Halloween Knight. Tori Phillips

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ well! I am a fool of all fools but I will do what you ask of me, though the cost is high. That shameless jade tried to lead me to her bedchamber after supper this evening. Aye, and we had only met a few hours earlier!”

      Belle whispered into one of the cat’s pointed black ears. “Poor Griselda must be very desperate indeed!”

      “She breaks looking glasses with her toothy smiles,” Mark muttered.

      Belle waved him away. “Begone, Marcus. Get your beauty sleep so that you may be even more enticing to the fair Griselda on the morrow.”

      “This is not what I had bargained for,” he grumbled. He sneezed again.

      Belle peeled off his cloak and held it up to him.

      He shook his head. “Keep it. The night is cold. Twill warm you better than that ball of fur.”

      “Nay, I cannot,” she insisted. “Mortimer visits me daily. He would spy it at once and guess your true intentions. The knave may look like a toad, but he has a quick mind. Be warned. He hides a thousand daggers in his thoughts.”

      Mark retrieved his cloak with great reluctance. “Sleep well, chou-chou,” he said with forced cheer. “I will come again tomorrow night.”

      “May your angel protect you till then,” she replied.

      He put his hand to the latch, then paused and glanced over his shoulder at her. In spite of her miserable condition, she tossed him a challenging look, the very same expression she had worn just before she had pushed him off the tree branch. The memory of that last encounter simmered in his mind. Why not?

      He put down his lantern, crossed the space between them in three long strides, then bent over her. Before she could utter a startled objection, he kissed her full on her lips.

      His broken arm and the eight years’ wait had been well worth it. Belle tasted of paradise. He ducked her flailing fists.

      “Where,” she sputtered with delectable anger, “in your great heap of knowledge, did you locate that idea?”

      He winked at her. “Been thinking about that for a long time, ma petite chou-chou.”

      Humming a bawdy tune under his breath, he let himself out of the little chamber. Once on the other side of the door, he sobered. With great reluctance, he relocked Belle’s cheerless prison.

      Dexter mewed in Belle’s ear then patted her face with one of his forepaws. Slowly she awoke to a gray day. Fat raindrops plopped on the stone ledge of the open window.

      “Go find a rat, Dexter,” she groaned as she snuggled deeper in the delicious warmth of her blankets.

      Blankets? Belle shook the cobwebs of sleep from her mind. Dexter sat down and stared fixedly at her. His long white whiskers quivered. Barely believing her sudden good fortune, Belle counted three blankets where last evening there had been only one. The topmost was her familiar filthy covering that had kept the winds at bay. It hid two plain brown blankets made of thick wool—clean and free of rents.

      “Oh, Dexter! What kindly spirit visited us last night?”

      Mark’s kiss still tingled on her lips. She banished the disturbing memory. Nay! He had left her long before she fell asleep.

      “Besides he hates me,” she explained to the cat. “He nearly lost the use of his sword arm because of my childish prank. That kiss of his was merely…unfinished business.”

      Dexter got up, stretched then pawed at a loose pile of straw. He mewed once or twice for Belle’s attention. His claws scraped against something unfamiliar.

      Belle investigated. Dexter had unearthed a covered crock that was still very warm to the touch. When she raised its lid, the aroma of stewed meat and seasoned vegetables wafted in the chill breeze.

      “Oh most blessed spirit!” Belle cried with joy. Lifting the pot to her mouth, she drank greedily. “Kat would chide my lack of proper manners if she saw me now, but tis a goodly broth! Heaven-sent to be sure!’

      Dexter licked his lips with a long pink tongue by way of reminding Belle to share her wealth as he had shared his with her. She poured a little gravy into the lid.

      “Someday, Dexter, you will overeat and explode,” she observed with a smile. Then something red in the straw caught her eye. “More wonders?” she asked the cat.

      She picked up one of her stepmother’s precious roses, its stem plucked free of thorns. The last bloom of this year, Belle surmised as she inhaled its rich perfume. This gift, more than the blankets or the stew, brought rare tears to her eyes.

      No one had ever given her a flower before, not even Cuthbert.

      Belle brushed the velvet petals against her cheek. “I wonder, Dexter, if Sondra’s tales are true. Does the ghostly knight of Bodiam really exist?”

      Not for a moment would she allow herself to believe that Mark Hayward, the bane of her childhood, was her mysterious benefactor. She must put that lunatic idea out of her mind at once before it had a chance to take root there.

      “Tis not Mark’s style at all,” she told the purring cat.

      Chapter Five

      Mark overslept the next morning and the rain-plagued day only went downhill from there. When Kitt appeared with his shaving water, it was merely tepid instead of steaming hot the way Mark liked it. He opened his mouth to chastise the boy but held his tongue when he saw a fresh bruise under his eye.

      Mark touched the injury. “More of that beslubbering cook’s opinion?” he asked.

      Kitt turned away. “I fell over my own feet,” he replied. “Indeed, I have been informed that they would make a fine pair of shovels,” he added in an undertone.

      Mark stropped his razor while his anger grew warmer. “What pignut told you this witticism?”

      Kitt shrugged his shoulder then turned his attention to his bedmaking. “Tis none of your concern, Mark. Jobe says that a man must fight his own battles.”

      Mark considered this bit of wisdom as he lathered up his face with cold soapsuds. “You are still in the schoolroom, Kitt.” he remarked. While he shaved, he observed his apprentice squire in the looking glass.

      Kitt tossed his head. “Not now. I am on the road to a new beginning, Jobe says.”

      Methinks Jobe says far too much in this stripling’s innocent ear!

      Kitt shook out Mark’s hose, then laid his other clean shirt across the lumpy bed covering. “How fares my sister?” he asked in an off-hand manner.

      In the mirror, Mark saw that the boy cast him a penetrating look. “As well as can be expected,” he answered, rinsing his razor. “Belle was never fond of small dark places.” He chose not to reveal her true sad state to her brother. Being blessed with a strong dose of the Cavendish temperament, the lad would no doubt hurl himself headlong into some rash deed.

      Kitt polished one of Mark’s boots with his sleeve. “Then why do we tarry СКАЧАТЬ