Ariel didn't dignify this truth with a reply. It was certainly the case that if she told a direct lie, the evidence blazed from her cheeks for all to see. As a result she had perfected the art of lying by omission and was remarkably skillful at avoiding direct questions that might require an inconvenient answer.

"These special horses of yours. Are they a particular strain?" Simon inquired, diplomatically changing the subject.

"They're Arabians," she replied shortly. "It's a harmless enough hobby. Gives me something to do besides sewing fine seams."

"Are you skilled with a needle?" A laugh trembled in his voice as they crossed the stableyard.

Ariel gave him a look of disgust that was answer enough.

"I didn't think so," he said, grinning. He ducked into the low building and waited for his eyes to become accustomed to the dim light. An elderly groom ambled up the aisle toward them.

"You found them dogs yet, m'lady?"

"No. I'll go into the paddock and call them in a minute." Her forehead was creased with worry. "Edgar, this is the earl of Hawkesmoor… my husband," she added after an infinitesimal pause.

Edgar pulled his forelock but his shrewd eyes examined his lordship with a pitiless clarity. "You want t' take a look, m'lord?"

"If I may." Simon walked slowly along the stalls, pausing to look in at each one.

Ariel remained with Edgar. "Did the colt get off all right?"

"Aye," he said, his eyes still observing the earl.

"My brother hasn't appeared this morning?"

Edgar shook his head. "Like as not he's enough to do wi' gettin' 'imself up and about, I'd say."

Ariel smiled sourly. "They sat late, I suppose. The start of the hunt will be delayed."

"Aye, like as not," Edgar said with the same placidity. "What does yer 'usband know about the animals?" He gestured with his head to Simon, who was now at the far end of the building.

Ariel shrugged. "The same as everyone else. They're a harmless hobby of mine."

Simon couldn't hear what the groom and Ariel were saying to each other, but he sensed a complicity between them, and a certain importance to the conversation. He paused, looking in on a pregnant mare in the farthest stall. She was a beautiful animal, as indeed they all were. Very special. Ariel hadn't been exaggerating. But what could such a young thing know about the science of horse breeding? And yet, judging by the results of her efforts, she clearly knew exactly what she was doing.

He limped back to them. "Very impressive, my dear. Are you breeding them to race?"

Ariel flushed again in the shadowy light. "Perhaps," she said.

"Ah." He nodded slowly, watching her face. "Are you finding buyers for them?"

"They're mine," Ariel said in a rush. "I have no interest in selling them. Why would I?" She walked away with swift step toward one of the stalls.

"Why indeed?" he agreed with a lift of one mobile eyebrow. "Horse trading is hardly the province of an earl's daughter, let alone an earl's wife." Ariel made no response, so he continued, raising his voice a little as she was still moving away from him, "We must make arrangements to have them transported to Hawkesmoor Manor. There's no stable as well ordered as this to accommodate them at present, but I'll give order that one be built without delay."

Ariel stared down at the straw-laden floor. Hardly the province of an earl's wife. Of course he would think that. Everyone would think that. But there was no denying the generosity of his offer. If she was truly wedded to him and they were truly to set up a life together, then his offer to accommodate her horses in style had been most open-handed. Of course, she couldn't tell him that he would be wasting his time and his money on such a project. When she left Ravenspeare Castle with her horses, they would be going somewhere quite other than Hawkesmoor Manor.

He seemed to be waiting for a reply, so she said as naturally as she could manage, "That is most considerate of you, my lord. Most generous."

"Not in the least. I am perfectly happy to accommodate my wife's hobbies," he responded with a bland smile. "Edgar, I assume you will wish to take up service in my household? Lady Hawkesmoor would be loath to do without your help. Isn't that so, my dear?"

"Indeed," Ariel said, still keeping her face averted. "I couldn't manage the stud without Edgar."

"Then we must come to an agreement satisfactory to all parties."

This easy, natural generosity was too much for Ariel. Why couldn't the man be the pompous, uncivilized, puritanical boor she had expected? Why did he have to be so… so…? Oh, it was impossible to describe! "Excuse me. I'm going to the paddock to call the dogs."

She brushed past him, her face turned away, and vanished into the bright light of the yard.

Edgar pulled his chin and began to suck on a straw. Simon after a minute followed Ariel outside. There was no sign of her, and he began to limp toward the paddock gate.

"No! No!" Ariel's anguished scream of outrage and denial shivered through the crisp morning air. Grooms dropped their brooms and buckets. Edgar raced out of the stable block toward the paddock. Simon, his heart cold, cursed his lameness as he forced himself to walk faster toward the gate.

Chapter Ten

Ariel was at the far end of the paddock, a scarlet hunched figure on the ground. From the distance, Simon could make out the gray shape of one of her hounds. He forced himself to move more quickly, although the grass was thick and wet, riddled with molehills set to snag a hesitant foot or a misplaced cane. As he drew closer he made out another long gray shape in the grass. His stomach turned to acid.

Edgar had reached Ariel minutes before Simon came up to them. He too was kneeling in the wet grass beside the gray shapes.

Ariel looked up as Simon reached her side. Her eyes were living coals in a deathly white face, her lips were blue, her nose pinched. "How could anyone do such a thing?" she cried, her voice a long, sobbing moan of distress. She was sitting in the grass, both handsome great heads resting in her lap.

Simon saw immediately that the animals were still alive, although clearly suffering. Their eyes were open but rolling with pain, and green slime oozed from their hanging mouths. "What is it?"

"Poison!" she said, and now the despair had left her voice, replaced with an icy hardness. "I won't know what kind until I find the source, but we have to get them back to the stables. I can do nothing for them here." She beckoned one of the stable lads who stood gawping helplessly to one side. "Tim, fetch a cart. Quickly, boy!" she snapped when he seemed not to hear her.

The lad took off at a run. Simon awkwardly bent over the dogs. They looked far gone to him and his instinct was to put them out of their agony with a merciful bullet. "What do you think you can do for them, Ariel? Wouldn't it be kinder-"

"No, damn you!" she cried, her eyes blazing at him. "I will not give up on them. They're big animals, with the body weight of a human being. It takes a lot to kill them. I must try to do something to save them. Don't you see that?"

He ran a hand through his hair and looked down at the pitiful sight. Such magnificent beasts brought so low. "How could it have happened?"

"Ranulf," she spat out. "And I'll get even with him for this. I swear it on my mother's grave. I know the signs," she said, her face closed and hard. "It's arsenic or nux vomica." She stroked the dogs' heads the whole time she spoke, and her voice now was low and considering, as if she were speaking her thoughts and conclusions as they came to her. "But the dose must be carefully measured to be effective. Romulus and Remus would need a dose sufficient to kill a man. Ranulf may have miscalculated. I have to try!"

"I understand," he said quietly. He walked away, poking through the grass, looking for some clue as to what the dogs could have eaten. He found it in a ditch a few paces away from where the animals had fallen. He poked at the sheep's carcass with his cane. It was not fresh and had a strange bluish tinge to it. They didn't seem to have made too much of a meal of it, however. Perhaps its rotting condition had put them off.

He called Ariel over to look at the carcass. After a moment of investigation, she straightened and said, "I think it's nux vomica. If they can void the filth, it may not be too late." Ariel turned back to the dogs, her face set.

The cart had arrived, pulled by an old dapple gray mare who had seen better days. She stood, head hanging wearily, as the dogs were lifted onto the bed of the cart. Ariel clambered up beside them, taking their heads in her lap again.

In the stableyard, Ariel directed the lads to lift the dogs down and lay them on thick beds of fresh straw in the barn.

She didn't wait to see her orders carried out but ran as if the devil were on her heels back to the house.

"Of all the filthy bastard tricks." Edgar was mumbling as he bent over the hounds, gently easing their heads into the straw. "They're bleedin' devils, those Ravenspeares. May they all burn in hellfire!"

"You're both so certain who was responsible." Simon leaned against an upturned rainwater butt, easing his bad leg. His eyes were as cold as glacier ice.

"Aye," Edgar returned flatly. "Mean and vicious to a one. The dirtier the trick, the better they like it."

"I'll need help, Edgar." Ariel arrived breathless, speaking even as she dropped to her knees beside the animals, setting down a funnel and two jugs brimming with a vile-smelling liquid.

"What can I do?" Simon eased himself to his knees with an indrawn breath of pain.

Ariel glanced quickly at him. "This is no work for you, my lord," she said dismissively. "I must purge them of the foul matter. Even if you don't mind getting your hands dirty, I doubt you'll be willing to ruin your clothes."

"I'm not the lightweight you think me," he retorted. "Edgar must lift the head while I open the jaws. You may then pour down whatever emetic you have in that jug."

"Salt, mustard, and senna," she said.

Simon grimaced, but positioned himself to hold open the jaws of the hound whose head Edgar now held in the crook of his arm.

Her lips tight in concentration, Ariel inserted the funnel and slowly poured the thick liquid into the dog's mouth. The animal struggled weakly.

Simon gentled him with a soft crooning sound, massaging his throat so that Romulus swallowed convulsively. Ariel waited patiently until Simon had coaxed the last of the mouthful down his throat. Then she refilled the funnel. The dog's eyes rolled wildly and Simon knew that if the animal weren't so sick and feeble, he would have attacked them.

Ariel could see it too, but she spoke softly as she poured with a steady hand. Simon massaged the throat, and eventually the contents of the first jug had been absorbed by the dog.

"It'll start to work in a minute," Ariel said. "But we must treat Remus now."

The process was repeated this time to the accompaniment of Romulus's violent convulsions as he voided the contents of stomach and bowel into the straw, helpless to move himself. The mess splattered everywhere, but Ariel was completely unaware, and even when the last drops had disappeared down Remus's throat, she remained sitting in the straw between the two beasts, stroking their sweat-lathered necks and flanks, whispering to them almost in a lullaby.

Finally it was over and the animals lay with closed eyes, barely breathing. Simon stood looking down at them, hoping Ariel's heroic efforts hadn't merely caused them more suffering.

Ariel remained with the dogs' heads on her lap. They were quiet now, the sweat drying on their matted fur. "They can't rest like this," she said. "We must clean them up and then move them to fresh straw."

"Ariel, my dear, they're dying." Simon couldn't bear it any longer. He bent down to rest his hands on her shoulders. "Don't you see that? Leave them in peace now."

Ariel pushed his hands from her shoulders with a rough jerk that nearly unbalanced him. "They are not dying. Do you think I don't know what I'm doing?" She glared at him through the honeyed curtain of tumbled hair. Her face was streaked with dirt, her eyes bright with the residue of tears, sweat beaded her brow. "Do you think you know better than I do?"

It was a startling question. Simon ran a hand over the back of his neck. "I have some knowledge of horses and dogs," he said. "Army life teaches one such things."