When Maidens Mourn by C. S. Harris EPUB & PDF – eBook Details Online
- Name: When Maidens Mourn
- Author: C. S. Harris
- Language: English
- Genre: Historical Mystery, Thriller & Suspense Fiction
- Format: PDF / EPUB
- Size: 2 MB
- Price: Free
Camlet Moat, Trent Place, England
Sunday, 2 August 1812
Tessa Sawyer hummed a nervous tune beneath her breath as she pushed
through the tangled brush and bracken edging the black waters of the
ancient moat. She was very young—just sixteen at her next birthday. And
though she tried to tell herself she was brave, she knew she wasn’t. She
could feel her heart pounding in her narrow chest, and her hands tingled as
if she’d been sitting on them. When she’d left the village, the night sky
above had been clear and bright with stars. But here, deep in the wood, all
was darkness and shadow. From the murky, stagnant water beside her rose
an eerie mist, thick and clammy.
It should have wafted cool against her cheek. Instead, she felt as if the
heavy dampness were stealing her breath, suffocating her with an unnatural
heat and a sick dread of the forbidden. She paused to swipe a shaky hand
across her sweaty face and heard a rustling in the distance, the soft plop of
something hitting the water.
Choking back a whimper, she spun about, ready to run. But this was
Lammas, a time sacred to the ancient goddess. They said that at midnight
on this night, if a maiden dipped a cloth into the holy well that lay on the
northern edge of the isle of Camlet Moat and then tied her offering to a
branch of the rag tree that overhung the well, her prayer would be
answered. Not only that, but maybe, just maybe, the White Lady herself
would appear, to bless the maid and offer her the wisdom and guidance that
a motherless girl such as Tessa yearned for with all her being.
No one knew exactly who the White Lady was. Father Clark insisted that
if the lady existed at all—which he doubted—she could only be the Virgin
Mary. But local legend said the White Lady was one of the grail maidens of
old, a chaste virgin who’d guarded the sacred well since before the time of
Arthur and Guinevere and the Knights of the Round Table. And then there
were those who whispered that the lady was actually Guinevere, ever
young, ever beautiful, ever glorious.
Forcing herself to go on, Tessa clenched her fist around the strip of white
cloth she was bringing as an offering. She could see the prow of the small
dinghy kept at the moat by Sir Stanley Winthrop, on whose land she
trespassed. Its timbers old and cracked, its aged paint worn and faded, it
rocked lightly at the water’s edge as if touched by an unseen current.
It was not empty.
Tessa drew up short. A lady lay crumpled against the stern, her hair a
dark cascade of curls around a pale, motionless face. She was young yet and
slim, her gown an elegant flowing confection of gossamer muslin sashed
with peach satin. She had her head tipped back, her neck arched; her eyes
were open but sightless, her skin waxen.
And from a jagged rent high across her pale breast showed a dried rivulet
of darkness where her life’s blood had long since drained away.
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