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Sophie’s lips were sweet and warm, just as they had been a few minutes earlier. He watched her close her eyes to enjoy what had been on his mind all evening. But—
    There she was, pulling away from him again, cutting their embrace shorter than he would have liked.
    “What’s the matter?”
    Her cheeks reddened. “I didn’t mean for that to happen, Kevin, I mean, leading you on like that. Something just came over me.”
    “And that’s a bad thing? Honest to God, Sophie, I don’t get you.”
    “You amaze me,” she said. “The way you think, the way you know things, and…”
    “I’m sitting with one of the most intelligent, beautiful women I know, and you think I’m something special? Come on, Sophie, you’re the one with the school title, the one with an antique diary, and you’re the one planning a trip to Ireland, which I think I should be going on with you.”
    “What? Are you crazy?” she said, standing and moving decisively away from him. “I told you Professor Smith offered be my host and show me around. I don’t need you with me, and I’ve already faxed several pages of the diary to him so you don’t have to trouble your friend in New York about reading it for me.”
    “Speaking of,” he purposely ignored her last comment, “would you mind if I made a copy of it for myself?” He asked, meeting her unspoken challenge.
    The two stood in silence. Kevin gave a short agitated sigh then turned and picked up the diary again, examining page thirty-two. And with that, the tension between them vanished.
    “This is not good.” His eyes widened as his thoughts raced back to three years ago when he was on assignment in Ireland. He could make out the beginning but couldn’t understand all of the words that followed.
    “What Kevin? What’s not good?” Sophie asked, inching closer to see what he was reading.
    “The second person writing in the diary isn’t a stranger. The second writer is the daughter of the woman who died. Her life has taken a painful turn, Sophie. My guess is that it’s one that’s going to change her life forever.”
    “What’s happened to her, what’s going to change her life Kevin?”

Chapter Six
Anya
    Anya sat grimly on a stone bench in the eastern garden, far from the castle. She held herself, gently rocking back and forth in the cool darkness as a small child. She was hidden away in the secret place of her youth. It was more overgrown with wildflowers, unkempt shrubs, and vines that touched the tall fantailed grasses than she remembered. Yet it was still a wonderful place of solitude and protection from the outside world. Protection from those within the walls of the estate, even from those within her own family circle who would choose to harm her. In the past, she had used this part of the garden to be alone with good thoughts or to escape punishment for misbehavior. But today it was to escape her mind and her feelings, an attempt to purge the body of the physical and mental touches of a man she didn’t love, a man she did even know.
    “Mother,” Anya whispered through cracked lips, “how do I wash my mind as I have tried to wash my body of this man?” She cradled her face in her hands, softly weeping, her tears soaking into her pale yellow dress.
    “How do I ever look my brother in the face for what he has taken from me? And for what, a business deal? You, Mother, instructed me to keep myself pure for the man who would love me and want me for his wife. I would have done that—really, I would have—but how can I now?” Her tears ran faster and began to thicken her eyes, her head pounding in deep colorless agony. Anya’s mind tortured her for hours in the dark of the garden’s secret place. How would she survive the gloom that had grown within her, this feeling of total despair? She caressed the diary she thought to bring with her, opening it, wanting to read her mother’s first entry.
    “Dear diary. You are my third book and will take a course not traveled