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In a few steps Cordelia reached them. “What’s happened? Why aren’t you going in?”

With a glance around at their neighbors, Roz said, “Oh, Cordelia, what are we to do? Mr. Hartley has locked our pew box. We are not to sit there because Papa has not paid the pew rent in forever.”

Miranda said, “Mr. Hartley says that we are not the first family of Clifton-on-Sea any longer and need to sit in the rear.”

“What?” said Henry, turning to glare at Hartley, who was now greeting another family.

“Hartley has no business locking us out. In any case, he should speak to me if there is pew rent due. I’m the man of the house. Wait here.” Henry dropped Cordelia’s arm and strode off. However, it was Winter who reached Hartley first. Some quiet words passed between them. Hartley’s expression turned sour. He stalked off, his white surplice fluttering. Henry reached Winter, and again a few words passed, with Henry questioning and nodding at Winter’s answer.

Henry returned to them. “Winter sorted it. It’s all nonsense, anyway, charging for pews. The box will be open. Let’s go in.”

Cordelia turned, trying to catch Winter’s eye, but he was looking at Miranda.

Roz tugged Miranda’s arm and pulled her into the church. Henry opened the white pew box near the front, under the high carved pulpit, where generations of their mother’s people had sat. They took their places. Miranda sat slumped with Roz’s arm around her shoulders.

The service began, and Cordelia tried to bend her attention to prayers and collects and readings. Everything had changed after all.

*

The morning of the last day of the wager was nearly gone when Gray went down to the courtyard to inspect Higson’s work, his sketchbook under his arm. Daily he added a sketch to record the work. Scaffolding rose in the bright sun three stories from the courtyard floor. A zigzag pattern of ladders led up from level to level of long planks secured to a framework of roped-together poles. Pulleys and buckets of tools hung from each level. Pallets of numbered facing stones stood lined up like moored ships in the courtyard, and two long ladders lay against the base of the east wall. The courtyard echoed with men’s voices and the busy clang of hammers against chisels and stone. Except for minor mishaps, the work had gone forward smoothly as Higson prepared to probe the tower’s soundness.

The only thing not going according to Gray’s plan was winning the bet. Today it appeared that he would lose. He no longer saw Cordelia Staveley coming up from the beach. He imagined that she swam early to avoid him. These days he swam later, himself, after evenings spent talking with Winter and Higson. Finch came and went from the archdeaconry in Salisbury with reports of his findings of past wills and deeds and land disputes involving the castle. He was due to return today. Nothing Finch had found yet showed Gray how he might come to own the land.

There were, Gray supposed, some advantages to Cordelia Staveley’s winning the wager. If she won, she would deal with him as she arranged her ball, but that was not the prize he had aimed for. He wondered whether he could talk her into a second wager.

In spite of Gray’s ploy of giving Henry Staveley space in the castle, Viola Staveley had not paid her brother a visit. Gray should let the wager go and fix his attention on Higson’s work. He had not come to Delamere to involve himself with Sir Humphrey’s daughters.

Gray entered the courtyard from the southwest tower as Higson conferred with his foreman, the two of them bending over sketches Gray had supplied of cross sections of the tower. They looked up as he approached. Higson pointed out an area above the third level of the scaffolding, where he suspected water damage. It was the most likely sort of damage, the kind that could pop loose stones free and cause a collapse. Gray left his sketchbook on Higson’s table and crossed to the scaffolding for a better look. There were three men at the highest level of the scaffolding on the right, and another below them on the second-left level.

As Gray studied the tower, he caught a movement at the courtyard entrance. A youth in the vivid red and blue coat of an express messenger, hat jammed on his head, stood at the top of the stairs, his glance sweeping the courtyard, taking in the pallets of stones and the scaffolding. The lad’s curious gaze came to rest on Gray and stopped as if Gray were his object. The boy drew a folded paper from his coat and waved it at Gray. He couldn’t imagine who would send him an express. Not Finch, who would bring information when he returned, and certainly not Gray’s sister, Bernice, who wouldn’t go to the expense. Gray pointed the boy in the direction of Higson. The boy’s puzzled glance shifted to the engineer and back to Gray. Gray shook his head and turned to the tower, where he could see the concerning bulge in the stones. Whatever the message was, it could wait.

As he put his foot to the bottom rung of the sloping ladder, a crack split the air above him. He jumped back. Startled cries erupted above him. Cross pieces holding the near end of the lowest plank gave way, and it swung down, slamming into the ladder he had been about to climb. At the contact, the ladder gave way, rungs snapping, wood flying. Gray leapt clear. A violent tremor shook the whole framework. The structure listed to the left. Higher up, planks slid off their supports, plunging down, ripping through the structure. Men shouted and scrambled to grab upright poles. Buckets tumbled, raining tools and fragments of stone. The block of a pulley plummeted past Gray to smash on the courtyard floor inches from his feet.

Abruptly, the movement stilled. Dust rose in a cloud and ringing metal echoed off the walls. One half of the scaffold lay in a pile of broken poles and downed planks in front of Gray. A stranded man clung to a listing pole, bracing himself against the wall, empty air beneath him, shouting for help.

“Ladder!” Higson shouted. His foreman came rushing forward.

Under the fallen timbers in front of Gray, a plank pinned the long ladders against the wall. It would have to be moved. Gray climbed over the debris to the plank and heaved aside broken bits of pole and stone. Higson’s foreman joined him. In seconds the plank end near the wall was free. Gray found a spot to stand and took hold of the wedged plank. He turned to the foreman, but the messenger boy was there at the free end of the ladder.

At Gray’s nod, the boy grabbed the ladder’s lowest rung. Gray lifted his end of the plank as far as it would move, a few inches above the trapped ladder. The boy began to pull. The ladder didn’t budge. Gray heaved the plank higher. The ladder slid a foot. The boy fell backward and landed on his backside with a high-pitched yelp. Then Finch was there, lifting the boy out of the way and pulling the ladder free. Two of Higson’s men took over, sliding the ladder out of the debris. Gray let the plank fall, his arms taut with the strain.

Higson’s men threw the ladder up against the wall, and the dangling man took hold and began to make his way down. Higson called his crew together, his angry voice demanding to know what happened. Gray turned back to Finch. The boy picked himself up off the ground and pushed his hat down firmly on his head. He kept his head down and pulled the paper from his coat, holding it out to Finch.

“Express from London for Lord Graymont,” the boy said.

Finch simply stared at the boy, as if he were some sort of puzzle. Then he reached out and snatched the hat off the boy’s head. A mass of long wheaten curls tumbled out from under the hat, and a pair of defiant hazel eyes glared up at Finch.

“Who the devil are you?” Finch asked.

Gray stepped up to the pair. “Finch …” He grinned. “Meet Miss Viola Staveley.”

Chapter Twelve

Gray took the message, opened it, and read.

The Lords refuse their temporary accommodations.

Can you come to town at once? Barry