“Have any others been taken?” she asked.
He stooped to inspect the titles. “Doesn’t look like it, no.” He straightened and cast a bewildered look at the towering, crowded cases around them. “Although I can’t with any honesty say nothing has been taken from any of the other shelves.”
“You have an impressive collection,” said Hero.
The Reverend smiled with obvious pride. “Thank you.”
“Do you remember who might have been in here last Sunday or Monday?”
“You mean around the time that unfortunate woman was killed?” He shook his head. “No, I’m sorry. One day does tend to blend into the next.”
“Could you perhaps recall the names of those who might have been here in the last several weeks?”
He looked vaguely uncomfortable. “Perhaps. But . . . I really don’t think I ought to be providing such information to anyone. We may not be Papists, but we are still bound by the sanctity of the confessional.”
She shifted her gaze to the window and the expanse of worn, leaning headstones that stretched beyond it. “I’m told Sybil Moss is buried in your churchyard.”
“Sybil?” Underwood’s face went slack with puzzlement. “She is, yes. Why do you ask?”
“I’d like to see her grave.”
Chapter 39
Hero stood beside the low, lichen-covered wall separating the churchyard from the rocky hillside above. The weathered gray stone at her feet was small and unmarked, with a freshly picked bunch of lavender resting against it.
She pressed the fingers of one hand against her lips as she felt an oppressive sadness wash over her. She could think of no greater sorrow for a mother than to bury her child. The very air here seemed heavy with despair, as if Anne Moss’s grief clung to this place, keeping her dead child company even when she was elsewhere.
The angry caw of a blackbird cut through the silence. Hero looked up to see a tall, lean gentleman in doeskin breeches and an exquisitely tailored coat working his way toward her through the scattered tombs. There was dust on his fashionable beaver hat and traces of mud on his black top boots, and she waited until he came right up to her before saying, “How many miles have you driven in the last several days?”
“Too many,” said Devlin, and swept her into his arms.
It was a raw kiss, full of want and need, and probably totally inappropriate for a churchyard. And she knew then that whatever he’d discovered had left him troubled and unsettled.
He let his hands slide down her arms, his forehead resting against hers for a moment before he released her.
He nodded to the small, plain marker beside her. “Whose grave is this?”
“Sybil Moss’s.”
“So she wasn’t buried at the crossroads after all.”
“No. The vicar managed to convince the jury she wasn’t in her right mind.” Hero paused. “The other girl, Hannah, wasn’t as lucky.”
She was aware of him studying her face and wondered what he saw there. “You still think the deaths of those two young women are linked to what happened to Emma?”
“Yes. Although I can’t understand how.”
He reached out to take her hand in his. “I think I may have an idea.”
They sat beneath a gnarled old yew on a bench looking out over the churchyard’s undulating turf and ancient, timeworn gravestones. He told her what he had learned about the woman called Emma Chandler and the tragic young earl’s daughter who had given her birth.
“That poor girl,” said Hero when he had finished.
“Which one? Lady Emily or her daughter?”
“Both, actually. I never cared for Lady Heyworth. But I hadn’t realized quite how despicable she actually is.”
“‘To coddle the fruits of sin is to condone the act that created them,’” quoted Devlin.
“She said that?”
“No; that was Miss Rowena LaMont.”
“Lovely.”
She understood now why what he’d discovered about Emma Chandler had affected him so profoundly. Like Devlin, Emma had been desperate to learn the truth about her birth and had come to this seemingly quiet, picturesque village on a quest to discover the identity of the unknown man who had fathered her.
“Is that why Emma crossed Squire Rawlins’s name off her list?” said Hero. “Because she was actually looking for Archie’s father and she realized the man was dead?”
“Except she didn’t cross off Lord Seaton’s name even though she knew before she came here that he’s dead too. She crossed off Atwater, although he’s still very much alive. And she drew Archie’s portrait, remember?”