“I also want to tell you—because I definitely don’t want you to learn of it later from someone else and imagine it means more than it does—that Lady Osbaldestone recognized me. She knew I was a Goodrich and worked out the family connections—that my mother’s family were the Harrises. Her ladyship realized I was Callum Harris Goodrich, and somehow, she learned of my association with your uncle—of his enmity toward me.”
She couldn’t keep her surprise from her face. “During dinner at the Colebatches, Reverend Colebatch asked after you, and as usual, Uncle Hildebrand all but exploded.”
Callum grimaced. “So he’s still exercised to that degree?”
“Unfortunately.” After a second of considering that, she refocused on the man before her. “Was that what you wanted to tell me about her ladyship?”
He shook his head. “That was just the beginning. She…extracted my story from me, much as I’ve told you today. Then she made me promise that I would tell you the truth—who I was—by Monday evening, before she leaves Little Moseley on Tuesday morning.”
His gaze searched Honor’s face, her eyes, while she tried to keep her thoughts concealed. She could make sense of Lady Osbaldestone giving him the ultimatum she had…but only by admitting a truth she’d largely hidden from herself.
She’d done her level best to ignore how Callum made her feel, yet now…
He’d done as Lady Osbaldestone had asked and confessed all to her. He hadn’t needed to do that, not unless…
She stared at him—as he patently waited for her to respond to his revelations. His confession.
As he waited for her verdict.
When she didn’t immediately say anything, he swallowed and, his tone less confident, said, “I hope you can see your way to forgiving me for my deception, and that we…can put the issue behind us and go forward from here.” He looked oddly uncertain, an expression that didn’t sit well on him, then quietly said, “Your regard is important to me, and I don’t want to lose it.”
And there, lurking in the soft mid-blue of his eyes, was the answer to why he’d seized the chance of being alone with her in the library to engineer the right moment for his confession.
He wanted to put things right between them, so they could go on…
Where?
Regardless, did she want to go forward with him?
Slowly, her mind fed words to her tongue. “You’ve told me much I hadn’t previously known. You’ve given me a lot to think about.” Her tone was largely uninflected, affording him no clue as to the direction of her thoughts, much less her inclinations.
In truth, in that moment, she couldn’t predict either herself.
She looked away from him, then sat up and, moving slowly and deliberately, gathered her lists and the papers she’d been working through and slid them into the folder.
Then she pushed back the chair and stood, bringing him to his feet beside her.
She looked up, met his eyes—and realized he’d dropped every last shield; she felt as if she could see into his soul.
And what she saw there…
She hauled in a breath and wrenched her gaze away. There were so many emotions whizzing through her, if she tried to concentrate on any one of them, she’d feel dizzy.
Being deceived was never encouraging, but the deception hadn’t hurt her. As for the sense of betrayal her uncle felt, that wasn’t her emotion to own, and it seemed to be largely of her uncle’s own making.
But as for all the rest…
So much hinged on trust. Could she still trust Callum—as, from the first, her instincts had insisted she could?
She honestly didn’t know, and she couldn’t think clearly, sensibly, with him there, within arm’s reach.
Drawing in a slow breath, battening down her senses—so very aware he was close—she picked up the folder, raised her head, and looked him in the eye. “Don’t ask, because I can’t answer. Not yet.”
She saw his lips tighten, but after a fraught second of searching her eyes, he inclined his head.
She didn’t wait for more; clutching the folder, she turned and made for the door. With a hand on the doorknob, she halted, then, without glancing back, said, “Thank you for your help with the references. I now know what I should do.”
She heard his rumbled “My pleasure,” but didn’t respond. She gripped the knob, opened the door, whisked through it, and closed it behind her.
Callum stood rooted to the library floor and stared at the door—then expelled the breath trapped in his lungs. He raised his hands and raked them through his hair, then let his arms fall and gazed at the floor.
Shock of a sort held him immobile. Until the moment she’d refused to let him ask if she accepted his explanation, he hadn’t realized just how much things between them had changed.
He hadn’t, until that instant, realized how much Honor now meant to him—how much losing her would hurt.
He stared at the parquet floor as the realization sank into his brain that the true treasure Little Moseley had to offer him wasn’t the one he’d been hoping to find—along with the fact that Honor was a treasure among treasures, one utterly beyond price.
After Honor had left him, Callum hadn’t been able to summon the interest to plow through the last remaining tome. Consequently, he returned to the task the following day.
He spent all morning painstakingly combing through the work. There was a reason he’d left that book to the very last; it wasn’t written in Latin but in a bastardized form of Old English. He would have infinitely preferred Latin; it would have made the book easier to decipher.
While he worked, his ears strained for any hint of Honor arriving. He hadn’t sighted her in the lane or about the village; he didn’t have any idea how she would choose to view him, to deal with him in the wake of his confession, but he wanted to find out.
Wanted to know if he had any chance of following the path that, above all others, he now wished to pursue.
But Honor didn’t come.
Nor, Callum noted, did the professor. If Honor had told her uncle that Callum was there, Webster would have come looking for him; of that, Callum had no doubt.
So Honor had kept his presence to herself, leaving Callum to wonder what that meant—what that said of how she now regarded him.
Time and again, he had to drag his mind from dwelling on the options and refocus it on the words before him.
He’d just reached the last page—with nothing new to show for it—and dejectedly closed the heavy tome when Mrs. Wright came bustling in with a plate of sandwiches and a mug of ale and, as had become her habit, stayed to chat. Over the past days, he’d found her unexpected interest helpful in terms of sorting through his findings. Today, in recounting to her what he’d found—as well as what he hadn’t, namely a specific location of Silvesterius Magnus’s villa—he realized that, his frustration aside, his search hadn’t been entirely without result and that it behooved him as a scholar to make a record of what he’d gleaned.
Once Mrs. Wright had left, taking the empty plate and mug with her, Callum hunted in a sideboard and located paper and pen and set about making a formal record of all he’d discovered in the tomes of the combined libraries of Fulsom Hall and Dutton Grange.
He didn’t have that many facts to lay out, but the act of setting each down in logical order focused his mind. When he reached the end and reread what he’d written, a notion stirred; he considered it, then left it to stew in his brain while he made two copies of his report—one for Dutton Grange, one for Henry at Fulsom Hall—so he could take the original with him when he left the village.
If he was to reach Guisborough by Christmas Eve, he would have to set out by Wednesday morning at the latest.
The thought of leaving without locating the source of the coins left a sour taste in his mouth. If he returned in January, would Honor and Webster still be there?
Once Webster submitted his treatise, due by the end of the year, would he devote himself to the hunt in Little M
oseley or return to Oxford?
All were questions to which Callum didn’t know the answers.
He finished and blotted the third copy of his findings. He set two aside, then stared at the original and allowed the vague notion from earlier to resurface in his brain.
After a moment, he slumped back in the chair and stared across the room.
The Romans had habitually sited their settlements to make best use of the landscape. Callum recalled seeing on the map on the wall of Mountjoy’s Store a largish stream—possibly large enough to be a river—that ran roughly west to east across the map less than a mile north of the village. If he was remembering the region’s topography correctly, the stream would join with others and, eventually, would reach the sea not far from where Clausentum had been.
Eyes narrowing, he considered what that might mean in terms of the siting of Silvesterius Magnus’s compound. “He would have wanted it not too far from the Clausentum-Sorviodunum road, but the ability to transport goods via river would have been an advantage a merchant like Silvesterius wouldn’t have ignored.” Callum sat up and tapped the edge of his report on the tabletop. “That could well mean that the lane that currently runs north beside the village might originally have been a track for Silvesterius and his people to access the river.” Callum knew the crew of searchers had scanned the lane’s surrounds. “But they were looking for digging close to the lane. Perhaps we need to extend the search on either side of the lane.”
They had two more days to make headway. After that, the crew would disperse, and he would have to leave soon after.
They had time for one last-ditch effort.
He rose and fell to pacing, mentally organizing a viable search of the area most likely, at one time, to have played host to Silvesterius’s compound. He needed to speak with the crew.
On the thought, he heard the faint strains of singing, borne on the wind.
He glanced at the clock. It was nearly four-thirty, which meant the crew were in the church, practicing.
On a surge of determination, Callum folded the original and one copy of his report and tucked them into his coat pocket, left the second copy prominently displayed on the library table, quickly returned the last books to the shelves, then headed for the door.
After seeking out and thanking Longfellow and Lady Longfellow for the use of their library, conveying his few findings and that he’d left a detailed report of what he’d uncovered on the library table, Callum quit the Grange and strode rapidly down the drive.
Dusk had fallen, and night was closing in. The wind was cold, chilled as it whipped over the snow lingering in drifts along the sides of the drive and beneath the trees. They hadn’t had fresh snow for several days, which in terms of searching the ground was helpful, but the premonition of snow being on the way—almost a scent of it—shivered in the air.
Callum reached the lane, paced along, then turned beneath the lychgate and quickly climbed to the church. With every step, the sound of the choir grew louder. Light spilled through the church’s diamond-paned windows, painting golden splotches on the snow-dusted ground.
The main door opened noiselessly. Callum slipped inside, then paused to take stock. The choir—which included all those Callum regarded as his crew—were ranged on the altar steps, with Moody, before them, conducting enthusiastically, and Mrs. Moody at the organ to one side.
To Callum’s ears, the choir had improved considerably since he’d first heard them; they sang with obvious confidence, and their voices blended in glorious harmony.
Silently, Callum walked forward and slipped into the rear pew. The lamplight didn’t reach that far, and he remained cloaked in shadows.
He didn’t think of himself as a religious man, but the sound of the carols, the familiar words of joy and hope and love, sank into him and buoyed him. Lifted his soul.
He and his searchers weren’t beaten yet. They still had a chance to locate the villa and unearth the artifacts he felt sure were there, waiting to be found.
The choir was singing “This Endris Night” when Callum felt the air stir and realized the church door had opened, then shut. He glanced that way and saw Honor standing in the dimly lit foyer, her gaze locked on him.
He watched as she hesitated, plainly debating, then, chin rising a notch, she came forward through the shadows and slipped into the pew from the other end. She glided closer, then gathered her skirts and sat with a bare foot of space between them.
Callum’s heart leapt, then thudded. He didn’t know what to do—whether to speak or… He looked at the choir.
“I was on my way to the Grange library to speak with you and spotted you ahead of me in the lane, coming this way, so I followed.” Honor kept her gaze fixed forward, although she barely registered the choir lined up before the altar; her focus wasn’t on them. Unable to resist, she glanced sidelong at the gentleman beside her, let her eyes fleetingly trace his profile—the patrician nose, the strong brow, and squared, determined chin.
She directed her gaze toward the altar and, her voice low enough so that, given the sound of the choir and the occasional bark of Mr. Moody’s instructions, no one else would hear, continued, “I’ve spent a great deal of time thinking about all you told me. While I appreciate your stance and what prompts you to espouse it—indeed, speaking personally, I applaud your vision and commitment—I also understand my uncle’s feelings, misinformed though those undoubtedly are.”
She paused, debating how frank she could be, then she recalled this man had worked alongside her uncle for years. “Yes, Uncle Hildebrand is overquick to judge and can be rigidly stubborn once he’s taken a notion into his head. I know how irascible and difficult to reason with he can be, especially when discussing a subject on which he has already made up his mind.” She knew what she wanted to say—had spent half the night rehearsing her words—yet actually uttering them in coherent fashion wasn’t proving as easy as she’d hoped. She drew in a tense breath and, clasping her hands more tightly in her lap, went on, “All of that is to say that I can understand why you opted to conceal your full name from me—and from all the others.” She slid a glance his way and found him watching her. “You wanted to avoid one of Uncle Hildebrand’s eruptions, which would have severely compromised your ability to search for the source of the Roman coins.”
Callum couldn’t deny the assertion—didn’t attempt to—but his mind had locked on what, to him, was the more important implication. He caught and held her gaze. “You believe me,” he whispered.
She blinked, then met his gaze and quietly stated, “I believe in you. In your purpose and what you are striving to achieve.”
Callum hoped for—wanted—much more. But if he wished for it, he would have to reach for it, ask for it, fight for it if necessary…
Between them, he offered her his hand, palm up. “Do you think you could come to believe in us?”
The organ swelled and voices soared while she studied his eyes. Then she reached out and laid her fingers in his and simply said, “I’m willing to try.”
Callum closed his fingers around hers. He couldn’t restrain his smile—and her own smile bloomed in reply.
She shifted her gaze forward. “Don’t get cocky. You still have shoals to negotiate.”
“I know.” But now, he had her hand in his. He smiled even more broadly and followed her gaze.
The choir was giving their all in singing “Joy to the World.” As the uplifting strains swelled around him, propelled by genuine and enthusiastic belief, he felt his heart respond, taking flight.
Still facing forward, he raised Honor’s hand to his lips and lightly kissed her knuckles. “Thank you,” he murmured and knew he was speaking not just to her but to the power that dwelled in the church, that gave such joyous power to the carols.
He felt Honor lightly squeeze his fingers in reply, and he lowered her hand and held it cradled between his own.
Apparently, “Joy to the World” was the final carol the choir had to practice. At its
conclusion, Mr. Moody beamed upon his choristers, commended them all on their devotion, and acknowledged this practice had been the last before their Monday evening performance.
“We’ll look to see you all a half hour before the start,” the choirmaster informed his troops.
“Don’t be late!” Mrs. Moody called from where she was tidying the music scattered around the organ. “We’ll meet in the vestry for a warm-up.”
The members of the special choir—all bright faces and huge smiles—assured the Moodys they would be there in good time, then hauled on coats, tossed scarves about their necks, and came hurrying up the aisle.
The manor five spotted Callum and Honor and made a beeline for them. Reluctantly, Callum released Honor’s fingers, and she withdrew her hand as the youngsters, with their older cousins and Henry and his friends in tow, gathered around, kneeling in the pew in front and standing in the aisle and in the space behind the rear pew.
“Have you found something?” Lottie’s bright blue eyes were trained on Callum’s face; she’d already flashed Honor a wide smile.
Before Callum could reply, Henry rather glumly said, “We haven’t turned up a thing.”
“Not for want of trying.” Kilburn thrust his hands into his coat pockets.
“We’ve searched—we’ve asked,” Dagenham said. “But not one hint of a clue have we found.”
“Yet,” Callum insisted, determined to share the perhaps irrational yet quite definite hope that had, over the last hour, steadily built inside him. He swept his gaze around the circle of faces. “The undeniable fact is that those coins came from somewhere, and one thing we have established through all your hard work is that those coins are unlikely to have come from far afield—ergo, they came from somewhere near the village.”
“But where?” Jamie’s tone reflected the plaintive frustration in the others’ expressions.
Callum nodded—serious, yet not downcast. “Yes, we’ve yet to locate the source, but I have learned something more.”
The sudden flare of interest from the group was palpable. Callum hid a smile; this unexpected crew of his were as driven to succeed as he.
Lady Osbaldestone’s Plum Puddings: Lady Osbaldestone’s Christmas Chronicles Volume 3 Page 18
