He lifted it up, illuminating the hallway. Furniture and wall hangings loomed at the edges of the light. The flickering candles cast the house into long, leaping shadows. Whitmoor before the Whitmoors. She should have been over-the-moon about exploring the house. She wasn’t. An icy chill had settled through her. Freezing her thoughts. Unconsciously, she took Marc’s hand and wandered down the stairs and into the room that would become her father’s study. She had always checked on him in here, his head bent over some book or another. Marc raised the candelabra, chasing some of the shadows of the room away. Details emerged from the dim light. Dark paneling and bookcases along the opposite wall. A large fireplace and a bank of tall windows. Huh. Who would have guessed? It looked eerily unchanged. Even that same lynx painting stood over the fireplace, its golden eyes tracking her in the low candlelight. She could practically smell her father’s cologne lingering in the air. “This was my father’s study.”
