Total pages in book: 27
Estimated words: 25437 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 127(@200wpm)___ 102(@250wpm)___ 85(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 25437 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 127(@200wpm)___ 102(@250wpm)___ 85(@300wpm)
Part of me is elated, as I haven’t caused Rune’s excommunication from the church.
The selfish half of me is deflated. If he’s to remain a priest, that doesn’t leave a future for us, does it? Not unless we kept our relationship a secret. Would that make me happy? No. Clandestine meetings with Rune would make me his private shame. My body might rejoice in that arrangement, but my heart would break more each time.
“What happens now?” I ask, mostly to myself.
“You go back to the village,” the monsignor states, matter-of-factly.
“Now?” My pulse misses several beats. “This morning?”
“Yes,” he fairly hisses. “Or would you like to engage in another round of temptation? Maybe this time he’ll fail and you will win.”
“I…of course, I n-never wanted him to fail—”
“Didn’t you? That’s the only way you’d get paid.”
Dizziness hits me, along with a slow yawning of dread. “I…you said you were going to pay me for my time, no matter the outcome.”
“No, I didn’t. I said I would pay you for your services if they were to my satisfaction. Your services didn’t meet the required standard, or you would have seduced him.”
A realization dawns, thickening my sense of impending doom. “You wanted him to fail your tests. You never wanted him to pass. Why?”
His sneer turns my stomach over. “He thinks he’s so much better than me. Refusing to engage in innocent gossip or condemn even the vilest of parishioners. Thieves and beggars. He allows them into the church to sit beside good, honest people and has the nerve to question me for not doing the same.” His laughter is dark. “Yes, I was looking forward to taking him down a peg, that’s for sure.”
“You…hate him because he is too good. Too accepting and kind.” Warmth presses in behind me eyes. “But that’s exactly what a priest is supposed to be.”
“What do you know, you penniless street trash?” He glares at the outline of my body beneath the sheet. “You’d be wise to make some coin selling that body, before you lose your appeal.”
I’m going to be sick.
I’m actually…scared being alone with this man. He’s an imposter. A fake. He’s no more holy than the prisoners being held in the local jail. Or anyone in the village, really.
And the village does need Rune.
That is being made obvious to me right now.
Without Rune…Father McDaniel…they’ll be left with this hateful hypocrite.
This town needs Rune’s goodness. His authenticity.
I can’t be the one who takes him away from the church—or the church away from him. And I can’t let this man win.
“You have until the hour is up to leave the rectory,” Monsignor Hannibal says. “Get back to where you belong, girl. And thanks for nothing.”
My aunt. She’s probably starving by now. On the verge of being cast out of the shelter. “You’re really not going to pay me the money you promised?”
He takes a menacing step in my direction. “What are you going to do about it?”
Nothing. I have zero recourse. I can’t very well approach the law officers in town and relay the events of the last few days. Not only would they condemn me as a strumpet, but they probably wouldn’t believe the Monsignor is capable of such depravity.
Unfortunately, not getting the promised coin means…my aunt and I are now truly destitute. We have no funds whatsoever. No money to eat or pay the pittance required by the shelter to recure a bed. Without any job prospects for me and my aunt unable to work because of her illness, we’re at the end of our rope.
I’ll have no choice but to marry Mr. Tandy or we’ll be left vulnerable in the street.
“Maybe you should have tried a little harder to corrupt Father McDaniel, hmm?” he says, with a nasty smile, as if he’s read my thoughts. “Be gone with you, girl. By the end of the hour and no more.”
I choke on my request to please, please see Rune before I go.
Surely, he wouldn’t want me to leave without saying goodbye.
But once I’m dressed and my sparse possessions are packed, my time expires…and that’s exactly what I do. I leave without saying goodbye to Rune…
And I prepare to face my fate.
I never could have expected my fate to find me at the gates, demanding my soul.
Rune
I kneel at the altar with my head bowed, a rosary dangling from my fingers.
But I haven’t come to pray. I’ve come to say goodbye to this part of my faith.
I’m choosing her. I was always going to choose her.
Having Farrah or not having Farrah is a choice with as much gravity as life or death.
And lord almighty, do I love her. I’ve known since the marketplace, when my entire world shifted around me and starting spinning in a new direction. She’s the sun. She’s my sun. I ache to be her lifelong protector. I ache to see her every day, every night. To make her laugh, dry her tears and raise children together.