Love Letters by Emily Murdoch Read Free Book Online

Catheryn only had eyes for the bird that was soaring above them.
    “The skylark sings only when joyful,” she said, her eyes trying to follow the bird as it flew higher and higher and closer and closer to the blazing sun. “It is a bird that truly understands happiness.”
    Selwyn wasn’t watching the bird, but instead the woman that had become so captivated by its song.
    “You know, it is one of the few birds that never leave us,” Catheryn continued. “Despite the coldness of our winters, it does not desert us and spend the winter elsewhere, but instead remains to cheer us.”
    Selwyn was caught off-guard when she suddenly looked down to stare into his eyes.
    “Does it not make you feel…alive?”
    Any words that Selwyn could have summoned at that moment were caught in his throat. The sunlight poured onto Catheryn, and she almost dazzled him with her beauty
    . Her innocence, her love of a bird that probably had not even registered her presence, her belief in the poem as a vehicle of good – these were all things that he could not have expected in her. The woman that had glanced back at him with those wicked eyes seemed to have vanished, and left in her place the very opposite of what he had supposed existed.
    “Selwyn?”
    Catheryn’s voice was now full of concern, and he realised that he had been staring at her for a full minute.
    When he did manage to find his voice again, he hoped that she could not hear the hoarseness that crept in unwittingly.
    “Did you know that skylarks mate for life?”
    A blush threatened to overcome Catheryn’s face, but that was not her only reaction. Heat flooded through her body, and every part of her began to tingle.
    “I did,” she managed to say.
    Selwyn stepped forward, a serious and intense look about him that Catheryn could not decipher.
    “And do you think that all people do?”
    Catheryn’s mouth was dry, but she managed to speak. “I would imagine that anyone mated to you would.”
    Catheryn’s hand flew to her mouth at the shock of what she had just said.
    Without warning, Selwyn was blind, and perhaps deaf. Had she really said that – had those innocent words when separated come together in that intimate and passionate order? He couldn’t see, was barely aware of himself and his surroundings. All he knew was that if she didn’t move soon, he would be the one to break the distance between them…
    Catheryn stepped back, nervously. “You know,” she said ponderously, “you do seem to lose concentration every now and again. Do you feel well? Do you require some food, or some ale?”
    “…Perfectly well, thank you.” Selwyn was relieved to find that his voice sounded just as strong as ever, although he could not say the same for his knees.
    Catheryn cast one last look at the skylark, and then began the walk back to the house.
    “Do you have any ideas as to who my ‘romancer’ could be?” she said. “I use your term out of deference, although I still maintain that it is ridiculous.”
    Selwyn chuckled as he struggled to regain his place in the conversation. “Well, I think in many regards you are correct. Your father has five thanes, and three of those are extremely unlikely to send you such a note. The other two are unlikely to send you a note of such imagination and beauty.”
    Catheryn nodded. “So where does that leave us?”
    Selwyn looked over at the elegant woman by his side. “Right here, I suppose.”
    Catheryn opened her mouth, but the next words that Selwyn heard were barked and from a much more irritated throat.
    “Selwyn!”
    The two of them looked over to see Deorwine running towards them.
    Catheryn sighed. She had been enjoying her conversation with Selwyn, much to her surprise. She had assumed that his offer of help was made in order to promote himself in her eyes, and therefore her father’s – but he truly seemed to want to aid her in her puzzle. There was something about him…a moment between them that she could not understand,