She heard him drop the lantern and give chase instantly, engulfing them in darkness save for the light of the moon. Her lengthy skirts and thick petticoats impeded her progress, and his far longer legs narrowed the distance between them rapidly.
It was seconds before he grasped her arm, pulling her back. Rather than fighting his hold, she let herself fall against him, pushing him backward toward the ground. Leena landed on top of him with a thud, and, even in the frenzy of their movements, she could not unfeel the hard expanse of his chest and the power of his coiled muscles, making her already pounding heart beat impossibly faster. There was no sense in fighting St. Silas’s brutal strength; she knew her only escape must be through other means.
Leena lurched from him, grabbed a fistful of sand, and threw it directly into his face.
Then she ran.
“Bravo!” She heard his voice not far behind her, but she knew she was still holding the lead.
Her hemline was now drenched in salt water as she scampered over the rocks and slippery seaweed, until she reached the weeping willow. She’d been right: There was a small tin attached to the bark. It looked like a postbox but Leena couldn’t imagine what one would be doing here in the middle of the isolated wilderness. She opened the lid and reached inside, withdrawing the object held within.
A miniature glass bottle. With two pieces of parchment inside.
She gasped when she saw the preserved parchment, hearing St. Silas’s sure footsteps over the rocks just behind her.How many years had this been here, waiting to be found?
Moments before he could reach her, she smashed the bottle against the nearest rock and swiftly slid the small parchments deep into her bodice.
There was an instant when both panting parties were staring at the concealed notes in her bosom. St. Silas was the last to look away. “I am not above retrieving that. And it would not be a hardship to do so, Leena. So be a good girl and hand it over now.”
For a wild moment, the vision that started with her picturing him running his hands through her hair shifted into something far more potent—St. Silas finding his way through her clothing, St. Silas’s calloused hands on her sensitive skin as he pulled the parchments out…
Leena shut her eyes tightly and then opened them, as if to ward away the treachery of her own mind when what she really needed was absolute focus to navigate her way back.
St. Silas’s stalking gaze did not miss her reaction, momentary though it was. His growing smile was slow and sure, as if he was seeing the same vision flash through his mind as well.
The freezing water beat against her now-soaked shoes, but rather than feeling the chill, her entire body was suffused with warmth.
“You would not dare.” Careful not to slip on the rocks, she made to walk past him, trying to collect as much dignity as possible.
For the second time that night he halted her with his hand on her arm. His gaze, made darker by the filtering light of the moon, burned into her. She could not bring herself to jerk her arm away. His touch seared her, and she knew she would carry the remnants of St. Silas all night on her skin.
“Dare me,” he challenged softly.
Before Leena could reply, Lady Hargreaves reappeared before her. She began mouthing hurried, anguished words—and when she saw Leena was not reacting accordingly, made a strike for her.
Leena reared back, almost pulling St. Silas toward the jagged rocks with her. His firm hands righted them just in time.
“What do you want me to do with this?” Leena asked the ghostfrantically, trying to make sense of the violent gesticulations. “Do you want me to deliver it to someone?” The lady didn’t make another attempt to approach, wary of St. Silas’s foreboding figure hovering close to Leena. She continued to shake violently. “Is there a name on the letter?”
The ghost’s face crumpled in waterless tears, nodding and pointing toward Leena’s bodice, then toward St. Silas, and lastly at the stark, distant presence of Weavingshaw, thumping her heart three forceful times.
Then, as if she’d finished a great and grim task, Lady Hargreaves shuddered before fading into nothing.
Leena stood very still, the salty droplets beating against her cheeks like small painful kisses. Lady Hargreaves had been her first ghost—her first introduction into the world of the departed, her first realization that she would never find true peace among the living. And now she was gone, and Leena was not sure if she would ever see her again. Had Lady Hargreaves’s phantom finally been released?
St. Silas took her by the arm and led her steadily up the cracked rocky path onto firmer ground. Leena kept turning back toward the sea, as if searching its depth for answers she could never have.
“It was Lady Hargreaves you just saw, wasn’t it?” St. Silas’s voice when he spoke next was slightly rough, like he too was battling emotions he was trying to bury.
It was a peculiar sensation to have St. Silas a witness beside her in the presence of phantoms, watching her as she wrestled over secrets with beings that he could not see. To him, there was only nothingness.
“Willing to make a deal?” She walked toward the fallen lamp, seeing if she could revive it for the journey back.
“You want to know about the Wake?” His impatient voice carried easily above the waves.
“Yes.” She turned, only to find him nearly at her back, his voice sounding far more distant than his presence.
“The Wake was created by Lord Avon.” He took the lamp from her hand, shaking the sand from its surface and reigniting the flame. “He traded prisoners to restore his fortune.”
