“Have you a reservation?”
“No. Is that a problem?”
“Well, we are quite busy.” He opened the register and made a pretense of running a finger down an inked page. “And I am not sure we have any rooms available.”
Even though a part of her would be glad for an excuse to return to the lodge, she would be mortified to be turned away in front of the Wilfords. She added in a lower voice, “I am meeting Lady Fitzhoward here.”
They were not planning to meet for a week’s time, but Rebecca kept that bit to herself.
“Lady Fitzhoward?” The clerk’s disapproving expression relaxed somewhat. “Ah. I do have one room available, although not our finest.”
“That is all right. I don’t need anything grand.”
Even if a better room were available, she would rather not pay any more than she had to for this unplanned stay.
“For how many nights?”
“I am not yet certain. May I let you know?”
“Very well, miss.” He swiveled the registration book toward her.
While she filled in her information, the clerk extracted a key from a drawer and gestured for a porter.
“Neville, please take Miss Lane to number thirteen.”
“Thirteen?” the young porter repeated in surprise, then with a shrug picked up her valise. “Very well. Right this way, miss.”
Neville nodded to the curving staircase. “There are two ways to reach your room. We can take the main stairs there to thefirst floor. Or, if you don’t mind a bit of fresh air, we can go through the cloisters. I think it’s quicker.”
The haunted cloisters?Rebecca thought. She swallowed a foolish lump. “I don’t mind.”
He led her from the hall, across a passage, and out into the four-sided cloister walkway, which framed a grassy inner courtyard. The cloisters had a solid wall on one side and a colonnade on the other, which supported a series of stone arches with ornamental openwork above. From a distance, the arches looked like windows, but they held no glass. Through them, sunshine cast bars of light onto the flagstone floor, the “windows” appearing like tapered candles with flames above.
Gazing up, Rebecca admired the fan vaulting of the cloister ceiling. So much beauty for women who had taken vows of poverty. Or was the beauty for God? Either way, Rebecca was glad the nuns had been surrounded by loveliness in this place where they’d spent many hours praying.
“The cloisters were the very heart of the abbey,” the porter explained. “The oldest part too. Pretty when it’s sunny and mild like today, but cold in January.”
“I can imagine. Is it ... haunted, as people say?”
With his free hand, he scratched his ear and sent her a sideways glance. “I am not really supposed to talk about that. You don’t want to get me into trouble, do you?”
“Of course not.”
He reached the far corner and gestured up a dim stairway. “Your room is at the top of the night stair.”
“Night stair?”
He nodded. “The nuns came down from their dormitory to services while it was still dark. The church is just through that door.” Neville pointed to the right. “What’s left of it, anyway.”
Rebecca looked up the shadowy stairway. Dips had beenworn into the center of each stone step, as if a stream had flowed over them for centuries. In this case, she realized, a stream of dutiful feet, making their way to and from worship.
He led the way up. “Watch your step.”
Turning on the half landing, he continued upstairs. At the top, a door stood on one side, and on the other, an open archway into the main corridor. He turned to the door, which bore a brass plate engraved with the number13. Unlocking the door with effort, the porter then gestured her inside. He set down her valise and stepped to the room’s small window to open the shutters.
“Don’t use this room very often. Once part of the nuns’ dormitory.”
The spartan room held a single bed, armchair, washstand, dressing table, and a small closet. Probably usually reserved for a lady’s maid or valet, Rebecca guessed. An unadorned crucifix hung over the bed, a vivid reminder of the devout women who once slept there.
