CHAPTER XXXIDenise slipped slowly to her knees, still leaning the weight of her body against the trunk of the tree. The languor of death seemed upon her, but her eyes could still meet Aymery’s, brown eyes swimming with the death mist, and growing blind to the sunlight. The man’s shocked face, and his outstretched hands were the last things that she remembered.
“Lord, it is better so.”
Her head drooped, her hair falling about her face. The long lashes flickered over the eyes like the flickering light of a taper before it dies in the darkness. Aymery dropped on his knees beside her. He was awed, shaken to the deeps, a man who looked upon the face of death, and knew that the great silence was falling upon the mouth of the woman whom he had kissed in dreams.
“Denise.”
He took her into his
