[1997] Once and Future Love by Anne Kelleher

Author:Anne Kelleher [Kelleher, Anne]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Romance, General Fiction
ISBN: 9780515124095
Google: 8LSMYoCzcmMC
Barnesnoble:
Goodreads: 672830
Publisher: Jove
Published: 1998-07-15T06:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 14

The rising sun tickled his lids. Richard opened his eyes. A small fire hissed in the grate. In the chair beside the hearth, Eleanor leaned upon her hand. Her eyes were closed and she was breathing deeply, her head nodding gently back and forth. He raised himself on one arrn and tried to remember the events of the previous night.

He remembered little but dark and cold and confusion, the shouts of charging men, the crack of steel hitting armor and bone. He remembered the way the horses had screamed, the way the light had glinted off the edges of weapons. And he remembered the sickening thuds and the moans of the wounded and dying.

He shook his head as if to clear it. How had Eleanor come to be there? Where were Geoffrey and the rest of his companions? And who had attacked them?

He swung his legs cautiously around the side of the bed, and reached for the robe at the foot. He belted the cloth sash around his waist and knelt in front of Eleanor. “Lady?” he whispered, loath to wake her. Beneath her eyes, dark circles smudged her pale cheeks. Her hair was tied back in a loose tail, and she wore only a shift and a ragged dressing gown.

She started awake. “My lord,” she murmured. She looked terrified.

He smiled. She had been very brave to risk herself like that and he was so glad to see her. But she looked back at him with such blatant fear, he hesitated to touch her. “How are you this morning?”

She straightened, undoing and then redoing her hair in just a few fast motions. “I’m well…‌How are you?”

He rocked backward and got to his feet. He was sore in all the old places, and quite a few new ones, too. “I’m all right—better than I probably should be. I was wondering how I got here—I don’t remember much. Can you tell me what happened last night? Was I dreaming that it was you in the wood? With—” He searched his memory. “Sir John?”

She lowered her eyes. “Yes, my lord. That was me.”

“Eleanor? Are you mad? You could’ve been killed…‌in the dark, in the…‌what were you thinking?” He sank down beside her again, and tilted her chin up to his, reminded once more how different she was from Lucy. And yet…‌Lucy never shied away from a verbal fray…‌especially if someone she loved was threatened.

“I couldn’t sit back and do nothing.” She knotted her fingers together. “Not that I belonged there, I know that. Sir John said he’d never seen the like before. You killed at least a dozen of them by yourself. And when Geoffrey fell, you stood over his body until Sir John himself pulled you away—”

“Geoffrey fell? How is he? How badly was he wounded?” This was not good. He was relying on Geoffrey to maintain the interface between himself and the men at arms.

She dropped her eyes. “I—I am so sorry to be the one to tell you, my lord.

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