Keeper of Enchanted Rooms

And she thought, with a daring, stinging hope, that he might love her, too.

Clasping her hands together, she felt his touch in memory. His thumb tracing patterns across her knuckles. It was utterly terrifying to make such assumptions, no matter what the evidence . . . but she wanted it so badly. Was it so wrong to want something, just one thing, that couldn’t be bought in a store or persuaded via résumé? Hadn’t she waited long enough? Hadn’t she paid her dues to society, watching all her friends, family, and acquaintances grasp that one thing she had always wanted, yet strived to convince herself that she didn’t want?

Oh, it hurt. It hurt in such a curious, singular way.

Dropping the drape, Hulda checked her hair once more in her mirror, then pinched her cheeks, grabbed her shawl, and set out into the house, quietly closing her door behind her. The carpet undulated like the ocean on a breezy day, brightening in yellow spots around her feet.

She laughed. “Hello, Owein. It’s nice to see you, too.”

The spirit had been absent from her room, as far as she knew, during her recovery. She wondered if he’d been fearful to bother her, or if Merritt had demanded he let her rest.

The spots of color followed her to the stairs, where she paused, hand on the railing. Something that had been bothering her resurfaced in her mind. How had Mr. Hogwood found her? How had he known where she was stationed, let alone when she would be out? There were a handful of spells that could aid him in the discovery, but he would have first needed to narrow it down to at least the Narragansett Bay area, and the place was so underpopulated, it seemed an unlikely place for him to start his search. True, he would assume she’d kept her employment with BIKER, but their files were confidential, and she was almost always stationed elsewhere.

She’d worked the question over and over in her mind the last few days, never coming up with even a fragment of an answer. Nor had she any notion of how Merritt had found her. A communion stone only relayed sound, not location.

Owein popped into the portrait in the reception hall, changing the woman’s hair to match the style Hulda wore. She smiled at him before stepping outside, the autumn chill quick to greet her.

Merritt’s back was turned toward her. He split another log, adding it to a sizable pile. Either he preferred a very warm house in the winter, or he was taking out some sort of physical frustration on the trees.

Which gave her another pause. Strife and truth. Had that premonition been about Mr. Hogwood? It had certainly been strife filled for all of them, but the incident felt more personal to Hulda than to him. Had the reading already come to pass, or was it yet before them?

Merritt dropped the axe and turned, wiping his forehead with his sleeve. His expression brightened upon seeing her, which created the sensation of a hundred hatching butterflies in her stomach. “Hulda! You look well!”

She touched the side of her nose, where she knew a yellowing bruise still resided. “Well enough, I suppose.”

“Better than me, surely.” He glanced down at himself before self-consciously buttoning up his soiled shirt. “Not off for a walk again, are you?”

She warmed at the unsurety in his voice. “Any walks I take for the time being will be accompanied ones, I assure you. Fortunately, the turning of the season is upon us, and it will be much less pleasant to exercise out of doors.”

He smiled. “And what exercise do you have planned for within doors?”

It shouldn’t have made her blush, but she did, anyway, blasted cheeks. But Merritt simply chuckled, which eased her embarrassment.

He reached for the axe, then crossed the yard to lean it against the side of the house, giving the logs a break for a moment. “I’m happy to escort you, though I fear I smell like a boar.”

She picked at the end of her shawl and walked closer, until there was but a pace between them. She made a show of tilting her head. “I do not smell anything except the marsh.”

The smile he gave her was lopsided, like that of a mischievous boy. Still, he straightened his shirt and brushed back his hair, making himself as presentable as he could, before offering up his elbow. Biting the inside of her cheek to keep her expression smooth, she took it, letting the heat of his arm seep into her fingers.

She could smell him, as a point of fact, but it wasn’t a foul odor. Hardly. He smelled masculine, with a hint of cloves and orange twigs from that cologne of his, mixed with freshly chopped wood. She was entranced by it, so much so that she didn’t speak for the beginning of the walk, merely took in his scent and the crisp air and the glimmer of sun on her shoulder.

Merritt broke the silence, though his tone was easy. “Baptiste has been beside himself that we’re out of eggs. Now he wants a henhouse in addition to the cow.”

She grinned. “Well, we—you—certainly have the space for it.”