by Abby Ayles
“I am wondering the same thing.”
She hadn’t thought about it but since he mentioned it, it was a curiosity.
As they approached the church, Duke Colbourn led her across the lawn behind a row of trees so they could not be seen. He stopped when he could see the side of the church with the door that lead to the cellar.
“I think we missed a room down there,” the Duke said, keeping his voice low. “I want to see if they are in there again. If they are, there must be something going on that we should know about.”
“Oh dear. Do you think the reverend is being held down there? Or is dead and they are covering it up for right now?”
Duke Colbourn shook his head. “I do not know.”
“Should we not just go in and talk to the elder Lord Balfour? Surely you can coax the information from him.”
“I can certainly try. But I want to walk around the church first and see if we can find anything. Perhaps we will catch them in a compromising position.”
“I do not think my father would approve of spying on the church or the Balfours,” Annabelle said in a quiet voice. Duke Colbourn looked down at her.
“He may not. Do you want to leave?”
Annabelle looked up at him, warmly. She wanted to do whatever he wanted to do. If that included spying, so be it.
“No, I do not want to leave. But I do think we should be very careful and if we do not see anything, we should go inside and talk to them.”
“If we can find them. I see their carriage is still there waiting for them. They may be gathering their things together. They have had enough time to do so. They must be doing something else.”
The two fell quiet as they walked along the tree line. There was no movement around the church. It was completely silent.
When they got back to their original position, the Duke stopped so suddenly, Annabelle almost ran into him. She stopped, grabbing her skirts and looking up at him in surprise.
“My Lord?”
“We will have to go inside and speak to them.”
“What are they doing in the church without the reverend?”
He looked down at her with penetrating eyes. “We do not know that the reverend is not in there.”
The thought gave Annabelle chills. Her eyes widened and she moved them to the exterior of the church. “That is a very frightening thought,” she said breathlessly.
“Do you want me to take you back to Norrend? It may not be safe for you to be here.”
Annabelle shook her head. “No, I want to stay with you. You will keep me safe. Besides, I do not see the Balfours hurting me. It just does not seem possible.”
She was confused by the look that swept over the Duke’s face. His eyes turned soft and he tilted his head slightly to the side.
“You have had little experience with truly evil people, my Lady. That is a good and a bad thing. It does not teach you what you need to know but it also keeps you happy and comfortable. You must protect yourself against the evil in this world and there is a lot of it.”
Annabelle had to admit she knew very little of the world outside Norrend and her little city of people. “What will you say to them, your Grace? How will you know if they are telling you the truth?”
“I will have to go by my instincts. And did I not tell you that having you here would help? They will be less likely to react violently with a woman present and the intuition of a woman like you is invaluable.”
“It is pleasing that you believe in my intuition, my Lord.”
“Well, I do. Come on, shall we go in?”
With one hand around his elbow and the other holding her skirts up slightly, Annabelle walked with the Duke across the lawn and up to the front of the church. She looked up at the man. “I thought you said they were probably hiding in the cellar.”
“We must check the upper half first. The cellar is enclosed and more dangerous. If they are up top, we can speak with them more freely. They will be highly suspicious if we are down in the cellar. However, if we need to, that is where we will go.”
Annabelle nodded and said nothing more. She was ashamed for questioning him. He was filled with logic and reason. He would not tell her anything she did not need to know, nor would he hide anything back.
The loving feeling of warmth passed over her and she looked up at him, admiring his profile. He had a certain walk that she loved watching. His stride was smooth and strong. He appeared to be very confident, which he, in fact, was.
Annabelle gripped his arm with her hand so hard he looked down at it and then into her eyes.
She wanted to drown in the dark pools of his eyes.
They went up the steps to the front of the church and went through the double doors, only opening one. Duke Colbourn let her through first.
She felt a rush of cool air as soon as she stepped through and looked around for an open window. She saw none and blinked in confusion. She looked back at the Duke.
“Did you feel that?”
“Feel what?” Duke Colbourn asked.
“That rush of wind. It was cold. I do not see any windows open. Where do you suppose it could have come from?”
The Duke came in behind her and looked around. He scanned each pew and all the windows. “I am not sure. That is truly strange. Come along.”
The two slowly made their way down the middle aisle. “You look that way and I will look this way,” Duke Colbourn instructed her. She nodded but then turned to him.
“What am I looking for, your Grace?”
“Look for pews that are out of place, wooden boards on the floor broken or that might just look different. Holes in the wall that could indicate a secret passage to…”
He stopped and stared across the room at the fireplace. Annabelle stopped when he did and looked up at him. When she saw the direction of his eyes, she looked at the fireplace, as well.
“No. They would not have put him in the fire, would they?”
“There is only one way to find out.”
Annabelle reluctantly followed him to the fireplace. He held out his hand to it as if the fire was blazing and would warm his hand. He looked down at Annabelle. “Do you feel this? Is it cold to you?”
Annabelle held out her hand and felt the same cool breeze she’d felt when she’d entered the church.
“I do feel it.”
Duke Colbourn nodded. “I do, as well.” He bent down and looked up into the flue. “I cannot see anything in there. It is too dark.”
Annabelle ran her eyes around the fireplace from the mantle above it that held several crosses and figurines of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph to the floor grating beneath it. She narrowed her eyes, focusing on the ashes.
“They have burned something recently. There has been no need for a lit fire. It has been warm for several days.”
She took hold of a fireplace poker in a container beside the fireplace and began to sift through the ashes, looking for some kind of clothing or a paper that made it through the fire. There were some scraps. She bent over and carefully pushed at the remnants with the poker, trying to figure out what they were.
“Why… I think this is a Bible, my Lord. Look at this,” she pushed the poker down on one piece of paper and brought it up to show him. He plucked the piece of paper from the end of the poker and turned it over in his hands.
“Yes, this is a page from the Bible.” The Duke agreed with her. Her body covered in chills at the thought that the Balfours were brave enough to burn a Bible in the church. They looked at each other with wide eyes.
“What can this mean, your Grace?” Annabelle whispered. “Is… is the reverend dead?”
“I do not know, my Lady. A burned Bible does not mean that the reverend is here or dead.”
“We know he was not the one who burned that Bible,” Annabelle insisted. “Nor would he allow such a thing to happen. Not if he were able to stop it.”
The Duke nodded. “While that is true, my Lady, it does not mean he has gone to Heaven. It means he ei
ther did not know it was going to happen or was not present when it did. If he was present, please do remember the poor shape of the reverend. He is a tall man but is quite round and he does not look like he takes care of his body. The young Lord Gilbert could have overpowered him just because of the sheer strength of his youth.”
“What do we do now?”
Duke Colbourn looked straight at her, holding up the scrap of the Bible page.
“We go and find the reverend.”
Chapter 37
Annabelle looked down at the grate in the fireplace, pushing the poker through more of the soot. Some of it fell down into the grate. She narrowed her eyes.
“When you and father were downstairs, did you see the bottom of this?”
“We did not go in the soot cellar,” Duke Colbourn gave her an interested look. His eyebrows were raised and there was the trace of a smile around his lips. She looked back at him with a serious expression.
“I think we should go check the soot cellar.”
He nodded. “I agree. But we must be quiet.”
“I am a master at being quiet,” Annabelle replied with a giggle, setting the poker back in its place in the container.
“So you have mentioned.”
The two of them turned away from the fireplace and stopped abruptly when they saw the elder Lord Balfour and his sons coming in the front door.
There was nowhere for the two of them to hide so they stood together, pretending they had not noticed anything in the fireplace. Duke Colbourn put his hand on her lower back and urged her forward.
“Be nice,” he murmured in a voice only loud enough for her to hear.
The warning made Annabelle giggle again, which made her less nervous. She walked with him through the pew to reach the middle aisle where they would greet the Balfours. The men were looking at them with suspicious eyes.
Annabelle knew exactly what the Duke had meant when he said the elder Lord Balfour was not the most pleasant of men. Lord Gilbert resembled him much more than Lord Leonard.
The Earl of Beldingshire stopped a few feet from Duke Colbourn and bowed to him.
“Good afternoon, your Grace. I did not know you would be returning.”
“Frankly,” the Duke responded. “I am surprised there are not more people here. Did you send them away?”
“There was nowhere left to be searched, my Lord. If the reverend is still here, he is not in this church.”
“Can you be certain of that?”
“I can.”
“And you base this on the fact that there were many people here earlier searching for him?”
“That is correct.”
“You have continued to look for him?”
“I have, my Lord.”
“You have found no evidence of foul play?”
Annabelle watched the Lords Balfour during the exchange. Lord Gilbert looked at her once or twice but the questions Duke Colbourn was firing at his father kept drawing his attention away from her.
She watched their reactions. There was no way they were not responsible for what was happening. Lord Leonard looked nervous. His brother looked angry.
“No, your Grace. And we have continued searching. But we will need to depart from here soon.”
“You cannot leave without knowing what happened to the reverend, surely. You were here to apprentice under him, Lord Balfour, were you not?”
He directed the question to Lord Leonard. The young man nodded, looking guilty. He dropped his eyes and would not meet Duke Colbourn’s again.
“Surely you have become friends with him at least. I have only known the reverend for a short time and he seemed like an amiable sort, a gentleman to his bones. Would you not agree?” He continued to use a firm voice, directing it at Lord Leonard, who looked like he was being stabbed by every word.
“I did, your Grace.”
“Then how can you, in good conscience, leave without knowing where the reverend has gone? Whether he is still alive or not?”
“He is still alive,” Lord Leonard replied in a hurried voice. His father looked him sharply and he shut his mouth with a snap.
Annabelle could see the muscles in his jaw when he clenched his teeth together. He could look away but he could not keep her from noticing that reaction. He also stiffened and his hand gripped the back of an aisle seat.
So many indications that the Balfours were guilty of something. But it was not the murder of the reverend. Annabelle fully believed Lord Leonard when he said the reverend was still alive.
Unable to let that comment pass, the Duke frowned at Lord Leonard. “Lord Leonard, how can you be so sure?”
Lord Leonard looked down at his father. To Annabelle, the look on Lord Leonard’s face resembled that of someone looking at a snake about to strike.
“I did not ask your father the question, Lord Leonard,” Duke Colbourn said. “I asked it of you. Why are you so confident?”
“I do not believe anyone would want to bring harm to the old man, my lord,” Lord Leonard finally answered.
“He is amiable, as you say, and a true gentleman. I am sure he has just gotten lost, perhaps he tripped and has hurt himself in the woods. There are people looking for him through the woods. Would you care to join them?”
The Dukeshook his head, looking down at Annabelle.
“We are here to do another search of our own. We are going to the cellar. Would you care to join us? More eyes are always better in my opinion when searching for something or someone.”
Again, because she was watching for the reactions of Lord Gilbert and Lord Leonard, she saw both boys look at their father sharply. She knew she and the Duke were on the right track.
The Earl of Beldingshire did not give any indication he was afraid. “We will most certainly come down with you. But I promise you, we have searched thoroughly and have found no sign of him.”
“I would feel better if I looked on my own.”
The Earl of Beldingshire bent low, nodding. “Of course, your Grace.”
Lord Leonard lead the way as the small group circled around the church to the cellar door. He was also the one who opened it and held it while the others went in.
Before she went through first, Lord Gilbert gave her his lit lantern. She took it gratefully, forgetting why she was there for a moment. She gave him a smile and said, “Thank you.”
He did not smile back.
She went in just after the elder Lord Balfour. Duke Colbourn insisted that the Lord Balfour go first, to light the way, that Annabelle have her own lantern and that he would bring up the rear.
This was to make sure the Balfours did not close the door on them and leave them in the cellar to rot away, hidden from the world like the reverend.
Annabelle looked at the door to the soot cellar as they entered the main room.
“Where would you like to search first, your Grace?” The elder Lord Balfour looked up at Duke Colbourn.
“You three go down that corridor and try every door and then come back. We will check this side over here.”
“Yes, your Grace.” The elder Lord Balfour gestured with his head to his sons. They followed him, going down the corridor, Lord Gilbert looking over his shoulder at them every so often with a worried expression on his face.
“Did you see how worried he is, your Grace,” Annabelle asked. “We must be very close.”
“I think so, as well. Come let us see about this door to the soot cellar.”
He turned and hurried to it. Annabelle went with him but she walked slowly backwards, her eyes still down the corridor as the Balfours disappeared down it. When she could no longer see them, she spun around and stared at the door as the Duke pushed and pulled on it.
“If they put him in this room, they will have locked it,” he said, looking up and around him, holding his lantern up high.
There were shelves from the floor to the ceiling next to the door. It was covered in a fine sheet of dust and every tool on it was also covered with dust.
The Duke took down a length of rope that was circled together. It was not the thickest rope but it would do if he needed to tie anyone up. He also took down a long iron pry bar, which he put next to the locked doorknob.
He pulled back on the pry bar until he heard a snapping sound inside and the doorknob fell off. He pushed the door open, reached back, and took one of the lanterns from Annabelle.
“You will stay out here. The soot cellar is not a clean place to be. I will check to see if the reverend is in there.”
“I do not want to be alone, your Grace,” Annabelle said in a pleading voice. She looked up at him, blinking rapidly in fear. She looked behind her, expecting to see the Balfours headed for them, ready to bind them up and shove them in the soot cellar, too.
“The soot cellar is no place for a lady,” Duke Colbourn insisted. “You must stay out here.”
“I cannot, my Lord. It is too late for us to be thinking about such delicacies. I must come with you.”
“You will get terribly dirty.”
She smiled at him. “It is nothing that cannot be washed off, my Lord.”
“It will ruin your dress.”
Annabelle was becoming a bit frustrated with the Duke.
“Your Grace, I insist I must come in. I cannot defend myself if I am out here alone and they cannot lock us in the soot cellar because you have just broken off the doorknob. I must come with you.”
“You are correct. Just stay near me.”
“I will be right by your side, my Lord, I promise you.”
The two went into the room together, the Duke in front just slightly, holding up his lantern. He reached back once they were in the cellar and grasped Annabelle’s arm for a moment, making sure she was near enough for him to grab if he needed to keep her from falling.
He reached out with the lantern and swung it from side to side, casting the light on the walls and corners.
“Reverend? Are you here?”