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would be a gray world without him in it.
Her thoughts managed to distract her from what she was doing as she sat on the ledge and eased to its
edge, preparing to shimmy down her rope. A quick glance to the side assured her that she had not been
noticed yet. It also helped to delay her descent. She was not sure what she would do if she were spotted.
She supposed she could simply push herself out from the side of the castle and drop into the moat in the
hope that she could get out and avoid her pursuers long enough to lose herself in the woods. On that
thought, she wrapped the top of the rope around one arm, grasped it with both hands, and pushed herself
off the ledge.
Chapter Fifteen
Emma did not have far to drop with the rope wrapped around her as it was, but she realized her mistake
in doing so the moment the rope jerked tight around her arm. The pain was excruciating. She managed to
bite back a shout of agony and hold on as she swung just below the window ledge. Forcing herself to
concentrate on the solid stone wall before her, she tried to ignore the pain in her arm. It felt as if that limb
were afire.
After a moment of time in which she waited to see if the pain would lessen any, she glanced nervously to
the side to see the guards. They were still talking, but she knew she could not count on their continuing
their conversation forever.
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Biting her lip to keep back the whimper of pain and fear that wanted to escape, Emma shifted her hold
and allowed herself to lower a hand s span down the rope. She paused again then before lowering
herself the same amount once more. Then again. She traversed most of the wall like that, inch by painful
inch, every second expecting a shout to call the warning that she was trying to escape. She was halfway
down the wall, the muscles in her arms and shoulders aching so badly she feared she could hear them
screaming in her head, before she stopped worrying about that. It seemed that in the dark the guards
could not see her.
Emma discovered she had arrived at the end of the rope when she reached down to grab it a bit lower
and grasped nothing but air. Holding still, she glanced down, squinting in an effort to see the ground.
After a moment she was just able to make it out. From what she could tell she was a little over two thirds
of the way down the wall. That still left a third of the way to traverse. With no rope. She felt panic rise up
in her briefly, then stomped down on it determinedly as she tried to consider her options.
Climbing back up the wall to her prison was one.
 Not bloody likely, she muttered under her breath.
Jumping to the ground was another option, but it carried the possibility of breaking her legs with it. It
would be difficult to escape on broken legs.
She surveyed the ground again, then glanced at the moat. She could always make a jump for that. Her
nose wrinkled at the idea. She had begun to smell the moat before she had traversed a quarter of the
distance down. Right now the scent was almost unbearably strong. Diving into the source of that smell
was not the most appealing option. Unless she put it next to seeing her husband dead, she thought grimly
and peered below again. She would have to move quickly. Her splashing into the moat would no doubt
be heard. It would at least be enough to have the guards send someone to look about. She would have
to pull herself out and reach the woods before being caught, but there was no help for it, she decided.
Yet she still hesitated.
A sudden shout from above brought her head up. She could just see Bertrand s silhouette in the window
of the tower, framed there by the candlelight in the room. It seemed he had come for another unapproved
visit. He did have the damnedest timing.
Grimacing, Emma turned to face the wall, took a deep breath, pushed herself out with her feet, and
released her hold on the rope.
She dropped like a stone, her skirts flying up over her face as she slammed into the stinking water of the
moat. It was deeper than she had expected. It seemed to take forever for her to plummet to the bottom,
though she supposed that at the moment, as she imagined guards pouring out of the gate to search her
out, everything seemed to take too long. Feeling slightly uneven ground beneath her feet, she pushed
upward, only to reach the surface and barely manage a gasp of putrid air before her skirts dragged her
down again.
She struggled briefly, attempting to reach the surface anyway, but it was impossible. When her lungs
began to burn from lack of air, she started to tug desperately at her gown, shedding it as quickly as she
could before struggling back to the surface again. As fetid as the air that she drew into her lungs then [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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