He cleared his throat. ‘And this means something?’
‘Maybe!’ She ran her hand over her smoothed-back hair and stood up, let out a little bemused laugh. ‘I don’t know…’ Her face fell. ‘Darn! I forgot to take a photo of the window when we were in the chapel yesterday.’ She shook her head, excitement turning to frustration, then marched over to the window to inspect the weather. ‘It’s not snowing nearly as hard now. Do you think we could go back? I need to see it up close—compare the two side by side.’
Marcus was so taken with this moving, talking Faith that he forgot to question if he should be pleased about this new discovery or not. ‘I don’t see why not.’
She was almost out through the door before he’d finished speaking, running to get her coat and boots. He followed her out of the drawing room, only to be almost bowled over when she dashed back to pick up her laptop.
‘Come on,’ she said, the hint of a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. ‘It’ll be dark soon and I want to find out for sure.’
He nodded, not quite sure what else he could say, and then he wrapped up warm and followed Faith McKinnon out into the snow.
Marcus stood back, arms folded, as Faith walked close to the window, her laptop balanced on her upturned hands. She looked from screen to window and back again repeatedly, and then she sat down on the end of the nearest pew and stared straight ahead.
He went and sat beside her. Not too close. She didn’t register his presence.
‘Are you okay?’ His low voice seemed to boom in the empty chapel.
Faith kept looking straight ahead and nodded dreamily. Marcus was just starting to wonder if he should call somebody when she turned to him and gave him the brightest, most beautiful smile he’d ever seen. It was as if up until that moment Faith McKinnon had been broadcasting in black and white and she’d suddenly switched to colour.
‘You’ve found something?’ he said.
She nodded again, but this time her head bobbed rapidly and her smile brightened further. ‘I think this window might be Samuel Crowbridge’s work after all!’
Ah. That. Marcus breathed out. Nothing about a message, then. Good.
She twisted the laptop his way, showing him the zoomed-in picture of the little bunch of yellow flowers. ‘They’re identical,’ she said triumphantly, ‘and rather stylised. Rose of Sharon, the article says—although they look nothing like the ones in my grandmother’s garden. Anyway, the chances of two different artists representing them this way is highly unlikely.’
He frowned. ‘I thought you said Crowbridge had moved on from that style.’
A quick flick of her fingers over the mousepad and he was looking at the full picture once again.
‘I know,’ she said, ‘but I think I may have found the reason he returned to it.’ She clicked again and now a webpage appeared, dense with text. The painting was now a long rectangle down one side. ‘Crowbridge was commissioned to do three paintings for a rather wealthy patron in the 1850s—Faith, Hope and Charity—but only completed two out of the three before his patron changed his mind.’
Her lips curved into the most bewitching smile, and he couldn’t help but focus on her lips as she continued to explain.
‘Apparently they were modelled on his wife and two mistresses, and mistress number two fell out of favour.’
His eyebrows rose a notch, and he found his own lips starting to curve. ‘You don’t say?’ He glanced back at the screen.
‘Both paintings have been in a private collection for a long time—hardly ever seen, let alone photographed—but one recently went to auction.’ She paused and her lips twitched a little. ‘The original…inspiration for the trio of paintings came to light, and the family—understandably—decided to part with the picture that wasn’t of Great-Great-Grandma.’
He nodded at the screen. ‘Which virtue is she?’
‘Charity,’ she said firmly, and then her gaze drifted to the stained glass. ‘Oh, how I wish there was a photo of the other one…’
She stood up, set the laptop down on the pew in front and walked over to the window.
Even in the dull light of a winter’s afternoon the stained glass picture was beautiful. The pale sun, now on its way to setting, gently warmed the outside of the glass. As Faith drew near patches of pastel colour fell on her face, highlighting her cheekbones. Drawn like a magnet, he stood and walked towards her.
His throat seemed to be full of gravel. He swallowed a couple of times to dislodge it. ‘And how does that relate to our window?’
No. Not our. At least not in the way he’d meant it when he’d said it. It should be his and Bertie’s our, not his and Faith’s our.
He was standing opposite her, with the window on his right, and she turned to face him. The patchwork colours of the window fell on one side of their faces, marking them identically.
‘I’m not sure,’ she said, and closed her eyes for the briefest of moments, almost as if she was sending up a silent prayer.
Marcus took another step forward.
She opened her eyes and looked at him. Right into him.
‘I think Crowbridge may have taken the chance, years later, to finish his trilogy. But not in oils this time—in stained glass.’
‘I see.’ He looked back, not breaking eye contact, amazed that he could see layer upon layer of things deep in those eyes that had previously been shuttered. ‘So this one here would be…?’
‘Faith,’ she whispered.
No longer did their words seem to echo. They were absorbed by the thick air surrounding the pair of them. Her eyes widened slightly and a soft breath escaped her lips.
Faith. The word reverberated inside his head. But he wasn’t looking at the window. In fact he’d forgotten all about it. His gaze moved from her eyes to her nose, and then lower…
‘Yes,’ he said softly, leaning dangerously closer.
SOMEONE was playing drums somewhere. Loudly. They were echoing in Faith’s ears.
‘Uh—’ Her lips parted of their own accord.
Stop it, she shouted to herself silently. What on earth do you think you’re doing? You know this is a really bad idea, and you’re not some brainless bimbo who can’t think straight when an attractive man is around. At least you’ve never been up until now.
Thankfully Marcus came to his senses first, although something inside Faith ripped like Velcro when he abruptly stepped back and turned his focus once again to the kneeling woman in the window, beautiful and serene.
What had happened just then? She blinked a couple of times. Marcus was scowling at her, as usual, and it was as if the last couple of minutes hadn’t happened. She folded her arms across her chest and scowled back.
A muscle at the side of his jaw twitched. ‘What does this mean? For us?’
Faith’s heart stopped. ‘For us?’ she repeated in a whisper.
‘For the family,’ he said, very