A Winter Scandal by Candace Camp Page B

solitude, becoming over the years the Welsh patron saint of love and lovers.
    Over the years, many people had prayed before the statue, both at its original shrine in Wales and here in Chesley, and a local legend had sprung up around it. The legend was, of course, romantic. It was said that whoever prayed with a truly loving heart to St. Dwynwen here in her chapel would have his or her prayer granted. Some argued that only prayers for love were granted, but others said that the kindly saint would answer even prayers of broader scope.
    Now and then Thea had said prayers here, and as best she could tell, few of them had been granted. Still, it was her favorite place to pray or just to sit and think. She loved the quiet and the solemnity of it, the beauty of the sanctuary and the marble baptismal font that centered the arm on the opposite side of the church.
    She lit a candle and knelt to say a brief prayer beside the statue, then went to the end of the chapel to decorate the lone window with evergreen and holly. Afterward, she sat down in the front pew and began to wire the boughs into garlands to string across the front of the church. The peace and solitude of the chapel surrounded her, and the heady fragrance of the evergreens filled her nostrils. But sitting here in the quiet, she found it hard to ignore the cold lump that lay in the center of her chest. For a while her activity had masked it, subdued it, but now the coldness seemed to grow and spread.
    Thea told herself the hard lonely feeling would pass. After all, though she loved her sister and her niece and nephews, they were not really part of her life. It was disappointing that they would not be here for Christmas, but the next few days would be much like her days always were. This was her life—her brother, this church, the vicarage, the town.
    Except that none of it was really hers. Her brother was the vicar; it was his house, his church, the people his parishioners. She only shared in that life as he allowed her to, and if he died, it would all go to some other pastor, some other family, and she would no longer have even a home. Thea shook her head—what a morbid and foolish way to think! Daniel was young and healthy; he was not about to die. But, she reminded herself, he might very well marry one day. He had given no sign so far that he had any interest in marrying, but it could reasonably happen. If he did marry, Thea would no longer be needed. Daniel was too kind to make her leave, but Thea knew that she would not have a real place in the vicarage. It would be another woman’s home, not hers.
    Tears pricked at her eyelids, and she was swept by an overwhelming loneliness. It seemed suddenly that she had no real place in the world, no home, no spot of her own, as if all her life were merely borrowed from others. This feeling had come over her before, a stark and cold thing that pierced her soul. Usually Thea could shove the emotion aside, fill her life with work, but suddenly she could not. With awful clarity, she saw the truth: she did not have a place, a life, of her own. She lived on the edges of other people’s lives—writing sermons that would be her brother’s, spending a week once a year with children that were her sister’s, living in a house that belonged to the church, busying herself with the affairs of a church that was not hers. She was twenty-seven years old, unmarried, and childless. And so utterly invisible that a man who had kissed her ten years ago did not have even the slightest twinge of recognition when he saw her.
    She would never have a real life. There was no likelihood that she would marry. Whom would she marry in this village? She had known everyone here all her life, and clearly no husband for her was among them. Even if she could somehow magically live somewhere else, she had little chance of capturing any man’s heart. She was plain, and she could not even make up for her plainness with a sweetness of spirit. She was often