"Night Lost" - читать интересную книгу автора (Viehl Lynn)

Or the illusion of it, Richard thought as the sound of knocking startled his favorite tabby out of his lap. "Enter."

A footman appeared.

"Dr. Alexandra Keller, seigneur," the servant announced as Richard's seneschal and a guard dragged a small, writhing figure into the library.

"I was just out walking," she protested as they hauled her to stand in the pool of light before Richard's desk. "What, I'm not allowed to have fresh air?" She puffed out some air and blew some chestnut curls out of her face.

Black soil powdered her nose, cheek, and chin. "I'm supposed to be a guest, aren't I?"

The tabby cautiously approached the American and sniffed delicately at the bare toes of her dirty right foot. An unlaced, too-large trainer covered her left.

Few things annoyed the high lord of the Darkyn more than having his routine disrupted, but his unwilling houseguest likely thought it her right. Now dealing with her attempts to escape Dundellan had become almost a daily chore.

"Where did you find her this time?" he asked Korvel, his seneschal.

"By the bailey wall, my lord." Korvel, who also served as the captain of the guard, kept a firm grip on the doctor.

"It's a nice night for once, so I stepped outside," Alexandra insisted. Like his men, she did not look directly at him. "For a little walk. To get away from the endless sunshine and happiness of this place for a few minutes, okay? That's all."

Richard eyed her garments and remaining shoe, which he recognized as belonging to a junior porter. "Dressed as one of my household?"

"You tookmy clothes, and I'm tired of those stupid ball gowns." She lifted her chin. "You try wearing something that comes with five crinolines and a built-in corset; see how you like it."

"Indeed. And what is young Jamison wearing at this moment? Little more than torn strips of your bed linens knotted about his limbs, I daresay." When she scowled, he instructed the footman to go and search her rooms.

"We also found this"ЧStefan, the guard, displayed an iron poker bent into the shape of a hook, to which a coil of rope had been tiedЧ"hanging from the battlement behind her."

"I told you, it's not mine," the doctor insisted. "I have no idea how it got there. Maybe someone else left it behind when they climbed the wall. Shouldn't you be out looking for one of the other hostages?"

Korvel and Stefan exchanged a long-suffering look over the petite American's head.

Richard held out one gloved, distorted hand and took the hand-fashioned grappling device to inspect it. He was impressed; the thick iron had been bent as easily as if it were a thin reed. "I had not thought her this strong."

"She broke Martin's arm in two places after he apprehended her trying to jump from the rooftop last week, my lord," Korvel reminded him.

"I set Martin's arm after I broke it," Alexandra pointed out. "I also said I was very sorry and would try not to fracture anyone else's bones. Quit talking around me. I'm not one of your zombies."

Zombies. No one, not even Kyn, had ever dared refer to the humans Richard obtained and enraptured in such scathing terms. They were politely ignored, just as Richard's condition was. He went to her and bent close to her ear.

"I should cut out your tongue," he said softly, exercising a small amount of his talent. He knew just to what degree his powerful voice drilled into her head, causing her considerable if momentary pain.

Alexandra paled but stood her ground. "With that icepick voice of yours, why bother? You can tell me to shut up and I will. Or kill me. There are doctors all over the place; you can kidnap as many as you want." She stared into his eyes, and her scent washed over him. "Don't hold back on my account."

The idiot femalewanted to provoke him into anger.

"Shall we take her to the lower level, my lord?" Stefan asked, a bit too eagerly. "Gunther has readied a cell. You have but to say." His gaze shifted to the top of Alexandra's head, and his free hand twitched, as if he meant to touch her hair.

Stefan and his dour dungeon master, like most of Richard's men, wanted nothing more than to have Dr. Keller at their mercy, to do as they pleased with her. That was the other problem with the American: Her presence had driven almost every male Kyn who served him into a constant state of appalled, confused lust.