Page 4 of Gilded Locks
Someone was clearly home, as they took the time to light the candles above and on the candelabras scattered throughout the massive entrance. There must have been a hundred pillars blazing. But when she tried to lift a candelabra, she realized it was bolted to the ground.
“Is it gas?” Frowning, she examined the antique brass, warming her hands over the flickering flames. The modern touch was such a nuanced tribute to the dwelling’s original style.
She looked around the gaping foyer. Whoever lives here must pay a fortune to do so.
Everything existed on a scale designed for giants. The ceiling soared two stories overhead, supported by wooden beams that gleamed like silk in the candlelight. Rich tapestries depicted hunting scenes that walked the knife’s edge between beauty and savagery, while a staircase curved upward like a lover’s spine. Even the banisters were carved with meticulous attention to detail, displaying wood chiseled acorns and leaves.
It was more than a castle. It was a modern-day medieval palace.
Heat seeped into her frozen flesh like honey into starved cells as her core temperature danced with death. She needed heat. Real heat. The kind that could resurrect the dead.
Aimlessly staggering, she searched for life. If there were candles, there might be a fireplace.
Her exploration led her into what could only be called a great hall, where stone walls rose around her like the ribs of some massive cathedral. Floor-to-ceiling windows stood as black mirrors, reflecting her bedraggled appearance with merciless clarity.
The lingering scent of burned wood and smoke lured her in as she rushed toward the smell, toward the most enormous fireplace she’d ever seen. It commanded every other detail into submission. Carved from obsidian stone and large enough to accommodate an entire elk, the hearth yawned before her like the mouth of some benevolent cave.
Iron fixtures held logs the circumference of small trees, but the massive space remained cold and dark. Her heart dropped like a stone through ice water. Of course, it remained unlit. This was someone’s private kingdom, someone wealthy enough to build castles in the Arctic. They were probably lounging on some Caribbean beach while their monument to excess stood empty and frigid.
But someone lit that chandelier. There had to be matches somewhere. Kindling. A switch to the gas. Something to resurrect this slumbering giant of a fireplace and warm her frigid soul.
She ransacked the heavy wooden cabinets built into the stone surround, her fingers still numb and clumsy from the cold, making every simple task feel herculean. Finally, in the third cabinet…salvation. Matches and a pile of birch bark that some thoughtful soul had prepared.
She gathered the materials against her chest and rushed back to the hearth. Stripping off her sodden coat, she shivered and focused, her trembling hands making it impossible to strike the match on the first or even the third try.
“Come on, you fucker.” Another match snapped, and she growled through her chattering teeth as her body jolted. The tremors were getting worse.
“Light, goddamn it!”
The epic struggle to coax a flame infuriated her to tears. Her hands shook so violently she dropped several broken matches, and when she finally got a spark, it quickly faded like a dying star.
“Please, please, please,” she desperately begged, cupping her quaking hand around the tip as a small flame came to life.
Marigold held her breath, leaning over the kindling as the flame kissed the birch bark. Relief breathed out of her, nearly destroying the little miracle, but the flame danced back, bigger as if fighting as hard as her to survive.
Air, it needed air.
Softly, she blew a shaky breath toward the wood, careful not to blow too hard. When it caught, she cupped the bark as if tending a sacred altar. Laughter bubbled out of her, spreading into a glowing smolder that scorched the dry wood, then quadrupled in size. Carefully, she laid it in the crevice of the smallest log and blew some more.
When real fire finally danced in the enormous hearth, the warmth and light bathed her like a holy baptism. She knelt as close as she could without getting burnt, letting the heat seep into her frozen skin while her clothes began the slow process of thawing.
For a moment, she indulged in the quiet warmth, shutting her eyes. But when she opened them again, the room now aglow from the crackling flames, her fingers were blue and her clothes still cold and sopping.
Warmth couldn’t solve everything. She needed dry clothes.
It crushed her to leave the sanctuary of the marble hearth, but she wasn’t out of the woods yet. Her garments clung to her body like icy chains as she forced herself to stand. Her bones and joints popped with objections, threatening to drag her back toward hypothermia’s embrace.
Warm clothes. She needed to find warm clothes, then she could come back to the fire and sleep.
Shivering, she stumbled out of the massive room into the corridor, heat escaping her skin rapidly and bringing her dangerously close to death again. The ground floor revealed itself as a maze of common areas, each more opulent than the last. A dining room that could seat twenty like visiting royalty. Sitting rooms furnished with leather sofas and fur throws that probably cost more than most people’s yearly salaries.
This was somebody’s home. She was trespassing. But guilt be damned, survival trumped propriety every time. Hopefully, if the homeowner or a servant was home, they were merciful and not someone prone to asking questions.
Marigold wasn’t sure how well she could lie in her current state, as exhausted as she was, but after coming this far, she’d do almost anything to survive. Personal items such as clothing remained elusive as she searched the house. Cabinets only hid dishes and strange, foreign collectibles that looked ancient and fragile. The curved staircase led her to the second floor, where corridors branched like arteries feeding the castle’s heart.
She chose a door at random and pushed it open, revealing a sanctuary of masculine luxury. Dark wood and rich fabrics in deep burgundy and forest green created an atmosphere of controlled decadence. The bed dominated the space like an altar to hedonism, its frame carved with the same obsessive attention to detail that characterized everything else in this place.
But salvation lay in the wardrobe. Rushing over the threshold, she yanked the doors of the armoire open. Inside, she discovered exactly what her desperate situation required. Men’s clothing, but that detail mattered less than the thick cable-knit sweater that would swallow her whole, the wool socks that could serve as leg warmers, and hanging in the back like a gift from benevolent gods, a fur coat that radiated more luxury than most people would see in a lifetime.
