Love Came Just in Time Read Free Page B

herself.
    Later—when she figured out why the moonlight was shining down on walls topped with towers and those little slits that looked just about big enough for a man to squeeze through and either shoot something at you, or fling boiling oil at you. Later—when she’d decided just what she was: dead or alive, in heaven or hell. Later—when she’d had a bath to remove the lovely fragrance of eau de sewer from her hair and clothes.
    â€œHey, stop!” Abby exclaimed, thumping across the drawbridge. She pulled up short at the sight of the gate. It looked suspiciously like something she’d seen in a documentary on medieval castles. Abby took a deep breath and added that little detail to her list of things to worry about later. Now she had to catch her fleeing feline before he slipped through the gate grates.
    She made a diving leap for Sir Sweetums’s tail. She wound up flat on her face in a puddle of mud, clutching a fistful of what should have been cat hair.
    She jumped to her feet and took hold of the gate, peering through the grates. They were about ten inches square—big enough for her to see through, but definitely not big enough to squeeze through.
    â€œSir Sweetums,” she crooned, in her best come-here-I-have-some-half-and-half-in-your-favorite-china-bowl voice.
    Nothing. Drat.
    â€œCome on, Max,” she tried, in her best aw-shucks-cut-me-some-slack voice.
    Not even a swish of a tail to let her know she’d been heard.
    â€œGet back over here, you stupid cat!” she hollered.
    That wasn’t working either. No cat. No castle owners either. Well, maybe they were asleep.
    She thought about waiting for morning to call for help but all it took was one good whiff of herself to decide that that wasn’t an option. Maybe that was all part of hell, too. Phantom cats, sewer-like stench clinging to one’s clothes, delusional surroundings.
    She rubbed her muddy cheek thoughtfully. It was still sore. She felt far too corporeal for the afterlife. Nope, she wasn’t dead. Totally in control of her faculties was debatable, but she’d give that more thought later.
    What she wanted now was a hot bath and a mug of Swiss Miss with mini marshmallows. She was a damsel in definite distress. Maybe there was a handsome knight inside ready to rescue her from her less than best-dressed self.
    She started to yell.

Chapter Two
    MILES DE PIAGET shifted in his chair, shoved his feet closer to the fire blazing in the middle of the great hall, and tried to fall asleep. He had a bed, but he’d shunned it in favor of the hard chair. He likely could have contented himself with merely choking on the abundance of smoke in his hall, but somehow this dual torture had suited him better. Of course had he remained at his sire’s keep, he could have been sitting in a more comfortable chair, enjoying the festivities of the season in a smokeless hall. Artane was a thoroughly modern place, with hearths set into the walls and flues to carry the smoke outside.
    But Miles had sought discomfort and Speningethorpe certainly provided him with that. It was, politely, a bloody sty. Miles knew he was fortunate to have arrived and found the place possessing a roof. But he’d wanted it. He’d all but demanded it. He’d wanted a place of refuge. What with the pair of years he’d just survived, peace and quiet was what he’d needed, no matter the condition of the surroundings.
    He never should have made the journey to the Holy Land. Aye, that was the start to all his troubles. Now, staring back on the ruins of his life, he wondered why his reasons had seemed so compelling at the time. It wasn’t as if he’d had to prove himself to his sire, or to the rest of the countryside, for that matter. He vaguely remembered a desire to see what his father and brothers had seen on their travels.
    Perhaps the tale would have finished peaceably if he’d been able to keep his bloody