Linda almost smiled. “She trained us well.”
They stood there while tourists came and went in soft waves. Footsteps whispered over stone. Rain blurred the chapel windows until the outside world became a watercolor of grey and green.
Bree read the inscription again and again until the words sank beneath the shock.
Beloved wife.
Not lost, then. Not vanished into nothing.
Amelia had landed somewhere.Somewhen. She had eaten, argued, organized, loved, probably bossed everyone within reach, and somehow convinced the Middle Ages to wash its hands more often. She had not simply disappeared from Bree’s life. She had entered another one.
Linda reached for Bree’s hand.
“She was happy,” Bree said.
Linda looked at the stone lord beside Amelia. “I think so.”
“He looks grumpy,” Bree said, wiping her cheeks. “Amelia was so beautiful that she couldn’t stand guys who fawned all over her. A medieval lord must have been perfect for her.”
Linda made a soft, broken sound that might have been a laugh. “He definitely wouldn’t have fawned.”
“No. He probably brooded. Very intensely. Near a wall.”
“Amelia would’ve made a list of his flaws.”
“Then alphabetized it.”
“And married him anyway,” Linda whispered.
After a while, Maureen returned with a small brochure.
“I thought you might like this,” she said. “It has a photograph of the effigies before the restoration and one of the sword plaque in the tower. The gift shop has proper copies, but this one’s less glossy.”
Linda took it with trembling hands. “Thank you.”
“There’s one more thing.” Maureen hesitated. “You mentioned your daughter’s name was Amelia Quinn.”
Linda squeezed Bree’s hand. “Yes.”
“It may be nothing, but during the restoration they found faint marks around Lady Amelia’s folded hands. Not part of the original carving. Someone scratched them in later, perhaps. We can’t make all of it out.”
Maureen’s voice softened. “But one word is clear.”
Bree’s heart stopped.
“What word?”
“Quinn.”
The chapel tilted as Bree stared at Amelia’s stone hands. Not touching Thomas’s but almost.
And beneath them, hidden for centuries, her name.
Not the name the manor rolls had given her. Not Lady Ashcombe. Her name. Their name. A thread tied across time.
Amelia, you impossible, over-prepared lunatic.
Bree pressed the tissue to her mouth and laughed.
