A Perfect Knight for Love by Jackie Ivie

Author:Jackie Ivie [Ivie, Jackie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Medieval
Published: 2012-07-29T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 15

She didn’t know what she’d expected, but it wasn’t this. Well . . . some of it.

She’d expected a seemingly endless series of steps in the tower Sean entered at a jog. It was impersonal but odd-feeling to be carried by a stranger. He didn’t look at her when he stopped as they reached the tower, huffed a few breaths, jounced her as if resettling her, and then started climbing countless wide stone steps that spiraled up into the darkness. She only toyed with asking him to set her down. Speaking to him seemed even more intimate. So she kept silent, chewed on her lip, and looked about her.

The wheel-stair was a spiral, the walls of huge blocked stone, although there were shields and tapestries and weapons displayed intermittently on the walls, interspersed with lit torches in their sconces. The inner walls were also hewn of stone, although it was white instead of the dark gray. She guessed that was for reflection purposes, from any daylight that might filter through the arrow slits, and from the torches.

The stairs felt endless, causing her to surmise Thayne’s chamber must be located atop the Great Hall, but she hadn’t been counting and had no idea how many Sean kept climbing. It didn’t truly matter. She’d know soon enough. There was an alcove every time the stairs ran along the outer barbican wall of the castle. At each junction, there were long corridors fanning out on either side, disappearing into torch-cast gloom, as well as angled alcoves cut into what looked to be at least twelve feet of rock. The alcoves were triangular in shape, fanning from room size to just wide enough for two archers to stand, each pointing their missiles in a differing direction. There were furnishings in them as well. Rolled pallets against walls. Tables. Benches. Some were occupied, too, by kilt-clad MacGowan men sporting weaponry and nodding before turning back to the view. Amalie avoided meeting any glances from anyone.

They passed two of those defense alcoves, with gloom-filled corridors leading from them. She took another guess that these were halls connecting the castle dwellings, built alongside, or into the walls. They were dark. Impossible to penetrate even if she tried and Sean kept climbing without stopping. At the third one he stopped, huffed for more breaths and resettled her again, cradling her legs atop his arms without causing the slightest reaction to being carried by a strange male. Instinctively her body must know it wasn’t Thayne. That was worrisome, but no more than the instant thought of what he’d promised would take place tonight.

Tonight!

The word sent a shiver through her. If Sean felt it he didn’t remark on it as he turned into a corridor, walked ten steps into it before turning to his right. They’d reached a large doorway leading back toward the center of the complex. It looked to be the same twelve feet in thickness. Amalie guessed this could be where the Norman Keep had been attached to the outer wall as Thayne had told her.

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