The Love Knot by The Love Knot

Author:The Love Knot [Unknown]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Opening her eyes, the first thing Catrin saw was a tuft of grass growing through a dried-out crack in the soil and, either side of it, the toes of her shoes peeping out from the hem of her red gown. She realised that she was sitting on a bench, bending over, her head between her knees, but the wherefore and why escaped her.

'Drink this,' said a solicitous male voice. She was drawn gently into a sitting position and a cup placed in her hand. Lean brown fingers touched hers and, with a nauseous jolt, she remembered. A look into the face bending round into hers dispelled all notions that her imagination had been playing tricks.

'Lewis.' Her voice trembled. Once again the flutters of panic began in her stomach and tightened her throat. She tried to leap to her feet, but he held her fast.

'Drink first,' he said. 'I know it's a shock.'

Catrin tilted the cup to her lips with shaking hands. It was raw, red wine, sweetened with honey and spiked with Galwegian usquebaugh. She swallowed, coughed, retched and swallowed again, tears filling her eyes. The drink hit her stomach like a hot coal and flashed through her body. She sat back on the bench and breathed deeply, and each breath was filled with the scent of him; of orris root and horses, of a healthy, vigorous man in the full flow of life. 'Tell me,' she said shakily. 'I need to know.'

He drank from a cup of his own. She saw the familiar way he pouched it in his cheeks before he swallowed, and the unfamiliar line of a scar moving as he washed the wine around his mouth. What she had thought of as shattered bones and corrupted flesh was living, breathing, warm and vital.

'I killed Padarn ap Rhys,' he said. 'It was in fair fight, but do you think his followers would have accepted the outcome? It would be a matter of their clan's honour to see me dead. So I decided to "kill" myself before they did it for me.'

'And left me a grieving widow with never a word, so that you could save your own hide.' Catrin's lips drew back from her teeth as a spark of anger lit from within and carried her forward from that awful day on the banks of the Wye.

'I was intending to return for you.'

Catrin gave a cracked laugh. She felt as if all of her was breaking into little pieces; shattering like a fine and brittle mirror. 'When? Just how long were you intending me to wait? You must have an overbearing sense of your own attraction to think that I would still be dutifully pining four years later!' She took another vicious drink of the wine. Had she not, she would have thrown it in his face.

'I do not blame you for being angry, just as I don't blame you for not waiting.' He steepled his hands together in a prayerful gesture and gave her an engaging look from beneath his dark-winged brows.

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