Taken by the Highest Bidder

She’d thought the house would be dustier, dirtier, but everything was fairly tidy, and although a few cobwebs clung to the corners, it wasn’t the mess she’d imagined.

Mrs. Bishop must still come in and clean, Sam thought, climbing the first of the stairs, and knowing that Mrs. Bishop still made an effort hurt more than even desertion did.

It was brighter upstairs. The windows on the second floor hadn’t been boarded over and Sam’s breath caught in her throat as she glimpsed the oil portrait hanging at the top of the stairs.

Reverend Charles Putnam.

Her Charles. Sam looked—his handsome face, his gentle expression, the kindness in his brown eyes—until she couldn’t look any longer. He’d been her prince, her knight on a white stallion. He’d been better than she deserved.

Turning away, she pushed open one of the bedroom doors and crossed to the tall multipaned window. In this bedroom Sam could believe that time had stopped.

Nothing had changed from the night eight years ago when the world as she knew it ended and a new life began.

She’d been standing here, not far from this very window, when word had come that Charles had been killed.

She’d just begun to undress, to change from her wedding gown into her going away outfit.

Sam exhaled in a short, hard painful puff. Her fingers curled into her palms. Twice a bride, she thought, and still a virgin. But to lose Charles, the way she had…

Sam reached out to touch the windowpane. The glass was chilly, slick, a stark contrast to the lush plum velvet curtain panel, the velvet curtain the same fabric draping the bed.

God how she hated this room. And loved this room. It was Charles’s bedroom, the room they were to share when they returned from their honeymoon trip to Bath.

Swallowing hard, around the thick lump filling her throat, Sam pressed her fingertips against the glass and then let her hand fall away.

Without a last look around, Sam left the bedroom, closed the door and was hurrying toward the staircase when she remembered the candle she’d left in the hall.

Sam was just returning for it when she saw Cristiano on the stairs. “Having a look around?” he asked.

She nodded, praying he didn’t see the sheen of tears in her eyes. Her past was private. She didn’t discuss it with anyone and she refused to give Cristiano another reason to mock her. “I’m done, though. I’ve seen enough.”

“You haven’t been to the third floor yet.”

She was desperate now to get out, to escape the Rookery and its press of bittersweet memories. “I know what’s up there. I used to live up there. All the children slept upstairs.”

“Is it just one big room?”

“Yes, filled with dozens of beds, dozens of children who grew up without their mothers and fathers.”

Back in the cottage, Sam put the kettle on the fire Cristiano had laid again this afternoon in the old cast iron stove. She stood at the kitchen window as she waited for the water to boil and watched the dense white flurries coming down. It was so quiet, so beautiful, she thought. The snow was thick and still and it covered everything in every direction.

Footsteps sounded behind, slow measured steps on the wooden floor. Sam immediately tensed, jittery all over again. Her stomach flipped. Her breasts felt tight. Goose bumps covered her skin.

She hated his effect on her.

Hated that she was so aware of him.

She didn’t know why he did this to her.

She glanced over her shoulder. His arms were piled high with firewood for the stove. She had to concede he’d been quite dedicated when it came to keeping the fire burning, the wood bins filled, and the cottage warm. “Thank you.”

He nodded.

“Would you like a cup of tea?” she asked, trying to cover her awkwardness.

“No. Thank you.”

She turned back to the window. The snow wasn’t letting up. It just continued to fall, adding to the white mounds blanketing the walls and ground outside, making the late afternoon unnaturally bright.

“It just keeps coming down,” she said, all pins and needles as Cristiano arranged the wood in the bin by the stove. Her hands tightened on the edge of the farmhouse sink. Be strong, she told herself. Be confident.

“We don’t get many storms like this,” she continued, feeling a perverse need to fill the silence. She’d never been much of a talker, usually preferred to let her young charges chatter, but right now she felt like a high-strung child herself. “But when we do get a storm, all of England shuts down. We don’t know what to do with the snow. No one’s prepared, you see.”