The Heart of Heathley House by Ruby Loren

Author:Ruby Loren [Loren, Ruby]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Ruby Loren

The spring social was not what Emily was expecting.

When she’d arrived in the evening, Gabriel had been waiting for her by the gardeners’ compound gate. “We’re a little earlier than everyone else, but I thought you might want to see what we’ve been working on. It looks at its best now that the sun’s gone down,” he explained just as Emily was looking around for a sign of anyone else.

“Lead the way,” she said with a small smile and wrapped her jacket more tightly around herself. It was only March and the weather, while dry, was not exactly mild. Calling it ‘the winter social’ would probably have been more accurate.

“I hope you’re warm enough,” Gabriel said as they started up the hill towards the parkland. Emily found that she was… mainly because they were hiking up a huge hill and she was out of shape.

“This is only our second ever social at Heathley since the fire. We had one at Christmas, but it was your standard sit down meal. Violet thought it might be a good idea to have a social that actually celebrated the work we’ve done and the natural beauty of Heathley. I think that was the spiel anyway,” Gabriel added with a grin. “So, we decided to hold it on the parkland because it didn’t, you know… burn down.”

“You make a fair point,” Emily agreed. “Although, I bet the gardens would be great for Halloween. You wouldn’t even need to decorate,” she joked, and then wondered if she’d gone too far.

Gabriel laughed and she relaxed. “I know. It is a horror story right now. Hopefully, by Halloween, things will be in a lot better shape, but then that kind of ruins your idea. Here we are!” he announced, and Emily stopped focussing on putting one step after the other up the hill.

The earth levelled out and she found they were on the edge of a clump of woods that stuck out on the brow of the hill.

“This place is called Witchwood Clump. There’s an adventure trail at the heart of the woods in a clearing, but it’s been repurposed for tonight only,” Gabriel told her with another breath-taking smile. “Come on, I’ll show you,” he said, and his hand reached down and took hers. Emily was surprised by how warm it was and she felt the warmth spread through her body, turning her cheeks rosy.

Fairy lights lit up a pathway through the trees. She discovered that there was a wooden walkway leading through the woods. As they walked deeper, she noticed how the lights illuminated the ivy wrapped around the trees and even a few sculptures of woodland animals. It was like a fairy-tale wonderland.

“The woodland adventure trail was based on the idea of Narnia and ‘The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe’. It’s a cool place normally. We just embellished a few things to make it ready for tonight,” Gabriel explained.

It was then that they arrived in the clearing. Emily took a deep breath as she looked around at the softly lit adventure trail.

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