A Kiss in the Night Read Free

bouncing off his metal plates, slipping over her legs and to the ground.
    She remembered little after that. Ashes and smoke swirled about her. The world turned vicious with the sound of screams, the furious clang of swords, the terrified neighs and thunder of hooves as the rider slew four men in his way. Curses and screams sounded in a symphony of terror. Within minutes the stables, pigpen, and kitchen were in smoldering ruins. Blood splattered across his horse and hit her legs. She squeezed her eyes tight.
    From seemingly far away she heard the man who held her shout, "These fires smell of the foul deeds and our holy church. Hang the culprits from the battlements!"
    "Aye, my lord!"
    "Ready the remaining ranks. Send out half in search of my brother's wife. The other half goes to chase the retreating army! Let no one escape!'
    He turned his horse through the gates and suddenly there was fresh air in her lungs, the sweetest mercy shot straight from heaven. She coughed and sputtered and coughed some more. The thick leather saddle massaged her midsection hard while the gallop of the warhorse slammed her against the saddle so that she couldn't think to understand what was happening. She couldn't think past the purest joy of drawing sweet air into her body.
    Blue summer sky rose overhead. Soft white clouds scattered against the blue, oblivious to the march of human folly below. The horse headed to the wooded foothills behind the burning village. Trees began to appear, spruce and beech with long silver trunks and spiky tops. More and more brambles grew in bright green clumps, and in places these bushes reached over six feet. Green beds of undergrowth crowded beneath the shade of the very thickest part of the forest. The sound of running water filled the warm air.
    The knight stopped his horse. He swung down and turned to help Linness. Too late. She was sliding off the horse already. Her feet touched the ground. Her silver eyes searched the familiar surroundings, as if to determine for a fact she was still on earth. When this miracle was perceived and felt, it washed her in an emotional ebullience so swift, so powerful, as to be a kind of madness.
    She dropped to her knees, laughing and crying. She kissed the green earth ten times before she lifted her lovely eyes to the heavens as she thanked Mary over and over.
    Then she started dancing.
    She leaped up with the words, "I'm alive! I'm alive!" She turned in fast circles, laughing and crying. "I'm alive!"
    Paxton's dark blue eyes watched the girl dance like a Gypsy in firelight. His heart still thundered violently, pumping the battle rage hard and fast through his tall frame. His broad chest heaved with the girl's own thirst for fresh air. He had not slept, eaten, or drunk for two days as he led his Gaillard knights in chase of the outlaws terrorizing the countryside. Now, in the aftermath of battle and for the first time in his warring life, he felt it. The battle lust.
    The girl's very same madness filled him; the madness brought by having faced the certainty of death a dozen times, only to find now, quite unexpectedly, he was suddenly very much alive. And the need to celebrate this miracle came in an explosion of desire.
    The explosion caught his breath and nearly knocked him over. Hot blood engorged his groin and tightened each second he watched this strange and magical wood creature fly across the forest floor. With her arms spread wide, her head tilted, her mysterious cloudy eyes filled with the joy of the living.
    The girl’s loosened hair, singed at the ends, fell in a stream of dark ringlets down her back. Ash smudged the comely, flushed face, her eyes lit with madness and joy. She wore only the odd tunic of a condemned woman and the cloth hung about her small waist, down to her bare knees. Her legs were long, slim, and pale. Her bare breasts, dear Lord, were full and ripe, more tempting than heaven, brushed by the streams of her dark hair.
    He removed first his blood-soaked