Page 68 of This Haunted Heart

“Dead and lost. I believed that if this home was perfect enough, I’d draw your soul out of the mire. If it was exactly what you’d always wanted, you’d come to me and haunt this place, haunt this library, haunt my bed.”

She worked her throat. “I would have.”

My mouth tugged up at the corner. “Yes?” I’d loved it when she’d said that the first time in the lavatory. I loved it even more now.

“Yes! Oh, yes,” she said with a contented sigh.

Her words were earnest, but doubt lingered within me, sullying my joy. “I know that you have a talent for telling men what they want to hear . . .”

Rynn rounded the desk to stand in front of me. She grabbed up my hand in both of hers. Eyes shut, she kissed each of my knuckles one at a time, her lips warm and sincere. “I truly, truly love it. I’m not telling you what you want to hear, Loch. I don’t do that with you. I’ve never seen you as a client, even when I thought you were only Finley. I told you that.Remember?”

Every part of me that was warm, optimistic, and prone to foolishness believed her implicitly. Because I couldn’t help myself, I pressed a light kiss to her brow. “Tell me more. Tell me how much you like your library.”

“It’s perfect.” She bit her lip, stopping it from quivering. Then she squeezed my hand between hers. “I went on and on about wanting a place like this, and you made it for me. I can hardly believe I’m standing here. If I was a ghost, I’d never be able to resist this house. I’d squeeze myself inside every book. Haunt every beautiful corner. I would name every nail and every floorboard.”

“Good, good.” Warmth shot through my chest. “I wanted so much for you to love it.”

“I wouldn’t be like the other ghosts here, though. They clean.” Her lips quirked. “You’d know I was around because I’d leave you messes.”

I chuckled, but the humor in it was bittersweet. My lashes lowered. I shifted forward, hovering closer. “And when I was sad that you were dead, you’d come and sing for me until I felt better, like you do in my dreams. My nightingale.”

“Always.”

“You’d visit my bed to ravish me in my sleep.”

“Every morning and every night.” She leaned in and rested her palm high on my chest. My heart thumped under her touch. “You should have known I couldn’t possibly be dead. Of course I would haunt this place.”

“Father burned your things in a rage after you were gone,” I told her, and she released my hand, eyes wide in shocked sympathy. “That’s the moment I still cannot conquer. That’s the moment all went dark and dead within me. The first timemy heart was shattered.”

I’d tried to save what I could when I found Father starting that fire. He’d ignited her clothing and the few paltry things she’d left behind. I’d wanted them all, and he’d beaten me for trying to put out the blaze. He’d broken off a branch from the pyre. It was so hot the end smoked, and he’d struck me wildly, scarring my face.

I hadn’t registered the pain from his attacks. My dear Rynn was dead—that was all I could feel—but a mark had been left on my soul to match my face.

And even though she wasn’t truly, even though I had her here with me now, the grief of that horrid moment had rooted in me devastatingly deep. I couldn’t separate from it. I was drowning in it.

“I refused to believe ill of you,” I said, that old ache clawing at the cage of my ribs, trying to land another blow on my battered heart. “I told myself you took my ring because you planned to marry me. I thought you’d left those stolen things in my room for safekeeping . . . I believed I’d lost you because you’d beentakenfrom me.”

“Oh Loch—”

“One word!” I moaned. “One letter from you could have spared me so much torment.”

“What would I have said?” she argued. “‘Dear Loch, sorry about all that horrible betrayal business. I managed to escape your terrible father and move to the city. By the way, I’m a whore now. Still want to get married?’”

“Yes!” I roared.

“Oh, come on!” Backing away from me, she threw her hands up into the air. “Be reasonable!”

“I’m never reasonable when it comes to you, Rynn. Youshould know that by now! I still would have married you. Twenty years I searched for your body, for whatever remained of you. I’d have taken anything: A lock of hair. A piece of your clothing. The smallest bone of your tiniest finger.”

“Oh, dear God!” She covered her mouth with her hand, silencing her gasp.

“I was desperate for any token, and I came to know the mire very well looking for you.”

“What you endured is dreadful, Loch. I can’t even imagine it. I have no words.” She buried her face in her hands. “But I didn’t know, I didn’t know, I didn’t know! How could I have? I thought surely you hated me, not that you thought I was dead! If I had, of course I would have come back for you, whatever the consequences!”

In my mind’s eye, I saw myself hunting the mire. Winter and spring, summer and fall, I searched and scoured every inch for some piece of Rynn.

“I left offerings for the weaver women.” I stared off at the shelves, seeing trees and rain and snow instead of books. “I was afraid they’d collected you that night or that animals had carried you off or that he’d dumped your body in a sinking spot. Twenty years, I begged the witches for some token. Finally, Hulda took pity on me and told me the truth. I had fallen asleep in the parlor the night a black fog rolled over the grounds, and a light snow began to fall even though it was early autumn. She visited me in my dreams. And that’s when you shattered my heart the second time, Rynn,” I said, and her face crumpled. “That’s when I learned that there had never been a dead girl in their woods. That the witches would never have allowed such a thing. The grief and anger I felt was so potent, wrathful spirits flooded the parlor. I called them tome, though I didn’t mean to, straight out of the mire.”

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