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Chapter 12
As soon as they got through the hidden postern gate and on the trail in the woods leading to the secret garden, Hazel stopped trembling. That told Willow she did the right thing by taking the girl away from the chaos at the castle. She didn’t like to see Hazel suffer like this. It wasn’t right.
“Mayhap, we can stay here for a little while, and you will feel better.” Willow hopped off the horse and helped Hazel to dismount. She made sure to tie the reins of the horse to a tree so it wouldn’t run off like it did when she was here with Conrad.
Conrad. Just looking toward the cottage, she felt her heart break. She had never been turned down by a man before and didn’t know how to react to what happened. Then again, she’d never gotten so close to making love before either. Lost in her thoughts, she wasn’t paying attention to Hazel. When she looked back, the girl was bent over pulling weeds again.
“What are you doing?” asked Willow. “We are here so you can calm down and relax. We’re not here for you to work like a servant.”
“But I enjoy gardening,” Hazel told her, sounding as if she meant it. “By working with the earth, it helps me to forget my troubles.”
“Oh, I see,” said Willow, not sure she understood it at all. When Willow wanted to relax, she took a hot bath or sipped on spiced mead lounging in the orchard. But seeing the smile on Hazel’s face, she decided to let the girl do what she wanted.
“If you really want to pull some weeds, you can clear out the bramble by Imanie’s grave. It is so overgrown, I can barely see the wooden cross that my cousins and I placed there.”
“I could?” Hazel looked up with wide eyes and held her hand to her heart. “I would be honored.”
“I’m sure Imanie would be honored as well. Wherever she is.” Willow yawned and stretched, looking back at the cottage, wanting to get out of the sun.
“You seem tired, Willow.” Hazel kept her head down as she weeded a trail toward Imanie’s final resting place.
“I didn’t sleep very well last night,” she admitted, wanting nothing more than a few minutes to close her eyes.
“Why don’t you go into the cottage and lie down for a while?” suggested Hazel.
“I don’t know.” Willow felt apprehensive about leaving the girl alone. Hazel had some apparent fears and problems, and Willow wasn’t sure what the girl was capable of doing.
“I won’t be going anywhere if that is what worries you.” Hazel smiled and wiped the back of her hand against her cheek, leaving a smudge of dirt. “There is so much to be done here, that I could stay here for a month and never leave. It makes me happy.”
“An hour or two is all we have for today, but mayhap I can convince Conrad to let you come here for a short while every day.”
“Oh, would you?” Hazel’s eyes lit up and sparkled in the sun. “I would like that, Willow. Thank you for being my friend.”
“Of course,” she said, making her way up the stairs. “Just call out if you need me. I’m going to close my eyes for only a few minutes.”
Willow entered the house and stopped in her tracks when she noticed the rumpled bedcovers, knowing what made them that way. Visions of Conrad’s naked chest lodged in her mind, as well as the feeling of heat spiraling through her as he kissed her in the most intimate places. Her body vibrated for him, but she realized that what they almost did was not the way a proper lady acted. She had lost control. That was something that had never happened before when it came to men. Always being careful to pull them in with interest and then back away before anything happened, she wondered why she had no willpower to stop when she was with Conrad.
Strolling over to the bed, she sat down, running her hand along the covers. Then she laid down and buried her nose in the pillow. His scent of pine and leather filled her senses, making her want to cry because she could not have him. It was wrong, she told herself, closing her eyes, squeezing them shut and feeling the tears trapped beneath her lids.
“Why didn’t he want me?” she murmured to herself, never feeling so empty and rejected in all her life. Without meaning to, she drifted off to sleep, finding herself in the presence of her late mentor again.
“Willow, what are you doing?” came Imanie’s scolding voice.
In her sleep, she sat up, seeing the old woman standing at the foot of the bed.
“Imanie. You’re here,” she said, trying to figure out why the woman had come to her again from the grave.
“Of course, I’m here. This is my home. And now that you’re here, I want to know what you’re going to do about it.”
“About what?” she asked, thinking at first that she was talking about her tryst with Conrad. Imanie clucked her tongue and shook a scolding finger.
“I’m not talking about him,” she said as if she’d read Willow’s mind. “And where that is concerned, you need to stop tempting him like that. It is not becoming of a lady.”
“I didn’t tempt him.”
“Didn’t you, now?” Imanie raised an eyebrow the way she always used to do when she knew Willow was lying.
“Oh, all right, so I did. But I really wanted to make love to him, so it wasn’t just teasing him like he claims it was.”
