Chapter 11

She made it back just in time.

Leaden clouds had quickly gathered, and the first raindrops were starting to fall when Ivy let herself into the library and collapsed on her favorite chair. Though her body was aching from the ride and her head was pounding, she still had work to do. Making little slips of paper, she tucked them into the empty slots where the books had been to make shelving them upon their return simpler.

Her scissors were skimming through the paper, when a sudden wave of nausea washed over her, and she shot out her hand to steady herself against a shelf. The scissors clattered to the floor. Perhaps bicycling to and from the village had been too much after all. She tried to push through the light-headedness, but soon a ringing in her ears joined the nausea and it was all she could do to stagger out of the library without fainting.

Back in her room, the headache eased and she poured herself a glass of water. Sipping it slowly as she watched the rain smear down the window, Ivy made a note to ask Ralph about the possibility of mildew or rot in the library. The mold in her old boardinghouse had always given her terrible nosebleeds and the occasional headache. If she was going to be spending so much time in the library, she couldn't be subjecting herself to a constant barrage of maladies.

Eager to share her success in the village with someone, Ivy sat at her desk and drafted an invitation to Arthur to come call on her the next day. As she folded and sealed the letter, a cold draft raced across the room, lifting the curtains and extinguishing the fire in the grate. Ivy went still, remembering the incident in the bath. Whatever she had experienced that day had been passive, harmless. If it had indeed been a spirit, then it had been content to pass her by, perhaps completely unaware of her existence.

But this...this was different. There was an almost painful awareness between her and this entity. Her hand went slack, the letter falling to the desk as it grew closer. Hot breath touched her neck, like a hungry dog was stalking her, ready to pounce. The malevolent force seemed to press in around her as if it wanted to steal the air right out of her lungs. Ivy's muscles tightened until they ached, and the sensation of being watched intensified until she expected to see a horned devil or a ghost in chains materialize, glaring at her from yellow eyes.

Grabbing her cardigan, Ivy made a dash to the door, pounded down the stairs and out into the afternoon drizzle. She ran through the garden, past the stables and old tenant cottages before she found herself outside the grounds and on the edge of the moors. Lungs burning and legs on fire, she finally stopped running, doubled over as she fought to catch her breath.

A corncrake scurried by and the breeze teased the brown heather, but otherwise it was still. Soggy, colorless moors stretched for miles, their boundaries smudged with fog. A fine mist clung to the wool of Ivy's cardigan, and her shoes were quickly soaking through. But there was an eerie beauty to the vastness, and her own smallness in the landscape was grounding, reassuring.

The uneven fall of footsteps in the mud pulled Ivy from her reverie and her chest went tight. Whatever it was had followed her. She had no breath left to run; she would have to face it head-on.

Spinning around, she let out a choke of relief. "Oh, it's only you."

Ralph emerged from the mist, coatless, hands jammed into his trouser pockets. "Only me."

The pounding of her heart steadied, but did not slow, her mouth suddenly dry. "Were you following me?"

He didn't say anything, but his lack of surprise at seeing her was all the answer she needed. She shivered as the wind kicked up, and Ralph moved a step closer. "You look scared," he said, searching her face.

A chill ran through her, though it wasn't from the damp air. Ivy felt naked under his gaze, as if he could see the silly things that were slowly making her question her own sanity. Ralph looked warm and solid against the craggy patchwork of moors. It would be so easy to unburden herself to him, to let all her fears and misgivings spill out into the space between them. But he had told her explicitly she was not to trust him, and in any case, she doubted he would believe her. "Do I? Just thought I would do a little exploring around the grounds and a bird startled me."

Ralph didn't say anything, but he didn't look like he believed her. He took another step closer, as if he would reach out and touch her. She held her breath, but he stopped short, close enough that she could see a small scar running under his left ear and down his neck and disappearing under his loosely draped muffler. He belonged out here in the wilderness, all rugged angles and unpolished manners, as intensely brooding as the bleak and unforgiving moors.

She felt her tongue loosen under his unnervingly clear gray eyes. "I heard—felt—something, in my room," she said in a rush. "I've heard footsteps and felt drafts around the house, but this was different. This was..." She fell silent, the hot, sour breath on her neck still vivid in her mind. "This was evil," she finished in a murmur.

Ralph's brows drew together in concern. Not disbelief. He opened his mouth, but must have thought better of whatever he was about to say, because he soundlessly closed it again.

Shivering, Ivy wrapped her arms around herself. The cold air was a welcome dose of reality, but the gray clouds were giving way to the gathering dark of evening.

"You're cold," Ralph said, and before she could stop him, he was unlooping his muffler and putting it around her neck.

The intimacy of the gesture brought her up short, and she flushed despite herself. The muffler still held lingering warmth, and smelled like him—woodsmoke, leather, and rain. "Don't you need it?" It looked hand-knit, lovingly made. She wondered if a sweetheart had made it for him, though the idea left an unpleasant taste in her mouth.

"I can't even remember where I got it," he told her. "You keep it."

"Oh, well then. Thank you. I should be going back though," she said, aware that she should give the muffler back, but unable to bring herself to take it off.

"Wait."

Ivy stayed her step, relieved that she had a reason to delay going back inside. She looked at him expectantly, but he was gazing off into the mist, jaw muscles working in thought.

"I'm in the stables," he said finally. "That's where I stay."

Uncertain what she was supposed to do with this information, she waited for him to go on. His gaze returned to her, her breath hitching at the swirling storm in his gray eyes. "If you're ever in danger, you come to the stables. You don't need to stay in the abbey if you feel unsafe. There's an extra cot, and I won't let anything happen to you."

Twining her numb fingers in the hole of her cardigan sleeve, Ivy quickly looked away so he wouldn't see the color blooming on her cheeks. "I don't think that would be appropriate," she murmured.

Kicking at a loose pebble, hands in his pockets, he gave a snort that stopped just short of a laugh. "Not appropriate, eh? All right."

"Why do you talk to me like that?" she couldn't help herself from asking. "Why can you barely look me in the eye sometimes, and then speak to me so familiarly other times? Why do you act as if there is some big secret that I ought to know, but then never bother telling me what it is?"

"Ivy." There was an indulgence in his tone, his broad Yorkshire accent drawing out the cadence of her name. "You know why."

"No, I do not, and it's infuriating. I wish you would either tell me or leave me be." Nothing exasperated her more than a code she couldn't crack, and Ralph was proving to be a cipher without a key.

A crow took wing into the evening, its raspy call echoing in the chasm between them. "Very well, m'lady," he said finally. "Have it your way."

"That's it?" The rain was turning icy, and her whole reason for fleeing outside was beginning to fade from her mind. There was nothing to be gained from standing out here in some sort of stalemate with a man who clearly took pleasure in tormenting her. She turned to leave.

It was funny; as she blazed a trail back to the abbey through the ankle-deep heather, Ivy could almost taste a fiery whiskey kiss on her lips, feel the lingering warmth of a hand on the small of her back. She felt like Catherine Earnshaw, returning from a forbidden assignation on the moors with her Heathcliff, not a London girl who felt terribly out of place here in the North. Addled, that's what she was. Her mind was overtaxed, her stomach underfed. She would go back to the abbey, have a proper meal and lose herself in a familiar book where nothing could disturb her.

The walk back was long, longer than Ivy had remembered it being. Time moved in a strange way here, and she wondered how long exactly she had spent standing out on the gusty moors with Ralph. She was almost to the garden door when she turned around. Ralph was still out there, a dark smudge against the creeping mist. It was much too far to see his eyes, but something told her he was watching her, would still be watching her long after she had returned inside.