Trapped at the Altar by Jane Feather Page A

up, bowing and simpering, and flattering and pretending all the time? I won’t be any good at it, I can tell you that now.”
    â€œOh, we’ll learn,” he said, but he sounded a little doubtful. In truth, it was difficult to imagine Ariadne’s free spirit confined in a cage of courtly pretense.
    â€œIt might be easier for you,” she said thoughtfully. “You’ve already had to adapt to a different life.” They had talked in the past about what it had been like for Ivor, as a small boy, to be separated from his family and everything that was familiar to him, having to learn the ways of another life altogether. “I’ve never had to be anyone but myself.”
    â€œI was only six,” he pointed out. “Hardly formed. Once I had learned to forget my mother, I learned to become a part of the valley very quickly. It will be as hard for me as for you to dissemble in London.”
    They were talking now with all the old ease and familiarity, sharing their deepest thoughts, revealing their weaknesses, always in the utter certainty that their confidences would be kept. Abruptly, Ari reached her hand across the table, catching Ivor’s, twining her small, delicate fingers with his. He had long fingers but the rough nails and callused palms of a working man, one who sawed and chopped wood, wielded a sword, thatched roofs, and hammered nails.
    â€œI could not bear to lose our friendship, Ivor,” she said softly. “We cannot let this marriage come between us.”
    For a moment, he looked at her in disbelief, then threw back his head with a shout of laughter. “Oh, Ariadne, only you could say something like that. Marriages are supposed to be unions, they symbolize a joining of minds and bodies, and you see ours as an instrument ofdivision.” He clasped her hand tightly for a moment and leaned towards her. “ I will not let this marriage divide us, Ari. Whether you do is entirely up to you.”
    He released his grip and pushed back his chair. “I have work to do. And the women are waiting for you in your old cottage, which has been set up as a workshop. They are to furnish you with a wardrobe for the journey.” He unhooked his hunting knife from the wall and left the cottage.
    Ariadne sat at the table, looking absently at her hand, which lay across the table, her fingers stretched as if still reaching for Ivor’s. Her hand felt cold. Slowly, she withdrew it, tucking it into her lap. Presumably, Rolf had told him of the daily plans for herself; her husband should have the ordering of her day, after all.
    She pushed back her chair and stood up. She felt as if she were suffocating. Everything had happened too quickly, as if they feared that if she were given time, she would somehow escape her destiny. And they were right. If she could, she would. But for as long as she and Ivor remained in the valley, there would be no opportunity for more than the trivial acts of defiance she had always relied upon to give her a spurious sense of freedom. Well, she would indulge in one more such act today. The women with their measuring tapes and pins and bolts of material would wait in vain.
    She went up to the bedchamber and changed her thin muslin gown for a homespun skirt and jacket, woolen stockings, and heavier shoes. She was going to climb the cliff, and flimsy sandals wouldn’t give her traction.
    She let herself out of the cottage just as Tilly came back with her wooden pails. “Eh, Miss Ari? Where are you going? They’re waiting for you in the cottage yonder. I’ll be along myself as soon as I’ve washed the dishes and put fresh sheets on the bed.”
    â€œI have other things to do, Tilly.” Ari brushed past her and walked swiftly behind the cottage. She crossed the small vegetable plot that formed every cottage’s back garden and threaded her way through the buildings to the steep cliff towering above the valley. The path was