rhythmic snores had also ceased.
Then it came. The dreaded skitter of claws on stone.
Forgetting courage and pride, Tabitha launched herself in the general direction of Sir Colin, coming up hard against his side. She cowered against his broad, warm body, waiting for him to yell at her or push her away or make fun of her fear.
For a long moment, he didn’t move or say a word,every muscle in his body as rigid as stone. Then with a labored sigh, he drew her into his arms and rested his chin on her head.
“Don’t be afraid, lass,” he murmured. “I’m too tough for the rats to eat and you’re too scrawny.”
No one had ever called her scrawny before. Tabitha rested her cheek against his chest, marveling at how quickly her teeth stopped chattering. His chain mail should have been cold, but the body beneath radiated heat like a furnace.
As the tension began to melt from her muscles, she wondered if Brisbane would leave them to die in this place. Would someone unearth this cell centuries from now to find their bones seemingly entwined in a lover’s embrace? Somehow that seemed the unfairest cut of all since the man holding her so tenderly was nothing more than a stranger who despised her.
Sighing wistfully, she reached into her pajama shirt and closed her hand around her mother’s amulet. “I wish …” she whispered, just before drifting into sleep.
CHAPTER7
T abitha’s mother had warned her more than once about eating chocolate before bedtime.
She should have listened, Tabitha thought, as she snuggled deeper into her fat, fluffy pillow. Her dreams had been populated by a cast of bizarre characters, including a brimstone-snorting stallion, a fey sadist dressed like Elvis in his rhinestone-cape period, and a surly knight with bedroom eyes and a brooding smirk, who’d spent most of her dream waving an enormous sword at her. She found the latter by far the most disturbing. She’d never relished being dominated, yet who could this provocative satyr be but the Freudian embodiment of her most primal sexual desires?
Groaning, she tossed back the eiderdown quilt and fumbled for the alarm, hoping to mute it before Vivaldi could blare in her ear. Her reach was thwarted by something tangled around her waist.
She glanced down, expecting to find a cotton sheet wound around her midriff. Instead, she discovered a well-muscled forearm dusted with crisp, black hairs. Tabitha stared at it in fascination, dumbfounded by the novel experience of having a warm male body nestled against her backside. He arched his back and mumbledsomething into her hair, molding himself even more firmly to her rump. She gasped with fresh shock. A very warm, very male body.
Since she wasn’t in the habit of surfing bars for one-night stands, there could be only one conclusion.
She hadn’t been dreaming. She was actually imprisoned in a medieval dungeon with a surly barbarian.
Doubly confused, she blinked at the water-pocked walls. If this was a dungeon, then why were they snuggled in an Ethan Allen cherry sleigh bed? Why was the air warm and toasty instead of chill and damp? She tried to wiggle out of Colin’s embrace, but his possessive grip only tightened. He finally grunted a sleepy surrender and rolled to his back, an intriguing hint of a sulk playing around his stoic mouth.
Tabitha sat up on her knees on the plush mattress, her eyes widening as she surveyed the transformed cell. Wall-to-wall Berber carpet covered the mottled flagstones. A ceramic heater roosted in the corner, merrily radiating heat although its cord was plugged into thin air. A Tiffany lamp cast a burnished glow over the knight’s slumbering form.
She clapped a hand over her mouth, her initial wonder eclipsed by an all-too-familiar dread. “Oh, hell,” she whispered. “What have I done now?”
Her nose twitched in an involuntary response to the enticing aromas drifting up from the satin-draped table at the foot of the bed. A table laden with all of her favorite
Then it came. The dreaded skitter of claws on stone.
Forgetting courage and pride, Tabitha launched herself in the general direction of Sir Colin, coming up hard against his side. She cowered against his broad, warm body, waiting for him to yell at her or push her away or make fun of her fear.
For a long moment, he didn’t move or say a word,every muscle in his body as rigid as stone. Then with a labored sigh, he drew her into his arms and rested his chin on her head.
“Don’t be afraid, lass,” he murmured. “I’m too tough for the rats to eat and you’re too scrawny.”
No one had ever called her scrawny before. Tabitha rested her cheek against his chest, marveling at how quickly her teeth stopped chattering. His chain mail should have been cold, but the body beneath radiated heat like a furnace.
As the tension began to melt from her muscles, she wondered if Brisbane would leave them to die in this place. Would someone unearth this cell centuries from now to find their bones seemingly entwined in a lover’s embrace? Somehow that seemed the unfairest cut of all since the man holding her so tenderly was nothing more than a stranger who despised her.
Sighing wistfully, she reached into her pajama shirt and closed her hand around her mother’s amulet. “I wish …” she whispered, just before drifting into sleep.
CHAPTER7
T abitha’s mother had warned her more than once about eating chocolate before bedtime.
She should have listened, Tabitha thought, as she snuggled deeper into her fat, fluffy pillow. Her dreams had been populated by a cast of bizarre characters, including a brimstone-snorting stallion, a fey sadist dressed like Elvis in his rhinestone-cape period, and a surly knight with bedroom eyes and a brooding smirk, who’d spent most of her dream waving an enormous sword at her. She found the latter by far the most disturbing. She’d never relished being dominated, yet who could this provocative satyr be but the Freudian embodiment of her most primal sexual desires?
Groaning, she tossed back the eiderdown quilt and fumbled for the alarm, hoping to mute it before Vivaldi could blare in her ear. Her reach was thwarted by something tangled around her waist.
She glanced down, expecting to find a cotton sheet wound around her midriff. Instead, she discovered a well-muscled forearm dusted with crisp, black hairs. Tabitha stared at it in fascination, dumbfounded by the novel experience of having a warm male body nestled against her backside. He arched his back and mumbledsomething into her hair, molding himself even more firmly to her rump. She gasped with fresh shock. A very warm, very male body.
Since she wasn’t in the habit of surfing bars for one-night stands, there could be only one conclusion.
She hadn’t been dreaming. She was actually imprisoned in a medieval dungeon with a surly barbarian.
Doubly confused, she blinked at the water-pocked walls. If this was a dungeon, then why were they snuggled in an Ethan Allen cherry sleigh bed? Why was the air warm and toasty instead of chill and damp? She tried to wiggle out of Colin’s embrace, but his possessive grip only tightened. He finally grunted a sleepy surrender and rolled to his back, an intriguing hint of a sulk playing around his stoic mouth.
Tabitha sat up on her knees on the plush mattress, her eyes widening as she surveyed the transformed cell. Wall-to-wall Berber carpet covered the mottled flagstones. A ceramic heater roosted in the corner, merrily radiating heat although its cord was plugged into thin air. A Tiffany lamp cast a burnished glow over the knight’s slumbering form.
She clapped a hand over her mouth, her initial wonder eclipsed by an all-too-familiar dread. “Oh, hell,” she whispered. “What have I done now?”
Her nose twitched in an involuntary response to the enticing aromas drifting up from the satin-draped table at the foot of the bed. A table laden with all of her favorite
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