To The Rescue. Jean Barrett

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СКАЧАТЬ the bed.

      “Lad’s restless.”

      Jennifer whirled around with a startled gasp.

      The voice, like gravel, went on speaking to her from one of the dark corners of the room. “Keeps throwing off his covers. I’ve given up trying to keep them up about his chin where they belong. Don’t think he minds the cold at all.”

      A chair creaked as the man whose silent presence she’d been unaware of until this moment rose and moved forward into the light.

      “Still, it’s a good sign he’s restless,” he said. “Tells me he’s not gone and sunk hisself into a coma. You’ll be Miss Rowan, is it?”

      “Yes,” she murmured.

      “Brother Timothy,” he introduced himself. “They’ll have told you I’m minding the patient.”

      In spite of the robe he wore, he looked more like the hefty prize fighter he’d been than the monk he was now. His round, ruddy face with its broken nose also belonged to a boxer. But his grin was good-natured.

      “Gave you a bit of a start, did I?”

      “I didn’t know you were still with him.”

      “Thought I’d better spend the night here. With a bump on the head like that, there’s always the chance of a concussion, you see. Have to be watchful for that. I expect you came in to check on him yourself.”

      “Yes,” Jennifer lied, “I was worried about him.”

      “Mind you, he’s not out of the woods,” Brother Timothy said, bending over the bed, “but he’ll come around yet, stout lad like him.”

      “That’s good.”

      “Grumbled about his ribs being sore when I examined him. I’m of a mind he’s just bruised there, nothing broken, but I taped him up. Can’t be certain that it isn’t a cracked rib. No trouble breathing, anyway.”

      “And he is sleeping.”

      “Sleep is the ticket all right, and I gave him something to be sure he did just that.” Brother Timothy chuckled. “But he’s been fighting it. Not a man who likes to be helpless, I’m thinking.”

      Scratching the fringe of graying hair below his tonsure, the monk gazed at her, as if wondering whether she had anything further she wanted to know.

      There was a great deal that Jennifer did want to know about Leo McKenzie, but Brother Timothy wouldn’t be able to provide that information. Nor, while the monk remained here keeping his vigil, could she attempt to learn it on her own. She would have to wait for her answers.

      “Well, since he’s in such good hands…”

      Wishing Brother Timothy a good night, Jennifer retreated to her room.

      Tomorrow, she promised herself as she closed the connecting door behind her.

      IT WASN’T DAYLIGHT, however, that awakened her some hours later. Nor was it the desire for those answers. This was something else. And though Jennifer initially resisted the summons as she drifted back to consciousness, in the end she could no longer ignore its urgency.

      She needed a bathroom.

      You might as well give in, because it’s not going to go away.

      “Fine,” she muttered, fully awake now as she emerged from the covers under which she was burrowed.

      But, of course, it wasn’t fine at all. Not when it was the middle of the night. The blackness at her window told her that even before she peered at her watch, after almost upsetting the lamp when she fumbled for the switch. And the room was frigid.

      When her feet hit the icy floor, she couldn’t slide them into her slippers fast enough. She reached for her robe and bundled into it, snugging the belt around her waist.

      Better, but a hotel accommodation equipped with its own bathroom would have been better still. This was not a hotel, she reminded herself. It was Warley Castle, and private bathrooms were nonexistent.

      There was a single bathroom reserved for guests. That is, if she could remember how to get to it. One of the brothers had conducted her to the facility shortly after her arrival. Jennifer had hoped not to have to visit it again before morning, but the call of nature wasn’t going to be denied.

      The wind continued to snarl outside, muffled by the thick walls. She could barely hear it in the passageway that stretched away in front of her, cold and gloomy in the dim light.

      Warley Castle was a big place. Its stone-vaulted corridors seemed to meander in every direction from level to level, so medieval in character that flickering torches mounted on its walls would have been more appropriate than the electric lights that were located at inadequate intervals.

      It was either by chance, or because her memory was served by necessity, that Jennifer found the bathroom. But once she had used the primitive plumbing and was on her way back to her room, that memory failed her.

      She realized after several minutes of wandering that she must have taken a wrong turn somewhere. There was nothing familiar now about the route. She was lost. Coming to a stop beneath one of the weak lanterns high on the wall, she tried to get her bearings.

      Jennifer thought of herself as a realist and not easily unnerved, even about things she couldn’t readily explain. So maybe what happened next was simply because of the setting. The absolute stillness of this dim passage was certainly eerie enough to activate the imagination, making her suddenly aware of her aloneness here.

      Except she wasn’t alone, because without warning a figure appeared down at the end of the corridor that stretched away into the shadows, moving toward her. His long, pale robe identified him as one of the monks. Help at last!

      “I can’t seem to find my way back to my room,” she called out to him. “Can you direct me, please?”

      He must have heard her, but he didn’t answer her. Didn’t so much as pause as he continued to glide along the passage.

      “Hello,” she called again.

      Still no response. How could he not be conscious of her presence? And his gait…there was something not right about his gait. It was so slow and smooth, as if he weren’t walking but floating. Like a wraith.

      Jennifer was no longer relieved by his arrival. In fact, she was far less than that when he turned and suddenly disappeared, as if he’d passed through a solid wall. Alone again, she shivered.

      Not a ghost, she told herself firmly. There had to be an explanation, probably a cross passage down which he had vanished. But she was in no mood to investigate that likelihood. All she wanted was to get away from here and back to her room.

      Swinging around with the intention of retracing her route, Jennifer slammed into a wall. It was a barrier composed not of stone or timber but of hard flesh.

      Uttering a little cry of alarm, she threw up her hands in a gesture of self-defense. Her palms came into searing contact with a warm, naked chest. Although he had managed to sneak up behind her without a sound, there was СКАЧАТЬ