Page 137 of When Hearts Surrender

Silas whines and licks the tears streaming down my cheeks.

Crying, I curl my arms around his soft fur and bury my face in his neck, and I slowly open my palm.

My broken necklace—repaired and as good as new.

But my heart lies in shreds, its bloody essence seeping into the very bones of this cursed estate, weaving itself into the cruel history of Wraithmoor Abbey.

Chapter 49

The skies are forlorntoday. Lifeless. Like the colors have been leached from it, leaving behind ashes and gloom. The stack of papers crinkles in my hand, but I barely notice, my eyes drawn to the thick clouds looming in the horizon from my spot inside the sitting room. Maxwell told me Ryland loves storms, that they set him free, but he never liked them.

I never understood how he felt until now, when I’m feeling suffocated under the wrath of the dreary skies, when I can feel it stealing every remaining ounce of brightness inside me.

Maxwell left three days ago. The divorce papers I’m holding arrived this morning. Morris packed him a bag and wouldn’t tell me where he went. My guess is, he’s probably in one of the suites inside The Orchid. Morris told me Maxwell instructed the staff to take care of my needs.

As if that’ll mend the gash in my heart. I want to be angry at him for once again making the decision without me. But I know he’s doing it from a place of love and fear. He has experienced too many heartbreaking losses in his life, and while I’m willing to risk it all for him, I can’t ask him to do the same.

If something were to happen to me, after all, there are no guarantees in life, I don’t want him to blame himself for the rest of his life.

Silas lets out a mournful howl and stares at me with his deep blue eye. I rub his fur, thankful for his companionship.

The skeletal branches of the bushes in the rose garden twist in the cruel wind, nature intent on attacking them even when they have nothing more to give, their leaves and flowers, their beauty, long havingshriveled to the ground. My eyes land on the patch of soil where nothing grows—the sign of the curse—and I wonder if it’s time for me to explore the garden. If confronting that haunting sadness will help heal my broken heart.

I spent the last two days in the office, determined to drown myself in last minute preparations for the fashion show. I may have lost the only man I’ve ever loved in my life, but I won’t lose my grandpa’s legacy.

Swallowing the lump in my throat, I stare at the papers in my hand. Maxwell has left me with enough money to save McKenzie’s if needed in the future, to get fertility treatments, to open humane shelters for abandoned animals. His only ask is for me to one day relinquish the estate back to his family.

He has given me all of my dreams—the dreams that drove me to accept this arrangement with him in the beginning. But doesn’t he know my dreams have changed? Now, they contain a dark-haired man with beautiful scars on his body and soul, a man with the warmest touches and melting kisses, who fills the hole I’ve always felt inside my chest, the feeling I was missing a piece of me I couldn’t identify.

Like I was waiting for him all this time and didn’t realize it.

“Ms. Belle.”

I jolt. Turning toward Morris, I muster up a smile.

The old butler lets out a sigh, the gloomy daylight illuminating every wrinkle on his face. He looks weary, like he has been fighting a long battle. For a moment, he looks as old as this estate—grand, stately, but having seen too much in his years.

“They say, before the curse claimed the life of another Anderson mistress, a tree branch would lodge itself through a window in the estate, scattering glass shards across the floors,” he murmurs. “It was an omen.”

My chest tightens, thinking back to the disturbance on the day of the gala and how my blood ran cold when Steven told us a branch blew into Maxwell’s study even though there were no trees nearby.

“Rumor was, the first branch came in from the window next to you, all the way back in the eighteen hundreds.”

“Silas,” I whisper, the name slipping out of my lips automatically. I think back to the austere duke in the portrait gallery, the one with the sorrowful eyes.

My blood races. The missing journal, the curse, fragments of knowledge floating in my mind, a puzzle I’m almost certain I know the answer to but have inconveniently forgotten.

“Morris, curse or not, it doesn’t matter anymore, right?” I look away and feel my eyes burning. “He left.”

“What I’m trying to say is, perhaps it’s for the best. I know it doesn’t feel this way right now, but the pain…the pain will lessen over time. Even when you lose everything in the world and experience the most agonizing tragedy, time will go on and the wound will heal.”

Something in his voice catches my attention and I glance at him, finding his blue eyes deepening, like he’s seeing a ghost from his past. He must be talking about his family.

He clears his throat. “The curse has taken too many lives. Don’t let it take yours. Focus the pain on something else and live. Live, because many others before you didn’t get a chance to do so.”

Our gazes hold, and he gives me a curt nod before bowing and disappearing back into the main hallways.

His words echo in my mind long after he left. I turn my attention to the lifeless landscape outside the window. A murder of crows is foraging in the patchy snow, their cries haunting but their spirits defiant.

---