Gladlia was just pulling the covers up over Ellalee’s shoulders when Daniella burst into the room and in despair, cried out, “Oh dear! Is she…?”
“She is okay,” Gladlia responded tucking in the covers around Ellalee. “She got a nasty knock on the head, but she’ll be right as rain in the morning, except for a splitting headache, I’d imagine, and some other tender areas.”
“I told her not to go. She should have come for you, Lord Valen,” Daniella rushed to her sister’s side.
Valen swiped his hand through his hair once again. “Tell me what happened.”
Daniella sat on the side of the bed and explained the note, Ellalee’s plan, and how she and Christopher had locked themselves in Charlie’s room waiting for the footman to return.
“He said he would knock three time and then twice so we would know it was him. Later someone tried to get in. It sounded like there was a key in the lock. I panicked and shoved a chair under the knob to jamb the door. The door shook but stopped a few moments before Charlie came back and knocked as promised. Charlie said that he didn’t see anyone outside the door, but I’m certain we didn’t imagine it. Christopher and I were terrified, but now looking back, it was probably Winslow or Simmons. I can’t be sure. You could hardly miss the sounds of Charlie and Mark coming around the corner. When I left, the men had met in the kitchen to arm themselves with kitchen knives. They are going through the manor together now. I was going to leave the skillet with Christopher, but he decided to crutch along with the men. I figured that he would be safer with them than staying by himself. “
Just then, Charlie came in. “We found Elise. She is dead, killed in the lady’s bower.”
Valen closed his eyes and shook his head. “Any sign of our intruder?”
“No, but those stairs were a trap. There was a carpet laid over several stairs which were heavily greased and the walls as well. The carpet helped our intruder overcome the trap that sent Ellalee down those stairs.”
“I don’t understand why that wing was even unlocked. Gladlia and I will be down in a few moments to see to Elise. Keep everyone together, lights burning.” Valen said, and Charlie departed once more. Valen turned around and punched the wall. “Ah! I hate this place.”
Daniella leaped to a standing position and let out a small shriek at the earl’s sudden rage.
Valen growled, “Sorry, Daniella.” Then he turned his attention to Gladlia. “Tomorrow I will send the entire staff from here,” Valen said and then met Daniella’s eyes. “You must convince your sister to leave here.”
“She is very loyal to those she cares for, and as you know, very stubborn. She will not leave anyone behind.” Daniella looked at Valen meaningfully.
“If she stays, she will likely die. If tonight proved anything, it proved that I cannot protect her or anyone else.” He scrubbed his mouth with the back of his hand. “You must convince her. Use whatever tactics that you need. You are not safe here. I will write a letter to the Baron de Bressott. You will not face punishment.”
“By his hand, but can he control the villagers as well?”
“I will send you with money; you will not have to beg or steal. Your chances are better there than here, though I could send you elsewhere if you like.”
Daniella knelt once more by her unconscious sister and reached over to stroke Ellalee’s hair.
Valen knelt next to Daniella and lowered his voice, “Listen to me, she will die here, and Christopher can’t run. You must go. You must coerce her.”
Daniella looked to Gladlia whose face was devoid of emotion and whose countenance had never looked older. “Child, I have waited for Valen’s heart to melt believing it would change this manor, this life here, for the better. And maybe this is for the better. He says this to you out of his great concern.” The old healer gently touched the mirror set on the table near their beds.
Daniella looked back at the earl. “I will do what I can. Truly, she doesn’t always listen. Look what happened tonight. I’ll be honest. My heart is not entirely in it, but I can’t lose my sister. She is the strength of our little family. We would have died if not for her.”
Gladlia smiled softly. “I think the earl understands. Let’s go Valen. We must see to Elise.”
“Lock this door. Do not open it until it is full-light in the morning,” Valen said as he strode out of the door which Daniella dutifully latched behind him.
Chapter Twenty-Two: Hope Abandoned
Morning found Ellalee with a blistering headache. She winced as she touched the huge lump on her forehead. Getting out of bed was groan worthy as well. She felt like she was a hundred years old as stiff and sore as she was. She washed her face in the basin and turned to see Daniella staring at her with a sad, haunted look.
“I thought we’d lost you last night, El,” Daniella said quietly as she pulled a blonde curl behind her ear. Then meeting Ellalee’s eyes, she added, “Christopher and I wouldn’t make it two days without you.”
“Ah, yes, there was a small hitch in my well-laid plan,” Ellalee groaned again and stretched her back. She tried combing her hair, but her head was so tender that she gave up on even a braid. Her hair would just have to go wild on this day.
Daniella snorted, a most unladylike sound coming from her genteel sister.
Ellalee continued, “It was a good plan. When I heard Elise scream, I shot caution to the wind.”
Daniella gasped, “She was still alive?”
“Was? Oh no! Daniella, tell me she did not die!”
“I’m afraid so; I’m so sorry.”
Ellalee felt all the breath leave her body, and she plunked down hard on the side of the bed.
“I heard her scream, Daniella, and I began racing up the stairs. They must have been coated with a lard or oil, the walls too. Then all I remember is falling and falling down those stairs.”
Daniella filled Ellalee in on what had happened with herself and Christopher and about the earl carrying Ellalee back up to the room.
“Oh, but his arm!” Ellalee exclaimed
“I’m sure his arm is very sore today, but I’m also sure that last night, seeing you laying there, gave him such a start that he didn’t feel anything other than pure panic.”
Ellalee frowned. “I think you’re mistaken.”
“Am I?” Daniella asked a little too innocently. “Am I blind and deaf as well?”
Ellalee rolled her eyes and shrugged. “Let’s get downstairs. I want to find out what else has happened.”
“Ellalee, listen,” Daniella began putting a hand on Ellalee’s arm. “We need to leave the manor.”
“Leave? I’m not….”
“Ellalee, that stranger wanted to hurt you. Elise has died. Are you considering Christopher’s life? He cannot run. What would a tumble down the stairs have cost him? I am not brave like you, Ellalee. Would you want any of the servants to stay after what happened to Elise?”
“We have no money, Daniella. The townspeople would kill us if the baron did not.”
“Lord Valen will write a clemency and will give us enough money to make it for some time. We will not have to steal.”
“Will Lord Valen leave with us?”
“I don’t think so,” Daniella had tears pooling in the bottom of her wide grey eyes. “I think he intends to stay and see this through.”
“See this through? You mean stay here and die? I can hardly see this plan is even worth considering. What were you saying about God not making mistakes?”
“How many lives would it take before you would agree? Whose life should hang in the balance? We have no protection here. Last night proved that.”
“We need back-up. Why does Lord Valen not have an army of knights?” Ellalee pulled on her dress and shoved her feet in her shoes, groaning as she moved anything or touched anything that was tender, and the tender parts seemed any and everywhere.
“I imagine, he didn’t want to see knights killed either. Having heard the stories, he only brings people here who ha
ve no place else to go, like us.”
Ellalee shook her head and led the way down to the kitchen where Christopher was waiting with Max on his lap. Her brother had black bags under his eyes.
“Irwin is digging a grave for Elise.” Christopher announced as they entered, his face wreathed in worry.
Daniella began working on food for the household as Charlie and Mark came in with sacks. As usual, Charlie did the talking. “We are being sent to the Baron de Bressott. You three are to come with us. We leave this morning. You are to pack up kitchen supplies and foodstuff for the journey.”
“That will take time,” Daniella said. “Our departure will have to be in a few hours to give the bread time to rise and bake. I will work on food, and Ellalee will pack the rest of the supplies for us. Tell his lordship that we will be ready by noon.”
Ellalee glared back and forth between Daniella and the footmen. Then she stormed out of the kitchen and marched straight to Valen’s study. The earl was not present, but on his desk were the diagrams Valen had been studying on more than one occasion in her presence. She tilted her head and moved around the earl’s desk. It took a moment of studying them to realize that these were indeed the schematics for the manor. She could see where the earl had drawn an X on certain corridors and rooms. She sat down in his chair as she examined what appeared to be passageways behind the rooms. The Xs must be passageways that Lord Valen had discovered, but there were hand-drawn additions as well, passages in passages, and passages off passages. The area under the manor must be a warren of ancient tunnels.
No wonder this had been an undertaking. As Ellalee traced the schematics, it seemed that the blueprint was incomplete. Valen’s father had died when Valen was young. Maybe even Lord Vortimer hadn’t known where all the passageways went. She realized that this must be how the disappearing stranger had gotten into the manor to leave the notes. Ellalee had assumed that when the man said that he had friends in the manor that that it was they who delivered the notes to her, but perhaps not. Then again, these were not mutually exclusive suppositions. What if it wasn’t just the disappearing stranger who was responsible for the deaths and disappearances? What if there were indeed accomplices? Worse, what if Ellalee and her siblings took the disappearing stranger’s “friends” with them when they left the manor this day? None of them would survive the trip. After all, what did Ellalee really know about anyone in the manor? Ellalee was shaking her head when the earl’s voice startled her.
“Making ourselves right at home are we? Shall I get you a cup of tea? Maybe you’d like a foot rest so you can more comfortably rifle through my desk,” Valen snarled.
Ellalee ignored him, “He is getting in through secret passages, and that’s how he has been able to leave those letters for me. That’s how he got into the Lady’s Bower. Poor Elise.”
“Get away from my desk, you daft girl,” Valen raised his voice.
“Fine, but I’m not leaving this manor. You can send Daniella and Christopher away with the staff, but I am staying.”
“No, you aren’t. I don’t want you here,” Valen responded incredulously.
She pushed up from his desk and walked towards him. “I’m tired of being bullied by you, lord or no.”
“I am not bullying you. I am ordering you.” Valen leaned his back against the wall and crossing his arms over his broad chest. “And if you prove disobedient even once more, I will have Gladlia feed you another sleeping draught, and you’ll wake up three days from now more than halfway down the road. Or, better yet, I will pick you up and tie you to the wagon. I promise, it would give me great delight, and to save the rest of them from your howling indignation, I will gag you as well.”
Ellalee looked up at the angry earl and said softly, “Won’t you come with us?”
Valen blew out a long breath, relieved at her sudden acquiescence. “No. I must see this through, and I must give you both time and protection. Time by my staying, and protection by the staff going with you. If I can relieve this manor and grounds of the curse that has haunted me all these years, I will come and retrieve you and your siblings. You can come back and run amuck in the manor wreaking all the havoc you have begun.”
Ellalee smiled sadly and shook her head. “Do I have your word?”
“You do. Notice there were no caveats when I gave you a promise,” Valen added dourly. “Now go pack, and take the mirror and brush set with you. When you use them, think back fondly.” He gave her a sad smile and left her standing there.
Daniella had packed five days of food because she didn’t know if they could count on fresh catches enough to feed everyone. Irwin loaded up supplies for the horses, and Mark and Charlie brought swords for the men from the armory. Ellalee demanded a sword as well but the footmen bluntly refused. Charlie even went so far as to say that she’d be no more than an armed menace, which infuriated her, but he refused to budge. Ellalee, likewise, refused to yield and finally confronted Lord Valen about armament. He instructed her to wait while he dug up an appropriate weapon for her. She gave the gaping men a smug look and waited with her chin in the air until the moment that the earl returned bearing the skillet to the ruckus laughter of the rest of the men. She frowned furiously at the earl but all the same, snatched the skillet out of his hand.
Everyone loaded their bags into the wagon, and Lord Valen came back out with thick woolen cloaks that were added to the supplies. Valen separated out two of the cloaks and handed Ellalee a dark green woman’s cloak and Daniella a light blue one. Ellalee wondered if they had been his mother’s as well. There was a cold wind that whipped through the courtyard, and the cloaks were thick and warm under Ellalee’s fingers.
Just after noon, their small band was on its way. Irwin, Mark, Charlie, and the groundsman, Michael, came with them. Mistress Murray steadfastly refused to leave given that she was born in the nearby village. She said she would just stay with a brother she had there. Winslow and Simmons also said that they would stay. They’d spent their lives in the manner and felt no need to go anywhere new. Valen’s steward, Shefton, also refused to go having served two generations at Castle de Avium, and, of course, Gladlia refused to go as well. Her reasons were different. She felt that someone ought to stay who was the voice of reason. Ellalee gave her a hug, kissed her cheek, and thanked her once more for her care of Christopher.
Christopher was horrified to have to leave Max, but Ellalee knew that there was no way to keep track of the kitten over a five day journey through the woods. She assured her brother, the kitten would be safer here, and that at first opportunity, she would find him another cat.
Michael and Charlie climbed into the front of the wagon and gave the reins a snap. Irwin was riding Raptim and Mark was riding Nin. Ellalee and her siblings were in the back of the wagon with the supplies. The wagon lurched forward, and Ellalee’s heart lurched with it for an entirely different reason.
The bitter wind picked up Ellalee’s loose curls, and she finally donned the beautiful green cloak and found within the folds a secret pocket in which her fingers touched a piece of parchment. She withdrew a small scrap with the words Be Brave written on it and the picture of a rose in full bloom with a few fallen petals beneath the stem. She looked up, and her eyes found the earl. Lord Valen stood off to the side, arms crossed, and his face inscrutable. As the wagon rolled onward, she gave a small wave to Valen, but he didn’t wave, just turned on heel and strode into the manor.
It was a sad parting, and Ellalee stared over the edge of the wagon until the manor dissolved into the moor’s thick mist. Ellalee couldn’t help but believe she and the staff were making a tragic mistake, and Christopher and Daniella looked equally downcast. Besides, Bressott did not bring back any fond memories.
Chapter Twenty-Three: Reinforcements
The further they trekked into the woods that afternoon, the more Ellalee became convinced that their little band was heading in the wrong direction. The staff should have never left. She should have never left. With every yard, those fee
lings increased until she felt choked by them. She had left off asking the men to stop the wagon to allow her walk back to the manor when Charlie, of all people, threatened to tie her to the wagon bench and sit on her. She looked to each of the men for support only to find them equally determined and grim-faced.
She decided that, in the worst case scenario, she would rise just before first light and double back and in the best case scenario, she would find the arguments to convince the others to turn around as soon as they stopped. Maybe taken one by one rather than en masse, she might be more persuasive. Because of their late departure, they would not get a full day of travel in, despite the men’s determination to put as much distance between themselves and the Castle de Avium as possible. Ellalee felt sure if she set out on foot before the sun rose, she could be back to the manor by evening on the morrow and only prayed she wasn’t too late.
They had traveled for several hours when the rays of the afternoon sun drew long and the men began looking for a place to stop. They found a clearing just off the trail near a small brook. Mark went for water, and Christopher was watching Charlie and Michael unhitch the horses. Despite the activity around her, Ellalee felt every eye was upon her. As she and Daniella began gathering wood for the fire, Ellalee realized that she was indeed being watched from all sides. Ellalee jumped when Daniella touched her shoulder.
“They know you want to return, but they have been made to swear your safe arrival at Bressott. They care for your safety,” Daniella said softly.
Ellalee frowned in return as she worked to get the fire started. Before she could get a spark to catch, Ellalee lifted her head to the sound of riders coming from the southwest in the direction they had been heading. The men ran for their swords, and Ellalee leaped up and grabbed her skillet. The men made a line in front of Christopher, Daniella, and Ellalee, and Ellalee stood in front of her siblings. It wasn’t until Daniella gasped and Christopher whooped, that Ellalee realized that the siblings knew these riders and rushed forward.
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