The Silver Rose Read Free Page B

hunched in their caped riding cloaks against the biting wind blowing from the River Ouse across the flat fens.
    “I give you good day, my brothers.” Ariel drew rein on the far side of a dike that ran beside the causeway. “You’re returning early from London. I didn’t expect you before Christmas.”
    “We have business that concerns you.” Ranulf scrutinized his sister, who smiled serenely from beneath her tricorn hat. “Where’s your groom, Ariel?”
    “Within sight,” she responded. “Always within sight, sir.”
    “He’s just coming.” Roland gestured with his whip to where the elderly groom approached.
    Ranulf grunted. He didn’t believe that Edgar had kept hismistress within sight all afternoon. The stallion and the wolfhounds, given their head, would have outstripped the groom’s cob within minutes. And it was inconceivable to imagine that Ariel had not given the beasts free rein. But the groom was here and Ariel was still smiling, a picture of innocence, her gray, almond-shaped eyes as clear and cloudless as a fresh-washed dawn sky.
    “Come.” He nudged his horse forward. Ariel jumped Mustapha over the dike and fell in beside him, the dogs trotting placidly on the stallion’s flanks, tongues lolling.
    “Ralph will be pleased to see you,” Ariel remarked. “He’s been spending a deal of time in Harwich. Difficulties with the shipyards.”
    “What kind of difficulties?”
    “He wouldn’t confide in me, brother. Ralph doesn’t believe that women could or should have opinions on business matters,” she said sweetly.
    Ranulf made no comment. Privately he considered his youngest brother a fool. Ariel was as quick and knowledgeable as any of them when it came to estate matters or the family shipyards. But fraternal solidarity wouldn’t permit him to criticize a brother in front of their younger sister.
    The gray mass of Ravenspeare Castle rose from the flatlands, towers and buttresses blending with the low clouds, its parapets hanging over the broad river that wound its way through the fens to the Atlantic Ocean.
    The party of riders clattered over a drawbridge, now more ornamental than defensive, and into the inner court. Once it had been a gloomy spot with high, moss-covered walls and ground perpetually damp from the oozing wetlands, and even now, with a lush green lawn surrounded by a gravel path to provide a garden atmosphere, and the castle windows glassed and sparkling, it retained some of its past menace. The creepers that covered the forbidding walls did little to soften the effect of the numerous arrow slits.
    They dismounted and Ranulf said brusquely to his sister, “I would discuss this business that concerns you immediately.”
    Ariel felt the first flicker of apprehension. Only something of far-reaching importance would have brought her brother back from court before his appointed time. She didn’t trust any of her brothers, Ranulf least of all. He was utterly ruthless when his own interests were at stake, and if she was somehow bound up in those interests, then she could be facing trouble.
    None of this showed in her face, however, as she handed her horse to Edgar and followed her brothers into the castle, the wolfhounds at her heels. They were like small ponies, their heads on a level with her waist, and they went nowhere without her, as their mistress went nowhere without them.
    Two fires burned in massive fireplaces at either end of the Great Hall, but it did little to take the damp chill off the air in the cavernous vaulted space. Ranulf, pulling off his gloves, led the way into a smaller room, where the stone walls were covered with wood paneling, tapestries atop that, and the roaring fire had a chance against the raw damp of the fens.
    “Bring mulled wine,” Ranulf threw at the footman who had followed them into the room and now stood bowing in the doorway. The earl tossed his gloves and whip on a chair and bent to warm his hands at the fire. Roland joined him and they