Dying to Marry Him novel · Chapter 12 of 24

Chapter 12: The Library

Gilt ended the ball with a single clap.

"Lovely, darlings. Lovely. The guests will see themselves out, and the brides will rest."

He did not look at Rook. He did not look at me.

He walked out of the ballroom with his rings flashing, and the whole crowd filed out after him.

Five hours later I stood at the altar in the dark chapel with Loretta's stolen fork in my hand.

"That's my fork," said Loretta at my elbow, "and I'll thank you to give it back."

She had on her nightgown and her reading glasses, and she was the calmest person in the chapel.

The nurse stood at the chapel doors as lookout. The girls in gray and green were asleep upstairs, safe in their rooms.

Rook stood beside me, and the mist on his forehead and nose was thinner than before.

The black wall behind the altar had a door in it.

I had not seen it until he put his hand on the wall.

It had no handle, only a small brass lock, and the lock was cold.

"I cannot open it," he said. "The house moves my hands off it."

"Good thing it didn't move mine," said Loretta.

She knelt, bent the tines of the fork with her teeth, and slid it into the keyhole.

"Thirty-one years of getting into the bus yard after midnight," she said. "Hold the light."

I held the candle. She worked in silence for a long minute, tongue between her teeth.

Something clicked.

The door swung inward on a gust of old paper.

"Well, I'll be," said Loretta. "Honey, it's a library."

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