Midnight is a Lonely Place. Barbara Erskine

Читать онлайн.
Название Midnight is a Lonely Place
Автор произведения Barbara Erskine
Жанр Историческая литература
Серия
Издательство Историческая литература
Год выпуска 0
isbn 9780007320929



Скачать книгу

Chapter XXXIII

       Chapter XXXIV

       Chapter XXXV

       Chapter XXXVI

       Chapter XXXVII

       Chapter XXXVIII

       Chapter XXXIX

       Chapter XL

       Chapter XLI

       Chapter XLII

       Chapter XLIII

       Chapter XLIV

       Chapter XLV

       Chapter XLVI

       Chapter XLVII

       Chapter XLVIII

       Chapter XLIX

       Chapter L

       Chapter LI

       Chapter LII

       Chapter LIII

       Chapter LIV

       Chapter LV

       Chapter LVI

       Chapter LVII

       Chapter LVIII

       Chapter LIX

       Chapter LX

       Chapter LXI

       Chapter LXII

       Chapter LXIII

       Chapter LXIV

       Chapter LXV

       Chapter LXVI

       Chapter LXVII

       Chapter LXVIII

       Chapter LXIX

       Chapter LXX

       Chapter LXXI

       Chapter LXXII

       Chapter LXXIII

       Chapter LXXIV

       Chapter LXXV

       Chapter LXXVI

       Author’s Note

       Keep Reading Barbara Erskine’s Novels

       Keep Reading Sleeper’s Castle

       About the Author

       Also by Barbara Erskine

       About the Publisher

       PROLOGUE

      Her hair was the colour of newly frosted beech leaves; glossy; rich; tumbling from its combs as he pulled her against him, his lips seeking hers. His skin was tanned by the sun and the wind, hers, naked against him, white as the purest marble.

      The heavy, twisted silver of the torc he wore about his arm cut into her flesh. She did not notice. She noticed nothing but the feel of his body on hers, the strength of his muscular thighs, the power of his tongue as he thrust it into her mouth as though he would devour her utterly.

       ‘Claudia …’

      He breathed her name as a caress, a plea, a cry of anguish, and then at last a shout of triumph as he lay still, shaking, in her arms.

      She smiled. Gazing up at the sky through the canopy of rustling oak leaves she was utterly content. The world had contracted into the one small clearing in the deserted woodland. Child and husband were forgotten. For this man in her arms, she was prepared to risk losing both; to risk losing her home, her position, life itself.

      He stirred, and, raising himself onto his elbows, he stared down at her, his face strangely blank, his silvery eyes unseeing.

       ‘Claudia …’ he whispered again. He rested his face between her breasts. It was the little death; the death a man sought; the death which followed coition. He smiled, reaching his fist into her hair, holding her prisoner, tracing the line of her cheek-bones, her eyelids, with his lips. What would this woman’s husband, a son of Rome, an officer of the legion, say if he ever found out? What would he do if he learned his wife had a lover, and that the lover was a Druid Prince?

       I

      ‘I hate being famous!’ Kate Kennedy confessed as she sat on the floor of her sister Anne’s flat. They were sharing a takeaway with a large Burmese cat called Carl Gustav Jung.

      When her biography of Jane Austen was published Kate had found herself a celebrity overnight. She was invited onto talk shows, she was interviewed by three national daily newspapers and two Sundays, she toured the libraries and bookshops of Britain and she met Jon Bevan, described