“Well, I can’t help you. Perhaps it’s best you found your way back to the village.”
“I’m staying here tonight.”
“What?” she asked, shock lancing her.
“I spoke to the abbess, and explained the situation. I don’t want the public knowing I’m here yet, not until I’m ready. And I intend to bring you with me.”
“I see. And nothing of what I said matters?”
He shook his head, his jaw tight. “No.”
“The fact that I’m not me anymore doesn’t matter?”
He studied her face, the cold assessment saying more than any insult could. Before the attack, men...Xander...had never looked at her with ice in their eyes. There had always been heat.
“I’ll let you know in the morning.”
He turned and walked away from her, into the main building. She waited out in the yard, cursing silently and not caring that it was a sin as she stood there, hoping he was putting enough distance between them that she wouldn’t run into him again.
She would speak to the abbess tonight and in the morning, hopefully Xander would leave. And he would go back to being a memory she tried not to have.
* * *
It was early the next morning when Mother Maria-Francesca called her into her office.
“You should go with him.”
“I can’t,” Layna said, stepping back. “I don’t want to go back to that life. I want to be here.”
“He only wants you to help him get established. And as you want to serve, I think it would be good for you to serve in this way.”
“Alone. With a man.”
“If I have to concern myself with how you would behave alone with a man then perhaps this isn’t your calling.”
It wasn’t spoken in anger or in condemnation, just as a simple, quiet fact that settled in the room and made Layna feel hideously exposed. As though her motives—motives she’d often feared were less than wholly pure—were laid out before the woman she considered her spiritual superior in every way.
All that ugly fear and insecurity. Her vanity. Her anger. And old desires that never seemed to fully die. Just sitting there for anyone to see.
“It isn’t that,” Layna said. “I mean, I’m not afraid of falling into temptation.” And even less worried about Xander falling into temptation with her. “It’s just that appearances...”
“Are what men look at, my dear. But God sees the heart. So what does it matter what people might think? Of the arrangement, or of you?”
Such a simple perspective. And one of the main reasons she felt so at home here. But that didn’t mean her ease and tranquility transferred to every place she went.
“I suppose it doesn’t matter.” And what she wanted certainly wouldn’t come into play. She could hardly throw herself on the ground and say she didn’t want to. Of course she didn’t. True sacrifice was hard. Serving others could be hard. Neither were excuses she would accept.
“This is an opportunity to do the sort of good that most of us never get the chance to do. You have the ear of a king, in heaven and now on earth. You must use this chance.”
“I’ll...think about it. Pray...about it.” Layna blinked back tears as she walked out of the room. By the time she’d hit the hall, she was running. Out the door and to the stables.
She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t think. She needed to ride.
And she did. Until the wind stung her eyes. Until she couldn’t tell if it was the burn from the air that made tears stream down her face, or the deep well of emotion that had been opened up inside of her. Threatening to pull her in and drown her.
She rode up to the top of the hill, the highest point that was easily accessible, and looked down at the waves, crashing below, against the rocks. That was how she felt. Like the waves were beating her against stone. Breaking her down.
Like life was asking too much of her. When she’d already given everything she had.
She leaned forward and buried her face in Phineas’s neck. Maria-Francesca was right. It hurt to admit it. Even in her own mind, it hurt to admit it. She’d never taken her vows. And so much of that was down to herself.
Was down to that piece of her that missed the ballrooms. That longed for a husband. For children. For the life she’d left behind.
If she stayed here, she would be safe. But she would be stuck. She would never take her vows. Because it wasn’t her calling. And she’d been too afraid to admit it for so long because she didn’t know where else to go.
You can go with him.
Not for him. For her. For closure. So that the ache she felt when she thought of Xander, and warm nights in a palace garden, would finally fade.
As it was, he’d been gone from her life with no warning. A wound that had cut swift and deep. An abandonment that had become all the more painful after her attack.
It was safe here at the convent. But it was stagnant. And she saw now, for the first time, that it shielded her, instead of healing her.
She could do this. She would do it. And when it was over...maybe something inside of her would be changed. Maybe she would find the transformation she ached for.
Maybe then...maybe then she would come back here and find more than a hiding place. Maybe then, she would be changed enough to take the final step. To take her vows.
Maybe if she finished this, she could finally find her place.
* * *
All of her belongings fit into one suitcase. When you didn’t need hair products, makeup, or anything beyond bare essentials to wear, life was pretty simple. And portable, it turned out.
She shifted, standing in the doorway, looking at Xander, who had his focus on the view of the sea. “I suppose you have an ostentatious car ready to whisk us back to civilization?”
Xander turned and smiled, his eyes assessing. She didn’t like that. Didn’t like how hard he looked at her. She preferred very much to be invisible.
“Naturally,” he said. “It’s essentially an eight-cylinder phallus.”
“Compensation for your shortcomings?”
The words escaped her lips before she even processed them. They were a stranger’s words. A stranger’s voice. One from the past.
So weird. Being with him resurrected more than just memories, it seemed to bring out old tendencies. In her life at the convent, sarcasm and smart replies were not well-received. But when she’d been one of the many socialites buzzing around Xander, wanting to catch his attention, when she’d moved in such a sparkling and sometimes cutthroat circle, it had been the best way to communicate.
They had all been like that. Pretending to be so bored by their surroundings, showing their cool with cutting remarks and brittle laughter. It struck her then that Xander had changed, too. He hadn’t joined a convent, but he lacked the air of the smug aristocrat he used to carry himself with.
He still had that lazy smile, that wicked mouth. But beneath the glitter in his eyes, she sensed something deeper now. Something dark. Something that made her stomach clench and her heart pound.
“I apologize,” she said. “That was neither gracious nor appropriate. I’m ready to go.”
He shrugged and took her suitcase from her, starting to walk across the expanse of green. She followed him, over the hill