Free Passions in the North Country (Siren Publishing Classic) by Summer Newman

years,” Miriam said, “and they were madly in love, but they never became lovers.”
    “Really?” Jenny asked, genuinely intrigued.
    “Really,” Miriam assured her. “The Captain was a handsome fellow who ached for the beautiful Maria, and she loved him with all her heart, but she was a nun.”
    “A nun?” Jenny exclaimed in wide-eyed wonder.
    Miriam nodded. “A Roman Catholic nun. Young and beautiful, but a nun. She had been sent here to develop a school in Newbridge, the first school ever. She needed a room. Since the Riverview Hotel was the only place to stay in town at the time, she ended up here. But she needed a long term placement. The Captain suggested she take a room in this house, as he was always out at sea and would never intrude upon her space. Maria loved the grounds and the location, and since the school was only a ten-minute walk from here, she took the room you are about to see.” Miriam unlocked the right door, the one to Maria’s room, and swung it open to an enclosed staircase. “No one has lived or even stayed here since Maria died, but the Captain was injured on a whale hunting expedition and ended up retiring. He moved back to the Captain’s House, but by that time Maria loved the room and did not want to leave. So she didn’t, even after he moved in.”
    “No other woman has been in this room since Maria?” Jenny questioned, clearly recalling the naked woman in the window.
    “None.”
    “What did Maria look like, Miriam?”
    “I don’t know. I thought it was written somewhere that she had long black hair, but I’m not even sure of that.”
    They walked up the steps where they came to a third door. Miriam opened it to a beautiful and quaint room of unexpected size. There was a twin bed, a newly installed bathroom, with shower, a mahogany writing desk with three or four books on one side and an old-fashioned feather in an ink well, next to some writing paper. There was a recliner chair, a coffee table, a large closet, two dressers, and two large, ornamental windows with pretty pink-and-white curtains. A huge mirror, framed by ivory painted with Japanese pagodas, faced the bed and reflected almost the entire room.
    “I love it,” Jenny said, walking to the window where she had seen the woman looking down at her. She studied her surroundings from the heightened vantage point. Only then did she notice a door in the middle of the wall. “Where does that lead, Miriam?”
    “The Captain’s room,” said the elderly lady.
    Jenny made a funny face. “The Captain’s room? You mean the Captain and Maria could enter each other’s rooms directly through that door?”
    “That’s right.”
    Jenny laughed awkwardly. “There’s this huge separation at the bottom of the steps, as if those two doors lead off to different worlds. Yet if they unlocked this door, they could just walk through?”
    “Close, but not quite.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “The door was never locked.”
    Jenny was flabbergasted.
    “It couldn’t be locked. And for years that’s all that separated the handsome and lusty Captain from the beautiful and sensual Maria. An unlocked door and two people in love who had never physically touched each other.” She raised an eyebrow. “For years and years they lived like that.”
    “Talk about sexual tension.”
    “She taught in the school and he built up the Riverview Hotel into the best hotel on the South Shore. People came from all over the world, but when the day was over and they retired to their rooms, they would be only a short distance apart, separated by a thin wall. Funny thing is, people said they lived almost like man and wife when they were together. She would help out around the restaurant, he would give talks at the school about the seafarer’s life, they would go for long walks on White Sands Beach. Some said they would even sit on opposite sides of that door and talk every night before going to bed.”
    “What a strange relationship,” Jenny said.