Every day, she limped back and forth from the excavation site, her ankle still twinging but on the mend. She took meals in her bedchamber, consolidating her notes from the day’s labors—writings she sent to Alis.
He said nothing in reply.
Ten days after their conversation in the cairn, Chrissi wasscraping the floor of a side niche when her trowel hit upon something rather extraordinary.
A few hours of excited exploration later, she sat back on her heels, surveying what she had found.
How . . . unexpected.
She tore a sheet from her notebook, scribbling a message to Alis.
No matter his anger toward her, he would find this discovery thrilling.
ALISTAIR WAS IN his study, reviewing estate expenditures, when his butler delivered Chris’s note.
Come down to the cairn. I have found something remarkable, unlike anything I have ever excavated. Never fear, I shall make myself scarce so you needn’t see me.
He contemplated her words for a long moment—the most she had written to him directly in over a week and a half. What had she found?
His anger over her deception had faded into a glum sorrow that hung over his mood like adreichrain cloud.
Yes, Chris should have told him about the babe.
But having overcome the initial shock, he couldn’t help but put himself in her shoes—a girl scarcely twenty years of age, alone without her father’s protection, unmarried, and with child. Her babe’s father had betrayed her and hadn’t bothered to write, giving every impression that he had washed his hands of her.
Chris would have known only too well the fate of women bearing a child out of wedlock. It was more than merely shameful. Once her condition became widely known, shewould have found herself rejected by Polite Society, unable to find employment or provide for herself and her child. Her father certainly couldn’t have permitted her to remain in his home. In order to salvage his own reputation and career, he would have had to cast her off.
What was she to have done?
Of course she had panicked and taken the first viable solution that offered both her and her unborn bairn respectability and a future—marriage to Stephen Newton.
Alistair could hardly fault her.
But now what was he to do?
Simply forgiving her and accepting her deception felt . . . difficult. Absurd, even.
But letting her exit his life once more also seemed nothing short of impossible.
He sighed and rubbed his eyes.
Snatching up his hat and coat, he made his way down to the excavation site, Chris nowhere to be seen.
A worker beckoned him forward eagerly, handing him a lantern.
Lamp in hand, Alistair crouched along the tunnel, emerging into the cairn proper. A second lantern flickered on a pole, adding illumination to the space.
The central chamber appeared untouched. But Chris had been hard at work excavating the side niches. One, in particular, had been scraped down to the same level as the main chamber.
Lifting his lamp to examine it more closely, he froze, breath catching in his ribcage.
Chris’s unexpected find lay on the floor before him.
Shaking his head in wonder, he bent forward, eyes drinking in the story before him.
Two skeletons lay side by side, knees bent, hands mingledtogether, heads turned to face one another. Their foreheads had likely touched when first placed into the earth.
A romantic embrace.
