Trapped at the Altar Read Free Page B

somewhat mistily. “They will destroy your family and everything you hold dear if you dared to do such a thing. I couldn’t let that happen.”
    â€œBut I cannot lose you, Ari . . . my love, I will die without you.”
    She regarded him steadily. “No, you won’t. But you may well die with me. We will find another way, Gabriel. I will not lose you, but for the moment, I must at least seem to be compliant. The marriage is not to take place for a week. I will think of something between now and then.”
    He looked at her in horror. “A week . . . just a week.”
    â€œYes, but don’t worry. A week is a long time to come up with an idea.” She stood on tiptoe and kissed the corner of his mouth. “I should go. If I’m missed, they’ll send out the dogs.”
    â€œDogs?”
    She laughed shortly. “Yes, they do have them, but I meant it metaphorically. I don’t want to arouse suspicions.” Except that Ivor knew the truth. He didn’t need suspicions. But he wouldn’t betray her, surely?
    And with a sickening feeling, Ariadne realized she was no longer sure of that. He had discovered her liaison by accident when she had climbed the cliff one day a few weeks earlier to visit the secret place where she and Gabriel left messages for each other. It had been raining, and most of the valley’s inhabitants were within doors, no one watching the track she habitually took up the cliff. The rain had made the path slippery, and she had been concentrating on watching her step on the treacherous shale, peering intently at the ground from beneath the thick hood of her cloak drawn low over her forehead. She hadn’t been aware of anyone following her until she had reached the cliff top and was lifting the flat stone that revealed a small indentation in the earth.
    â€œWhat are you doing up here in such wretched weather?”
    Ivor’s voice had startled her so much her heart had seemed to jump into her throat, and the folded sheet of parchment that she was taking out of the hole had fallen from her fingers. Ivor had bent swiftly and retrieved it before she could do so herself.
    She could see again the intense, questioning blue eyes as he’d held the paper out to her, his voice unusually hard. “What is this?”
    â€œJust a letter.” She had made to thrust it into the inside pocket of her cloak, but he had stayed her hand, his longfingers curling around her wrist. Not painfully but firmly enough to mean business.
    â€œWho from? Why would you be conducting a clandestine correspondence up here, Ari?”
    She had shrugged with an assumption of carelessness. “I met someone on a walk a few weeks ago. We talked, enjoyed each other’s company, and when we want to meet again, we leave messages, under the stone here.”
    â€œI see.” He had frowned. “May I ask who this person is?”
    â€œI’m not sure it’s any of your business.” Her voice had been tart. “What I do, whom I see, and where I go are of no consequence to you, Ivor.”
    â€œThey are of consequence to your grandfather,” he had reminded her, still holding her wrist. “I rather think he would disapprove, don’t you?”
    â€œProbably. Certainly, I would prefer it if you didn’t mention anything about this, Ivor.” She had heard the cajoling note in her voice and hoped she hadn’t sounded too desperate.
    Ivor had shaken his head. “Why would I? But who is it, Ari? Just satisfy my curiosity that far.”
    And because they were friends and she trusted him, thought of him as her closest friend and ally, she had told him all about Gabriel, about how they had met by chance in the spinney one afternoon, how they had seen each other regularly ever since . . . about the poetry he had written her. And Ivor had not shown any emotion at all. He had warned her to be careful and during the