Page 44 of This Haunted Heart

“She must have really been something,” she said softly. “Your woman, I mean.”

It took a while for me to realize she was talking about the woman who I’d told her had broken my heart twice. The woman that was her. She brought her up often since I’d shared my grief. I wondered if the subject just made her curious, or was any part of this jealousy?

I liked her jealous.

“She was something,” I said, repressing a knowing smile. “She didn’t think so, but she truly was.”

“Ah,” Rynn said contemplatively, eyes scanning the stained-glass windows. “That’s the curse of being a woman. We often don’t see our own worth, and then it’s too easy for others to undervalue us as a result.”

Her words reminded me of our time together at the Lark, when she’d claimed she knew her exact value down to the last dollar. “Do you think you know your worth?”

She shrugged her shoulders. “That depends on who’s asking. There are plenty of people to whom my time would matter very little. Then there are those who would delude themselves into thinking I’m worth a great deal. The truth is somewhere in the middle.”

“Then you don’t know your worth,” I chided.

“To the average man, I’m just a harlot. But then there are people like . . . oh, I don’t know . . . like you, I suppose, who seem to think I’m worth going through an awful lot of trouble for. I’m not, by the way. You’ll regret keeping me here eventually.”

“You mean you’ve never been held prisoner before? Why, I’m shocked,” I teased.

“Ha. You’re the first on that front,” she said. “I’ve had a few offers of marriage from clients, some of which I’m convinced were in earnest. But that’s all.”

“If they were in earnest, why aren’t you married?”

She swatted my words away like she was swatting down bees. “Multiple reasons. Marriage for a woman isn’t much different than a gilded prison, to start. And there was only ever the one client that I was even remotely tempted by. Father Walker was his name.”

My brows lifted. “A priest?” After her concern overreligious sorts yesterday, her answer took me by surprise.

She chuckled at the memory. “He’d developed a reputation for spending time at the music hall I sang in prior to living at the Night Lark. He tried to tempt the patrons away from the sins of the flesh and into his flock. He did so kindly. Father Walker was no fanatic. He requested more time with me to convince me to change my ways. I told him if he paid my fee, he could spend the hour doing whatever he pleased with me. So he paid me, and then he amazed me.”

“Amazed you how?”

“He actually spent the hour trying to convince me to leave that place.” Her laughter was infectious. “After that, he couldn’t afford to keep paying me but was earnest in his desire to comfort and speak with me about his love of God, and so I made a trade with him. I’d listen to his sermonizing for half an hour, in exchange for lessons in Latin for the last half.”

“You’re fond of language, I’ve noticed.”

“Very,” she said. “You can read an awful lot more books that way. Each new language is another fountain of stories unlocked. Anyway, Father Walker used a Latin translation of scripture from the book of Acts to teach me with. He believed there was power in the texts. Power that would change me with study. We went on like that for a time. I grew fluent much quicker than he’d expected, which meant he was running out of opportunities to bring me into his flock, even with his magic scriptures. And then he shocked me again.”

I leaned forward, enchanted by the story, her lovely voice, and the impassioned way she told it.

“He proposed,” she said. “He claimed I was something special and didn’t belong in that den of iniquity and he wanted to make a home with me.”

“He was willing to cast aside his entire calling for you. The whole flock.” For a brief moment, I was frustrated at this stranger who had attempted to tie himself to the woman I was mad for, but on second examination, only sympathy remained. He’d been willing to give up everything for her because that’s what Rynn did to people. She ruined their plans.

“He was willing. All to make me honest,” she said, her smile small. “What a fascinating man he was. So much conviction.”

I shook my head at her. “And you think you’re only worth $35 an hour.”

Her cheeks went pink, and her gaze fell to the grass below her. She tangled her fingers in the greenery. “I told him I could not marry him because I’d given my heart away when I was very young and had never gotten it back, so I’d never be able to give him what he wanted.”

Her words picked at the old scabs on my soul that would never heal. They made my chest warm, and my throat tightened. “Did the father take your refusal well?”

“He accepted it with great dignity. I wouldn’t marry Father Walker, but I did offer to rid him of his virginity if he decided to give one of those sins of the flesh a go.” She winked at me brazenly.

“Did he take you up on that?” I rasped, my throat still tight.

“I’ll never tell.” She tapped the side of her nose, grinning coyly. “That stays between me and Father Walker.”

Rynn returned to hunting mushrooms, weaving between the trees, vanishing for brief stints before coming back to me to show me her finds. Her enthusiasm was catching, and her story about her heart made me feel lighter. I joined her on her hunt.

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