Tucking it into his coat, where it nestled upon his heart, Barnaby turned to go.
The drive seemed much longer than before, the house quiet, his room cold and comfortless.
Six long days without his beloved. And not even a mystery to solve as a distraction.
Love, Barnaby decided, was a lot harder than he had been led to believe.
He drew his hand from his coat. The memory of Joy lay upon his skin. A smile crept from his heart to his mouth, turning up the corners at his cheeks. Love was hard, perhaps, but oh, so worth it!
Chapter Seven
Thursday, May 25th, 1815
Several days went by. Barnaby struggled to concentrate on his work. His beloved Joy kept appearing in his mind’s eye, as real and invisible as the supposed wings at his back. Strange how much he had grown used to them.
The manuscript lay wrapped and untouched to one side. Barnaby resisted the temptation to open it and look for more clues. With the new tidbits of knowledge from Old Magda, he might notice something that he had missed before. Perhaps a detail in one of the illustrations. But he could not risk angering his employer. His spotless reputation earned him excellent commissions. He needed steady work, especially if he was going to ask Joy to…
“Mr. Ash. A moment of your time, please.” Lord Brathwaite’s tone was less commanding than usual, even a little uncertain. Barnaby hoped that he had not had bad news regarding his wife. His lordship doted on her. Now that his own feelings had awoken, Barnaby understood this better than ever.
He rose at his employer’s approach, but Brathwaite waved him back into his chair. “Sit. Sit. I want you to look at this.” The earl placed a rather grimy—Was that mud on the back?—sheet of paper on the desk in front of Barnaby.
Despite the grass smears, grains of soil, and countless deep creases, the page was instantly recognizable as one of Alwin’s. It was written in the same faded hand. Familiar bold colors were displayed brightly in the illustrations. And, yes, Barnaby could read it, though there weren’t many words. The bulk of the entry depicted a landscape with a spring bubbling up. A single building appeared in the scene, but Barnby did not remember one in the village like it. Quite possibly it did not exist anymore.
“Is it from the manuscript?” his lordship wanted to know.
Barnaby nodded. “Definitely. One can even see by the edge where it was torn from its leather binding.”
“And you can read it? It is from the same narration you mentioned?”
“Oh, yes, most certainly. If you will but give me a moment…”
“I owe you an apology, Mr. Ash.”
Barnaby pulled his attention away from the precious find in front of him.
The earl was clearly struggling with the rare need to apologize. His back was straight, his shoulders squared. He was lord of this house. Yet he looked across the room into the distance as if it were easier to admit what he had to say to the window drapery than to Barnaby. “I told you no one in my household would damage such a valuable book,” he told the heavy folds of cloth, “especially since it did not belong to them.” His gaze fell to the floor. “I was obviously wrong.”
Barnaby cared nothing for blame. If one page could be salvaged, perhaps the rest of them were not lost forever. “Where did you find this?” he asked. “Are there more?”
Lord Brathwaite’s chin lifted, his gaze swinging back to Barnaby. “I assure you, I will be looking into it at once.”
Barnaby considered the damaged vellum again. “It appears as if someone has tried to bury it.”
The earl cleared his throat. “Yes. Ahem. It is, in fact, the opposite. My son found it outside. He thought it was some kind of map for buried treasure. Do you see that raised area here, in the distance? A sort of swirl?” He pointed at what Barnaby assumed must have been the fairy mound. “It looks a bit like the herb wheel in our garden. Lucas was digging it up to find the chest of gold.”
His lordship’s expression dipped briefly into an embarrassed flush before returning to a show of grim displeasure. “Our groundskeeper is not happy, I can tell you. And Nanny Richmond is in tears because I have threatened to let her go. She certainly has much to answer for. I would very much like to know why she was not watching what my son was up to, for a start. Furthermore, she insists she has no idea where this so-called map came from.”
The earl locked his hands behind his lower back. “I shall be calling the staff together. Someone knows the truth, and they’d better have out with it. I won’t have underhanded dealings in my home.”
Lord Brathwaite cleared his throat. “Anyway, Mr. Ash, you were right, and I was wrong. This matter will now have my full attention. It is a pity this page is damaged, but it would be good if the rest of them could be found. I imagine the manuscript would be worth much more if it were complete.”
“Certainly, it would,” Barnaby agreed, but his thoughts were not on monetary value. There was a mystery to be solved, and he was now one step closer to doing so.
It did not take Lord Brathwaite long to assemble all the staff. The butler and housekeeper must have sensed that something was afoot because they made quick work of fetching them all before their master. Barnaby watched as they formed a small crowd in the kitchen, a room many only frequented for meals or to fetch her ladyship some tea. Everyone—from stable boy to valet, cook to scullery maid—stood awaiting what must surely be bad news. Barnaby, who hovered beside the earl’s proud frame, imagined they must be fearing the worst. Was someone to be let go? Was her ladyship worsening?
Instead, his lordship held up the closed manuscript. “Someone among you,” he began, “has tampered with this book. Pages have been torn out.”
A collective gasp snatched at the nervous silence. Barnaby watched the faces closely. Who did not look surprised? But there were too many servants, and the guilty party had time to recover their expression before Barnaby’s eyes fell upon them so that he had no idea who they might be.
