"Roberts, Nora - Irish Gallaghers 03 - Heart of the Sea" - читать интересную книгу автора (Roberts Nora)

Twice more he came to her, the next time when she carried her first child in her womb. From his silver pouch he poured pearls, tears of the moon that he'd gathered for her. And these, he told her, were his longing for her. But longing is not love, and she had pledged herself to another.

When she turned away, the pearls became flowers.

Many years passed before he came the last time, years during which Gwen raised her children, nursed her husband through his illness, and buried him when she was an old woman. Years during which Carrick brooded in his palace and swept through the sky on his horse.

He dived into the sea to wring from its heart the last of his gifts to her. These he poured at her feet, shimmering sapphires that blazed in the grass. His constancy for her. When now, finally, he spoke of love, she could only weep bitter tears, for her life was over. She told him it was too late, that she had never needed riches or promises of glory, but only to know that he loved her, loved her enough that she could have set aside her fear of giving up her world for his. And as she turned to leave him this time, as the sapphires bloomed into flowers in the grass, his hurt and his temper lashed out in the spell he cast. She would find no peace without him, nor would they see each other again until three times lovers met and, accepting each other, risking hearts, dared to choose love over all else.

Three hundred years, Trevor thought later as he let himself into the house where Gwen had lived and died. A long time to wait. He'd listened to Jude tell the tale in her quiet, storyteller's voice, without interrupting. Not even to tell her that he knew parts of the story. Somehow he knew.

He'd dreamed them.

He hadn't told her that he, too, could have described Gwen, down to the sea green of her eyes and the curve of her cheek. He'd dreamed her as well.

And had, he realized, nearly married Sylvia because she'd reminded him of that dream image. A soft woman with simple ways. It should have been right between them, he thought as he headed upstairs to shower off the day's dirt. It still irritated him that it hadn't been. In the end, it just hadn't been right.

She'd known it first, and had gently let him go before he'd admitted he already had his eye on the door. Maybe that was what bothered him most of all. He hadn't had the courtesy to do the ending. Though she'd forgiven him for it, he'd yet to forgive himself.

He caught the scent the minute he stepped into the bedroom. Delicate, female, like rose petals freshly fallen onto dewy grass.

"A ghost who wears perfume," he murmured, oddly amused. "Well, if you're modest turn your back." So saying, he stripped where he stood, then walked into the bath.

He spent the rest of his evening alone, catching up on paperwork, scanning the faxes that had come in on the machine he'd brought with him, shooting off replies. He treated himself to a beer and stood outside with it in the last of the dying light listening to the aching silence and watching stars pulse to life.

Tim Riley, whoever the hell he was, looked to be right. There was no rain coming yet. The foundation he was building would set clean.

As he turned to go back in, a streak of movement overhead caught his eye. A blur of white and silver across the darkening sky. But when he looked back for it, narrowing his eyes to scan, he saw nothing but stars and the rise of the quarter moon.

A falling star, he decided. A ghost was one thing, but a flying horse ridden by the prince of the faeries was another entirely.

But he thought he heard the cheerful lilt of pipes and flutes dance across the silence as he shut the door of the cottage for the night.

CHAPTER Two

Darcy Gallagher dreamed of Paris. Strolling along the Left Bank on a perfect spring afternoon with the scent of flowers ripe in the air and the cloudless blue sky soaring overhead.

And perhaps best of all, the weight of shopping bags heavy in her hands.

In her dreams she owned Paris, not for a brief week's holiday, but for as long as it contented her. She could stop to while away an hour or two at a sidewalk cafe, sipping lovely wine and watching the world-for it seemed the whole of the world-wander by.

Long-legged women in smart dresses, and the dark-eyed men who watched them. The old woman on her red bicycle with her baguettes spearing up out of her bakery sack, and the tidy children in their straight rows marching along in their prim school uniforms.

They belonged to her, just as the wild and noisy traffic was hers, and the cart on the corner bursting with flowers. She didn't need to ride to the top of the Eiffel Tower to have Paris at her feet.

As she sat sampling wine and cheese that had been aged to perfection, she listened to the city that was hers for the taking. There was music all around her, in the cooing of the ubiquitous pigeons and the swirling whoosh when they took wing, in the steady beep of horns, the click of high, thin heels on sidewalks, the laughter of lovers.

Even as she sighed, blissfully happy, the thunder rolled in. At the rumble of it, she glanced skyward. Clouds spewed in from the west, dark and thick. The brilliant sunlight fell into that false twilight that precedes a storm. The rumble became a roar that had her leaping to her feet even while those around her continued to sit, to chat, to stroll as if they heard or saw nothing amiss.

Snatching up her bags, she started to dash away, to safety, to shelter. And a bolt of lightning, sizzling blue at the edges, lanced into the ground at her feet.