“I’ll let you know in the morning.”
He turned and walked away from her, into the main building. She waited out in the yard, cursing silently and not caring that it was a sin as she stood there, hoping he was putting enough distance between them that she wouldn’t run into him again.
She would speak to the abbess tonight and in the morning, hopefully Xander would leave. And he would go back to being a memory she tried not to have.
* * *
It was early the next morning when Mother Maria-Francesca called her into her office.
“You should go with him.”
“I can’t,” Layna said, stepping back. “I don’t want to go back to that life. I want to be here.”
“He only wants you to help him get established. And as you want to serve, I think it would be good for you to serve in this way.”
“Alone. With a man.”
“If I have to concern myself with how you would behave alone with a man then perhaps this isn’t your calling.”
It wasn’t spoken in anger or in condemnation, just as a simple, quiet fact that settled in the room and made Layna feel hideously exposed. As though her motives—motives she’d often feared were less than wholly pure—were laid out before the woman she considered her spiritual superior in every way.
All that ugly fear and insecurity. Her vanity. Her anger. And old desires that never seemed to fully die. Just sitting there for anyone to see.
“It isn’t that,” Layna said. “I mean, I’m not afraid of falling into temptation.” And even less worried about Xander falling into temptation with her. “It’s just that appearances...”
“Are what men look at, my dear. But God sees the heart. So what does it matter what people might think? Of the arrangement, or of you?”
Such a simple perspective. And one of the main reasons she felt so at home here. But that didn’t mean her ease and tranquility transferred to every place she went.
“I suppose it doesn’t matter.” And what she wanted certainly wouldn’t come into play. She could hardly throw herself on the ground and say she didn’t want to. Of course she didn’t. True sacrifice was hard. Serving others could be hard. Neither were excuses she would accept.
“This is an opportunity to do the sort of good that most of us never get the chance to do. You have the ear of a king, in heaven and now on earth. You must use this chance.”
“I’ll...think about it. Pray...about it.” Layna blinked back tears as she walked out of the room. By the time she’d hit the hall, she was running. Out the door and to the stables.
She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t think. She needed to ride.
And she did. Until the wind stung her eyes. Until she couldn’t tell if it was the burn from the air that made tears stream down her face, or the deep well of emotion that had been opened up inside of her. Threatening to pull her in and drown her.
She rode up to the top of the hill, the highest point that was easily accessible, and looked down at the waves, crashing below, against the rocks. That was how she felt. Like the waves were beating her against stone. Breaking her down.
Like life was asking too much of her. When she’d already given everything she had.