Winterly (Dark Creatures Book 1), стр. 61
She could only hope that Winterly was unaware of her sudden, maniacal urge to giggle. But of course he noticed her difficulty, because his brow arched as he watched her.
“Now who is laughing at whom?” There was no mistaking that his curiosity was piqued.
“You promised a guided tour, and if I were a paying customer, I should have asked for a refund by now.” Perhaps it had been his silence that had so unnerved her to incongruous humor.
“So I did.” Without removing his gaze from her he gestured to the choir’s lancet arches. “You, no doubt, remember the mural in the library?”
“I’m not likely to forget it even if I try.”
He nodded. “There was a time when all these windows in the choir had been glazed with colored glass, and in one window particularly was the same depiction of that which you saw this morning.”
Yes, the cannibals—the vampyres. But she was enthralled as he continued to describe the many rich furnishings that had adorned the abbey choir. He spoke at length, his voice modulated above the wind, and mesmeric as he painted a picture in time, as if recounting the painted walls and carved wooden furnishings as of one remembering, one who had seen it all for himself. A remembrancer rather than a man repeating only what he’d heard described.
The abbey’s skeleton lay upon consecrated ground and yet he appeared as impervious to its quiet inviolability as any mortal, wholly at his ease beneath the ruined shadows. When his eyes dropped without warning to her neck, she realized she was playing with her crucifix and hurriedly dropped her hand.
He smiled and continued recounting the abbey’s history. “The first abbey that stood here was destroyed by the vikings almost a thousand years ago; Whitby would have been called Streonshalh, back in those days, when Oswy ruled Northumbria.” There was a faraway look dimming his eyes. They began walking again and after a while he continued, “It was only after the Norman Conquest that these stones you see here were first erected at Hwitebi. And there they stood till Henry had the monasteries dissolved.” He paused to glance down at her. “I believe I remember you mentioning a Catholic cousin?”
“Yes, Mary, an older cousin,” said Emma fondly. “She ran away to join a Catholic church in France, much to the horror of her Protestant father.”
“But no longer an exile.” He stroked his jaw.
“No, she now resides in Hobkirk, at the Priory Church of Holy Virgins.”
“I see you hail from a family of adventuresses.”
“Taking the veil is hardly the habit of an adventuress.”
“Ah, but to abandon the bosom of filial security takes courage.”
“She chose to abandon one father and follow another.”
“Marry,” he corrected. “I believe nuns esteem it a holy espousal; or servitude, whichever you prefer. My point, Miss Rose, is that she chose to be who she truly is. Can you say the same?”
Her brow lowered, no tolerable answer presenting itself, and the subject was dropped in favor of silence. By the time they reached the little Saxon graveyard, that silence had become unbearable to her. He might well be comfortable in it, but she was not. Perhaps it was that discomfiture which prompted some inchoate, suicidal impulse to come over her, for she suddenly asked what was better left unsaid. “Do you believe in vampyres?”
“From theology to the occult? What a curious creature you are, Miss Rose.” Coal black eyes regarded her steadily. “Yes,” he said finally, moving to stand a little closer. “I do.”
But where did that leave them? She could not very well ask him outright if he reckoned himself among that race. Not yet, anyway. What the deuce was a vampyre supposed to look like at any rate? Mrs. Skinner certainly embodied every horror of vampiric nature, but Winterly’s handsome countenance nowise satisfied her notion of how a vampyre ought to look. Then what could he possibly be if not a vampyre?
They were silent, studying each other so intently that neither noticed the mizzle that began to fall—the gentle preface to the approaching squall. It was gentle at first, but with a sudden gust the sky cracked open to unleash a veritable deluge upon them.
And then, right there amidst the old Saxon graves and the roaring tempest, he kissed her with all the passion of the fulminating sky. It was as unexpected as the streak of lightning that forked over the sea. He held her fast—a kiss to equal the force of nature whipping around them.
His lips, the feel of them pressed hard against hers, were now as intimate as his scent, the rhythm of his tongue somehow familiar as it took full and fiery possession of hers. His hands moved, unrestrained, over her sodden back and into her hair, releasing the pins so that her tresses lay heavy against her spine. Despite herself, she melted into him, her heart drowning out the tempest.
The redolence of his skin flavored by the rain and the wind intoxicated her completely. She hardly noticed when he swept her off her feet and swiftly knelt to lay her flat against one of the headstones, cradling her head in one hand without releasing her mouth. His fingers glided down her throat to her bodice as she writhed beneath him. From here the kiss only deepened. She reveled in his touch.
The rain lashed furiously at their faces, but she was insensible to all except the glorious weight of his masterful kiss. Blind to all but the thrilling pressure of his body against hers. Without the slightest fumble, Winterly’s hands moved beneath her skirts. He dragged his lips to her ear, whispering things that became lost in the gale, and then down her throat, sucking the tender flesh gently between his teeth. Her hands tightened in his hair as his fingers slipped up to her naked hip. She arched her back and pressed herself closer to him,