Midnight Eyes by Brophy, Sarah (well read books .TXT) 📕

Sir Knight, and the steps are not entirely sound. After a few nasty falls, you will learn the wisdom of these candles.”

She smiled and left the room. Robert paused for a moment but knew the time for delay was passed. It was time to face the lady herself.

The wooden stairs groaned ominously under Robert’s foot. He grimaced, and tried to pick a quiet way through the cacophony of noise. It would seem that before he was able to husband the land back into some fruitfulness, he needed to rebuild the Keep first! Even in the dim light cast by Mary’s candle up ahead he could see the rising damp and decay.

Mary stopped in front of one of the doors and turned to him. For a moment, her clear eyes looked deep into his, as if trying to find the very source of his being. Robert shifted uneasily but refused to break contact, refused to be the first to give in.

It seemed she reached some conclusion as she nodded. “I think you might be a good thing after all,” she muttered enigmatically. She nodded again and went to brush past him, leaving him increasingly confused. She paused for a moment, and then suddenly reached out a hand to touch his leather-covered forearm. “She awaits you within, Sir Knight. She has passed the last weeks in much fear. Please be kind.”

He stared bemused for a second as she and her light quickly retraced their steps, leaving him alone in the darkness.

Fear. He supposed his was a reputation to invoke fear and he was disconcerted by the guilt that flared to life inside him. Perhaps he should have tried some other contact first, allayed the lady’s fears somewhat before presenting her with a warrior husband. He should have found some way to woo her.

Woo. The word was strange to his mind.

Although, he added defensively to himself, hers wasn’t exactly a reputation designed to calm a suitor’s fears either. For a brief second he felt some mild justification, but then he flushed as he realized just how clumsy he would appear to his gently bred, soon-to-be wife.

Hells blood! What did he know of home, hearth and wooing? How was he going to manage not terrifying his poor, deformed virgin wife? he thought with despair. He might manage for a while, say an hour or so, but his own nature would find him out in the end.

Bracing himself he knocked on the door, only to be greeted with silence. For a second he hesitated, but impatience won out in the end. His need to get this first meeting over with was too great to dally in a cold hall on a lady’s whim.

He pushed open the door.

After the dimness of the hall he was blinded by the brightness of the full sun in the chamber. It was seconds before he could make out the figure on the other side of the room.

When his eyes adjusted, his heart almost stopped. She had stepped forward, and unknowingly revealed to him every exquisite detail. It was like an angel had stepped down from heaven.

Her long black hair hung in waves around her, glowing in the sunlight like an aura. It framed her gracefully, outlining her tiny waist, the gentle flair of her hips, the lushness of her breasts.

Her skin shone a pale ivory, splashed with the redness of her perfectly formed lips and the deep glow from her brown eyes. They were eyes that a man could drown in and never regret the demise.

She stood straight and proud, but still she would reach only his chin. He felt suddenly large and clumsy before her, felt unworthy to see such ethereal, unworldly beauty. A beauty that produced a very earthy reaction through his body. He could feel that reaction in the tightening of his loins, in the pounding of his heart, in the air that suddenly rushed into his deflated lungs, making him almost light-headed.

For the first time in his life he was totally struck dumb and when his mind finally kicked back in, all he could manage was to hoarsely say, “My God, you’re perfect!”

Chapter Two

She let out a shrill peal of laughter. The hollow sound hung heavy in the air.

She instinctively closed her eyes, wishing the laughter away. She wished she hadn’t given vent to the hysteria she could feel rising from her stomach, but somehow it was a force that could not be denied. The absurdity was just too great.

He saw perfection. She couldn’t see at all.

His deep, strong voice created pictures for her, but she could not see him, couldn’t tell what kind of man he was, whether he came to her dressed for war or wooing. She couldn’t even see to run away from him.

A shiver ran down her spine. It was a creeping disadvantage. She longed to hide, and felt vulnerable when she knew she couldn’t.

Roger’s dark whispers rose up to taunt her. Robert had both the strength and the determination to devote his life to one goal. He was here to claim his reward from the king, and she doubted that he would allow her to hide, but it wasn’t the king that she was afraid of. No, this was all Roger’s dark game, for all it had a royal disguise.

If Robert Beaumont was part of Roger’s plans, then he must be her enemy, and an enemy that you couldn’t see was a very dangerous foe indeed.

Fear squeezed her throat. She wanted to scream, to yell freedom, to fight and claw her way out of the dark, out of this man-filled room, out of her life.

She wished wildly for a moment that she was indeed so hideously deformed that the dismembered voice would run screaming from her, and leave her to her fears.

It wasn’t going to be that simple, Imogen realized sinkingly. This was Roger’s game. It had to be played out, and she could only hope that when the time for the ending came she had the strength