His Forbidden Confession (Unholy Vows #10)

CHAPTER 1

Julian

◆

Julian had one door left to lock when wood scraped at the rear of the nave.

Cold rain blurred amber and blue windows. The north radiator knocked once. From the south confessional came the uneven pull of a penitent door.

He crossed behind the pews. A wet track marked the cracked tile from the front entrance to the left penitent bay. One print had dragged at the heel.

Julian entered the priest’s compartment, left its narrow service door unlatched, set his keys silently on the shelf, and sat without switching on the lamp.

“The doors are locked,” he said through the lattice. “Need does not keep parish hours. Are you hurt?”

For several seconds, rain and old pipes answered him.

“Bless me, Father.”

He knew Clara Vance’s voice—the parishioner who watched both aisles and left before donors gathered.

“For I—”

Her breath cut off. A shoe shifted against wood. Then a dark drop struck the floor seam beneath the screen.

Blood.

She had offered no sin, sought no absolution, completed no sacramental disclosure. Medical danger gave Julian reason to open the booth; conscience required that anything she said next remain private.

Julian opened the narrow service door into the priest’s compartment. The air carried the iron of it against wax-damp oak. He unlatched the penitent door from the passage and pulled it wide.

Clara knelt folded over the red cushion, one forearm braced against the wall.

Her camel coat hung open over an ivory blouse marked at cuff and collar.

Blood had dried below her split lip and ran from the dark-blonde hair above her right ear.

Her right palm was cut, its light skin waxy; her left arm stayed tight to her ribs.

He kept both hands visible. “Who did this to you?”

“My family.”

He knew her face, her family name, and the foundation printed beneath it on gala programs. Nothing more.

She lifted her head. Her green eyes found the open passage behind him before they settled on his face.

“You remember me.” The swollen lip blurred the words.

“I remember every face that watches the exits during Mass.”

“That does sound like you.”

The attempt at dryness cost her. Her next breath stopped high in her chest, and her left hand pressed harder against the panel.

Anger urged him toward speed. Speed would make him careless, and carelessness was another way to make an injured person pay for his fear.

He made his voice even. “Which member of your family?”

“The answer changes depending on whether you mean the hand, the order, or the permission.”

The distinction was too exact to be shock speaking alone. It gave him three levels of threat and no name he could safely use.

“Names can wait. Your body is asking for mercy first. Did anyone follow you here?”

“Probably.”

The church had been empty when evening devotions ended.

He had watched the final parishioner descend the worn front steps, then begun his usual circuit: north office door, sacristy service entrance, garden gate, main vestibule last. It was work, not ritual for ritual’s sake.

Old buildings rewarded attention. So did frightened people.

“Did you see anyone after you entered the church?”

“I saw enough men tonight.”

He waited.

Her gaze sharpened. Good. Anger could keep a person present when pain tried to narrow the world.

“No,” she said. “I broke line of sight near a pharmacy. I changed direction twice and used cash transit. I still don’t know.”

“Where is your phone?”

“They have it.”

“Can it track anything you still carry?”

Her injured fingers closed over the inner seam of her coat. Beneath them, a palm-sized thickness had been sewn into the lining. Julian looked away from it and back to her face.

“No,” she said.

The answer arrived cleanly and might even be technically true. A hidden object did not need to broadcast its location to make dangerous people hunt for it. Whatever the seam protected mattered more to her than volunteering the whole threat.

Taking it would violate her choice; he needed to know whether it was leading her attackers to the church.

“Can you stand?”

“I’ve been standing for hours.”

“I am asking whether you can do it now.”

Clara planted her left hand against the wall. She rose halfway before her balance failed. Her cut palm struck the doorframe, and her face emptied of color.

Julian caught her at the elbow. He used only enough pressure to stop her head from meeting the oak, then loosened his grip.

“May I help you?”

She looked down at his hand. Blood had transferred to the white crescent scar near his right thumb, bright against his light skin. He ignored the old mark and held the silence for her answer.

“My elbow only,” she said. “Don’t touch the coat.”

“Your elbow only.”

He adjusted his hold. Clara chose how much weight to give him and kept her other forearm across the guarded seam.

“You need a hospital.”

“No ambulance.”

“A physician, then.”

“No police.”

“I offered medical care.”

“Men who enjoy rules often treat categories as temporary.”

Under other circumstances, he might have respected the precision aloud. “I will not call the police behind your back unless someone crosses this threshold and puts another life in immediate danger. I will call a physician.”

Clara’s gaze moved over his collar, his empty hand, and his face. “Why?”

“Your scalp is bleeding. Your hand is cut, and you cannot stand alone. Those facts require care whether you trust me or not.”

“I don’t.”

“You shouldn’t yet.”

Her brows drew together. Then her gaze moved past him, measuring the nave, the office wing, and the distance to the front entrance. Reassurance would have been easier for her to dismiss.

“Do you warn all your parishioners against trusting you?” she asked.

“Only the ones I have known privately for less than five minutes.”

“You know my name.”

“I know the name printed on foundation programs. I know where you sit during Mass and that you leave before the receiving line forms. You have never come to me for private counsel.”

“And you still opened the door.”

“You were bleeding onto it.”

Her mouth tightened against another near smile.

Julian followed the line of her attention. The public parish office had exterior cameras at its door. So did the front steps. Anyone who had followed her would begin with those entrances, and a marked ambulance would give them certainty.

The rectory offered a private room and another route. It also offered Julian’s private authority over a woman who had arrived hurt and afraid. He could not pretend that danger vanished because his intention was decent.

“The parish office is exposed to the street,” he said. “The rectory is reached through the sacristy and enclosed garden. No camera covers the path inside the walls.”

“You hide many bleeding women there?”

“This will be my first.”

One corner of her mouth moved, then pain stopped it.

“Where does the garden open?” she asked.

“There is a gate to the south alley and another to the rectory side street. Exterior cameras cover both approaches. The gates are locked.”

“By whom?”

“By me tonight. I will tell you before I change our direction, touch you, or close a door between you and an exit.”

“Terms aren’t safety. They’re the first record of whether you keep your word.”

“No. Keeping them may create evidence of it.”

The word evidence brought her eyes back to his. The small shift in her stance came before she spoke.

“And the rectory is yours.”

“Yes.”

He gave the answer without pretending the parish owned the house. For tonight, he controlled its doors, and she was right to include him in the threat calculation.

A gust pressed against the main entrance. Clara turned toward it too quickly. Pain caught beneath her left ribs, and her weight pulled against his hand.

Julian waited until she had air again. “Let me keep watch for one night and bring one doctor. At dawn, after she has examined you, the next choice is yours.”

“You make that sound simple.”

“It is limited. Simplicity is not available.”

“Who is the doctor?”

“Miriam Shaw. She practices emergency medicine and volunteers here. She is not employed by the parish or your family.”

“Is she loyal to you?”

“She is loyal to the patient. She has corrected me in public often enough to prove it.”

“That may be the first useful reference you have supplied.”

She considered him for another beat. “Show me the route.”

Julian took his black wool overcoat from the peg beside the sacristy door. He held it open and stayed beyond arm’s reach.

“Your blouse can be seen through the garden windows. This will cover the blood.”

Clara looked down at the ivory silk. The marks from her mouth and palm had spread into a pattern too bright for concealment.

“Don’t close it over my ribs.”

“I won’t.”

She stepped into the overcoat herself. It fell below her knees. When she nodded, he raised the wool collar without touching her skin or the camel coat beneath it. The sewn thickness in the inner seam remained under her forearm. He gave it no second glance.

At the sacristy, he unlocked the oak door and entered ahead of her. Vestment cabinets stood closed along the wall. Folded linens rested on the central table beside a brass candle lighter. He checked behind the door, then crossed to the garden service entrance.

“Six steps to the threshold,” he said. “The stone drops half an inch. We cross the gravel to the rectory kitchen. I will stay on your left unless you choose otherwise.”

“Right. I want you on my right.”

He changed sides. “All right.”

Her gaze tracked his change of position. Then she looked toward the service door. “Open it.”

October rain drove cold into the sacristy. Beyond it, the enclosed garden lay under the plane tree, its walls dark with water. The iron bench shone beside the gravel path. Both gates remained closed, and neither showed movement through the bars.

Julian described what he saw before she asked. “The alley gate is clear. So is the side-street gate. The sacristy door will remain open behind us until you enter the rectory.”

“Which camera sees the path?”