Page 77 of This Haunted Heart

I made soothing noises. My heart thundered in my chest and my hands shook, but the horse stopped rearing. It remained agitated, ears twitching and back hoof stomping. I sang a little song to calm the beast, one that used to help me with the animals when I was a domestic.

When I had the gelding calm and nuzzling my palm, I spared a thought for what I was doing. I’d left the house because the horrid screams had startled me. But where was I going now?

More shattered glass echoed in the distance, and Utrecht’s piercing scream rent the air. The horse huffed. I took his reins, untying him from the post, and whispered calmingly to him to keep him from rearing again. Utrecht sprinted out from the backside of the manor. His hair had gone completely white. He ran like he had death at his heels, until the woods and the shadows between the trees swallowed him whole.

I patted the horse’s neck, my mind whirling.

Should I go back inside to check on Lochlan? What would become of Utrecht now, and did I even care? No, I didn’t. The weaver women could have him.

The same thought I’d had that morning that stole my appetite came to visit me again, only it was louder this time. If Lochlan couldn’t forgive poor sweet Martha—if he couldn’t forgive himself—what chance was there for me? She’d been serving her sentence for eleven years, and my wrongs were so much worse than hers.

I couldn’t even forgive myself. How in hell did I expect Lochlan to manage it?

I didn’t. I shouldn’t. There was no hope for that at all.

“But I love him,” I whispered to the horse, to the spirits, to the weaver women who might be listening.

I would always love him.

But, oh God, I didn’t want to be one of his ghosts anymore. I didn’t want to be ruined. I didn’t want him to carry around the pieces of my shattered heart in his breast pocket forevermore. I wanted to fix what I had broken—including the things broken about me. I wanted to help him, but it was becoming painfully clear that I wouldn’t be able to make anything right unless I took action, unless Ididsomething.

My savings were inside the house. He’d told me exactly where I could find my cash, but I didn’t go back for it. Lochlan had searched and searched for whatever remained of me for twenty years. I’d spent that same amount of time trapped in guilt, lonely and struggling, earning that fortune. He could keep it. This was my final penance.

“Rynn?” At my back came the sad voice of the man I loved so much my chest hurt. “Please don’t go, Rynn.”

I didn’t look behind me for a long moment. I couldn’t. I knew how much watching me leave would hurt him even if I didn’t intend to stay gone, and I couldn’t bear it. In my mind I could see him crowding the doorway, his expression as broken as the shattered glass he stood in. Those sad eyes . . . I didn’t let myself think about them. I hated every second of causing him pain.

“Utrecht is gone,” he soothed. “You’re safe now.”

“It’s not what it looks like,” I whispered. “This isn’t goodbye.”

“Then why do you look like you’re about to start crying?” he said, a catch in his voice.

I sucked back the threat of tears, sniffling. “Because I don’twant to make you sad.” I coughed out a sob.

“Thenstay!” He took one great step closer and hesitated, like I was the horse he didn’t want to make bolt.

“I need to fix it, Loch!” I swiped at my nose. “I can’t leave you this way. Look at what I did to you! How can I say I love you and just leave you like this? I promise I’ll come back to you, but please let me fix it! Let me make it right again!”

“Rynn.” That was all he said. That was all he had to. No plea in all the world would have struck me harder.

“I need you to believe that I’ll come back,” I said, fighting to get the words out. I swallowed down another sob. “I keep making mistakes. Bringing Utrecht here was yet another. I’m going to fix what I did, find what I stole, and then I’ll return here like I should have before. I’llprovethat I love you. I promise you, Loch.”

“You won’t be able to find my ring,” he pleaded. “It’s been twenty years. Ground shifts. With the rain and the runoff, who knows where it is now? I believe you, all right? I believe you buried it. I know you’re sorry. I’d never ever stick you in that horrid cell in the basement. I can barely deny you anything now. Of course I’d never put you down there. Please come away from that horse.”

“I’m not worried about that stupid cage. I have to try this! I broke you. I stole from you. I made it impossible for you to forgive me. For the love of God, I have to fixsomething! I can’t go back in time, but maybe I can do this one thing!”

I mounted the horse with some difficulty in my day dress. Even riding astride, I’d be uncomfortable, though Utrecht had spared no expense on the tack. The leather was fine and buttery soft, but I wasn’t wearing the right clothing. That wouldn’t deter me, though. Nothing would deter me from mynew purpose.

Run away. Run away until it hurt a little less. That’s all I knew how to do. Was that what I was really doing now? Running until I found something else to distract me from the monster on my back and the talons of guilt in my gut, just a little? Just enough.

There was no doubt that when the time came that my body finally failed me, I’d return to this house. I would be one of his ghosts properly until he breathed his last and joined me, but I didn’t want us to live our lives that way, too.

“I’ll come back to you, Loch, like I should have before, and I’ll return what I took,” I vowed, and my voice carried. It echoed in my ears alongside the rush of my pulse. Tears blurred my vision as I pushed the gelding into a trot and left Nightingale House—my house—behind me.

* * *

The horse wanted to run, eager to get as far away from that eerie place as he could, but his speed was not comfortable for me. I didn’t often ride, and it was a struggle to slow him down.

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