Page 5 of A Second Chance for Carys
In any case, there was little point asking herself those questions. There was no reason to think she would ever end up in his arms.
Resolving to push the incident, and the dour James Mortimer, out of her mind, Carys headed off toward the forest, taking Silver with her. With Branwen’s help, Avice, the cook, hadasked if she could go gather some herbs for tonight’s meal. Carys had been only too happy to agree. Busy filling her basket with nettles, wild garlic and dandelion leaves, she managed to forget all about the steward.
But that night in bed, her mind started to meander down dangerous paths.
Where did James sleep? Did he sleep naked? Was he big and dark all over? Her cheeks burst into flames when the question crossed her mind. Had she just tried to imagine the color of his intimate hairs and the size of his manhood? Yes, yes she had, and this while lying next to her young daughter. By her side, Eirwen, was breathing evenly, lost to the innocence of sleep.
Horrified at her wantonness, Carys left the bed and started to pace around the room. After a while she grew even more restless and she decided to leave. A walk over the battlements would be the very thing to clear her mind of inappropriate thinking before attempting to go to sleep. Though it was not cold, as she was only wearing her nightshift, she wrapped herself in her cloak for modesty and exited the room.
It was pitch black in the staircase and she regretted not taking a candle with her. Should she go back and light one? No, she could not risk awakening Eirwen. It took time, but feeling her way along the cold stone, she made it safely to the bottom of the stairs. Outside, the moon was casting enough light for her to get her bearings and she decided against taking a torch. Much better to have a free hand to hold the hem of her shift and cloak while she climbed the ladder to the north battlements.
She could have stayed in the bailey, of course, but she needed to feel the wind in her hair.
From the top, Carys could see miles into the distance. A silver ribbon gleamed beyond the dark forest, catching her eye. Was it the sea? She had never noticed any blue expanse of water during the day, where it would have melted into the horizon, butperhaps it truly was there? Her heart leapt. How she longed to go to the sea! Dewi had said he would take her one day, but in the end they had never made the effort to get there. Of course she could have gone on her own after his death, but somehow, it would have felt like a betrayal.
“I miss you,” she murmured, sending her message to the wind. “Perhaps we will go to the sea together one day, my love.”
Just then footsteps were heard and soon, someone was ascending the ladder she had climbed only moments ago. Everything within Carys dissolved. The tall, looming shape dressed in black could only belong to one man. The only other man who could have matched him for bulk at Sheridan Manor would never leave Branwen’s bed in favor of wandering around at night alone.
No, this was not Matthew but James, the man she had tried to imagine naked only moments ago. She could not see him now, not when she knew she would take advantage of the darkness to stare at parts of his body she should not even consider looking at.
She stayed where she was, hidden in the shadow of a tower, still as a statue. Would he see her? And what would he do if he did? She would be unable to explain what she was doing here in English. Not that it was any of his concern. Orperhaps it was, in a manner of speaking, considering why she had left her bed in the first place.
I came out because I was getting agitated imagining how you looked naked. There. Are you satisfied? And now that you’re here, could you put an end to my wondering by removing your clothes so I can see you? The moonlight might be sufficient for me to answer the most pressing question, namely?—
He spoke, his voice gruff. Unsurprisingly, Carys didn’t understand what he’d said but she guessed he was asking ifanyone was out there. As steward, he was in charge of the safety of the place. Was he worried there was an ill-intentioned stranger about? Perhaps he had heard her talk to Dewi, perhaps he’d seen her cloak fluttering in the wind. Who knew?
She didn’t move, barely dared to breathe. As if to help her vanish into the night, the moon chose that moment to hide behind a cloud, taking with it what little light had been illuminating the battlements. In her dark cloak Carys would blend in with the stone wall. The only way James would see her now was if he came within touching distance of her.
After a while, she heard his footsteps in the bailey and then saw his dark shape retreat to the main hall.
She waited a moment to make sure he was not coming back out and then descended the ladder herself. It was time to go back to bed and try to sleep.
“How pathetic,” she muttered to herself as she crossed the deserted bailey. She had always spoken what was on her mind out loud. Dewi had found the habit endearing, but she knew most people were annoyed by it. Still, she could not help herself. “I came here to avoid imagining James naked and who should I see but the man hims?—”
Carys fell and landed on something both softer than the stone she expected and yet too hard to be comfortable. A person. A man.
James Mortimer.
“What the?—”
James stopped the curse already on his lips when he realized that the person who’d just landed on top of him was a woman. Then he saw he could swear all he wanted, as the woman in question wouldn’t understand a word he’d say anyway.
Carys.
Shehad been the one lurking about earlier.
As he’d exited the main hall, he’d caught sight of something that could have been a fluttering cloak on the battlements. Always on the look out for trouble, he’d instantly been on his guard. Had someone scaled the ramparts? Was Sheridan Manor about to be attacked?
After straining his eyes in vain for a while, he had decided he had been mistaken and retreated back inside the hall. It was time to go to bed. He had crouched down to retrieve a key he’d dropped and the next thing he knew, a soft, warm, sweet-smelling woman had toppled over him. Yes. A woman. So warm after the chilly breeze wafting in from the sea, so soft in contrast to the stone digging in the muscles of his back, so sweet-smelling, like freshly picked herbs and something else, something, quite stupidly, he thought might be Welsh air.
Carys.
Without knowing why, he just knew it was her.
Thankfully, he had somehow managed to cushion her fall and avoid her smashing her skull on the hard floor.
The only problem was, having a soft, warm, sweet-smelling woman lying on top of him was creating havoc in the lower part of his body. Had he been thirty years younger, he might well be hard now. As he was not an excitable youth any longer, he managed to hold on to enough sanity to stop his body from responding.
