In the Shadow of Midnight - By Marsha Canham Page 0,126

where they dragged over the floorboards, she came up beside FitzRandwulf without a sound.

“What Robin told me must be true,” she said on a hushed breath. “He said you never sleep.”

The pewter-coloured eyes lingered on the scene outside the window, and she wondered if perhaps he hadn’t even heard her. But he had. It just took him a moment to steel himself to look down at her—something he was hoping he could do without giving himself away.

There were soft pink creases on her cheek where she had lain on a fold of the blanket. Her eyes were heavy-lidded and her hair— Damn all the saints who strove to torment what few hours he did manage to sleep with thoughts of all that copper fire spread beneath a pale white body. Now it lay in a loosely plaited rope over her shoulder, with sprays and errant curls flying every which way around her face, making his fingers itch with the need to reach out and tuck it back behind her ears.

He turned to look back out the window again, judging it to be safer.

“I sleep when I need to, for as long as I need to. I had no idea my habits warranted discussion.”

Whether it was because he was not a man accustomed to whispering, or because she had somehow touched an open nerve, his answer came out harsher than she expected and the ribbons in her belly shrivelled into a tight knot.

“We were not discussing, we were only … talking, and … oh … never mind. Talking is another thing I am well aware you do not do with any great fondness. Forgive me if I disturbed you.”

She did not even gain a step when she felt his hand on her arm, stopping her. His hand remained through an awkward silence before easing away and falling to his side again.

“You were not disturbing me,” he assured her quietly.

Go or stay, it was a difficult choice to make, but she retraced the step she had taken and even added another that she might crane her neck and see out the small, boxlike window. There was not much to view apart from the tall, looming silhouette of Corfe Castle crouched on the hill. The sky was gray and dirty, promising more rain before cock’s crow. Smoke and fog combined in viscous layers, opaque and undulant, like rivers of slow-moving cream that sought to fill the hollows where the village sat. It was eerie and ominous, but not worth staring at for hours on end. Especially not if someone was plagued by nightmares of another tall, bleak castle and the horrors it contained.

She wished she had the nerve to ask him about it, about his years at Bloodmoor Keep and his dam, Nicolaa de la Have. There were so many dark secrets cloaked behind the brooding gray eyes, so many painful memories he must fight with, every day, just to survive to see another.

A lesser creature, battling these demons within, might have thrown up his hands when confronted with the formidable walls of Corfe. A far nobler coward might have cut his losses, assumed his duty done, and slinked away, striking back across the Channel before any hint of an alarm was raised.

Not Eduard FitzRandwulf d’Amboise. Not the son of the Black Wolf. Not even the very real possibility of being caught and stretched out on another torturer’s table would turn him away. Not when the woman he loved was held prisoner inside those walls.

Ariel bowed her head and studied her hands.

“Do you suppose Brevant will have convinced the governor to admit us?”

Eduard offered a casual shrug. “He seems a persuasive sort, if the mood is upon him.”

Ariel closed her eyes, aware of how close he stood, how sensual the vibration of his voice against her neck. She wished she could lean back and feel his arms wrapping around her. She wished he would hold her again, just once more, so she would know what it was like to feel safe and warm and protected.

“There is still time for you to change your mind if you are having second thoughts,” he said softly. “No one will think any the less of you.”

“I have not changed my mind. And I would think less of me, even if no one else did.”

She did not look at him but she knew his eyes had not left her face. She knew also that if she did look up, she would doubtless make a fool of herself again,