This new Charlotte, the one who took what she wanted, hadn’t stopped to think things through. Hadn’t stopped to think that she would fall as far as she had. Far enough to know that she couldn’t lose him, no matter what the cost. There was still a small voice demanding that she tell him who she really was, but everything else in her rebelled at that notion. She didn’t ever want to be Lady Charlotte again. That passive, unhappy, lonely creature had vanished forever in a pretty blue Haverhall sitting room, leaving behind only Charlie, a woman who fought for who and what she believed in.

A woman who had fallen in love.

Charlotte closed her eyes. Ecstasy and terror. Terror and ecstasy.

Rutledge had left with Lisbon after he’d viewed the panels, offering no explanation but both men instructing Charlotte to rest on their way out, and Flynn refusing to meet her eye. Charlotte had paced restlessly for a handful of minutes before she found her boots and coat and fled the confines of the studio. She’d wound up here, alone in the front of the empty church, as if she might find answers in the silence of the space. But the cavernous darkness only pressed in on her tiny cocoon of candlelight, leaving her trapped with her thoughts.

“You’re supposed to be resting.” His voice came out of the shadows and made her jump.

Awareness crackled through her like a tempest.

“Corpses have rested less than I,” Charlotte mumbled, trying to conceal the tremble in her voice. “I was cut, not run through and disemboweled.” She glanced over at Flynn as he came to stand directly beside her, his shoulder brushing hers. He wasn’t wearing a coat, and in the meager candlelight, it was difficult to see his features.

“Mmmm.” He didn’t argue further.

A silence descended between them, not uncomfortable but heavy with things unsaid.

“Who was the woman in this painting?” Charlotte asked, knowing she was being craven by not addressing what needed to be aired but unable to do it quite yet.

Flynn shifted, and she could feel him looking at her. Eventually he turned, granting her a small reprieve. “My mother,” he replied.

Charlotte studied the woman who was gazing down at her son with such adoration. Who had clearly been adored in return. And even though she had started this conversation as a diversion, she needed to know more. “Tell me about her.”

“I’ve already told you enough,” he said, his words sharp in the darkness.

“No, you told me what she did,” Charlotte said quietly. “You never told me who she was.”

She heard Flynn release his breath on a sigh. “She was my most ardent supporter. The one person in the world who believed that I was destined for greatness.”

Charlotte remained quiet.