Читать книгу The Dream Weavers онлайн | страница 24

As though reading his thoughts, she dropped the reins on the animal’s neck. It stopped immediately and she laughed.

Elisedd schooled his face. That was the second time he felt she had read his thoughts. ‘I shall look forward to our ride tomorrow then.’ His words were studiedly neutral in tone.

She gave him a dazzling smile and without a word turned the horse to gallop back the way she had come, her escort in her wake.

‘Phew!’ Morgan gave a theatrical wipe of his brow as they watched the riders disappear across the meadow and into the woods. ‘I hope you aren’t expecting me to ride with you tomorrow.’

‘Indeed I am. I expect you all to come.’ Elisedd was watching the wind ruffle the long grasses, whisking away the trail left by the princess and her attendants. ‘I don’t wish to be eaten alive.’ And with a shout of laughter he set his own horse at a gallop in the opposite direction.

The banging on the front door jerked Bea awake. She looked round, her heart thudding, the pages of the manuscript sliding off her knee and scattering around her feet. The room was ice-cold. She stood up and went cautiously towards the door and put her ear against it, listening. ‘Who is it?’ She hadn’t bolted it when she came in, she realised.

There was no reply.

Taking a deep breath, she pulled it open. There was no one there. Wisps of cloud were drifting up the valley and the sheep on the far side of the fields were calling calmly to one another. Overhead, a red kite circled ever higher in the sunlight until it was out of sight in the glare far above the shadowy fields.

Whoever had knocked with such desperate force was gone.

Turning back, she looked around the room. She had been asleep, dreaming, and her protection, she realised with horror, was no longer in place. The knocking had left the energies around her fractured and the echoes had become jagged, her dream still with her with vivid clarity. She played back the scene in her head: the noisy hall with its smells of cooking and woodsmoke and crowded humanity, the ride across the meadows, the confrontation of the Saxon girl and the Welsh prince. All of it so sharply focused, so intense, it had been almost more than real. And every part of it had been somehow relevant to this house. But it was gone. With a sigh she set about gathering the scattered pages of Simon’s manuscript off the floor, the manuscript that held the clues she sought. The strange jump from intense noisy emotion to numb emptiness was a new experience, as was that moment of fear she had felt outside on the terrace. Even when she had confronted the violent poltergeist she hadn’t been gripped by fear like that.