1

Sometimes, in the unguarded moments just before she woke, Ana imagined she could once again feel the flames searing her flesh.

She dispelled the fiery images in two rapid blinks, but the bitter scent of smoke coiling through her singed hair made her heart race. She lifted her hand, holding her breath until her fingers closed around strong, healthy curls. Sagging into her pillow with relief, she drew clean smoke-free air into her lungs.

No pain. No blinding, scorching heat that baked her insides with each burning breath—just sweet fresh air.

The blankets fluttered from her shoulders as she sat up in the bed to devour with her eyes the pale papered walls dotted with small perfect rosebuds. Crisp cottage furniture, not darkened by soot or sullied by ash, glowed in the moonlight streaming from the floor-to-ceiling windows.

A choked laugh bubbled from her throat, oddly haunting in the quiet room. Reaching down, she clasped the coverlet and drew it to her chin. She wasn’t in a burning cottage. She was in Amelia Matheson’s boardinghouse on Ashberry Street in New York, far from the village in Ireland where she grew up. And the keening wail that sent shudders coursing down her back was the wind outside her window, not a child’s voice pleading for help that she was powerless to give.

Her fingers shook as she withdrew a match from the tin atop her dresser to light the oil lamp next to her bed. The match sputtered and then sparked to life, even that feeble flame creating uncomfortable heat against the red, puckered skin on Ana’s hands. She lit the lamp quickly and waved the match out.

A pocket watch lay next to a book of poems on her bedside table. Ana flipped open its lid, directing her eyes away from the tiny portrait cradled opposite the watch face.

Four fifteen.

Dawn was still hours away, but she’d get no more sleep this night. Sighing heavily, she cast the covers aside and reached for the floor with her toes.

“Ah!”

Shivering, she drew them back, wrapped the blanket around herself, then lifted the lamp from the table and scooted from the bed. Out the door, past Cara’s room—

Meg’s room, she corrected silently. Cara and Rourke no longer lived at the boardinghouse. They owned a beautiful home across town close to Rourke’s office. Breda, too, was gone, moved in with a family in need of a housekeeper and cook.

She crept past Meg’s room before descending the stairs and winding down the hall to the library. The door opened with just a touch, and a candle flickered from the table nearest the window. Ana lingered on the threshold, her fingers curled about the edges of her makeshift robe.

Clearing her throat, she peeked inside. “Anyone in here?”

Tillie’s head appeared around a tall wing chair, her unbound dark hair tumbling across her arm. “Ana? What are you doing awake and about at this hour?”

Ana pressed farther into the room, leaving the lamp on a desk near the door. “I could ask the same of you.”

Tillie shrugged and disappeared behind the chair. Mindful of the fire burning brightly in the fireplace, Ana skirted the hearth and dropped into another chair a satisfactory distance from the blaze.

Small, petite Tillie looked even more waiflike with her legs drawn up beneath her nightdress and her long tresses splayed about her shoulders. Ana held up a corner of her blanket. “Cold?”

Tillie accepted the offer with a grateful nod. With just a small bit of wrangling they managed to spread the blanket over them both, a dip in the middle where it spanned the two chairs.

Once the room returned to stillness, Ana turned her attention to the crackling fire. Not liking how it whispered, she shivered and looked at Tillie. “How long have you been awake?”

“An hour. Maybe two.”

“Bad dreams?”

Tillie nodded.

Ana shrank into her chair. “Me too.”

The fire popped, spitting a burst of sparks up the chimney. Tillie slipped from her seat, grabbed a poker and prodded the logs into a pile, then adjusted the screen to keep stray ashes from escaping.

Ana released the tension from her shoulders and smiled through the gloom at her friend. “Thank you.”

Rubbing her hands over her arms, Tillie nodded and scrambled back to her seat. “Have you plans for this Saturday?”

Ana shrugged. Saturdays were idle, so apart from her list of household chores, she had no plans.

Tillie hugged her blanket-draped knees, her teeth working her bottom lip and her brow drawn in a frown. “Meg has me thinking,” she said at last.

“About?”

“The shelter at Our Lady of Deliverance. Father Ed runs it.”

“I know the place,” Ana said, prodding her with a nod.

“Meg says there are over forty women living there, some of them sick, or running from abuse and in desperate need of a place to hide.” Her eyes gleamed as she twisted a lock of her hair round and round on her finger. “A lot of them are simply alone in the world and looking to start a new life.”

Ana smiled indulgently. “That be a weighty topic for this hour of the morning, don’t you think? Wouldn’t that be something better discussed when we’re both more alert?”

Tillie’s gaze, so direct as to be piercing, fastened onto Ana. She felt a twinge inside her chest—similar to the uncomfortable pricking of conscience she used to feel as a lass after she’d spent time in the confessional. “Sorry. Go on.”

“I’m thinking I’d like to help, maybe volunteer an hour or so after I leave the milliner and on the weekends.”

“Doing what?” Ana’s heart raced faster with each word Tillie uttered.

She lifted her hand in a wave. “Dishes, laundry, cooking . . . whatever they need.” Reaching across the span between their two chairs, she grasped Ana’s fingers tightly. “I’d like you to come with me. Will you?”

There it was—the question she’d been dreading. Ana pulled her hand free and jerked up from her chair. The blanket rippled to the floor, but neither she nor Tillie bothered picking it up. Ana skirted the heap and flitted to the window.

“Why is it my help you ask for, Tillie? Why not Amelia, or Meg? You know I . . . I do not attend church.”

“I’ll not be asking you to.” Her lips bunched in a pout as she uncrossed her legs and joined Ana at the window. “These women need our help. So what if the shelter be housed in a church? It’s a building, Ana. Nothing more. Surely you wouldn’t mind helping now and again.”

Tillie didn’t . . . couldn’t . . . understand. And why would she? It wasn’t as though Ana had ever bothered to explain her reluctance about attending Sunday services. She rested her hand against the frosted windowpane, letting the cool glass soothe her scarred flesh, and closed her eyes. A moment later, Tillie’s warm fingers squeezed her shoulder.

“Ana, the reason you refuse to attend mass with us, why you won’t set foot inside a church . . .”

She hesitated and Ana shivered.

Her voice lowered to a whisper. “Is it because of the nightmares?”

Searing, screaming flames. Her mother’s pale face. Droned prayers falling from the lips of a faceless priest—

Ana jerked her eyes open and wrenched from Tillie’s grasp. “I-It’s complicated, Tillie.” With each step across the library floor she avoided the flapping terror that closed her throat, but it wasn’t far enough. Never far enough to take her beyond its clawed reach.

Tillie snagged her arm, forcing Ana to meet her gaze. “Complicated or no, have you never wondered why, after all these years, they still haunt you? Maybe if you talked to Father Ed—”

Anger straightened her spine, sped her breathing. “I know why they still haunt me, Tillie. Because what happened to my family was horrible—something no child should ever have to live through. And afterward I was alone! No priest, no . . . God to hear or answer my prayers. Just a stranger the priest paid to put me on a ship and escort me to an orphanage a thousand miles from home. Have you any idea what it feels like to be that alone?”

Pain shimmered in the tears falling from her friend’s eyes, cutting the wretched words from Ana’s tongue. At her midsection, Tillie’s hands wrung the wide, wasted folds of her nightdress.

Ana took one step toward her and stopped, horrified by her arrogance and self-pity. “I’m so sorry, Tillie. I didna mean—”

Tillie gave a low sigh and let her hands slide to her sides. “We both have things we need to let go of, Ana. Maybe finding time to help another—maybe it’ll help us move on. My Braedon . . . he would not have wanted me to spend my life pining for him and our child. Neither would your mother or sister want you looking back and missing them.”

But she had moved on . . . hadn’t she? An entire ocean, in fact. Ana swallowed the lump in her throat and pulled her hands close to her body, hiding the scars beneath her crossed arms. “Maybe you’re right. I’ll . . . think on it.”

“Promise?”

Though her insides trembled and her knees felt weak, Ana smiled. “Aye.”

Tillie’s hand, so small compared to Ana’s, moved in a pat. “I’ll stop by there tomorrow—” she glanced out the window, where the sky had just begun to glow a light pink—“today actually, after I leave the milliner shop, and see what work they have to be done.”

“Tillie,” Ana warned, grabbing her wrist before she could dash out of reach, “I said I’d think on it.”

Thankfully her eyes were brimming not with tears but with merriment. “I know you did, dearie.”

“I may decide that volunteering at the shelter is not for me.”

“Of course.”

Ana frowned, the sleeves of her nightdress billowing over her arms as she propped her fists on her hips. “And you wilna be disappointed if I decide not to go?”

Tillie leaned forward and pressed a kiss to Ana’s cheek. “Good night, dearie. I’ll see you in the morning.”

Ana gestured out the window toward the lightening sky. “It’s morning already.”

“Aye, but if we’re going to work extra hours at the shelter, we’d best try to wrangle a few more winks before breakfast.”

“Tillie—” Ana protested, too late.

She whirled, her nightdress swirling about her heels as she darted from the library. In seconds, her tapping footsteps faded to silence on the stairs.

Moving to the window, Ana freed the sigh trapped in her lungs, her breath forming a crystal cloud on the glass.

Tillie was right about letting go, but some things were dug in too deep, and entering a church . . . she hadn’t done that since she was a young lass. True, Tillie carried a grievous burden of her own, and Ana had no desire to see her friend pained further. But why should it matter if she exposed her wounds to a priest or if she chose to bear her anguish in silence?

Both fists curled, she banged the library window so hard the glass rattled. She wouldn’t do it. No matter what Tillie said or how she pleaded, Ana would never again set foot inside a church.

Ever.

The sun peeking over the rooftops of Canal Street pried at Eoghan’s eyelids, dragging him from his liquor-induced slumber on tearing, tenacious fingers. Groaning, he rolled from his stomach onto his back, gradually becoming aware of the cold, hard steps where he’d lain awkwardly through the night.

Blinking, he peered up, up, up . . . past ivy-covered walls to a gleaming silver steeple that pierced the sky like a sword.

A church?

A derisive snort blasted from his cracked lips. This had to be Kilarny’s doing, with his twisted sense of humor.

He rocked to a sitting position, taking a moment to brace his throbbing head between his palms. Normally he avoided the taverns, avoided the danger of dulled senses, but last night . . .

Last night he’d hoped tipping back a few mugs would soften the Fenians’ resolve against him, maybe even convince Kilarny to remember Ireland and better times—when all that mattered to either of them was helping the Fenians achieve Irish independence from England. . . .

And when he wasn’t viewed as a traitor.

His hand slid to cover his aching jaw. At least they hadn’t killed him. That was something.

Behind him, the door creaked open, followed by a decidedly feminine gasp. “Wha—? Father Ed, come quick!”

The woman’s strident voice hit him broadside. Eoghan screwed his eyes shut and clutched his head against a wave of renewed pounding.

“Father Ed!”

Twisting, Eoghan lifted a pleading hand toward the dour-faced woman. “Madam, please.”

Her eyes narrowed as she stared at him. She blew out a “humph” and folded her ample forearms over her black-clad bosom. “My name is Sister Mary, lad, not madam.”

“Sister Mary, then,” Eoghan said, stifling another snort as he went back to cradling his head.

“Are you drunk?”

“What?”

Her booted feet pounded the steps as she circled to stand in front of him. Leaning down, she braced her hands against her hips and looked him square in the eyes. “I said—” she paused, punctuating her next words with an ever sharper glare—“have . . . you . . . been . . . drinking!”

“Aye!” Eoghan exclaimed, hoping the admission might somehow convince her to stop talking, then grimaced. Shouting was definitely a bad idea.

She straightened, disapproval etched in the creases ringing her stern lips. “Humph. Better the son of a gambler than a drinker, me ma always said.”

“And neither one very fitting for a child of God,” a deeper voice added firmly.

The hostility melted from Sister Mary’s shoulders faster than butter on a hot biscuit. “Father Ed . . . of course . . . it’s just . . .”

She pointed at Eoghan, her finger traveling with her gaze over the stains on his shirt. “Well, see for yourself.”

A lighter step scraped the stairs behind Eoghan, and then a kind-faced man with red hair ruffled by the wind squatted in front of him, his hand extended. “Hello, lad. Welcome to Our Lady of Deliverance. My name is Edward Murphy—Father Ed to my parishioners.”

“Oh . . . en Hamilton,” Eoghan said, changing the oath he’d been about to mutter into a strangled pronunciation of his name when he saw the priest’s eyebrows lift. He took Father Ed’s hand and gave it a reluctant shake, wincing as the movement sent fresh pain charging through his temples.

“Looks like you’ve had quite a night.” He pointed at Eoghan’s jaw, which by the feel of it bore a rather ugly bruise.

“To put it mildly.”

“And you slept out here, on the church steps?”

Eoghan nodded, not that he could remember.

“Lucky you didn’t freeze to death,” Sister Mary chimed, her frown returning. “It’s cold for October.”

“Come now, Sister. A kind word never broke anyone’s mouth.” Father Ed rose to his feet and offered his hand to help Eoghan. “Besides, weren’t you about to head for the market?”

The ill-tempered nun gave a grunt that jiggled the rolls on her hips. “Aye, that I was.”

“I doubt Sister Agnes will be pleased if she’s forced to wait on the potatoes for her stew.”

Whoever Sister Agnes was, the mere mention of her name was enough to drive the frown from Sister Mary’s lips. Swaying in his shoes, Eoghan bit back a groan. Another nun worse than this one?

Sister Mary’s head bobbed once, twice, and then she barreled down the steps. “I’ll be back in an hour,” she called over her shoulder, moments before she disappeared around the wrought-iron fence surrounding the church. Bolted to the hinges was a wooden sign that bore the name Our Lady of Deliverance in faded yellow letters.

Squinting to make out the smaller words scrolled beneath the name, Eoghan leaned forward and nearly toppled down the steps.

Father Ed caught him by the elbow. “Easy there, lad.” He tapped his fiery red head and grinned. “No sense adding to the bruises on your nugget, or another tear to your coat.”

Eoghan tugged on the tattered hem of his tweed jacket, shame heating his cheeks. “No, I guess not.” He cleared his throat. “Well, it was nice to meet you and . . . her.” He motioned in the direction Sister Mary had taken.

Father Ed smiled kindly.

“I guess I should be going now.” He turned to move down the steps.

Father Ed stretched his hand toward the church door. “Are you hungry?”

“What?”

“I dinna suppose you’ve had a chance to break the fast?”

Eoghan’s stomach rumbled in response. In fact, he’d missed far more than just breakfast. He didn’t know what kind of cook Sister Agnes might be, but the thought of a hearty meat-and-potato stew was enough to make his mouth water. He shoved his hands into his pockets, reminded by the lint that clung to his fingernails of his plight.

He lowered his gaze, surprising himself with his honesty. “I do not have any money.”

Or clothes, or a place to stay.

Father Ed clapped Eoghan on the shoulder. “Ach, then ’tis lucky for you that I have plenty of work needing to be done around the church. You’re a godsend, for sure and for certain.”

“I’m anything but a godsend, Father.” Again, Eoghan was startled by his own honesty. What was it about this priest that lured the truth from him before he could even think?

Father Ed shrugged and climbed the steps to push open the door. “I suppose that remains to be seen, eh, lad? In the meantime, what say you come inside? We’ll work out the details of your employment after we’ve put some meat in your belly.”

Eoghan licked his lips, tempted almost beyond reason by the offer to staunch the quivering in his limbs brought on by hunger.

“Well?” Father Ed tipped his head toward the entrance. “You coming?”

Throwing his head back, Eoghan narrowed his eyes and stared at the steeple piercing the sky. So, it was a church. What did it matter if it meant earning enough sustenance to carry him through another day?

“Aye, I’m coming.” Feet dragging, he followed Father Ed to the door. A moment later, he did the one thing he swore he’d never do again.

He set foot inside a church.