Stealing Heaven

Chapter One Marcus smoothed his palms over the stone wall's surface. It was cleanly worked and neatly mortared, and its facing and joints offered no toeholds for intruders who might seek to scale it. That didn't surprise him, since this thick curtain of rock protected one of the crown's properties. However, it also served as a barrier to some of Marcus's property, and scale it he would. It had been many years since he had played the thief, not since the hell of his youth, but one never forgets such skills. This wall would not keep him out. He moved through the night, over to where the wall curved around a corner of the garden it enclosed. Here the flat stones could not be laid in straight courses and their corners would protrude. The best masons would finish the surface to be as smooth as on the straight sections of wall, but most builders were not that fastidious. That was something else that he knew a thing or two about from the dark years of his youth. His fingers swept the joints, and he found what he needed. The jutting edges were shallow, but deep enough for a body practiced in such things. Groping his way in the silence, he climbed until he sat straddling the wall. A convenient fruit tree grew near the corner, its branches like silhouettes in the full moon's light. He jumped over to it, his soft boots barely making a sound. With the stealth of a cat, he lowered himself into the early autumn smells that filled the garden. He studied the bulk of the house, guessing how its chambers were arranged. Would she be in the large one on the second level, the one on the left indicated by two windows rather than one? The vaguest sound interrupted his inspection of the building. He slid toward it along the wall until he could see a section of the garden not shadowed by trees. The bright moon displayed a little pool, its glittering surface dotted with fallen leaves. A woman strolled down the path surrounding it, pausing every now and then at bushes to touch one of the late-blooming roses. Her unbound hair, darker than the night, fell around her body, swaying with her step. She wore a straight, pale flowing robe with long broad sleeves. It was the sort of thing a woman might put on when she first rose from bed. He could barely see patterns on it indicating rich embroidery. The night was cool, but she did not seem to notice that the thin fabric offered little warmth. She moved toward him, close enough that he could see her moonlit face. Pale of skin, and large in eyes and mouth, it appeared mysterious, and matched the descriptions he had been given. One of the knights who had brought her from Wales had called her a moon goddess, and the praise had been apt. Her subtle glow cast a spell on the garden. And on him. She paused in her stroll, not more than ten paces from where he lurked in the shadows. "I know you are there. Go back the way you came, and no one need know that you dared such a thing." Her voice was quiet and melodic, steady and unfrightened. But then the princely blood that flowed in her veins would neither quicken nor slow easily, for any man or any danger. "I know that you are there," she said again. "I can smell that more than plants are in this garden." He could smell her, too. Something freshly earthy, a memory of spring, floated on the small breeze along with the scents of dying leaves and flowers. He stepped away from the wall. She heard him, and turned. "Who are you? Not a thief, despite your furtive arrival, if you make yourself known." "Nay, not a thief." "Whoever you are, it will go badly for you if you are discovered here." "For any man but me, maybe so. But something that is mine is here. I am Marcus of Anglesmore." She reacted. Barely, but it was there, a vague stiffening. She gave him an encompassingHunter, Madeline is the author of 'Stealing Heaven', published 2002 under ISBN 9780553583564 and ISBN 0553583565.