There was no answer for her other than the whisper of the night wind.
She walked back down the steps.
Looked behind the screen, under the bed. Nervously, she shed her clothing and hurriedly slipped into a nightgown, waiting for him to pounce from the shadows at any moment.
He did not appear. She lay down to sleep. And stared at the balcony window.
She and David were the only ones who knew about the stairway and passage. Or so she thought. At least, she was fairly convinced it was so. Yet someone had chased her last night. Someone who’d wanted to hurt her…kill her.
She leaped out of bed, convinced there was a way to jam the secret doorway cut into the stone from the balcony.
If David needed her help, he could ask her by daylight. She wanted no more nocturnal visits from him. She dug into her drawer for a handkerchief, then sped up the steps to the balcony, and out into the night. She dropped down to find the stone that triggered the mechanism to open the passageway. She slid the handkerchief into the metal workings and closed the stone with the edge of the handkerchief on her side. She was pleased then to discover that she had managed quite well. The mechanism was jammed by the fabric, which couldn’t be seen from the inside, but which she could remove quite easily.
Incredibly pleased with herself, she curled back into her bed.
She closed her eyes.
But she leaped back to her feet and hurried to her hallway door, then slid the ancient bolt.
No one would be coming into her room by either the chamber door or the secret entry. She could sleep in safety at last.
She lay down again and stared into the night for a very long time, thinking, not wanting to think, remembering, and praying not to remember. A soft fire still burned in her grate. The room was filled with shadows, yet the gentle flames cast an orange-and-gold glow over the room as well.
She was so tired.
Yet David lived. And her life was a tempest again.
Where was he?
Not in her room, she was safe!
Safe? Yet unnerved.
Still, eventually…
Her eyelids began to flutter.
She began to drift.
And fall asleep…
She awoke in sudden terror. The stairway entrance had been jammed. The door had been bolted.
There had been no possible entry to her room. Yet she was not alone. A dark shadow hovered over her in the night. Then fell upon her. Silencing the scream that so nearly tore from her lips.
CHAPTER 7
“Hush it’s me.”
He was atop her, then the hand that had covered her mouth was lifted from it, and David Douglas fell to her side.
She was shaking like a leaf caught in a fierce north wind, terrified and amazed. She came up on an elbow, creating all the distance between them she could manage on the bed.
“How did you get in here?” she demanded.
“I have my ways.”
“How—”