppose I just want to satisfy my curiosity." It wasn't an entirely accurate description of his intense interest in the puzzle, but if Ariel couldn't help him, then nothing was gained by pursuing it further.

"But we have other things to discuss, wife of mine. So come here and sit down." He patted the side of the bed.

Ariel hesitated, then shrugged and did as he said. "So, now you've consummated this marriage, are you sure of my loyalty?" There was a residual sting in her voice.

"If you assure me I have it," he replied evenly.

"And if I refuse?"

He sighed and tried a tentative flex of his knee. "Then, my wife, we will continue this afternoon's little exercise until you conceive. When you have produced an heir that will cement this so-called alliance between our families, I will release you from all marital obligations."

"Typical Puritan," Ariel declared with scorn. "Sex is a distasteful activity to be indulged purely for the purpose of procreation."

Simon went into a peal of laughter. "Now, just how, my dear girl, did you get that impression from the last hour?" Ariel blushed crossly.

"Besides," he continued, "this accusation of Puritanism grows irksome. As it happens, I have never held to the Puritan way of life and don't ever intend to."

"But you dress in the dark, somber clothes of a Puritan?"

"I've no taste for peacocking around. And besides, dark colors and simple cuts suit me."

"Oh-ho, you are vain, after all, Sir Puritan!" she crowed.

The laughter died out of his eyes and his face became dark. "I have little cause for vanity. I know it as well as anyone." Almost unconsciously, he touched the scar on his cheek.

There was silence for a minute, then Ariel said, "I do not find anything distasteful about you… except that you're a Hawkesmoor," she added.

Simon smiled. "As are you, madam wife. As are you. Well and truly."

Chapter Twelve

So in conclusion, my dear Helene, I don't really know what to make of my bride. I think you would probably like her. She has a straightforwardness that you would respond to, but she has also a deep personal reserve and she's more stubborn than the most obstinate mule.

Helene leaned back in her chair, Simon's letter fluttering to her lap. The fire was a warm glow in the small wainscoted parlor, and the wind and rain lashing the casements made it seem even cozier within. Her gaze rested on her eldest daughter, Marianne, sitting with her tambour frame on the other side of the hearth. The child was intent over her needle, sewing a sampler for her little sister's birthday. Louise, unaware of her sister's efforts on her behalf, was sitting on the floor playing spillikins with her young brother, James. His father's heir, the reason why Harold in his will had stipulated that if his widow remarried she would lose guardianship of her children.

Helene picked up Simon's letter again. I wish you could meet her, my dear. I would value your insight. Sometimes I believe I understand her, know what's going on behind that broad forehead, and then in the next minute I realize she's a complete enigma. She was unwilling for the marriage, as I've already mentioned, and while she seems resigned now, I have the strange feeling that she is not. Her brothers are brutes of the first water, and she is as different from them as crystal is from clay, but I still believe that in the deep-running rivers of her soul she could never bring herself to care truly for a Hawkesmoor.