Chapter Seven
MURIEL TRACED THE STONES WITH her fingertips, imagining the time when these ancient walls stood strong and tall, filling the forest with praises to the Lord from those within. Her arms prickled as she ambled along the hard-packed earth where the church floor had once been. Now it was littered with leaves and boasted of a few trees springing up in the glade, offering splayed sunlight upon the abbey’s congregants below. Ferns sprouted in the cracks between the moss-covered stones of what remained of the walls.
“How beautiful to dedicate one’s life to God in such a manner.” Muriel closed her eyes, basking in the reverence.
“You still could join a convent if you are in need of a sanctuary,” Miss Whelan interjected, shattering the moment with her strident laughter.
“My bakery is … well, was my sanctuary before I came here.”
Erik tilted his head. “I’ve never heard of such a thing. What do you mean?”
“Our vicar once told me any place can be a sanctuary if we dedicate it to God and work diligently unto Him. For instance, your ship could be your sanctuary if that is where you feel closest to the Lord.”
“It sounds rather like heresy to me,” Elena returned, rolling her eyes. “A sanctuary is a place of worship, not a bakery.”
“Exactly! Anywhere you worship the Lord can be a sanctuary—from abandoned ancient ruins to my little shop in Chilham.”
A distant rumble brought her attention to the darkening sky. Clouds swept across the gray dome, harassed by the same wind that whipped the leaves at her feet. Muriel shivered, her thin muslin doing little to shield her.
“Ladies, I am afraid I have been remiss.” Erik raised his voice above the wind. “I should have tasted the storm approaching in the air. We best make haste back to the castle before the heavens open.” The wind whipped his hat from his head, sending it tumbling down the path.
Elena stood on the edge of the furthest wall that dropped about six feet to the spring. She spread her arms and tottered on the ledge, grinning at the earl. He was too focused on chasing down his hat to notice her foolishness.
Muriel snagged Elena’s hem and snatched her back. “Take heed, or you shall fall into the spring.”
“Maybe I desire to do so in order to gain his attention,” she hissed, jerking her skirt away. “And if I happened to fall in and become distressed, he’d have to carry me all the way to the house.”
“Carry you with his injured shoulder and wrist?” Muriel crossed her arms as Erik dusted off his hat. “I think your scheme may be flawed.”
Elena dabbed at the drizzle upon her cheek with her sleeve. “Yes, you may be right.” She leapt from the wall with little care and slipped on the now wet stones, crying out as she landed on her derriere.
“Miss Whelan?” Erik darted to her side, kneeling before her in a manner that had Muriel wishing it was she who sat in the dirt.
The little minx …
Elena groaned, clutching at her boot. “My ankle.”
Lightning blazed overhead, illuminating Elena’s tears and very real pain, shooting a pang of guilt through Muriel’s heart. She knelt beside them and discreetly lifted Elena’s hem to prod the ankle.
Elena released a wail and swatted her hem out of Muriel’s hand. “Whatever are you doing?”
“Seeing if it was truly hurt or simply a momentary pain.”
“I think I can ascertain that without you causing further injury.” Elena frowned.
“Can you lean on me and put a little pressure on it?” Erik wrapped her arm about his neck and slowly rose. The moment she put weight on her foot, she sank to her knees with a cry.
“I can’t carry her. The pressure of holding her in my good arm is straining the injury in my shoulder,” Erik murmured to Muriel as lightning crackled overhead, sending Elena into a fit of tears. “And I am loath to leave you both out here unprotected.”
“Unprotected?” Elena’s voice rose. “Unprotected from what? You do not have wild animals about, do you?”
“It’s a forest, Miss Whelan,” replied Muriel patiently. “Yes. I am certain there are wild animals about. However, I believe Lord Draycott was thinking more along the lines of the two-legged variety.”
“Lord Draycott, I implore you not to abandon me!” Elena reached out to him, panic flashing in her eyes.
A crack of lightning had Muriel clutching Erik’s arm for half a second before she recalled herself. “I don’t think it is safe for you to be running across the exposed path to the castle at the moment, my lord. Her injuries are far from mortal. The abbey offers a bit of shelter in the corner turret.”
“It will topple on us if the bats do not end us first.” Elena’s tears turned into a whine.
Muriel rolled her eyes as she bent to take Elena’s arm, moving them to the shelter without Erik’s aid. “I cannot speak to the bats, but take comfort in the fact that, as the abbey hasn’t crumbled in centuries, I doubt it will decide to tumble tonight.”
The lightning crackled overhead, and Erik winced as Miss Whelan’s screams matched the thunder in intensity. The frantic sound sent dozens upon dozens of bats flooding through the arched doorway. Her shrieks could have woken those lying in the cemetery beyond. However, Muriel barely seemed to notice the bedlam as she gathered the dry twigs and branches that had collected over time along the edges of the wall from the rise and fall of the nearby spring. She arranged them with such expertise in the center of the ancient room that he couldn’t help but be impressed. He gathered the remaining sticks and set them beside her as she sank onto her knees, finishing the arrangement without any care for her pretty gown.
She rummaged along the perimeter of the turret before selecting two stones, which she struck together thrice until a spark shot onto the crinkled leaves. She bent and blew upon them until the ember blazed to life.
“Huzzah!” She rocked back on her heels, dusting off her hands in victory.
“How on earth do you know how to do that?” Erik laughed in amazement.
She gave him a grin and shrugged. “My grandfather raises black-faced sheep in Dover. Before my mother’s marriage, I used to spend a few weeks of the year with them at the tail end of lambing season. My grandfather believed in my being useful, and oftentimes, when a mother would begin birthing, we’d be in the far meadows. When the weather turned, my grandfather taught me how to build and tend a fire so he might finish the lambing.”
Miss Whelan’s fingers reached toward the blaze, and for the moment her complaints and hysteria-induced hiccups ceased in the flickering warmth.
Erik’s stomach gave a mournful growl, and his cheeks heated. “Now, if you manage to provide sustenance, I shall truly be impressed.”
She laughed, the melodic nature of it making his heart light. Color sprang to her cheeks, and she reached into her reticule and lifted out a napkin, a sealed letter falling to the ground as she did so. She unfolded the napkin to reveal four baked goods. After stuffing the letter back into her bag, she handed a baked good to each of them and returned the remaining one to her purse. “I was saving them for tonight when I could go home and attempt to recreate them, but if we need to eat the last one, I shall consider it a worthwhile sacrifice.”
Erik laughed and split his plum cake with her. To his delight, she did the same with her chocolate biscuit, never feigning a lack of appetite as she bit into the cake as heartily as he, closing her eyes as she savored the burst of flavor. “Why not simply ask my chefs for the recipe? I’m certain they would happily oblige you.”
She shrugged as she finished off his offering and took a bite from her own biscuit. “I enjoy the challenge of figuring it out for myself now that I am no longer in my bakery every day to keep myself sharp.”
“One would think you’d cease bringing up such an ungentrified topic,” Miss Whelan commented without guile, nibbling at her confection. “If I were in your shoes, I’d never set foot in a kitchen again to keep anyone from remembering my past.”
“I’m afraid it goes against my very nature to cease baking. In fact, it is my sincerest hope to return to running a bakery one day, even after I wed. However, if I return to Chilham a spinster, you will certainly see me on my promenades to the manor every day after an early morning at the bakery helping my assistant.”
“Is that what you do every morning, unescorted? I thought you were taking your daily constitutional. I cannot believe Mr. Fletcher still allows you to walk unattended all the way to the village at such an hour.”
“My father’s most trusted footman escorts me in the early hours and returns to the manor after I am safely delivered, as I insist on walking alone on my way home each morning,” Muriel explained as she held her fingers toward the flames, warming them.
Elena’s eyes widened. “I assumed you sold the shop long ago, upon your mother’s marriage. Was that birthday cake I had made in the village bakery from you?”
“Indeed.” Muriel cast another fistful of leaves into the fire, watching them blaze to life before they disintegrated into ash. “We discussed selling the bakery after Mother’s marriage, but my stepfather is a perceptive man and knew that too much change might make it difficult for me to adjust to our new life. So Father encouraged me to hire a baker to take up the extra work, allowing me to work only part of the day and Mother to retire to the manor.”
Elena snorted, adjusting her position on the packed earth. “How untoward. It is little wonder you suffered from two broken engagements and found it necessary to propose to Baron Deverell. Any man who caught wind of such shockingly independent behavior would be loath to take you on.”
Erik turned to Muriel, unable to conceal his astonishment. She is so independent and yet, she proposed to a baron?
Muriel seemed momentarily frozen in the act of poking the fire with a stick. Then she scowled and tossed it into the blaze. Avoiding his gaze, she dipped her head under the guise of riffling through her reticule for the last pastry, which she split into three portions. “That was unkind, Elena.”
Elena accepted the treat and popped it into her mouth. “Well, you must have had a very good reason to propose in the middle of the dance at the assembly hall then.”
He couldn’t help but ask, “Is that correct, Miss Beau? Did you propose to a baron?”
At the shattered look on Muriel’s face, he knew it was true, and Miss Whelan’s barb had found its mark in Muriel’s heart. The strong woman he thought he had found in Miss Beau vanished as yet another desperate husband hunter took her place. The biscuit turned to dust in his mouth.