To The Rescue. Jean Barrett

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      He had surprised her again. “You know about the Madonna?”

      “It’s no secret it’s missing. What do you know about it, Jenny?”

      But whatever she told him, if she decided to tell him anything at all, would have to wait. They were interrupted by a tap on the hall door. Before either of them could answer it, the door opened and the cheerful face of Brother Timothy poked around its edge.

      “Looks a rare treat, this does. The both of you awake, and my patient sitting there like he no longer needs me. Feeling better, are you, lad?”

      Leo grinned at the monk. “The cure would be complete, friar, with a cup of strong coffee.”

      “If you’re up to it, I’m thinking we can do better than that.” Brother Timothy came into the room. “There’ll be breakfast waiting for the two of you in the guests’ dining parlor. Or a tray here for you, lad, if you’re of a mind to keep to your bed for a bit.”

      “No trays,” Leo said firmly. “I’m ready to join the living.”

      “That’s the ticket. Give you a chance to meet the others in your dining parlor.”

      “There are other guests in the castle?” Jennifer asked him.

      “There are.”

      This was certainly unexpected. Maybe it was what Father Stephen had meant last night when he’d mentioned that other matters had delayed him in welcoming her to Warley. Had he been attending to those guests?

      “The lot of you will make a regular party,” Brother Timothy said. “Now, they’ve had their turns in the bath, so I’m guessing you’ll want your own, and then I’ll take you down.”

      Not only unexpected, she thought, but another complication.

      A SHOWER AND A SHAVE had Leo feeling halfway human again. Getting the meal inside him that Brother Timothy had promised them would be even better.

      Not that breakfast was the most important thing on his mind, he thought, eyeing the closed door to the room that adjoined his as he tucked the tail of a fresh shirt inside the waistband of his jeans. She was on the other side of that door, waiting for the monk to come back and conduct them to the dining parlor.

      Yeah, she was on his mind all right. More than he wanted her to be, and that worried him.

      Jennifer Rowan was not what Barbara had led him to expect. The treacherous seductress who had stolen her husband. Oh, maybe she did physically fit the image, with that shoulder-length hair the color of rich mahogany, a pair of jade-green eyes and a body that a man would eagerly welcome into his bed.

      He could see why Guy had been captivated by her. He was susceptible to that allure himself, and if he didn’t watch himself…

      The thing of it was, though, nothing else about Jennifer smacked of a conniving woman. She struck Leo as being intelligent, independent, not lacking spirit and scared. Scared with good reason, considering the circumstances.

      Okay, maybe all that vulnerability, the kind that made a man want to be protective of such a woman, was nothing more than an illusion. Her face alone could be responsible for that. He remembered that his ex-wife had angelic features like that.

      But there had been no angel underneath, he sourly reminded himself, dragging a sweater over his head.

      Leo hadn’t trusted a sweet face and a hot body since then.

      Anyway, he knew from his work that what people were on the outside seldom matched what they were inside. Look at how he had caught her going through his things. Maybe just an act of desperation. Or maybe she was guilty of something. Because if she were so damn innocent, why had she run? He kept coming back to that.

      Sliding his feet into a pair of loafers, he looked at the closed door again.

      He could swear Jennifer had been relieved by Brother Timothy’s interruption, and afterwards she couldn’t escape into her own room fast enough. Why? Had she been panicked by Leo’s demand to hear her version of her involvement with Guy and the explanation for her flight from London the morning after his murder? Had she needed to get away from Leo long enough to put together a convincing story?

      He wasn’t certain of anything at this point except his frustration. As hungry as he was, breakfast meant a delay, and he wanted to hear Jennifer Rowan’s story. Needed to hear it.

      Only that wasn’t completely true. There was one other certainty. He couldn’t stop thinking of that enticing mouth of hers and how they were stranded here together.

      Hell, none of this was going to be easy.

      “YOU’RE SURE of it now, are you?” Brother Timothy asked as he escorted them along the corridor.

      “I’m sure, friar,” Leo answered, trying to be patient with the monk’s excessive concern. “No headache and no chest pains. Just a little tenderness around the ribs.” He didn’t add that he was relieved to be rid of the tape in that area, which he had removed before his shower. Brother Timothy might not be happy with him if he knew about that.

      “You’ll do then.”

      The monk played guide as they continued along the route to the dining parlor, pointing out things and telling them there were many areas in the castle that the monastery rarely used. Leo could believe it. The place was immense, and probably rooms like the great hall would be impossible to keep comfortable in weather like this.

      Jennifer beside him was quiet, offering no comment. She was close enough to him that he could catch whiffs of her fragrance, something subtle but seductive. Damn. It was bad enough that he had to be aware of everything else about her that was desirable.

      She didn’t look at him, but Leo sensed that she was equally aware of him. And nervous about it.

      “Turned real nasty again, it has,” Brother Timothy observed as they paused at an embrasure where a window in the stone wall looked down into a courtyard. There was a snow-covered sundial in its center surrounded by a formal arrangement of elevated beds framed by clipped hedges.

      Or at least that’s what Leo thought he was seeing. It was hard to tell through the curtain of driven snow that had resumed after a brief lull in the storm. Even in this enclosed place the wind had the force of a gale. Not the kind of weather you’d choose to be out in, and yet there was a solitary figure down there pacing the paths. Head bent inside his cowl, he seemed oblivious to the conditions. Strange.

      Leo noticed that Jennifer was intently watching the small, stoop-shouldered figure, whose habit identified him as one of the monks. “He doesn’t seem to be minding the cold,” she murmured.

      “Not even noticing it, I’m thinking,” Brother Timothy said. “Our Brother Anthony has a deal on his mind these days. Only permits himself to leave his cell to exercise a bit in the cloister yard there or to pray in the chapel on the other side.”

      “That is Brother Anthony then?”

      “It is.”

      Jennifer obviously knew about this Brother Anthony and was interested in him, though Leo couldn’t imagine how or why. And it didn’t СКАЧАТЬ