Then, a flutter of movement from the library behind him. A stirring as if the room drew breath; the soft pad of footsteps.
Jude whirled.
Nothing.
He rubbed his chest again. It wasn’t the first time he’d felt a presence in the library. Like it held memories of its past occupants written into the walls. Shaking off the feeling, he pulled a book off the shelf and knelt, arranging it open on the floor before him. It wasn’t one of the tomes on Abbey sacraments or history left behind by whoever the house belonged to. Instead, the pages were still blank. Snowy white and deceptively innocent for all it took from him.
He closed his eyes and placed his hands on the book.
It didn’t take long. It never did.
6
Maeve
As one day of travel bled into the next, Maeve had quickly realized that the thrill of leaving the Abbey hadn’t been all it was cracked up to be. In the last hour, as she urged the horse up one hill and down another, she’d had to stop twice to vomit.
The unforgiving scenery hadn’t helped. Not the heather whipping at her calves nor the headache cropping up somewhere between crossing a frigid mountain stream and skirting beside a darkly forested valley that shesworeshe felt eyes watching her from.
To distract herself, she’d tried to picture the Goddenwood lurking just between the folds of the hills. How she would crest one rocky foothill and see the fabled village like a pearl, all gleaming roofs and tidy streets. Though she wasn’t a saint, a warm bed would be waiting for her surely – wouldn’t it? There would be bakeries and bookshops and expansive windows she could paint in front of. Every wish would be answered. Every secret prayer a reality. She’d find a sense ofhomein the Goddenwood that over a decade at the Abbey hadn’t been able to provide.
Somewhere to belong. Fully and truly.Finally.
But even her strongest imaginings couldn’t free the weight from her belly, as much as she tried.
The Abbey was counting on her skill and abilities to fulfil herassignment. Failing wasn’t an option, not if she ever wanted to see her home again.
Maeve had never considered herself particularly courageous, but as she crossed through the open gate onto Jude’s property, she couldn’t help but feel her anchor had been pulled away, leaving her to face the storm alone without Ezra to guide her.
Shehadto be brave.
No other option remained.
Her foot sank into the mud as she slid off the horse, suctioning her right boot straight off. ‘Oh, by thesaints—’ she grumbled, reaching for the gate to the imposing house, no more than a shadow silhouetted against the bruised plum sky.
A name was etched into a plaque –ÁNHAGA.An unfamiliar word in a language long forgotten.
The horse trailed behind, nosing between her shoulder blades as she tied him to the fence. Maeve shivered as the wind slapped the exposed skin of her neck and wrists. She tilted her head back to face the house. She had to see what was waiting out here in the middle of nowhere.
Ánhaga stared down in greeting, dark but for a single candle flickering in a downstairs window. A blackbird launched off eaves into the sky. It hovered in place, suspended by wind and rain, before changing course for the roll of the moors barely visible through the mist. The only hopeful sight in the otherwise desolate, foreboding image introducing itself to Maeve as her new home.
The sooner she finished her painting, the sooner she could leave.
Months, the storm seemed to howl. It could be months before the paint was dry enough to travel, longer if she factored in the sketching time. And who knew how long it would take to deliver the Abbey Jude’s secrets… or what she might find in the process.
Fear burned up, hot and bright.
She shoved a hand into her pocket. The smooth contour of acoin greeted her. An icon, though she wasn’t sure of what saint. She ran her fingers over it, working a prayer into the motion. Strength, guidance. A shoulder to lean on. She had to believe it would be answered, even here in this forgotten place.
She approached the steps leading towards the door. Stopped.
A silhouette waited in the shadows.
Silence pulsed like the hum of energy before lightning struck. An animal fear launched her heart into her throat as she took one step closer, then another. For a moment, she could have sworn she’d met him before.
The intensity in his knife-sharp features sent a curl of fear racing up her spine. This stranger couldn’t be Jude. A saint, even one such as him, wouldn’t come out to greet her like this, in an ill-fitting coat and mud-scuffed boots. Didn’t Ezra mention someone else living here? A housekeeper?
‘Get inside.’ His voice was a low grate. ‘I’ll take care of the horse later.’
