A sudden wash of sunlight stained her vision red. She squeezed her eyes shut, bowing her head.
‘You won’t find what you’re looking for here.’
Maeve jerked upright.
Jude leaned against the doorway. His lips curled in a sneer as he watched her scramble to her feet. ‘Waiting a long time, were you?’
Saints, how he rankled her. She yanked her gaze to the window before she said something she’d regret. Why did he continue to defy her every expectation? Was it not enough to curse the power he was gifted, he needed to turn his back on sainthood all together? Had he no respect, no piety left in him? Not even towards the Abbey, but towards his position. Hisgift.
‘You’re late,’ Maeve said in a low voice. Her nails bit into her palms.
Jude’s prowling steps were silent on the wooden floor. ‘Why are youhere? In this room.’
Her heart rabbited in her chest. What was so special about this room? ‘Am I not allowed here, Jude?’ He flinched at his name on her lips, and Maeve wondered how often he heard it.
‘No,’ he replied. ‘You’re not.’
‘Why not?’
‘It’smyhouse. You’re not welcome here. Especially not thisroom.’ His eyes pierced hers as he moved closer. ‘You come to my house, believing your lies, cradling your beliefs to your chest like they’re something sacred, but you know nothing about me and nothing about sainthood. And I want you gone.’
‘That’s just too bad, isn’t it?’ Maeve hissed. ‘The Abbey sent me here to paint you, and—’
‘TheAbbey,’ Jude spat. ‘Fuck the Abbey.’
Shock suffused her chest, as breathtaking as ice water. The fact he was a saint was lost on her. At that moment, he was nothing more than a man stoking the coals of her anger with careless abandon. He didn’t respect his position,fine. If he didn’t respect it, why should she? What demanded that she bow her head towards a station he eschewed with every fibre of his being? When he mocked not only the system they were both a part of but her entire life?
‘Donot—’
‘And another thing,’ Jude interrupted. Spots of colour bled into his pale cheeks. ‘Don’t pray in my home. I don’t want toseeyour icons, let alone come intomyroom, inmyhouse, and see you on your knees like some perfect acolyte, willing to do whatever the Abbey asks just to reassure yourself that you’re doing the right thing. Keep it away from me.’
He shook his head in a way that seemed both patronizing and pitying all at once. ‘Aren’t you just so obedient? Running when they call. Painting whoever they ask. Such a good little acolyte, to pray when commanded.’ He stepped closer, the space between them growing remarkably short of air. His hazel eyes glinted with barely restrained fury. ‘Is it really devotion when the fear of refusal is woven into every verse? One misstep, one question too far and it’s gone. And you’re left with nothing and no one.’
Maeve froze for one long, horrible second.
Nothing,nothingcould have prepared her for him.
She drew in a breath. ‘Just like you, then?’
Jude flinched. Hurt crossed his face one moment, gone the next.
Maeve held her icon up between them. ‘Thisis none of your business. I don’t care why you hate the Abbey. I don’t care that you hate yourself more. I have every right to be here.’ His nostrils flared, but she wasn’t finished. ‘I’ll paint your icon and leave. You’ll go back to being alone.’
Suddenly, the harsh edges of his face briefly softened into something like baffled shock. He took a quick, uneven step back. Maeve lurched towards him in response, thinking he was stumbling. Her reaching hand froze in mid-air.
‘Don’t,’ Jude said, the softness in his voice more shocking than the sharp edge before. ‘Don’t come any closer. Don’t touch me.’
Before she could reply, he turned on his heel and left.
10
Jude
The moors weren’t providing the solace they usually did. The edges of the orchard transformed into a skeletal forest in the purpling dusk as Jude fought to keep his jacket on his shoulders against the wind. He ripped it off and crumpled it in his fist after the corner of his collar snagged on a bough for the third time.
Fuck.
The vision of the iconographer staring up at him with those night-pressed eyes, the icon held between them like she was trying to ward him off, wouldn’t leave his mind. It was a simple request: don’t pray in his home. Her reaction had been entirely uncalled for.
