To The Rescue. Jean Barrett
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soft tolling of the bell again that measured the canonical hours of devotion.
Another hour must have passed before Jennifer realized how cold the room was. The fire had dwindled to smoldering embers. Turning on the bedside lamp, she pushed back the covers and swung her legs over the side of the bed. She shivered when she came to her feet. Her robe was draped over the chair. She reached for it, hugging its thick folds around her as she padded on bare feet to the fireplace where she fed the grate with fresh peat chunks from the basket beside the hearth.
Safe, she thought as she crouched there, feeling the heat from the glow that slowly developed. That’s what Father Stephen had told her. That she was safe now in the sanctuary of the monastery.
The abbot had meant she was safe from the harsh weather. He didn’t know she was threatened by something far worse than the elements.
And right now, she thought, gazing at the connecting door, that something was not only in the monastery with her but inside the room behind that door.
Father Stephen had informed her that Leo McKenzie’s identity had been established by his driver’s license and his American passport. Nothing had been said about a discovery of anything that would give her a reason to be alarmed. But what if there was something?
It was no use. Jennifer knew she wouldn’t be able to sleep until she had satisfied herself that Leo McKenzie wasn’t carrying something that incriminated her. If not, she might at least be able to learn how he had traced her to Yorkshire. And why he’d been hunting for her.
She crossed the room and put her ear against the connecting door, listening. Silence. She tried the door. It was unlocked.
Opening the door slowly and carefully, hoping she wouldn’t find him awake, she entered the room.
A single lamp burning on the bedside table revealed that the chamber was similar to her own. What she could see of it, anyway. The light here was also weak, leaving the corners in darkness. But it was sufficient to show her the man on the bed.
He lay on his back, his eyes closed. It wasn’t his face, though, that immediately captured her attention. The blanket that should have fully covered him had somehow gotten tangled down around his waist, exposing his chest. A sleekly muscled chest that was naked except for some kind of white band wound tightly around the lower part of his rib cage.
Riveted by the sight of the powerful shoulders above that wrapping, Jennifer was suddenly nervous about approaching the bed. She went on standing there just inside the door. Then, directing her gaze elsewhere, she discovered his belongings that had been removed from his clothing. They had been dumped on the seat of a chair beside the bed. His wallet was among them.
The temptation to search those personal belongings was as strong as ever, but she hesitated. If there was anything in that collection that incriminated her, wouldn’t Brother Timothy have discovered it and alerted the abbot?
Now that she thought of it, it didn’t make sense that Leo McKenzie had been sent by the London police to find and arrest her. If she was a wanted woman now, then the local police would have been asked to handle it. Wouldn’t they?
But Jennifer was no longer certain of anything. She had to know. Summoning her courage, she started to move in the direction of the chair. And was halted by the sound of Leo McKenzie mumbling in his sleep as he stirred on the bed.
“Lad’s restless.”
Jennifer whirled around with a startled gasp.
The voice, like gravel, went on speaking to her from one of the dark corners of the room. “Keeps throwing off his covers. I’ve given up trying to keep them up about his chin where they belong. Don’t think he minds the cold at all.”
A chair creaked as the man whose silent presence she’d been unaware of until this moment rose and moved forward into the light.
“Still, it’s a good sign he’s restless,” he said. “Tells me he’s not gone and sunk hisself into a coma. You’ll be Miss Rowan, is it?”
“Yes,” she murmured.
“Brother Timothy,” he introduced himself. “They’ll have told you I’m minding the patient.”
In spite of the robe he wore, he looked more like the hefty prize fighter he’d been than the monk he was now. His round, ruddy face with its broken nose also belonged to a boxer. But his grin was good-natured.
“Gave you a bit of a start, did I?”
“I didn’t know you were still with him.”
“Thought I’d better spend the night here. With a bump on the head like that, there’s always the chance of a concussion, you see. Have to be watchful for that. I expect you came in to check on him yourself.”
“Yes,” Jennifer lied, “I was worried about him.”
“Mind you, he’s not out of the woods,” Brother Timothy said, bending over the bed, “but he’ll come around yet, stout lad like him.”
“That’s good.”
“Grumbled about his ribs being sore when I examined him. I’m of a mind he’s just bruised there, nothing broken, but I taped him up. Can’t be certain that it isn’t a cracked rib. No trouble breathing, anyway.”
“And he is sleeping.”
“Sleep is the ticket all right, and I gave him something to be sure he did just that.” Brother Timothy chuckled. “But he’s been fighting it. Not a man who likes to be helpless, I’m thinking.”
Scratching the fringe of graying hair below his tonsure, the monk gazed at her, as if wondering whether she had anything further she wanted to know.
There was a great deal that Jennifer did want to know about Leo McKenzie, but Brother Timothy wouldn’t be able to provide that information. Nor, while the monk remained here keeping his vigil, could she attempt to learn it on her own. She would have to wait for her answers.
“Well, since he’s in such good hands…”
Wishing Brother Timothy a good night, Jennifer retreated to her room.
Tomorrow, she promised herself as she closed the connecting door behind her.
IT WASN’T DAYLIGHT, however, that awakened her some hours later. Nor was it the desire for those answers. This was something else. And though Jennifer initially resisted the summons as she drifted back to consciousness, in the end she could no longer ignore its urgency.
She needed a bathroom.
You might as well give in, because it’s not going to go away.
“Fine,” she muttered, fully awake now as she emerged from the covers under which she was burrowed.
But, of course, it wasn’t fine at all. Not when it was the middle of the night. The blackness at her window told her that even before she peered at her watch, after almost upsetting the lamp when she fumbled for the switch. And the room was frigid.
When her feet hit the icy floor, she couldn’t slide them into her slippers fast enough. She reached for her robe and bundled into it, snugging the belt around her waist.
Better, but a hotel accommodation equipped with its own bathroom would have been better still. This was not a hotel, she reminded herself. It was Warley Castle, and private bathrooms were nonexistent.
There was a single bathroom reserved for guests. That is, if she could remember how to get to it. One of the brothers had conducted her to the facility shortly after her arrival. Jennifer had hoped not to have to visit it again before morning, but the call of nature wasn’t going to be denied.
The wind continued to snarl outside, muffled by the thick walls. She could barely hear it in the passageway that stretched away in front of her, cold and gloomy in the dim light.
Warley Castle was a big place. Its stone-vaulted corridors seemed to meander in every direction from level