Jane Feather: The Silver Rose

"And if you're too fastidious to enjoy the game as it stands, pretend you're shying for coconuts at the fair!" Ralph giggled, taking up his own pistol.

"For God's sake, man, your hand's shaking like a leaf!" Jack exclaimed in disgust. "Ravenspeare! You let that drunken sot take aim and I'll shoot the pistol out of his hand."

"Aye, Ralph, back away. This is no game for drunken fools!" It was Roland who moved suddenly, knocking his brother's pistol aside. His eyes were cold and hard and deadly as they held Ralph's besotted gaze. "You ruin this at your peril, brother," he hissed, his face so close to the younger man's that his spittle showered Ralph's cheeks.

Ralph swore a vile oath, wiping his face with the back of his hand. But through his drunkenness a spark of light showed. More than one accidental shooting in the halls of Ravenspeare Castle could cause raised eyebrows. He turned aside, his face sullen, grabbed a wine bottle from the table, and put it to his lips.

There was a small general exhalation of breath, then the men took up their places. The Hawkesmoor cadre were as still as sharpshooters, every man's eye fixed immovable on the shiny green apple that was his target. And the girls, terrified, some of them well gone in drink themselves, struggled to control chattering teeth and quivering necks.

Simon felt the fine hairs on his nape lift; a sensation of acute awareness prickled his ear. Just the tension of this moment, with the girl's huge eyes swimming in front of his gaze? Or something else… something not quite right… but what could possibly be right about anything…

A rush of air, a cry as piercing as a hunting horn's, ripped the tense silence into shreds. Ranulf staggered sideways under an almighty buffet to his shoulder as Ariel's full weight cannoned into him. As Ranulf went reeling, his pistol flying from his fingers, Simon found himself on the receiving end of a barrage of invective that singed his ears.

"You… you would dare to play these vile games! You with your sober Puritan suits and your Hawkesmoor airs and graces, looking down on Ravenspeares, telling me to hold my tongue, not to play the games that only demean the players… and look at you!" Her face was pink with outrage, her gray eyes so hot they scorched, and the words fed from her tongue in a higgledy-piggledy outpouring of outraged justice.

"Look at what you're doing! You… ad of you…" An expansive hand swallowed up the astounded cadre in one gesture. "You're no better than my brothers. In fact you're worse, because you're hypocrites, every damn one of you… No, don't you deny it!" she cried as Simon, slowly beginning to recover his senses, took breath to interrupt. "You want to play for a woman in your bed, husband. Then you can damn well play for your wife!"

In one bound she had snatched the apple from the head of Simon's whore, shoving the girl out of the way. She stood facing him, the apple in her hand.

"All right, Hawkesmoor. I challenge you."

Ranulf had picked up his fallen pistol. He stood staring down at it in bemusement. Roland lowered his own weapon and looked at his sister. His eyes held the knowledge of what had ready happened… what Ariel had seen and prevented. And behind the frustration lurked a spark of amusement and something akin to admiration.

"Wed, well," he said almost to himself. "Baby sister's foiled us again." He continued to regard her with the same gleam in his eye, recognizing that Ariel was now rather entangled in her motives. Having achieved the practical issue of her intervention, something else was going on now, and Simon, earl of Hawkesmoor, was definitely her target.

"Lady Hawkesmoor… Ariel… there's no need to get upset," Stanton began.

"No, indeed, ma'am. Your husband was only-"

"I've no need for my friends to make my excuses to my wife," Simon interrupted, his voice unusually sharp. He cradled the barrel of the pistol in his left palm.

"So, you've come back, my wife."

"Just in time to save my brother's pistol from throwing a little to the left," she retorted.

"Ah." Simon nodded, casting a sideways glance at Ranulf. "That was why I felt that pricking in my thumbs." He returned his attention to Ariel, standing with the apple between her hands. "It seems your return was timely."

"Hardly," she snapped. "When I find you in the midst of an orgy."

"It's not always wise to believe the evidence of one's eyes," he advised. "But we can discuss that later. For now, we have more serious business to attend to, I believe."

He took a step back, squinted at her, then said evenly, "Stand still, Ariel. You're shaking… with anger, not fear, no doubt… but if you move so much as an eyelash, you make my task impossible."

His eyes were steady, once again clear and blue as glacial ice. Ariel took a deep steadying breath as she balanced the apple on her head. She dropped her hands to her sides and faced him, her eyes still fierce yet exultant with challenge.

The Great Hall fell completely silent. It was as if not a rustle of air breathed through the group of men and women. Even Ralph was transfixed. Something primitive, elemental, surged between the man with his pistol and the silent and immobile girl. It was contained in their eyes. An overpowering, almost sexual tension that thrummed in the air.

Simon took his time. On some detached plane, he was aware of the absurdity of indulging in such a primitive reaction, such an irrational response to challenge. But on another plane, he knew what this was about. It wasn't about rational thought and civilized reaction. It was about trust. The wild, untamed side of Ariel had chosen this crazy challenge as a leap of faith. Not intentionally and she was probably not even aware of it in the curious exultation of this moment. But that was what was happening. She was challenging him to deserve her trust.

He raised the pistol, supported it on his forearm lest the slightest quiver of a finger prove their undoing. He sighted. For a minute Ariel's eyes filled his sights. Huge, glowing, defiant, yet filled with an emotion that stunned him as he recognized it. It was need. Ariel, who never needed anything from anyone, needed him to make this right for them both.

He moved his sight to the apple, until it filled his vision. The small black tip of the stem showed at the bright green apex. Gently… oh, so gently… he squeezed the trigger.

The report was so violent in the deathly hush that the girls screamed shrilly almost in unison, and even men used to the sounds of a battlefield flinched. Only Ariel didn't move. After a minute she raised a hand and almost wonderingly touched her head. Her scalp still felt heavy where the apple had rested, and her hair still seemed to crackle from the rush of air from the bullet. But the apple, in two neat segments, had flown to the floor, and her hair wasn't even parted.

Simon laid the pistol down and limped over to her. He took her hands in a firm clasp and said with not entirely feigned sternness, "Of ad the insanities, Ariel! I cannot imagine how you persuaded me to do such a thing."

"You did it because you wanted to," she returned. "Because you needed to."

"That is nor what I needed to do with you," he said dryly, catching her chin between finger and thumb. "I have let you run us both ragged for too long, my dear girl. The worm is about to turn."

"Oh?" Ariel exclaimed. "What worm? I was the worm who wasn't allowed to have her horses!"

"Could someone explain what's going on?" Jack inquired somewhat plaintively. "Worms and horses seem an unlikely combination."

"Not in my wife's scheme of things." Simon reached behind him for his cane. "Come. Let us discuss these improbable bedfellows in privacy." He made her hand fast beneath his arm and turned with her toward the stairs.

"What's that?" Ariel said suddenly, resisting his encouraging pressure.