And someone was using it. To throw books at teapots and topple over bookcases. To terrify Bascomb’s legion of secretaries.
The ground shifted beneath her feet, and she looked up, surprised to find herself at the very edge of the churchyard where the cliffs began. The sea stretched out before her, still rough and roiling from the recent storm. The tang of salt filled the air. Edwina turned and faced the ruins and the stone portion of the older part of Rose Abbey that had once been Lady Renalda’s residence, noting the odd way the rosebushes had been planted as they came toward the church.
She cocked her head.
The bushes weren’t planted in the pattern of any garden Edwina had ever enjoyed. There were no gatherings for a bench or a place of prayer. Nothing at all like the roses closer to the abbey and main house.
Incredibly odd.
Looking down over the cliffs, careful not to get too close, she realized a rosebush had been planted by itself a few feet from her. Then another, leading around a cluster of graves to the church.
She walked back and forth several times, becoming surer with every step. The rosebushes were markers, planted on the lawn in such a way with purpose. Like a map to buried treasure.
Or a series of tunnels.
Lady Renalda hadn’t inhabited Rose Abbey for nearly three hundred years, and no rosebush, no matter how determined, could live that long without help. Someone was ensuring the line of rosebushes stayed intact. Perhaps a series of housekeepers.
Edwina took off in the direction of the church. She jumped over one of the sinking graves and onto the crumbling steps of the church, her heart beating wildly at her discovery. A door in the library was an entry point from Lady Renalda’s office to a series of tunnels. The church seemed a likely spot for at least one exit. If the abbess had indeed bought time for her flock to escape, some of them might have come to the church and stripped it of whatever gold and jeweled relics it possessed, then gone back into the tunnel. The soldiers would never have seen them.
Tentatively she tiptoed inside, nose wrinkling at the scents of mildew and dust. Broken stone lay in heaps along the floor. Weeds grew through every crack. The entire space spoke of age and disuse.
Except for the muddy footprints coming from behind the altar.
Edwina’s heart nearly stopped in her chest. She wasn’t the only one who had ventured here. Meg had mentioned lights in the church at night. So had at least one of Bascomb’s former secretaries.
She climbed over a large stack of bricks following the muddy trail, cursing when her skirts caught on, of all things, a bloody rosebush that had found its way inside, springing through a crack in the floor. When she reached down to pull her skirt free, she saw it.
A latch. In the floor.
Stumbling over the debris in the church, she made her way over to a trapdoor set into the base of the altar. The muddy footprints led right to the edge.
I knew it.
The door must lead to a tunnel. Was Mrs. Page using the tunnel to come to the church at night and look for the abbey’s hidden gold? And she must also be using the passage to spy on Bascomb’s secretaries, scaring them away when she saw them getting too close to the truth. Edwina thought of the sounds she had heard in the library. The bookcase that had nearly crushed her. The stupid leaf.
She had to tell Bascomb.
Kneeling, Edwina lifted open the small trapdoor cut into the stone floor, the hinges making not a sound. Someone had recently oiled them, no doubt. Peering into the darkness of the tunnel, she could make out nothing. A candle or lamp was needed.
Drat.
Just as Edwina resolved to return to the house and retrieve a light, a shuffle sounded behind her.
And then the world went black.
*
Edwina blinked inthe darkness, wincing as she tried to raise her head. She was sprawled on her back in the dirt. Silence surrounded her. Carefully, she sat up, her fingers touching the tender spot at the back of her head. The last thing she remembered was peering into the hole beneath the altar and thinking she needed light to properly explore the tunnel below. How long had she been lying here?
A sudden rush of panic flooded Edwina. There wasn’t so much as a pinprick of light. She reached up with both her hands and touched nothing but emptiness. The trapdoor must be above her, but there was no way to reach it, not without a ladder or a rope.
She took in a shaky breath, trying to calm her wildly beating heart. Someone would come looking for her. Eventually. Meg knew she was walking to the church. When Edwina didn’t arrive for tea, Meg would inform Bascomb.
Edwina calmed herself. Bascomb would look for her. He would. She only had to stay put for a time.
Whoever had hit Edwina, and it could only be Mrs. Page, had pushed her into the hole. The housekeeper knew her secret had been discovered. She might return at any moment and do far worse than merely hit Edwina over the head. Desperate people did desperate things. Going to Portsmith for the day was merely a ruse.
Edwina tried to get her bearings and found it impossible in the darkness. The tunnel undoubtedly led to the library, but there wasn’t any telling where else. She could just as easily find herself on the beach or lost in the woods outside of Rose Abbey. But any alternative was better than simply waiting for Mrs. Page to return and finish her off.
