“What sort of treasure is that?” Aidan countered. “If you have a cook, who needs to know how to roast a duck or how to fillet a fish?”
“Have you read it thoroughly?” Tom asked. “Are you certain it contains no clues?”
Ophelia hesitated, not knowing how to explain why the book enchanted her.
At that moment, the double doors at the end of the hall burst open, and Ophelia’s heart leapt up in hope.
Sidney walked through. Her Sidney. Safe. Home. Hers. Her heart melted, and she put her hand on the table to keep her balance.
Sidney caught her gaze. Though he spoke first to Judith, he kept his eyes on Ophelia. He raised a single finger. “One moment,” he mouthed to her, and she thought one moment would be an eternity too long.
Judith crossed to Alderson, sitting before the fire, his head cradled in his hands. She touched his arm, directing his attention to the entrance.
Sidney pulled the double doors wide open, pushing them back against the wall. Then he disappeared back into the hall, beyond sight. Ophelia felt her heart pull after him with longing.
A moment later, Benjamin and Sidney appeared on either side of a young man in rural dress, supporting him as he limped forward slowly. His head was wrapped in bandages, and his arm was immobilized in a sling. His face was bruised and cut, with one eye swollen almost shut.
The room fell silent, and the company stared for a moment. Then Alderson gasped. He cried out, “My son!” and ran forward, followed closely by Nigel, whose face beamed at the sight of his brother.
“Father!” the young man tried to step forward but almost fell.
Sidney and Benjamin caught him. Then his father and his brother were at his side, taking Benjamin’s and Sidney’s places. Judith worked in the background, sending Aidan and Tom to bring the chaise longue from the front drawing room and place it before the fire in the hall. The room was rearranged in minutes, and the battered youth was settled before the fire. His father tucked a blanket around his son’s legs and brushed the hair from his face.
At the door stood the woman who had tried to deliver the letter, looking wary. Benjamin pulled her forward. “This is Maribel Owens, your son’s savior. Her father keeps the lighthouse near where his vessel wrecked. She saw the disaster and rowed out to save as many as she could. She saved ten men that night. Your son was the last, almost drowned when she found him far from the others, clinging to a reef. The tide had turned, making it impossible for her to reach the shore until the next night, but by then, your son was too feverish to travel farther, so she cared for him in a cave above the line of the water.”
Alderson embraced the girl, then Sidney, then Benjamin. She understood Alderson’s relief profoundly, for Sidney had returned to her as well.
* * * *
Sidney picked her up and swung her around. “I told you I would return before this evening was over.”
She clung to him as if he had been gone a year instead of only ten days. “How did you find him?”
“We traced Maribel back to a tavern outside the village, then to an inn about a half a day’s travel from here. After that, we lost her for a day or more because we traveled all the way to Liverpool, expecting to find her on the roads. By that point, we were too far away to come back empty-handed. True to her heritage, she had borrowed a boat. She brought him almost the entire way by canal and waterway!”
“My clever Sidney!”
“I must share the credit. Your cousin is quite good at this. He asks a question in just the right way to get a useful answer, and he seemed to know when people weren’t giving us all the information they knew or when they didn’t know what was important to tell us.”
“My generous Sidney! Always giving credit to someone other than yourself.” She buried her face in his chest. “I was afraid, so afraid, that you wouldn’t return to me.”
“I will always come back to you, Ophelia. I’m like a bad penny in that. Now that you have me in your pocket, you’ll find that I never leave your hand. But tell me, darling, how you entertained yourself in my absence.”
“You mean other than standing by the window waiting for you to come back to me.” She curled her hand into his.
“Yes, other than that.” Sidney wrapped his arm around her shoulder.
“I read Mistress Thorpe’s book. I’m fascinated by her disappearance. It seems so unlikely: a wealthy woman, lady of the manor, simply disappears, never to be heard from again. Someone had to know where she went, and someone had to help her go.”
“Have you considered, darling, that she didn’t just disappear.” Sidney turned her toward him until they were facing.
“What do you mean?”
“Think of it this way: his family never heard from her again, but that doesn’t mean she died. These were Catholic lands. The Welsh knew the land, where to hide, how to disappear, how to resist. What if her neighbors knew where she was but didn’t tell? We see that sort of thing in Ireland when Jonathan Swift was printing works critical of the king. His enterprise required a printing press, type, paper, ink, and all the associated tools—all in all, several thousand pounds of equipment. Everyone had to know. All it would have taken to send Swift to jail was one person speaking up. But no one ever did. Perhaps the same thing happened with our Catholic lady. Perhaps we are looking for her in the wrong place.”
“What would be the right place?” She searched his face for more information.
“Your brother said it days ago.” He grinned. “We should look in the chapel and in the churchyard.”
* * * *
The next morning was the feast of Epiphany, and the family gathered to celebrate. Alderson made an impassioned speech about how he had been like Job, but his son had been returned to him, like Lazarus from the dead. He thanked Benjamin and Sidney for their efforts in bringing his son home safe. The lighthouse keeper’s daughter was well compensated for her troubles, and Percy seemed genuinely distressed when his nurse attempted to return home. She agreed to stay until he was more fully healed. Alderson declared that when she returned to her family, she would have the finest rowboat she could ever hope to own.
When Ophelia and Sidney proposed they search the chapel before they abandoned the hunt, Alderson—who would have granted Sidney any boon—handed them the key.
The chapel Thorpe built for his wife had been almost a ruin when Alderson bought Coldmarsh House. Alderson had installed a new roof to stop the decay, but he had done nothing else, and services had not been held in the chapel for years.
Ophelia and Sidney walked the aisles, hand in hand, while the young people searched, their excited voices resounded off the hard walls and floor. They were running their hands across the larger monuments, feeling for irregularities that might signal a hiding place.
“Alderson says that after Thorpe’s execution, family members had buried his body in a crypt in London.” Ophelia ignored the larger monuments. “After the restoration, they arranged to have him interred here.”
“You seem to know what you are looking for,” Sidney observed.
“A woman who spent her life in hiding would want a quiet burial near the husband she lost too soon. If she managed to escape, she wouldn’t want a gravestone that called attention to the fact that her neighbors had hidden her.”
“Let’s look there.” Sidney pointed to the back of the nave where the most modest memorials were set into the wall.
Ophelia took only moments to find the one she was looking for. “Here.”
Near the corner, low on the wall, was a memorial carved so faintly that one would need a rubbing to read it clearly. But Ophelia could make out the name.
Annwylyd
She pressed her fingers to the cold marble. “You have been here all this time.”
Sidney wrapped his arms around her, looking over her shoulder. “Annwylyd?”
“It means beloved or dearest. I t
hink the recipe book was left in the wall to lead us here, to her tomb. But I can’t prove it.”
“Sometimes, darling, the things we know are true can’t be proven, just as I know that I love you with all my heart.”
“And I, you, darling.” She turned to trace the features of his face. “And I you.”
THE END
Charming Ophelia
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CHARMING OPHELIA
THE MARRIAGE PLOT
Ophelia Elliot has delayed marriage long enough. Now, for the sake of her future, she must choose between three impatient suitors. But she’s determined to use only the most rational of methods to make her decision. And when her dear friend, Sidney Mason, offers to help, how can the discerning debutante resist? Besides, spending time with him is no hardship—his dashing looks and irresistible laughter have delighted her for years. Not that Sidney is a suitable prospect. As a member of Parliament, he’s already married to the state. No matter how chivalrous his attentions, falling in love with him would be most unreasonable . . .
The fact is, Sidney finds Ophelia infuriatingly stubborn—and yet there is no other woman for him. Convincing her that she must marry for love—his love—will be a formidable challenge. So he concocts a clever strategy to expose her suitors’ true natures—and show the strong-willed beauty that when it comes to marriage, it is imperative that she follow her heart—straight into his strong and loving arms . . .
JILTING THE DUKE
BROKEN PROMISE, BROKEN HEART
Aidan Somerville, Duke of Forster, is a rake, a spy, and a soldier, richer than sin and twice as handsome. Now he is also guardian to his deceased best friend’s young son. The choice makes perfect sense—except that the child’s mother is the lovely Sophia Gardiner, to whom Aidan was engaged before he went off to war. When the news reached him that she had married another, his ship had not yet even left the dock.
Sophia does not expect Aidan to understand or forgive her. But she cannot allow him to stay her enemy. She’s prepared for coldness, even vengeance—but not for the return of the heedless lust she and Aidan tumbled into ten years ago. She knows the risks of succumbing to this dangerous desire. Still, with Aidan so near, it’s impossible not to dream about a second chance . . .
CHASING THE HEIRESS
HEIRESS ON THE RUN
Lady Arabella Lucia Fairborne has no need of a husband. She has a fine inheritance for the taking, a perfectly capable mind, and a resolve as tough as nails. But what she doesn’t have is the freedom to defy her cousin’s will—and his will is to see her married immediately to the husband of his choosing. So is it any wonder that she dresses herself as a scullery maid and bolts into the night?
Colin Somerville’s current mission for the home office is going poorly. Who would have expected otherwise for a rakish spy tasked with transporting a baby to the care of the royal palace. But when, injured and out of ideas, Colin stumbles upon a beautiful maid who knows her way around a sickroom, it seems salvation has arrived. Until he realizes that though Lucy may be able to help him survive his expedition, he may not escape this ordeal with his heart intact . . .
TEMPTING THE EARL
A DOUBLE LIFE
Olivia Walgrave is finished with being a countess. Writing under a pen name, her controversial column for the scandal sheets provides her with some income and far more excitement than managing a country estate. Besides, in the three years since the wars have ended, her dashing husband hasn’t spent one night under their roof. So Olivia has prepared a plan, and an annulment. All she needs is his consent . . .
Harrison Walgrave, the Earl of Levesford, let his father coerce him into marriage, but his true devotion is to his Parliamentary career—and his secret work for the Home Office. Yet now, with freedom in his grasp, he finds he cannot so easily release his wife. Seeing her stirs a hunger no other woman has reached. A distraction now, when he is a breath away from revealing a ring of traitors, could be deadly. Still, wherever his investigations lead, the thought of Olivia lingers. It might be obsession. It might be treason. But the only way to escape the temptation is to succumb . . .
About the Author
Rachael Miles has always loved a good romance, especially one with a bit of suspense and preferably a ghost. She is also a professor of book history and nineteenth-century literature whose students frequently find themselves reading the novels of Ann Radcliffe and other gothic tales. A native Texan, Rachael lives with her indulgent husband, three rescued dogs, and an ancient cat. Visit her at www.rachaelmiles.com.
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