And now she was finally at home, having fulfilled her obligations and free until the spring semester began just after the new year. She’d intended to pick up a few classes at the institute, devote time to research, apply for new grants that would fund the next dig when they came through, and spend time with Luke. At least that had been the plan while she was still in Jerusalem—but things had changed.
It felt strange to walk into the house and face all the empty spaces. They glared at her like hollow eye sockets, eerie and blank. Luke had cleared out before she returned, partially to avoid awkwardness and partially because he’d been in a rush to leave. He hadn’t even given her the courtesy of breaking up with her in person. He’d dumped her via text, telling her that he had accepted a teaching position in Boston and would be gone by the time she returned. This was no longer their house, their little love nest, but it was still her home, and despite the sadness that filled the quiet rooms, she loved it.
Quinn snuggled deeper into the sofa and gazed with affection at the familiar room. The house had once been a private chapel, built by some devoted husband for his devout Catholic wife, but it had been confiscated by the Crown during the Dissolution of the Monasteries and allowed to fall into disrepair once everything of value had been stripped, sold off, or melted down. It stood empty for centuries, forgotten and desolate, before being offered to Captain Lewis Granger, a distant cousin of the family that still owned the estate at the beginning of the nineteenth century.
The young captain had been embroiled in a scandal involving the young wife of a well-respected general, dishonorably discharged from the army just before Waterloo, and sent home to England. He had disgraced himself to the point where he could no longer show his face in London, at least for a time, and so he appealed to his cousin, begging for sanctuary, which Squire Granger reluctantly offered. Lewis Granger might have been a libertine and a gambler, but he had a penchant for architecture and history. He turned the ruin into a home, rebuilding the crumbling structure with his own two hands and the help of a few lads from the village, who were more than happy to earn a few quid during a time when well-paying jobs were scarce and returning soldiers tried to pick up the pieces of their lives and find any employment going.
Squire Granger had been so impressed with Lewis’s efforts that he bequeathed the chapel to Lewis in his will, and it had remained in the family until the last descendant sold the house to Quinn three years ago. Niles Granger was a young man who was thoroughly at odds with Lewis’s legacy. His spiky hair was dyed platinum blond; he wore unbearably narrow trousers and horn-rimmed spectacles, proclaiming himself to be a hipster and an artist. Niles had no interest in history or architecture, and he wanted nothing more than to get away from all that “old shite,” as he so eloquently described it. He unloaded it gleefully and never looked back, using the profits to buy a dilapidated loft with space for a studio, where he created works of unfathomable modernity using splashes of bright colors, bits of trash, and phallic symbols strategically displayed for maximum shock value.
The rest of the estate had been bought years earlier by an eccentric millionaire who converted the huge manor house into Lingfield Park Resort. Despite its proximity to the resort, Quinn’s house felt completely private. The chapel was nestled in the woods at the edge of the property; none of the guests ever ventured in that direction, warned off by the “Private Property” sign nailed to a tree and a lack of a walkable path. There was a narrow lane, just wide enough for one car to pass on the other side of the house, which led into the village, but the lane saw so little traffic that Quinn felt as if she were living alone in the woods.
Now, three years later, Quinn was still charmed by the stained-glass windows set high in the stone walls and vaulted ceilings painted with an image of the heavens. Not much had remained of the original chapel, but there was something about it that always made Quinn feel welcome and at home. She supposed it was all the hopes, dreams, and prayers that had been absorbed by the stones over the years. Prayers didn’t just dissipate into thin air—they soaked into the walls, buttressing the structure with their strength and healing energy. As an archeologist, she found it immensely appealing to live in a place that was imbued with so much character and steeped in history.
When originally built, the chapel had been one large open space, but Lewis Granger had divided it into two rooms, the back room serving as a bedroom and furnished with an antique four-poster bed and carved dresser, which Niles had been only too happy to throw in as part of the deal. The dark wood was polished to a shine, the bed hangings made of embroidered damask in mauve and gold. Once that bed had been the center of Quinn’s universe, the place where she spent lazy afternoons with Luke as they made love, shared their dreams, and made plans for the future. Now, the bed was used only for sleeping and reading when sleep wouldn’t come.
Quinn still felt fragile and bruised by Luke’s sudden desertion, but now being on her own didn’t seem as frightening as it had two months ago when she suddenly found herself single. She’d felt adrift for a while, remembering several times a day that she no longer had anyone to return to. But
