Chapter Eleven
STEPHEN WHISKED HER back into the house and seated her in his study, then left. He had refused to answer any of her questions as they walked back through the garden, merely shaking his head and telling her to “wait and see.” By the time he reappeared at the study door, Olivia’s curiosity was at a fever pitch.
He stepped into the room, carrying a small bundle, and closed the door behind him. Olivia stood up as he carried the bundle over to his desk and set it down. Stephen carefully unwrapped the blue velvet covering from around the object, revealing it at last as a golden box about a foot long and over half as tall. Around the edges of the box were engravings, and in the front it fastened with a clasp that came down over a small bar, which then turned to open and close it.
Olivia stared, her hand going to her stomach. She felt as if someone had knocked the breath from her. The box before her on the desk was the same one she had seen in her dream last night.
“It’s the same,” she breathed, reaching out her hand toward it, then letting it fall, not touching it. “Oh, Stephen...it’s exactly the same.”
Her eyes began to water, and her stomach felt like a chunk of ice. She sat back down abruptly. “This is impossible.”
“I know. But when you began to describe it and its contents, I suspected you must have seen this casket.”
“But how—” She raised her gaze finally from the gleaming box and looked at him. “I don’t understand.”
“I don’t either. But I want you to look at what’s inside.” He opened the clasp and raised the lid. There was a pile of golden objects inside the little box, including a small dagger with a jeweled gold hilt. On top lay a large cross, also made of gold, about four or five inches long, and in the center lay a cabochon ruby.
Olivia stared at the cross. She had guessed that it would be in there, after seeing the gold casket, but even so, it made her stomach queasy to see the actual object, exactly like the one she had seen in her dream.
“I did not see the dagger,” she said.
“No? What about this?” Stephen pulled out a necklace, long oval gold beads strung together, each bead cunningly etched.
“That’s the necklace,” she said a little breathlessly. “It was in the box, too.”
“It’s not a necklace,” Stephen replied, holding it closer to her. “It is a rosary. See, there are different shaped lozenges for the Pater Nosters and the Ave Marias. And each bead, if you’ll look, is carved with a biblical scene. It’s excellent craftsmanship.”
“It’s beautiful,” Olivia responded. “And the girdle she wore? The jeweled belt? Is it in there?”
“No. I have never seen anything like that. But there are some necklaces and rings and such. Do you recognize any of them?”
He held out the box to her, and Olivia stood up and took it in her hands. As she grasped it, she was suddenly swamped with a strange feeling. Her stomach roiled, and it was hard to breathe. The blood drained from her face, leaving her ashen.
In her mind Olivia saw the woman she had dreamed of the night before. Lady Alys was with the knight she loved. They were outside in a meadow, sitting beside a pond. It was, Olivia realized, the same pond where she and Stephen had gone the first day she was at Blackhope.
Lady Alys was leaning against the knight, his arm curled around her, and they seemed to be lazily daydreaming in the sun. Alys looked up at the knight, her face soft with love. They were facing toward the pond, smiling and talking, absorbed in each other. They did not see, as Olivia saw, another man standing some distance from them, hidden among the trees at the edge of the meadow. His hair was black, as was his small pointed beard. A gold ring glinted on his finger, and the silk tunic he wore was richly embroidered with gold thread at the neck. He was watching the couple, his face stamped with a cold, fierce hatred.
An overpowering sense of evil swept Olivia, and her throat constricted. She could not breathe. She swayed, her eyes rolling up.
“Olivia!” Stephen jumped forward, his arm going around her waist as she slumped into a faint. With his other hand, he grasped the gold box.
He thrust the box onto the desk with one hand, his other arm lowering Olivia gently into her chair. Worriedly, he took her wrist and felt for her pulse.
“Olivia. Please, wake up.” Visions of her slipping into the same unconscious state as Babington played terrifyingly through his head. “Sweet Lord, wake up.”
He started to ring for smelling salts again, but just then Olivia’s eyelids fluttered, and she opened her eyes.
“Thank God.” Stephen let out a sigh of relief. “Are you all right?”
“I—I think so.” Olivia looked confused. “What happened?”
“You fainted. I’m not sure why. I handed you the Martyrs’ casket, and you looked very strange and fell into a faint.”
He slipped his hand behind her back and helped her straighten.
“Oh,” Olivia said, covering her eyes with her hand. She felt weak and a little sick to her stomach, as well. “I saw something. I’m sorry, I really can’t explain it well. But as soon as I touched that casket, I saw Lady Alys.” She described the scene to him, along with the man in the concealing woods who watched the lovers.
“Do you think it was the lady’s husband?” Stephen asked.
“Sir Raymond? Yes, I think it was. Hatred poured from him. His eyes were glittering with anger and I was just flooded with this horrible sense of evil.”
“Evil?” He responded. “There are those who would say her husband was the injured party.”
“But you didn’t see this man. He was—I don’t know, the feeling of evil was so strong. It was more than jealousy or anger. I can’t explain it. But it made me feel quite ill.”
“I could see that.” Stephen moved away and leaned against his desk, stretching his legs out in front of him. He looked at Olivia, whose color was returning.
“All right,” he said. “What is happening?”
“I haven’t any idea,” Olivia replied. “I have never experienced anything like this in my life. What do these things mean that I keep seeing? And why am I seeing them? I would think I was going utterly mad if you had not seen some of them, as well.”
“But I have. And I am quite certain that you are not mad.” Stephen reached over and took her hand and squeezed it, gazing down into her eyes.
Olivia gave him a wobbly smile in return, her eyes unexpectedly filling with tears. Stephen pulled her to her feet and into his arms, holding her lightly. “No. Don’t cry. None of this is worth your tears.”
Olivia leaned her head against his chest. It was amazing, she thought, how easy this was becoming. It felt so good to be near him, to let him encompass her with his strength. She was growing accustomed to their chats every evening in his study, to seeing him at breakfast and dinner, to walking with him in the garden or sharing tea with him.
It was foolish, she told herself, weak and foolish. Soon she would be leaving, and she would not see him again. She would return to her normal life, a life he did not share. She would be on her own again, pursuing her enthusiasms with the help of only Tom Quick. She would no longer discuss the happenings of the day with Stephen or see his smile...or feel the touch of his hand on hers.
She blinked away her tears, calling herself all kinds of a fool. She straightened and moved from him, turning her back and surreptitiously wiping away her tears. It was time to stop acting like a ninny.
“I’m sorry,” she said. Her voice came out a little husky, and she cleared her throat. “I am afraid I have an abominable headache. It makes me a little weak. I do not usually give in to tears that way.”
“You have had a good number of shocks the past few days,” he said. “We all have.”
“I am having a bit of trouble,” she admitted. “What I seem to be seeing and feeling goes against everything I believe in. I cannot believe that these visions are real, that these are ghosts!” She turned and looked at him, her eyes wide. “In all the investigations I’ve done, I have never seen a ghost. I have never had a dream like the ones I have had recently, or—or seen people who are not there. And not only that—I have felt so clearly what they were thinking and feeling.”
“I cannot explain it.”
“Nor I. Even though I do not believe it, let us suppose that Madame Valenskaya or one of the others is amazingly expert in the practice of mesmerism, or hypnotism. And let us even say that it is possible, if one is so expert, to make a person believe they see something that isn’t there, or to make them have dreams about a particular subject. And let us also imagine, since we are saying that they can do these other things, that they are able to implant in us the successful suggestion that we forget when and where and how we were hypnotized.”
“All right. Given all those unlikely things...”
“There are still logistical problems. When and where did they do this hypnotizing? You had your first dream about this couple in London, before Madame Valenskaya came here. Before you even met her. Isn’t that true?”
“Yes.”
“And since we have been here, there have generally been other people about, including the servants. I cannot see how anyone could have hypnotized me or you without someone else noticing. Unless they did it in the dead of night. And there have been so many details to the dreams—words and feelings and the minutiae of the people’s appearance, what their clothes were, what the box and its contents looked like—and there have been so many visions. How could they have implanted all of that in both of us?”
“It stretches the limits of credibility,” Stephen agreed.
“But even if all that could somehow be explained away or believed, there is still this problem—how could I have known what the box looked like or what it contained or what any of the contents were? I had never seen it before, and neither has Madame Valenskaya or the other two. Yet I saw the box and its contents down to the last detail. I knew its size, and I knew that it had engraving around the edge. I knew exactly how the rosary looked, even though I didn’t know it was a rosary and thought it only a necklace. Madame Valenskaya could not have described it, because she has never seen it. There is no way she could have seen it before, is there—a drawing or anything?”
“No. She has never been in this house, and as far as I know, that box has never left it. I know my father never removed it, and I don’t think Roderick would have, either. As I said, it’s something of a superstition in the family. None of us would have risked losing it. And I have never heard of any drawings of the box or its contents. As far as I know, it is not even known outside this family.”
“Then I cannot believe these things could have been the product of hypnotism. And if it isn’t that, what is it?”
They looked at each other for a long moment, neither of them wanting to actually say it. Finally Stephen sighed and said, “Ghosts? I feel like an utter fool saying it, but I cannot see how any of this could have been engineered. The dreams...the visions...”
“Mr. Babington’s fit?” Olivia offered.
“Do you think it is part of this?”
“I don’t know. But it seems to me that we have two sets of events. On the one hand, we have Madame Valenskaya’s séances and the things she says—the idea of the lost souls, the Martyrs’ treasure, the music and raps and the supposed voice of your brother.”
“The monk in the garden. The crying in the sitting room,” Stephen added.
“Yes. All of those things can be explained, and they all pertain to the gold casket. Then we have had an entirely different set of things: the apparition of the medieval woman in the great hall and the dreams you and I have had about this woman and her lover and husband. All of those are disturbingly inexplicable by any rational means.”
“That would mean that we have Madame Valenskaya and her daughter and Mr. Babington and their tricks, none of which are real. And an entirely different set of ‘spirits,’ which do seem to be real. Completely disconnected,” Stephen said.
“Not completely, though. The gold casket figures in both of them. And Mr. Babington at the séance the other night—his talking as if he were possessed, the seizure, the coma. That all seemed quite real, as well.”
“Yes. This casket.” Stephen walked over to the desk and stood for a moment looking down at it. “It was part of the Martyrs’ treasure. And that was in the sixteenth century. Yet you dreamed about the medieval woman holding the box and its contents. When you held the box, you saw a very clear vision of the woman and her husband and the strong sense that the husband was evil. And those people appear to be from four hundred years earlier than the Martyrs.”
Olivia was silent for a moment, thinking. “Perhaps the treasure that Lord Scorhill hid consisted of family heirlooms. Maybe the box and even the contents had been handed down for generations. They could have felt, as your family does, that they were more precious than even more expensive jewels.”
Stephen nodded thoughtfully. “That could have been why they hid them away so securely. They could have taken their other valuables or sent them to family or friends, but they wanted these oldest, most precious objects to stay here in Blackhope where they belonged, even if it meant that no one ever found them again.”
“What about the room where your family found the casket? Are you sure that the martyred Lord Scorhill built it?”
“You mean, could it have come from an earlier time? And maybe the Martyrs didn’t even know of its existence?”
Olivia shrugged. “I don’t know. It just occurred to me that maybe it was wrongly assumed that the treasure belonged to that Lord Scorhill. It seemed the likely explanation, but no one really knew that the martyred family built that room or put the gold box in there.”
“Let’s look at the room,” Stephen suggested. “I have to put the box back, anyway.”
Olivia stared at him. “But that is the secret room. You cannot show it to me.”
Stephen quirked an eyebrow. “Frankly, the secrecy of the room bothers me less right now than a number of other things. Anyway, all you will know will be the location of the secret room. If you turn away or close your eyes, you won’t see the mechanism of how the door operates, and, believe me, without that knowledge, I don’t think anyone could open it.”
“All right. If you are certain.”
“Positive.” Stephen wrapped the box once again in its velvet covering, then picked it up and tucked it under his arm.
They left the study and went up the stairs to the bedroom wing, walking past the family’s bedchambers. Several doors down from the last of the bedrooms used by the family and their guests, Stephen turned a corner and opened a door. Inside lay a smaller chamber than the one in which Olivia was residing, furnished in the style of Louis XIV.
Stephen stepped back to allow Olivia to enter, then went in after her and pushed the door, not noticing that it did completely shut. “We rarely use this room,” he told her as they walked to the middle of the room. “It is one of the smaller guest rooms, and it’s occupied only when the house is exceptionally full. It is not a favorite room of guests. I remember one cousin who stayed here when I was an adolescent who demanded that my mother move him to another room.”
“Why?”
“I’m not entirely sure. I think it was because of the cold.”
“It is chilly,” Olivia commented, rubbing her arms. “I presumed it was because the room was not in use.”
“Yes, but even when there is someone staying here and we have the fire lit, it isn’t a particularly warm room. It’s on the north side, and the fireplace doesn’t seem to work well.”
“Should I close my eyes now?” Olivia asked.
“Yes.”
She did so, and to her surprise, he bent down and kissed her lightly on the lips. Her eyes popped open, and Stephen chuckled.
“Sorry. I could not resist.” He hesitated for a moment, then kissed her again, more lingeringly this time. He was still carrying the velvet-wrapped box under his arm, which made an embrace awkward, so after a moment, he stepped back with a sigh. “All right. Close your eyes.”
Olivia, feeling a little giddy from his kiss, closed her eyes again and also turned around to face the other direction, just for good measure. Behind her, she heard Stephen crossing the floor.
Behind her, Olivia heard a click, then the swish of something moving. Stephen said, “All right. You can look now.”
Olivia turned. Stephen stood beside a narrow door, a piece of the wall, actually, that had swung away from the rest of it. Beyond it lay a small, dark room. She walked over to join Stephen and looked inside the secret room. It was small, the size of her dressing room at home, and it had no furnishings except for a small, narrow wooden table. There were no windows, so that the place lay in a perpetual gloom. Stephen stepped inside the room, ducking to go through the low doorway, and crossed to the table to set the box upon it. He turned to Olivia.
“Come in.”
Olivia hesitated, then took a step inside. She stopped abruptly. The room was frigid. However, it was not the cold that stopped her, but the sense of something hovering in the air, heavy with menace and evil. It pushed against her body, its tendrils slithering around her. Thick and black, it tugged at her, curling around her throat...
Dragging in breath with a gasp, Olivia jumped back out of the room. She stared at Stephen, trembling, unable to speak, her eyes wide and her face drained of color.
“Olivia?” Stephen frowned in concern, starting toward her. “What is it? What’s the matter?”
She shook her head, unable to formulate what she had felt as she entered the room. Her stomach churned, and she felt weak and dizzy, as she had earlier when she had touched the small golden casket.
Stephen joined her in the bedroom, his arm going around her. “Did you see something again?”
“No. But it was—I felt it. I—there is evil in that room.”
“Evil?” He glanced back at the inner room.
Olivia did not follow his gaze. She could not even bear to look into the room again. She turned and walked over to the small straight chair by the door and sank down on it. Stephen watched her for a moment, then turned and closed the section of the wall. Once it was closed, there was no indication of where the line of the door was.
He went to Olivia and squatted down in front of her, taking both her hands between his. “Is it like it was downstairs?”
“Yes. But worse.” She looked at him. “You must think me foolish and weak.”
“No, of course not. I have never seen you to be either one of those things.”
“I feel it. But I couldn’t stay there—the feeling was too strong. I felt his presence in that room. I couldn’t go inside. It was as though he were pushing on me, smothering me.”
Olivia shivered, and the shiver set off a score more inside her, radiating out from her core. She wrapped her arms around herself, unable to stop her trembling. She felt chilled to the bone.
“Here. Let’s get you to your room,” Stephen said, standing and pulling her up with him.
He put his arm around her and walked her around the corner and down the hall to her room. He found one of her shawls lying across the back of a chair and wrapped it around her shoulders. The room was not cold; it was, in fact, quite pleasant. But Olivia could not stop shivering. He guided her over to the bed and opened the chest that sat at the foot of it. He pulled out a light knitted blanket and wrapped it around her, too. Then he took her in his arms and held her gently, the warmth of his body soaking into hers.
“I’m sorry,” Olivia began.
“Hush,” he told her, smiling. “I enjoy this.”
She chuckled and relaxed in his arms. The shivering had stopped, and for a moment she let herself luxuriate in the warmth. A movement in the hallway caught her eye, and she turned, looking out the door. She stiffened.
Irina stood in the hallway, looking in at them. She said nothing, her face carefully blank, just watching them.
Stephen felt Olivia’s movement in his arms, and he, too, looked up, following her gaze. For a long moment, the three of them simply stared at one another. Then Stephen’s arms dropped from around Olivia, and he walked over to the door and closed it firmly.
“Stephen!” Olivia said on a gasp, part astonishment, part amusement. “Miss Valenskaya caught us in a compromising position. You just made it even worse.”
He shrugged. “It’s my house. I don’t care to be spied on.”
Olivia groaned and sat down on the edge of her bed, shedding the blanket he had wrapped around her. “I wonder what tale she will carry back to the others.”
“I find it hard to care.” He stopped beside her, his hand wrapping around one of the posts of the bed. “Are you all right?”
“I think so.” Olivia shook her head. “It has been the strangest day. I feel as if I am disconnected from myself.”
After a moment, she went on softly. “My grandmother used to tell us that she communicated with my grandfather—after he was dead, that is. And with her dead parents, too. She liked to say that she knew things before they happened. She frightened me terribly.” She cast a sideways glance at Stephen. “She, of all of us, was the most deserving of the term ‘mad Morelands.’”
“Olivia...”
She shook her head, smiling. “No, let me finish. Kyria and Reed and the others always laughed off the nickname, but it bothered me. I think it was because I would think about Grandmother and wonder if it was true. She was an absolute harridan. She bullied everyone. Poor Great-uncle Bellard was terrified of her. Anyway, I remember once she told me that I was like her, that I had the second sight. She said I could see things and hear things that others could not. That was what scared me the most about her, I think. I told myself that everything she said was absurd. I didn’t want to be like her. I didn’t want to believe any of that was possible. I think that is why I started investigating mediums, discovering their tricks and exposing them.”
“You wanted to prove that it wasn’t possible?”
Olivia nodded. “Most of all, to prove that I would not, could not, be like her. And now...”
“You are not like her,” Stephen said decisively. “Whatever you have seen, you are not mad. And you certainly are not a harridan. You are a thoughtful, witty, compassionate and altogether remarkable woman. Don’t you remember my telling you that?”
Olivia smiled at him. “Yes.”
Stephen moved closer to her, and unconsciously she leaned toward him. His lips brushed hers. “If I stay here any longer,” he said, his voice husky, “I really will put you in a compromising position.”
He kissed her again, a light, firm peck on the lips, then turned and left the room. Olivia sighed and lay back on her bed. Just that light kiss, his very closeness, had her whole body thrumming, and she knew that, if she were honest, she would much prefer to have been compromised.
* * *
SUPPER THAT EVENING was subdued. Mr. Babington was still lying in his bedroom in his unconscious state. No one else could bring themselves to be very lively, even Belinda, whose recent scares had made her much quieter. Madame Valenskaya was obviously distressed over Mr. Babington’s state, and during the course of the evening, she waxed sentimental over her attachment to the “dear man.” Olivia, sitting beside the medium in the drawing room after supper, began to suspect the woman was tipsy.
The following morning, Olivia and Stephen began a search of the library for books regarding Blackhope and the Scorhill family, having already examined all the books to be found in Stephen’s study.
“Whatever it is we are seeing,” Olivia reasoned, “it has something to do with this house during the Middle Ages. If we could find a history that gave us information about the house during that time, perhaps it would help us.”
St. Leger agreed, and they went to the library after breakfast to begin a thorough search. Olivia enjoyed spending the time with Stephen, but after a morning of searching, they had little to show for their efforts.
“I never realized how many arcane and useless books we had in this library,” Stephen commented as they sat down at the library table for a rest and a revivifying cup of tea.
“Mmm. The Moreland library is like that, especially the one in the country seat.” She grinned. “I think even Great-uncle Bellard hasn’t read all the books there.” She paused, resting her chin on her hand, elbow propped on the table. “You know, I have been thinking about that dream I had. I keep feeling that Lady Alys was trying to tell me something.”
Stephen sent her a quizzical look, and she blushed. “Yes, I know. I sound nonsensical, thinking that some long-dead person—if, of course, she even existed—is communicating with me. But I cannot help feeling somehow connected to her. Why did I dream about that gold casket? And why did she say that to me about holding on to things that are precious?”
Stephen shrugged. “All right, I’ll go along. Why?”
“I don’t know!” Olivia said in frustration. “That is the problem. But, you know, I have been thinking and thinking about the dream, and I think—I know this will sound odd, but I think some of the things were missing.”
“What?”
“They were not in the box you showed me yesterday. That girdle I saw her put in, for instance. And there was a rather pretty chain with a smaller cross hanging on it, as well as a large bracelet-a wide golden band—that were not in your box. Yet there was an elegant little dagger in it that was not in there in my dream.”
He frowned. “I don’t know that any of that is significant. If the Martyrs’ treasure does come from the era of Sir Raymond, then by the time it reached the Lord Scorhill, who was beheaded, any number of things could have been added to or taken from the casket—lost or stolen or sold, even melted down to make some other piece of jewelry. There is no reason to think that all the jewelry would have survived.”
“No, I suppose not. And yet, it seemed as if she was trying to tell me something.” Olivia groaned, putting her hands to her face. “Oh, dear, I sound idiotic even to myself, thinking that a woman who doesn’t even exist is trying to tell me things in my dream.”
“At this point, I am not discounting anything,” Stephen told her. “You know, it is your mind working in your dreams. I have heard of people who have lost something and in a dream saw where they lost it. They had just forgotten what they knew. Perhaps this is something like that.”
“Perhaps.”
“What was it she said to you?”
“I wish I could remember exactly.” Olivia pressed her hand to her forehead. “You know how dreams are. At the time it seems so clear, and then you begin to forget the exact details. But it was something about keeping the things that are precious to you safe. Or maybe it was storing the things that are precious.” She started to speak, then stopped.
“What? What were you going to say?”
“Well, this is nothing, really, but I just had a thought. Maybe some of your really old books are stored. Is that possible? That they’ve been boxed up and put away somewhere? I mean, it seems likely to me that a book that concerns this time period could be quite old.”
“Or very dull,” Stephen added. “Which would make it a likely candidate for being stored away. All right. I’m willing to try it. We are nearly through with the books here, and we’ve found nothing useful. Where else shall we look? The unused wing of the house?”
“I don’t know. Do you think there are books there?”
He shrugged. “It’s possible. Or there could be boxes of books in the attic, I suppose.”
They decided to explore the attic first. After a consultation with the housekeeper as to where such things as books might have been salted away, they climbed to the highest floor, where they went up a narrow staircase into the large attic. It was a vast gloomy room under the roof, lit only by windows at either end. Stephen had come prepared with a lantern, but its circle of light illuminated only the small portion around them, leaving most of the rest of the huge room in shadows.
They started toward the east end of the attic, the bobbing lantern in Stephen’s hand casting ever-changing light and shadow over the hodgepodge of objects they passed. There were cabinets and other odd bits of furniture, as well as trunks and hall trees and assorted oddments, including canes, a dressmaker’s form that looked heart-poundingly human at first glance, and even a grotesque umbrella stand made out of the foot of an elephant.
When they reached the far end, where the housekeeper had directed them, Stephen put down his lantern on a nearby trunk, and he and Olivia set to work opening the various trunks and boxes around them. They found an assortment of things inside the trunks, usually clothes and shoes and toys, mementos of days past. They came at last to a cache of books, and they went through two trunks, taking out each book and looking at it, then going on to the next. They worked side by side in companionable accord.
Olivia’s hands and skirts were soon streaked with dust, and she suspected that her hair and face had gathered quite a bit of dust, too, but, frankly, she didn’t care. She felt sure that someone like Pamela would scorn what she was doing, but she was enjoying it. She and Stephen talked about this book or that as they pulled it from the pile, joking and exclaiming over some of his ancestors’ reading choices. He looked equally grubby as she, she saw with amused affection, one cheek streaked with dirt and his hair decorated with a cobweb of dust.
They did not find anything helpful in the first two trunks of books, but they continued back the way they had come, opening and exploring more boxes and trunks. They came upon another trunk full of books, and it was there that Stephen at last held up a volume in triumph.
“‘A Compleat Historie of Black Hope Manor,’” he read aloud, and grinned at Olivia.
She let out a squeal and said, “What does it say?”
He opened the front cover and held it closer to the light. “It seems to be a piece of pompous puffery, as best as I can tell, written by one of my illustrious ancestors.” He sighed. “He writes about the house, but he begins with the St. Leger acquisition of the place.”
“Hardly what I would call ‘compleat,’” Olivia complained.
“Yes, well, it looks to me as though his chief objective is illustrating how grand the St. Leger family is. He focuses more on the additions than anything else.” He flipped carefully through the aged leaves of the book. “Wait. Look. There is a piece of paper folded and stuck in the back cover. No. It’s glued in there, I believe.”
Gently he unfolded the fragile paper until it was four times as big as the back cover to which it was attached.
“It looks like a family tree,” he said.
Olivia moved closer to look over Stephen’s shoulder at the multitude of connected lines. “Your ancestors?”
“I guess—no, look—” His voice rose in excitement. “These are the Scorhills. This name is the martyred Lord Scorhill. See the date?”
“How far back does it go?” Olivia asked, peering down to look at it.
Stephen’s forefinger traced the lines back. “Here! Look—Sir Raymond, born 11??, died 1173.”
“No descendents,” Olivia said, “but here are three bars out to the side. These are wives, are they not?”
“Yes.” Stephen pointed to each name. “One unknown, one Gertrude of Rosemont.”
Olivia following his finger, finished for him. “And one Alys.”
A chill went through her as she looked at Stephen. “We have found her.”