The Hidden Heart by Sharon Schulze

Author:Sharon Schulze [Schulze, Sharon]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Romance
ISBN: 9781460857670
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 1998-12-31T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fourteen

Rannulf’s words sent a wave of betrayal through Gillian, thrusting into her heart like a knife.

How could her father have told Rannulf, but not his own daughter? He could have told her any time in the past few years, or barring that, before he died. His death had not been sudden; he could have let her know….

If he’d wanted to.

The fact that he’d revealed the existence of this passageway to Rannulf—and who knew what else? a sad voice in her mind asked—exposed her father’s plans to her as clearly as if he’d blazoned them on the curtain wall for all to see. He’d believed Rannulf FitzClifford would wed her, be the son he’d never had, protect and defend what he’d labored so long to establish—the powerful Marcher keep of I’Eau Clair.

What else had her father concealed from her?

What else did Rannulf know about her home, her family, that she did not?

An insidious little voice in her mind taunted her. What if the words Rannulf had penned on the betrothal contract were true?

Her heartbeat skipped at the implications of that thought, at the complications that might tear her plans for a future, for children of her own, into shreds, though she knew in her heart that what Rannulf had claimed was naught but a foul lie.

“We cannot stay here all day,” Rannulf whispered. He reached out and took her hand, leaving her little choice but to go with him. “Come on.”

Despite the pain weighing her down, she couldn’t suppress an overwhelming curiosity about the passageway. As a child she and her playmates—her father’s pages, mostly—had explored I’Eau Clair from towers to cellar vaults, yet never had they discovered anything like this.

She gathered up her skirts in one hand, tightened her grasp on Rannulf’s warm, callused palm and climbed over the front of the seat onto steep wooden stairs.

“Let me go down first,” he said once she’d balanced herself on the first tread. “It’s little more than a ladder, and there’s nothing to hold on to.”

Leaning her back against the inside of the “chest,” Gillian watched as he swiftly descended the ladder, the candle flame steady, his steps sure.

How she missed her boyish garb, especially in situations such as this! Her women’s clothing, with its long, trailing sleeves and skirts, seemed designed to trip her up or pin her down. Although wearing proper attire made her more aware that she was a woman, at times she longed for the freedom of movement she’d once had.

In Rannulf’s presence, she’d be glad of anything that helped her forget she was a woman, for he reminded her of that fact far too often—and too easily.

He moved a few paces down the narrow corridor, his light revealing a short, fat candle stub on a pricket in the wall. A swipe of his hand cleared away its shroud of cobwebs before he lit the wick. A shudder slithered down her back as she considered what might dwell there.

She hoped the passage wasn’t very long, although she knew it had to be, to come out near the pool.

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