Blue Heaven, Black Night by Heather Graham

Author:Heather Graham [Graham, Heather]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kensington
Published: 2017-05-03T04:00:00+00:00

XV

September 15, 1189

Montoui

Elise had never been so glad to see the stalwart ramparts of her castle rise against the blue morning sky.

Traveling with the sisters had indeed been safe, but it had also been painstakingly slow. A journey that should have taken her no more than seven or eight days had taken two full weeks. Sister Agnes Maria had suffered from severe corns, and Sister Anna Theresa had become the victim of painful blisters—upon her posterior, no less—and so the party had stopped many times, unable either to walk or ride.

The nights had been misery, spent in crowded hostels that were more often than not stale, dank, and dirty. But it had been more than the poor conditions that had kept Elise awake; as the others found the peace of sleep, her mind haunted her with battle. She could not forget the last moments she had spent with Bryan. But even as the picture rose of his stalwart concern for the injured, a new one replaced it. Bryan . . . and his fury on the night they had met. Bryan . . . with the taunt of triumph in his eyes when they had stood in the chapel.

Bending low over Gwyneth’s hand, a tenderness that he had never directed at her softening the severity of his features.

Sometimes, when she had lain between the snoring nuns, she had found herself digging her nails into the bedding, touched by a strange bolt of heat that was followed by shivers that threatened to rattle her teeth. Heat caused by memory of his kiss that day in the chapel, a memory that combined with another hazy image, that of the night in the hunting lodge, and she would feel again as if she were swept by the maelstrom of the storm, and seared by the warmth of the fire.

When morning would come and she would awaken from broken and restless sleep, she would be more tired than when she had lain down the night before. Irritability would become the smoldering anger that was ever ready to rise, and she would be more than ever determined that she would best Bryan Stede.

The night before last had finally brought them across the Channel and to the Continent. Fine armored men, decked in the colors and emblems of Montoui, had been there to meet them. She and Jeanne had parted company with the sisters, after seeing that their cloister would be well endowed.

And now . . .

Now she could see the parapets, towers, and ramparts of home, so proud and beautiful against the rolling green landscape. Elise began to laugh with the sheer pleasure of at long last returning to the land that was hers, and she spun her mare about to accost her maid cheerfully.

“Jeanne! We’re almost there! Ah, for a long bath and a night’s sleep without the sound of snoring and being elbowed off the bed by Sister Anna Theresa!”

Jeanne smiled vaguely, but made no reply. Elise frowned at Jeanne’s lack of enthusiasm, then shrugged and turned about to spur her mare forward once again.

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