Chapter 21

21

F ear made Grace’s stomach roil. Sitting down and waiting for news was out of the question. Roland had told her to send someone through the doorway into the secret passage. Someone, but not her, was what he had implied. On this, she was in disagreement. If their child, for she thought of the Sprouts as their responsibility, was lost or hurt, she would not send a stranger to their rescue. She asked a footman to fetch Mrs Yardley.

“Are you afraid of tight spaces?” Grace asked, with no explanation, once the woman appeared.

“I am not,” Mrs Yardley replied. “If you mean to enter the passageway, I will gladly accompany you. Francis,” she added, turning to the footman, “Get a couple of torches and another footman. We will need plenty of light.”

While they waited for the footman to do her bidding, Grace returned to the hallway in the family wing. There were no signs of a scuffle, and no drops of blood anywhere. There were plenty of hiding places for a child. Grace put herself in the young girl’s shoes. Willa must have seen someone walking in the hallway and followed them. The girl was exceptionally good at moving without making a noise, a skill she had picked up while living as an orphan on the streets of London.

Perhaps that was what had happened. Someone had come in through the tunnel and left again, with no knowledge that they were being followed… except they must have noticed, for Willa had not returned to tell them what she had seen.

“A cloak, my lady,” Mrs Yardley said, drawing Grace back to the present. The housekeeper wore a similar one.

Grace threw the thick woollen cloak over the simple dress she had donned in a rush. She still had her slippers on her feet. It was no matter. She was not going to go outside.

The strapping footman who had rushed off to do the housekeeper’s bidding returned with an equally strong man and the requested torches. He took the lead, guiding Grace and Mrs Yardley back into the bedroom. He glanced back once, determination writ in the lines on his face, and then stepped through the hidden entrance. He disappeared from sight almost immediately, but soon called back that he had reached a staircase.

“Follow it down,” Grace commanded in an unwavering voice, despite the fear freezing her bowels. “We are right behind you.”

The passageway was as dark as a crypt and equally as eerie. There was no light save that which they had brought with them. The torches in the front and back fought against the shadows, their light surging forward in uneven charges, only to be repelled just as fast. The faint scent of old stone, a cold, mineral smell mingled with the dryness of dust, tickled her nose.

As promised, they reached the start of a narrow, winding staircase. Grace stretched out a hand to steady herself. The stone walls were covered with a thin layer of dust. She spotted a cobweb clinging to a corner and jerked her hand back in time to avoid it. To keep from shuddering, she focused on the small cracks in the walls that testified to the age of the passageway.

Down they went, past what must have been the ground and into the bowels of the earth. The dusty stairs turned damp in places where moisture had seeped through, leaving darker patches. It was enough to soak through her satin slippers, until her toes went numb from the cold.

The occasional drip of water from the ceiling created a faint, rhythmic sound. In some places, she heard the rustling of small creatures disturbed by her presence. Either mice or bats, she thought, though she was hard pressed to decide which was worse.

She prayed to find Willa around each bend, yet just as fervently hoped she would not. She could hardly bear the thought of the child sitting in the dark on her own. Injured… No, she refused to imagine the alternative. Willa had to be fine.

In the silence, her own breathing seemed louder, mingling with the slight hiss of air moving through the passageway. The lead footman trudged forward, as unnerved as the rest. Only sheer bravado and the women behind him prevented him from turning back.

“I see something,” he called, his voice echoing off the stone walls of the passage. He held his torch high, illuminating a scrap of cloth on the ground.

Grace pushed past him, uncaring about the risk. Her mind said it was far too small to be the missing girl, but her heart drove her onward. She scooped the item up.

It was Anne Bonny—Willa’s most favoured possession—tossed aside. Abandoned.

Grace clutched the doll to her chest, unable to stem the flow of tears falling down her cheeks. Keening cries filled the air. It was not until Mrs Yardley wrapped an arm around her that Grace realised she was the one making them.

“Come, my lady, it is far too cold and damp for us to continue. We will leave the footmen to carry on until they meet with Lord Percy and Sir Nathaniel.” Mrs Yardley took a torch in one hand and used the other to turn Grace back in the direction in which they had come. She did not drop her arm until they reached the base of the narrow stairs. “Can you make it up on your own?”

Grace could not move. She did not know whether to give up and go back to the warmth of her chambers, or to throw off the housekeeper and charge back into the underground tunnel, her health be damned.

“You must protect the baby, my lady,” Mrs Yardley murmured in a soft tone.

Her words jolted Grace out of her stupor. Protect her unborn child? The castle was meant to be a safe haven, yet someone had broken in. More than once, if the Sprouts were correct. They had complained of hearing noises on multiple occasions. Someone had been walking the halls for days. It was sheer luck that they had not been seen before. Or, was it?

Withers had claimed the entrance to the passage had been boarded up for nearly a half century. After all that time, what was the likelihood someone stumbled across it by chance?

No, Grace could not believe that. Whoever came in knew exactly what they were about. They had thwarted all security measures, not through luck, but through planning and care. Only Willa’s midnight foray had led to their discovery.

The list of people both old and wise enough about the castle interiors had to be short. The duke had to have closed it off for a reason. Fifty years earlier, he would have been Roland’s age, already carrying the title. His younger brother might have known.

Or… his sister Hannah. Hannah, who was presumed, but not proved, to be dead.

Grace took a fortifying breath and then passed Willa’s doll to the housekeeper. She gathered the cloak and skirt in her hands, lifting them out of the way, and then hurried up the stairs as fast as her legs would carry her. Her thighs burned from the exertion, but she forced herself to move through the pain.

As soon as Grace and Mrs Yardley arrived back into the bedroom above, Grace turned to give a new set of instructions. “We need to know what our intruder was after. Can you have the servants check every room on this floor and the one below? They have entered more than once. Items may be missing.”

“Nothing is gone, my lady,” Mrs Yardley hurried to reassure her. “The staff are in and out of the same rooms, day after day. They would have alerted me of any changes.”

”Search the rooms that are not in use, then. In a castle this large, there must be rooms that have not been entered in days. Pay close attention to any domains the duke claimed for himself.”

Mrs Yardley bobbed her head in acknowledgement and hurried off to do Grace’s bidding. Grace paused a moment longer to study her reflection in a mirror. She had a streak of dust across her cheek and a cobweb in her hair. She raised her hand to wipe them away but thought better of it. Let the Breaker see her as she was, dishevelled, frightened, and burning with anger.

Withers stood guard outside the door to the old duke’s suite. Grace met his gaze head on, practically daring him to stop her. He must have seen something of her sentiments in her eyes for he shuffled out of the way.

Grace rapped twice, rapid fire, and then swung open the door. Once again, the duke sat by the fire in his sitting room. He glanced up, his face lighting up at the sight of her, but when she stalked closer, his pleasure faded, leaving behind only confusion. “Why have you come in unannounced? What is all this fuss I hear?”

Grace drew herself up straight and ignored his questions. “Who knew about the tunnel?”

The duke’s brow creased. “What tunnel? There is no tunnel. I made sure of it.”

“The tunnel is in use again, by someone coming from the outside. Withers told us he ordered it closed nigh fifty years ago. How odd. That would be roughly the same time when Hannah snuck out to meet her lover. Did she use the secret passage in the duchess’s suite to come and go with no one else the wiser?”

“That tunnel was a family secret! There for our safety, to give our family an escape route out in case of siege or attack. She could have put us all at risk, showing it to others!” The duke raised his shaking fist in anger, but he did not have the strength to keep up his rant. His hand dropped back into his lap and the fight drained out of him. He sighed heavily and turned away to face the fire. In a voice barely audible, he said, “She left me. She chose him. I will never know why.”

A million and one reasons flashed into Grace’s mind, but she stopped herself from voicing any of them. She was angry, but not cruel, and beating him further with his mistakes served no purpose at all.

“Someone has been coming into Alnwick Castle, night after night, using that same passageway to enter in secret. Was there anyone who knew of its existence outside of the family and Withers?”

The duke gave a slow shake of his head, still looking away.

Grace grasped the implications but she wondered if the duke did. “You claimed Hannah died that night, Your Grace. Clearly, she lived long enough to tell someone else about that tunnel. Her lover, perhaps her husband, after you cast her out? Mayhap she did it only to explain how she made her escape. I cannot imagine someone well into their seventies or eighties making that trek.”

“My nephew—or niece, I suppose.” He covered his face with his hand and his shoulders shook. “The child must hate me for what I did, just as their mother must have carried that same hate to her grave, if she is indeed gone.”

“What if Hannah is still alive? Would you bar her return, even now, after all these many years?”

If the Breaker replied, Grace did not hear it. He wept silently.

Grace backed away on silent feet and let herself out the door. Roland stood waiting on the other side of it.

“I heard,” he said. “You did not close the door all the way.”

“Willa?” Grace asked, clasping her hands together, desperately hoping for good news.

“Whoever it was took her, though I do not think she was their intended target.” Roland offered Grace his arm and escorted her to the stairs. “Our intruder spent a fair amount of time in my grandfather’s study. Mrs Yardley found it in disarray. If it is Hannah’s child, or some other relation, I cannot imagine what they wanted from there. Perhaps proof that would help their recognition—but instead they found someone to ransom for it.”