The Dark Rider by Mary Balogh

Author:Mary Balogh [Balogh, Mary]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Romance
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 1994-01-02T00:00:00+00:00

She awoke feeling so sad that there was pain. She had been crying, she realized, reaching up a hand and touching the wetness of her cheeks. She had been dreaming. Edgar had been sitting on the side of her bed and leaning over her, brushing back the hair from her face with a warm and gentle hand. And then he had kissed her as lightly and as lingeringly as he had done when he escorted her to her room—and with parted lips again so that it had seemed a marvelously intimate kiss despite its lightness.

There had been more, too. He had undone the buttons of her nightgown and slid his hand inside, along the flesh below her shoulder just above her breast. Even in her dream she had not dared imagine his hand moving lower, though she realized now that both breast were peaked and almost painful to the touch.

She felt infinitely sad. Two more hot tears over and ran diagonally down her cheeks as she lay with closed eyes trying to recapture the dream. But it had been a wonderful dream, if somewhat lascivious. Why had it made her so sad? Was there part of it that she could not remember? Had he said something? His mouth and his hand had been tender. Surely he could not have said anything to contradict what they had told her.

But no, of course, she thought, and she opened her eyes. The terrible sadness did not come from the dream or from inside herself. It came from the room. It was all about her, a drenching sadness and longing that had penetrated even her sleep and her pleasant dream.

If the sad lady was fading away, she had made a full reappearance for All Hallows' Eve. Dinah could feel all the agony of her indecision and longing, of her timidity that she could not make up her mind to convert into boldness. And if the agony was so intense, Dinah thought, then the lady must be being enticed again. The dark rider must be there outside.

The thought made her realize fully that she had been sleeping when she had intended to wait up for him. Her heart beating with excitement, almost as if it were she he was coming for instead of the sad lady, she swung her legs over the side of the bed and darted to the window. And yet she did not have to pull aside the curtains. They were half opened already. But they had been closed when she came to bed, Dinah thought, stopping short of the window. She knew because she had had to pull one aside to gaze out into the darkness and had been very careful afterward to lap one over the other so that no chink of light would show between them in the morning.

Her heart beat a little faster and she stepped forward to occupy the narrow space that would give her a view out. She looked down, almost afraid that he would not be there and that she would have to admit that her imagination had become overactive.

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