The Silver Rose (6 page)

She crossed the clearing, keeping a wary distance between herself and the figure thrashing in the net high above her. If Simon noticed her, he ventured no remark other than a grunt as he struggled to free his boot from a hole in the net.

Miri darted toward the track that led to the glade. Simon’s frightened horse could be anywhere by this time. She was relieved to discover that the mare had not strayed that far. She had no idea what could have curbed the horse’s natural instinct to take flight in the face of danger. The mare waited only a few yards down the path, looking very wet and forlorn, trembling, with no idea where to go or what to do.

Miri approached cautiously. Although the mare’s eyes were dark with fear and misery, she made no effort to pull back when Miri took hold of the bit beneath the bridle. Miri comforted the creature as best she could with the low crooning song that had ever been her own special brand of magic.

She shivered, already soaked to the skin, her braid a sodden weight dangling down her back. Ignoring her own discomfort, she murmured reassurance to the horse as she sought to lead the mare back to the clearing.

“Everything is all right,” she cooed. “I am here to help you. Let me take you to someplace where you will be safe and dry.”

For the first time, the horse offered resistance, rolling its eyes back, one word emerging from the jumbled chaos of its thoughts.
“Free . . . free.”

“Of course, you will be free. I’ve liberated many of your brethren from cruel or careless masters. You are bound to serve that horrid witch-hunter no longer.”

The mare gave an impatient stamp of her hoof, her urgent thought communicating to Miri more clearly.
“Free . . . him. Free him!”

Miri was so astounded she nearly released the bridle. The mare was not afraid
of
Simon, but
for
him. Frightened, confused by the trap, the horse had not known how to help her rider, but she had been unwilling to desert him either.

Miri shook the rainwater from her face, not knowing how to respond to the mare’s desperate plea. The sharp crack of a branch carried to her ears above the wind and the steady drum of the rain.

Miri spun about, her heart leaping into her throat at the sight of the towering figure crashing through the break in the clearing. She had no need to think of a response to the mare’s plea to free Simon. He had somehow managed to do that himself.

Silhouetted by another flash of lightning, the witch-hunter was a figure of nightmare, dark clothing plastered to the hard contours of his body, his black hair snarled in wet tangles across his ravaged face, rain dripping from his beard, his mouth set in a taut white line.

Miri dropped the reins and snatched the knife from her belt. “Keep back or I swear I will—will—”

“Will what? Kill me?”

It was like a horrible echo from the past, hurtling Miri back through years to that night in Paris, that moment in the Charters Inn when she had held Simon at bay with her pistol. His response now was the same as it had been then. He kept coming.

“You want to plunge that knife into me? Go ahead. I won’t try to stop you. Look! I’m not even wearing my mail coat.” He tore open his jerkin and shirt, baring a slash of his hard-muscled chest, the dark mat of hair glistening against his rain-soaked skin.

She stumbled back, slamming up against the rough bark of a tree, the solid elm allowing her no further retreat. She raised the knife, tightening her grip on the hilt.

“Stay back, Aristide! I mean it!”

Simon closed the distance between them in one long stride, drawing so near the tip of her blade rested over the region of his heart. His hand came up and Miri braced herself, expecting him to wrestle the knife from her grasp.

To her astonishment, he laid his palm alongside her cheek.

“Go ahead and do it,” he said in a voice ragged with weariness. “Someone’s going to finish me off sooner or later. It might as well be you.”

Miri swallowed hard, fighting to cling to her anger and resentment, to remember all that Simon had cost her, the loss of her trust, her home, her family, the destruction he had brought to Faire Isle. But another flare of lightning afforded her a glimpse of his face, of Simon Aristide, the man she had convinced herself no longer had a soul. And yet she could see the loneliness, the torment, the exhaustion of his spirit, trapped in the depths of that single dark eye.

He was not merely goading her as he had done that time in Paris. Some part of Simon truly did not care whether he lived or died. Miri wondered despairingly how they had come to this, that innocent boy and girl who had first met on a midnight hillside. Simon, who had learned to hold life so cheap, including his own, and her not much better, a daughter of the earth threatening to kill.

A tremor coursed through her and she lowered her hand, allowing the knife to slip from her fingers and thud to the ground. Twisting away from him, she closed her eyes, assailed by that strong rush of emotion Simon had always inflicted upon her, anger and sorrow, hurt and a frustrated longing for what might have been.

“Damn you to hell,” she cried, hot tears trickling from her eyes to mingle with the cold rain.

“Too late.”

“W-what?”

She started when he touched her cheek, brushing away the moisture with the rough pad of his thumb. “Your curse, my dear. It comes far too late. I’ve been in hell for quite some time.”

Miri trembled so badly, her knees might have given way if Simon had not braced her by grasping her shoulders. She stiffened, resisting, but he drew her gently, inexorably into his arms. No matter how she despised herself for it, she was weak enough to rest her brow against his shoulder. His large hand engulfed the back of her head as he stroked her hair, murmuring something about it being all right.

“All right?” she choked. “Do you realize I’ve never held a weapon in my hand, never tried to hurt anyone until you came along?”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

Damn him for sounding as though he meant that, Miri thought. So much for all of her fierce boasting to Marie Claire, that she would know how to deal with Simon the next time she encountered him.

How appalled Marie Claire would be to see her cradled in the witch-hunter’s arms. To say nothing of how Ariane and Gabrielle would react. It was the thought of her sisters that gave Miri the strength to draw back, shove Simon away from her.

Mopping tears and rain from her face, she fought through her confused jumble of feelings, focusing on the only thing that made sense to her, the mare that stood trembling nearby.

“Your horse is cold and frightened,” she informed Simon tersely. “We need to get her in out of the rain.”

T
HE SMALL BARN
behind the cottage was snug and dry, the air redolent with scents that Miri had long found soothing and familiar, sweet hay and warm horse. Shivering in her wet clothes, Miri gestured toward the only empty stall. Simon eased his nervous mount inside. It was a strange aftermath to their conflict, this working in silent harmony to look after the mare Simon called Elle. But Miri suspected that they both found it easier to deal with the horse’s needs than each other.

Willow thrust his head over the door of his stall and whickered softly, the stolid pony more curious than alarmed by the intruders in his barn. But the pigeons that roosted in the rafters had gone silent. Miri could sense them up there in the shadows, watching warily with their beady eyes. Her birds were fully as disturbed as she was by the invasion of Simon Aristide.

As Miri rummaged about through her tack box for some towels, she studied Simon out of the corner of her eye. He seemed like a stranger, fitting none of her memories of him, neither the handsome boy who had once figured in her dreams nor the dreaded Le Balafre who had formed her nightmares.

He looked older, wearier, his wet hair slicked back from his brow, throwing his beard-coarsened jaw and scarred face into sharp relief. When she had last seen Simon, he had been shaved bald, determined to look as grim as possible, to intimidate everyone who crossed his path, including her.

But nothing could have been gentler than the way Simon handled his horse. The mare was still spooked, blowing and trembling.

“Easy now. Easy, my beautiful lady,” he crooned, caressing the mare’s neck with long firm strokes. “It’s all over. You’re all right now.”

Miri watched him with a kind of wonder. Never had she known Aristide to display such affection to anyone.

You know that is not true,
the voice of memory whispered in her ear, recalling a stolen moment in a secluded cove so long ago, the breeze from the channel stirring the black curls of Simon’s hair, his handsome young face as smooth as her own.

Simon leaned forward and Miri’s heart missed a beat when she realized what he intended to do. She shyly tipped up her face, closing her eyes. Simon touched his mouth to hers, so lightly, but the kiss seemed to blossom inside her, sweet and warm.

Her very first kiss . . . Simon had been so tender, as tender as he was being now. Miri caught her breath, cutting off the thought.

“Don’t start doing that again. Looking for things in Simon that aren’t there,”
she adjured herself. Miri carried the towels over to him, taking great care to keep an arm’s length away.

“There now, Elle. You are safe. You have nothing to fear.” As the mare calmed beneath his hands, Simon turned to Miri. “
You
have nothing to be afraid of either.”

“That is a strange assurance to come from someone who once did his best to terrorize me and my entire family.”

“That was a long time ago, almost ten years. I—I have many regrets about that summer.”

“And perhaps your chief one is that you never charged me with witchcraft. So is that why you are here? To finally remedy your error.”

“No.” Simon frowned as he loosened the straps of Elle’s saddle. “After all this time, I hoped you would have realized I never wanted to hurt
you.
”

Miri regarded him incredulously. “Thanks to you, the king of France attainted my entire family for sorcery and treason. We had to flee into exile while the crown confiscated Renard’s estates on the mainland. They even took Belle Haven, my family home that was handed down through generations of daughters of the earth, the land that was never any man’s to take. And I can’t even begin to describe what you did to Faire Isle itself, turning it into a place I don’t even recognize anymore.

“God help me, Simon, if you ever did decide you
wanted
to hurt me.”

“Miri, I—” He broke off, apparently realizing the futility of anything he could say. But his face was shadowed with regret as he stripped off Elle’s saddle.

“You might as well have charged me with witchcraft, too,” she persisted. “Why didn’t you?”

Simon propped Elle’s saddle up in a corner. “Because I believed you were innocent.”

“No more innocent than many other women you persecuted, including my own sisters. So why did you always insist upon sparing me?”

“I don’t know.” Simon’s lips quirked into a rueful half-smile. “Perhaps because you have always been my one weakness.”

Just as Miri feared he had always been hers, but she was not about to admit that to him. She thrust one of the towels into his hand. Thunder boomed outside but to Miri, it seemed as nothing compared to the tension crackling inside the barn. As Simon began to rub down Elle’s flanks, Miri tried to towel off the animal’s neck, but the horse shied back in alarm, nearly stepping on Simon.

“Whoa,” he called, patting the mare reassuringly. “What’s the matter, Elle?”

Peering into the mare’s wide brown eye, Miri could tell at once.

“She’s afraid of me now,” Miri said in a small voice. “Because she saw me try to hurt you.”

Simon stroked the mare until she calmed again. “My poor Elle,” he murmured “She ought to be used to people attempting to kill me.”

“It—it happens that often?”

“Often enough,” came his wry reply.

The information provided her with a disturbing glimpse into what Simon had become, the object of hatred, isolation. Why did he travel alone? Why was he no longer surrounded by an army of men to protect him? Miri fiercely reminded herself that it was none of her concern. The last thing she wanted was to feel any interest or empathy with the man.

When he went back to toweling Elle down, she approached the horse with more caution, gradually winning back her trust, until she was able to dry off the mare’s powerful chest. Miri knew she’d be better off not knowing, but she could not stop herself from asking. “So how did you know where to find me? Who did you bribe?”

“Some sour-faced creature. Madame Elan was her name, I believe.”

“Madame Alain,” Miri corrected, more saddened than angered. “Of course it would be Josephine. I only hope you paid her well. She has a large family to support and things have not prospered on Faire Isle. People from the mainland have been afraid to come here since your raids and our trade has fallen off badly.”

Simon paused in his vigorous toweling to peer gravely at her. “The lack of trade has nothing to do with what happened ten years ago, Miri. People have little goods or money to barter. Have you been to the mainland recently? Crops are failing because of the drought, livestock dropping in the fields. Gangs of desperate people rove the lanes, ready to attack each other for a crust of bread. Faire Isle is not the only place enduring hard times. This island is no different from the rest of France.”