Page 6 of A Heart Worth Loving

A sketchbook fell to the floor. Ewan scooped up the leather-bound book and flipped through a few pages. Aye, the lad belonged at university.

“Up,” Ewan repeated as he dropped the sketchpad onto Liam’s lap and jiggled the back of the chair.

With a groan, Liam took up his sketchbook, rose and, with a scowl, vanished into the hallway. Ewan tossed more logs onto the flames, then settled into the warm leather and stretched his legs out before him. Of all rooms in the abbey, he preferred the open airiness of the large library. Few books lined the shelves as they must have when the abbey had been used by the clergy, but they would eventually fill the shelves. His only dislike of the room was its distance from the refectory, where he often sat and stared out over the hills to the north. He still couldn’t bear close quarters, any more than he could the sight of a pistol. Tonight, however, the patter of rain struck the windows in a soothing rhythm. His eyelids grew heavy.

A crack of cannon fire he stood in a small courtyard imprisoned with his men in France.

The French captain pressed a pistol into his hand. “Shoot,” the man gave a mean laugh, “You might save a life.”

Ewan couldn’t see out of his swollen left eye, and could only squint through the right eye, but he clearly saw the six men—his men—lined up against the wall.

“Ready,” the French captain shouted.

The French soldiers lifted their guns…aimed.

The captain forced Ewan to life the hand holding the revolver. Ewan tried to shove the hand away, but beaten and scarcely able to stand, his strength failed as the man closed Ewan’s fingers around the gun and—

Ewan bolted upright. For an instant, he still felt the captain’s fingers around his, then the room snapped into focus. He jumped onto unsteady legs and headed for the mantle with its bottle of whisky.

***

The mantle clock began to strike midnight.

Kyla closed her eyes and rested her forehead against her bedchamber door. She could wait no longer. In half an hour, Mister Mallatratt would expect the door to Blackstone Abbey’s secret storeroom to be open so he could retrieve her father’s goods. Generally, the opening of the storeroom was her father’s domain, but in his absence the responsibility fell to her.

The last of the twelve chimes faded away.

Her father should have returned last week. Kyla pushed back the worry that rose. This wasn’t the first time he’d been late and, according to him, the reason was always the same: an irresistible opportunity crossed his path. Kyla was no fool. She knew that wasn’t always the case. Sometimes, he was avoiding the authorities.

Her mother’s snores drifted to Kyla from the room across the hall. Kyla’s heart squeezed with the desire to unburden her fears. But that wasn’t possible. Her mother preferred to pretend that her husband was a shipping baron.

Kyla opened the door and hurried down the hallway. “You only have to open the door and leave,” she muttered as she started down the stairs to her father’s library.

She reached the room and eased the door open. Moonlight streamed through the library windows. Paintings of all sizes adorned the walls. Her mother loved art and fancied herself a collector, but there was little rhyme or reason to her collection. The ticking of the grandfather clock sounded more like a church bell as Kyla opened the top drawer of her father’s desk, slid her hand over the bottom and probed for the hinge of the hidden compartment. At the soft click of the catch, a door popped open. Quickly, she retrieved the keys to the lock he’d installed when he’d begun using the deserted abbey as a hiding place for his stolen goods.

“Blast Mister Mallatratt and his fear of small places,” she muttered. If he wasn’t such a coward, Mister Mallatratt would have the keys and could open the door himself. But that wasn’t true. Her father entrusted only her with the key.

Two minutes later, she grabbed her cloak from the coat rack near the front door and slipped into the night. Blackstone Abbey lay half a mile from the manor house, accessed through a small wooded area, then down the hill. She glanced skyward. The storm had passed and the three quarter moon lit the path well. At least fortune had granted that small boon. Still, her stomach knotted tighter than it usually did when she was to meet Mister Mallatratt. The storeroom was an outbuilding, so she needn’t sneak inside the abbey proper. But the thought of stumbling upon Ewan Fraser in the dead of night…

Kyla quickened her pace along the path, shivering in the chill air. Her father—when he returned—would be displeased to discover Blackstone no longer abandoned, but she prayed that would provide the impetus for him to finally abandon his smuggling activities.

Kyla emerged from the woods. At the bottom of the hill, the abbey loomed in the darkness, a hulking stone structure against the bright moon, its buildings, for the most part, intact, and built on a hill that sloped toward the valley on the opposite side of the property. The new owners had restored the outbuilding nearest the chapel, but they’d yet to touch the small structure outside the refectory.

She scanned the windows. A flicker of firelight came from the hearth in the second-floor library. The rest of the abbey stood dark. Trepidation hummed in her stomach. Had the fire been left to burn out, or was one of the inhabitants unable to sleep? Kyla shook off the dread. She would enter through the refectory, far from the library.

She hurried the final distance to the abbey gate, then veered left around the main chapel and darted through an archway into the courtyard. She picked her way forward. At last, she reached the refectory door only to discover someone had stacked barrels there.

“Tarnation,” she swore under her breath.

Why had the new owners blocked entrance to the refectory? Had they discovered the contraband stored in the secret room? God help her father if the Beasts of Blackstone Abbey had discovered their new home was a smuggler’s storage house. Kyla hesitated. Should she meet Mister Mallatratt around the back and tell him to go home? They could wait until her father returned, then let him decide how to proceed. But she knew that wouldn’t do. Mister Mallatratt would never leave without the goods. She didn’t want to think about the fuss he would make. The man wasn’t bright.

She peered through the refectory window into the room. Moonlight shone several feet in, then gave way to darkness. She tried the window and her heart fell when the window swung open. If there had been no way in, Mister Mallatratt would have been forced to leave. Knowing him, he would have moved the barrels from the door—and he would most certainly not put them back.

Heart hammering, she climbed through the window and touched down on the stone floor. She held her breath and discerned no sound. Arm outstretched, she hurried forward into the darkness, then inched her way across the middle of the room until her fingers contacted the wall.

She slowly edged left. As hoped, her hip bumped into the table placed near the door. She edged around the table, then her fingers brushed the wood panel where the secret door was located. She pushed the panel. The wood sprang open and she pulled the keyring from her pocket. The soft chink of the keys resounded in the empty abbey. Kyla froze. Silence reigned. With a slow breath, she inserted the key into the keyhole and turned. The lock clicked. She hastily withdrew the key, then slid the door aside.

Kyla slipped the keys into her pocket as she stepped into the entry, then felt her way along the wall to the stairs. Grip firm on the rope banister her father had installed on the wall, she descended the too-familiar, narrow, winding stairs. Not for the first time, Kyla cursed her lack of fear in tight, dark places. Had she had the presence of mind to feign that fear when her father first brought her to these stairs, she wouldn’t be here now. She descended the full level to where the hidden room was built against the slope of the hill and lit the taper stored on the shelf to the right.