Page 35 of Once Upon an Enchanted Castle

“Whatever it was, I don’t think it was friendly. Get some rest, Gerald. I need to tidy up the library before I retire.”

“Yes, miss.”

He shuffled up the stairs, taking the steps slowly as he ascended. She waited until he was upstairs before she dashed to the library and snuffed out candles around the room. When she got to the small writing desk, she was about to snuff out the last candle when something caught her eye. She halted as she looked down at the open page. In the pool of faint, flickering candlelight, she noticed something had changed.

The page she’d been translating was different. Altered. The runes were the same shapes, only they were in a different place on the page. As if they had rearranged themselves into a better order. Moved down further. New runes appeared above it. Runes she had not yet translated.

But the strangest thing of all was what appeared in the center of the page—it had not been there before. In fact, she was certain it was not there before.

A rose wrapped in thorns. And it was leaking red ink.

Chapter 14

Afterthecurioushappeningswith the book, Bella slammed it closed and headed to bed. She left it on the writing desk in the library and refused to look at it.

She also refused to go into town and meet Leopold’s carriage. She did not want to face another day in his eerie library trying to translate the supernatural language in that infernal book. And so, she put on her hat and gardening apron and decided to tackle the wildly overgrown gardens behind the manor house.

It was the perfect day for it. A brilliant blue sky was overhead. A warm spring breeze fluttered, lifting tendrils of hair at the nape of her neck. She stood at the end of the footpath, her hands on her hips, as she stared at the brambles, the overgrown hedges, the rosebushes out of control and yet bursting with color.

She decided to start with cutting back the rosebushes. In the abandoned garden shed, she found cobwebs, creepy-crawlies, and ignored gardener tools that had seen better days. It would have to do. She picked up the largest pair of pruners she’d ever seen, hefting them over her shoulder, and headed out to work.

The sun was warm on her back labored. Her arm muscles were throbbing, but she refused to stop. It gave her time to think about everything that had happened, about the book with no name, the destruction of the fleet and the house in the port, and meeting Leopold.

Her thoughts were stubbornly stuck on Leopold. He was handsome, indeed, but something simmered under the surface she was unable to discern. Some sense of despair or longing.

“Hello!”

The man’s voice stopped her, her heart leaping to her throat. She turned to see Lord Vincent standing at the end of the footpath, eyeing her handy work with a curious gleam in his eyes. As she looked back at him, she realized there was a pile of thorny branches between the two of them.

“Lord Vincent,” she said on a gasp. She dropped the pruners. “What are you doing here?”

“I wanted to call and see how you were doing. Though I daresay you appear to be doing quite well?” He eyed the cuttings warily.

She glanced down at her hands, which were now red with forming blisters. She picked her way her through to the other side.

“We haven’t a gardener, you see. So, I thought it would be good to do a bit of work to keep myself occupied.” She paused in front of him and looked back. She cut so much back, she was able to see the edges of the footpath. There was now a mess to clean.

“I was sorry to hear about your father’s ships,” he said. “I do hope you don’t find my arrival too impertinent.”

Recalling her manners, she plastered on a bright smile. “Not at all. Shall I ring for tea? We may be in the country, but we haven’t lost all sense of propriety.”

She made a motion toward the house and started to walk, acutely aware of the sweat dampening the back of her gown. Tendrils of hair stuck to the back of her neck.

“I should also say, Lord Vincent, I appreciate you coming to check on us.” She suspected he was there for Emmaline, not her, though she was unsure how to ask him about that without sounding bold. “It was quite a shock when we received the news about the ships. My father left for Port Leclare straightaway.”

“I don’t doubt that. The destruction was quite devastating.”

She halted and looked at up at him, the brim of her bonnet shading her face from the morning sun. He was a head taller than her. His top hat, though, did not offer much relief from the bright sunshine.

“You saw it?”

“It was hard not to.” Sorrow and compassion crossed is face. “You could see the black smoke for miles.”

She looked away, her gut knotting into a tight fist. She pressed her sweaty palm against her abdomen. The thought of the ships destroyed like that make her sick. Not only for the loss of life, but for the loss of everything her father worked for and built.

“There is one more thing…” He paused as though it was difficult for him to say.

She glanced back up at him, the light behind his head blotting out his features making it difficult to read his expression. “What is it?”

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