He leaned forward and lowered his voice, and Faith couldn’t help tilting forward to mirror him.
‘I want you to find the clue my father left for my mother, Faith. I want you to find the message in the window.’
Her heart was hammering. She told herself it was from keeping up with Marcus Huntington’s blistering pace as he escorted her to the chapel. An outsider like her couldn’t be trusted to look at it on her own, of course.
She glanced at the sky above and realised she recognised that particular shade of grey. Snow was on its way. But a bit of snow didn’t worry her. Or even a whole bunch of it. Beckett’s Run had plenty every year. But Beckett’s Run knew how to deal with it. A few flakes and this country ground to a halt. So she wanted to be tucked up in her little holiday cottage with a stiff salty breeze blowing off the North Sea if it really decided to come down. Which meant she needed to get to work fast—something the man striding ahead of her would no doubt appreciate.
The path they’d been following led them through some trees and into a pretty hollow with a clearing. In the centre was a smaller version of a traditional English stone church. The grass under their feet must once have been a lawn, but it now rose knee-high, and the ground was lumpy with thick clumps of rye grass. Shrubs grew wild, bowed down with the weight of their unpruned branches. Some clung to the walls of the chapel to support themselves. Compared to the rest of the estate, this little corner appeared unkempt and uncared for.
Faith wasn’t one for believing in fairy stories. Not any more. And she had the feeling that Bertie, lovely as he was, had the capacity to spin a tall tale or two, but there was something about this little hidden part of the estate that made her wonder if the Huntingtons had deliberately neglected it.
She watched Marcus stride up to the heavy oak door ahead of her and shivered. Twenty-eight years old, and she’d never had a reaction to a man like this before. It was downright freaky.
Pure attraction she could have handled, but this was different. There was more to it. Extra layers below the fizzle of awareness. Pity she was too much of a coward to peel back the top layer and see what lay underneath.
Marcus slid a key into the black iron lock and turned it. He pushed the door open and motioned for her to go inside, stepping back out of the way so there was no danger of them passing within even three feet of each other.
It wouldn’t do her much good to peel back that layer, anyway. He didn’t want her here. The vibe emanated from him in waves, like a silent broadcast,
She turned back to watch him as he pulled the door closed and followed her inside. He caught her eye and immediately looked away.
She wasn’t the only coward.
He felt it, too. She knew he did. But he wanted it even less than her physical presence on his territory, and Faith wasn’t going to push it. No point trying to wriggle yourself into somewhere you didn’t belong.
She followed him inside, blinking a few times to adjust her eyes to the relative gloom. As always when she entered a church her eyes were drawn immediately to the windows at either end. Hardly able to help it, she ignored where her host was trying to lead her and veered off to stare at the multi-paned window at the back of the church near the door.
Soft light filtered through the glass, filling the dusty interior with colour. She held her breath. Both the glass picture high on the wall and the afternoon sun were beautiful in their own right, but when they met…it was magic.
Their entrance had disturbed a hundred million dust motes, and now the specks danced in the light, as if an unseen artist had painstakingly coloured each one a different shade. And not only did the shapes and pictures in the window sing, but some of that colour—that life—pierced the darkness of the sanctuary on beams of light, leaving kaleidoscope shadows where it fell.
She sighed, even though she could tell at a glance that this was not the window Bertie had been talking about. Too old. A nineteenth-century creation featuring Bible characters dressed in medieval garb. Didn’t matter. She was still captivated. These grand scenes always reminded her of the coloured plates from her favourite storybook as a child—noble men and beautiful ladies in flowing, heavy robes, bright lush pastures and an achingly blue heaven above.
‘It’s over here,’ a voice said from somewhere close to the altar.
Faith took one last look at the window and turned, screwing her ‘don’t care’ face back in place as she did so, and walked towards where Marcus Huntington was standing, hands in his pockets.
As she walked down the aisle she looked around. It was obvious someone had been trying to tidy the place up, but there was still a long way to go. Nothing a mop and a bucket and some elbow grease wouldn’t sort out, though.
‘We plan to reopen the chapel this year and have a Carol Service here,’ he explained, then stooped into a smaller niche in a side wall, revealing a much smaller stained glass window. He stepped back to give her access, but turned his intense stare her direction. ‘So…what do you think?’
Faith took a few paces towards the narrow window. It was maybe a foot wide and six feet high, with typical Gothic revival tracery at the top. Her heart began to pump. Could this really be it?
The glass was all rich colours and delicate paintwork: a fair-haired woman knelt praying at the bottom of the picture, her palms pressed together, face upturned, eyes fixed on the blaze of celestial glory at the top of the window. She was surrounded by flowers and shrubs, and a small dog sat at her feet, gazing at her in much the same way she was gazing at the heavens. It was stunning. And unusual. More like a painting in its composition than a church window.
There was something in the woman’s face… Something about her expression of pure joy that made Faith want to lean in and touch her—see if she could absorb some of that emotion by pure osmosis. Truly, the window was enchanting.
She turned round to see what her reluctant host could tell her about it and bumped into something warm and solid. She’d been aware that he’d been standing behind her, but not that he’d stepped in closer.
‘S-sorry!’ she stuttered, finding herself staring into his chest.
‘Well?’ he asked, a hint of impatience in his tone.
She knew she really ought to step back, move away, but her gaze had snagged on a feathery piece of cobweb that was stuck in his hair just above his right temple. For some reason she was suddenly much more interested in reaching up and gently brushing it away than turning round and looking at the coloured glass and lead she’d been so desperate to set eyes on.
What was even more worrying was the fact that she’d almost done it anyway—as if she’d known him long enough to share that easy kind of intimacy. It seemed unnatural not to.
Breathe, Faith. Turn around. Just because he looks like a modern-day Prince Charming it doesn’t mean you should audition for the role of Cinderella. That would be a really dumb idea.
He frowned, followed her gaze, and discovered the cobweb on his own. He brushed it away with long fingers and then did the oddest thing: he chuckled softly. To himself, though. None of the humour was to be shared with her. But it changed his face completely, softening the angular planes, and made him seem younger, less stand-offish. Faith discovered she’d stopped breathing.
No. Don’t you do it, Faith McKinnon. Don’t you believe where there’s no hope. You learned those lessons young. You’re not that soft-hearted girl any more, remember?
She didn’t smile back at him, but turned abruptly and stared at the window again. He moved away, thank goodness, walked closer to the window to inspect it for himself. They remained silent for a few minutes, both focused intently on the gently lit glass picture in front of them.
Marcus came and stood beside her. ‘For a long time all the windows here were boarded up. I don’t think I’ve ever taken