Gray wondered how Lord Angsley would take to being corrected by his eldest son, who was only twelve.
Apparently delighted Asher had spoken at all, his lordship beamed at him. “You’re right, hardly a cathedral, my boy. However, Eleanor hasn’t seen the chapel or the stained glass, so that’s something.”
“They both sound very interesting,” Eleanor said, though she had, indeed, seen both with Beryl more than once over the years.
Bless her,Gray thought. They would see their adventure through after all.
*
The morning’s heavyrain was a bitter disappointment.
“Should we leave for Turvey House?” Eleanor wondered, standing with Grayson, looking out the back of the house onto the terrace. “Since we cannot go on our treasure hunt or a picnic.”
She held the telescope they had borrowed from Lord Angsley up to her eye, surveying the landscape.
She felt Grayson shrug, his large shoulder moving beside her.
“I see no point in travelling,” he said.
“Maybe we should put on capes and Wellies and go find the bishop’s hostel anyway.”
“Too slippery,” he said. “Are you willing to wait until it clears up? Or are you eager to get to your sister’s?”
“Oh, dear,” she said. “Both, I suppose.”
He chuckled at her silly answer.
Then her attention was wrested by movement by the old granary lodge. She could clearly see all the doors through the spyglass and, plainly, the Angsley butler had just come out of Mrs. O’Connor’s rooms.
What was he doing there so early?
“What do you make of that?” Eleanor muttered, recalling encountering the butler coming in early her first morning at the manor.
“What is it?” he asked, peering through the windowpane beside her.
She wished she had said nothing. It wasn’t her business, nor really Grayson’s, for that matter.
Taking a deep breath, she tried to distract him without lying.
“Let’s go have coffee.”
He stared at her. Then, his hand shot out, and he snatched the spyglass from her.
“Let me see,” he said belatedly, setting it to his right eye and looking out.
“That wasn’t nice,” she said, nudging him so he couldn’t see properly, then she reached up and tried to take it back.
He thwarted her by hunching his back and turning away so he could look out while preventing her from reaching the spyglass.
“I see Mr. Stanley walking across the pasture.” Grayson scanned the rest of the view, right to left and back. “Nothing else.”
Lowering it, he looked at her. “What did you see?”
Mutinously, she stared up at him.
“Tell me,” he demanded.
She shook her head.
