The Silent Touch of Shadows Read Online Free PDF Page A

horse’s gait. Still smell the animal and the leather of its harness, hear the jingling of it and the clanking of his spurs as he urged the horse into a trot. She wrinkled her nose. Come to think of it, there was a distinctly equine smell in the room.
    Impossible. It had to be the farmyard odour she had detected earlier. She snorted quietly. Her imagination was truly working overtime. I really must get out more.
    The handsome warrior on his huge destrier was not real. Of course he wasn’t. It was only in her dream that he came to take her on a ride to a night of bliss, leaving her sated and languorous the way Steve used to do before he   … She ground her teeth and redirected her thoughts with an effort. Such perfect men existed only in fairy tales. These days there was no guarantee of a ‘happy ever after’ even if you did happen to find your dream man.
    I should know.
    As a naive nineteen-year old, she thought she had found hers. She’d been carried away all right, a whirlwind romance that resulted in marriage and a child, just as in the books she loved to read. But it seemed today’s knights were allowed to tire of their wives and simply walk out, asking for a divorce, and leaving behind them a gaping hole of emptiness.
    ‘I need space. I need to find myself,’ Steve had said the day he left so abruptly. ‘For Christ’s sake, we were too young, they shouldn’t have let us get married at that age. We hadn’t really lived, you know.’
    Melissa was stunned. She’d thought they would do their ‘living’ together; had foolishly imagined their love would sustain them through whatever came their way. Obviously, the love had been one-sided. So why couldn’t she let it go? Why do I still want him? And it had all been a lie anyway, because he had left her for another woman, not to ‘find himself’. He was just too cowardly to admit it at first.
    She drove her fist into the pillow once more. Bastard. I hate you , she thought, but she knew it wasn’t true. If he walked through her door this minute apologising, she’d take him back, no questions asked. It was pathetic, she told herself, but it made not the slightest difference.
    She pulled the covers up over her ears. She didn’t want to think about men, they were nothing but trouble. Except for the one in her dream, of course   …
    No, I don’t want you either. You’re probably just the same.
    There was no escaping him, however. A while later when she yawned and turned over, he was still waiting for her and just as before, she found it impossible to resist him. Snuggling down, she gave up the fight, relaxed and smiled in her sleep.
    ‘Mum, time to wake up or you’ll miss breakfast. Can’t you smell it? Auntie Dorothy has been cooking for ages.’
    Jolie burst into the guest room without preamble and Melissa stared at her in sleepy confusion. Bright sunshine was pouring in through the leaded windows, and the canopy of forest leaves in her dream faded away, leaving only floral curtains and smooth plaster walls. She tried to focus on her daughter.
    ‘What? Breakfast? Oh, right.’ She sat up too quickly and had to sink back down as her head spun like a fairground ride.
    ‘Yes, hurry up, it’s almost ready.’
    ‘Okay, okay, I’m coming.’
    Satisfied with that answer, Jolie rushed off again, leaving Melissa to make another attempt at sitting up. She took her time, admiring her surroundings while she waited for her brain to catch up. The room was small and cosy – almost too cosy with the two beds in there, but that was the only flaw. A wealth of exposed ceiling beams, none of which were straight, made it quaint. In one corner was a tiny fireplace with a stone surround and all the furniture was of heavy oak, highly polished and smelling slightly of beeswax. The overall effect was charming and Melissa couldn’t help but smile. It was certainly a far cry from their London flat, which was, to put it mildly, rather shabby.
    No point thinking about it now.