Book Trailer: https://shorturl.at/ajuE0
Excerpt from Bound Across Time, by Annie R McEwen
You’re
an idjit, Patrick. Death was always too good for you.
He
should have gone slower with her, no doubt about it. He was a lout, a brute, to
startle her so thoroughly, and that was never his intent. He could have—no, he
should have—whispered, or moaned, or shimmered from a distance. Instead, he was
hasty.
Hasty?
He was a burning brand of desire. Who could blame him after two
hundred-fifty…how long had it been? He’d lost count of the years.
That
was still no reason to be an imbecilic knave, popping up like codswalloping
Punch on a puppet stage while wearing the same filthy linen he was tipped
overboard in when the Earl didn’t have the decency to give him a proper burial.
At least the seawater had washed away the blood.
His
honour, his common sense—perhaps they’d washed away as well. Within reach of
this woman, he could remember nothing he’d learned of subtle romance and
courtly manners. All he could think of was making her his, now until the end of
time.
What
an embarrassment he was, to his sainted mother, to his upbringing, to the
gentleman he was reared to be. An embarrassment to every Irish bard who ever
sang songs or wrote poems about women who were doves, and lilies, and other
things he couldn’t remember.
He
did remember that they were fragile and easily startled. Easily driven away.
Next time, I will be slow. I will slowly and gently explain things to her.
Unusual things. Highly unusual, uncanny, frightening, nigh incomprehensible
things.
Sure,
now, Patrick, me boyo, that’ll be a stroll along the banks of the Shannon.
By
the right hand of God, but she was beautiful. Slumbering on the stone floor,
her skin smooth ivory but gilded, as though the sun had kissed her once and
then fallen in love, unable to leave. She’d lost her cap, and her hair—rich,
deep brown and burnished with red, like brandy—tumbled around her neck and
shoulders. Her sun-brushed skin, high and perfect cheekbones, the delicate
slant of her eyes, the plump swell of her breasts above the top edge of her bodice,
the curves of the body he could imagine pressed to his own aching and lonely
one…
Beauty
itself, she was, not only of body but of mind. In the weeks before she’d seen
him, he’d watched her exercise that beautiful mind among the slower thinkers of
the Castle, who doubtless envied her. She was stubborn, spirited, and
quick-witted—he liked that.
He crouched over her crumpled form, not touching, only taking in her scent.
Rose attar and mint—he liked that, too.
The
only thing he didn’t care for was the name she went by, See-see. What sort of
name was that? It was something you called a canary. He would never call her
that, not when the French name with which she’d been christened was just like
her.
Céleste,
meaning heavenly.
She was waking now. He rose and backed away. Time for him to depart, as he must, and breathe a prayer. Not for himself, there was no point to that. If God had ever listened to him, he wouldn’t be where he was, and he deserved no better. His prayer would be for her, the angel who defied or escaped God’s curse to light his endless night.
Come back, Céleste Gowdie. Please come back.
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