My Hero by Glynnis Campbell

Author:Glynnis Campbell
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Medieval
Published: 2012-02-04T11:16:26+00:00

CHAPTER 13

Sleep was the last thing on Garth’s mind after they returned and he lay on his bed, gazing out the window at the stars. Outside, the cricket’s songs slowed as the air grew chill. From the distant wood, a nightingale’s call rose.

Somewhere, in another part of the castle, Lady Cynthia slumbered. He could imagine the coppery sprawl of her hair across her pillow, the soft brush of her lashes upon her cheek, the deep rise and fall of her bosom as she breathed. The moonlight would bathe her in silver. And she’d sleep like a child—deeply, dreamlessly—after the arduous day she’d endured.

Meanwhile, he lay awake, haunted by doubt, enthralled by desire.

Cynthia Wendeville was an enigma. Walking among those with the dread disease like a saint among sinners, she toiled with her hands and her heart and every last ounce of her strength. She was an angel of mercy come to sully her hands on their ills, and she worked with no complaint, no expectation of reward, even when, by the end of the day, the villagers had drained her completely, like innocent but greedy babes suckling at her breast.

And yet, that strange ritual…

Was she God’s instrument? Or the devil’s?

His loins would have him believe the latter. Not in all his youth had lust struck him such a powerful blow.

He sat up, wrenching the feather bolster from beneath his head and hurling it toward the foot of the bed. He’d find no rest tonight. Plowing a hand through his hair, he trudged to the window. The moonlight illuminated the trees in ghostly shades of white and gray and spilled like milk over the stone still. From the wood shone a pair of glowing orbs, the slow blinking eyes of an owl on the hunt.

Then his eyes caught movement along the inner wall of the castle. He frowned, dropping back out of sight to watch.

A slight cloaked figure slipped through the shadows, a cloth sack over one shoulder, the face concealed by a hood. A young lad? Nay, a woman, probably en route to some tryst or another.

The thought irritated him, but not as much as it intrigued him. And the fact that it intrigued him made him even more irritable. While he was sorting out the convoluted knot of that logic, the figure stepped momentarily into a patch of light.

Every muscle in Garth’s body tensed.

Clutched in the figure’s distinctly feminine hand, flashing in the moonlight, was something long and sharp and silver.

Climbing out through the window was the first impulsive thing he’d done in years. Stealing across the sward in bare feet was the second. Neither choice was prudent. He snagged his cassock on the stone sill, giving anyone who happened to be watching a clear view of his naked hindquarters as he slid to the ground. And his unshod feet slipped on the cold wet grass. But he dared not lose sight of the girl with the blade.

He shadowed her, ducking into the dark twice when she turned warily at some sound, until she stopped in the middle of the courtyard, before the herb garden.

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