Chapter 22

22

S ince they were already dressed for the cold, Roland left Grace with Mrs Yardley and took Thorne with him to head to St Michael’s church. It was high time to solve the mystery of what had happened to the woman who would have been his great-aunt. The church records would be the first step in discovering what became of Hannah when she was no longer considered a Percy.

Christmas was still the better part of a week away, and given that it was the middle of the week, St. Michael’s was eerily serene. The sunlight filtering through the windows was dappled by dust motes disturbed by the breeze of their entry, but they found the inside of the church otherwise empty.

A middle-aged man in a plain frock coat popped his head out of the vestry. “Lord Percy!” the man said. “Reverend Shepherd is not here at the moment. Is there something I might be able to assist you with?”

Roland didn’t recognise the man. “You have the advantage of me, I am afraid, Mr…” Roland trailed off, waiting for the man to introduce himself.

“Oh, my apologies, my lord. I’m Edwin Crowther, the parish clerk here at St. Michael’s. I assist the reverend with church affairs and services.”

The coincidence seemed almost too good to be true. “Church affairs, you say? Then you might be just the man we are looking for. Mr Crowther, this is Sir Nathaniel Thorne. He has been indispensable to me with several matters in Alnwick. Right now we have a bit of a minor mystery on our hands, and if you have access to the parish registers, you may be able to help solve it.”

The man beamed. “It’s so very good to meet you both. Yes, I maintain the registers, as you can, well… see.” He lifted his hands, which were spotted with ink stains. “Where would you like to begin?”

“Perhaps the marriage records might be best to begin with,” Thorne said, glancing at Roland. “Although we do not know if she got married. We’re looking for any sign of a woman named Hannah marrying a man named John in 1765. And barring that, we would be looking for any sign of a child of hers, born the spring of 1766.”

Hannah , the man mouthed to himself, scratching his chin. But he shook his head and gestured to the men to follow him into the vestry.

The vestry itself was cramped but tidy, and with the three men in the space, plus all the shelving, they barely fit. However Roland perched himself upon the rough wooden stool to one side of the room, and Thorne leaned against the wall behind the clerk’s desk to stay out of the way. Crowther stood at the bookshelves, glancing within the covers at the first and last dates of entries. He discarded several tomes until he found the birth and marriage registers that would span the right period, and finally he took his seat with the tomes, opening them.

Wetting his fingertip idly, Crowther flipped through the pages of the marriage register, seeking the entries in 1765. Marking the place with his left hand, he flipped forward a page, scanning the contents.

“I do not see any Hannah or John listed at all in either year, my lord. But this could simply mean she was married some place other than Alnwick,” he offered. “We are not far from Scotland. Do you know if the lady eloped?”

“There is a possibility she could have,” Roland agreed dourly. “Or have been married at one of the neighbouring villages. Or perhaps she was never even married at all. It was too much to hope for.”

Crowther set aside the marriage register, and as he did so, the wooden front doors of the church banged shut. Lifting his head, Crowther paused. “I should check to see if someone needs assistance. Excuse me just one moment, gentlemen.”

But footfalls were already coming towards the vestry even as Crowther navigated himself around the desk. Only a brief knock preceded the entry of Reverend Shepherd himself.

“Lord Percy, Sir Nathaniel!” the reverend said in surprise, squeezing into the space. To make more room, Crowther sat back down at his desk. “I was told you were seen heading into the church. Were you looking for me?”

“We were only seeking information, Reverend,” Roland told the man. “Mr Crowther has been quite helpful already, so I apologise if you had other plans. I believe we will find what we are looking for, so there is no need for you to disrupt your day to assist us.”

Reverend Shepherd let out a booming laugh. “Nonsense! I am happy to help if I can. Although I do have to admit I am curious—what might the, er…” he trailed off as he craned his neck to look at the page in front of Crowther, and then his eyebrows lifted in confusion. “Old baptismal records? Lord Percy, pardon me, I thought you and Sir Nathaniel were still investigating matters related to the missing children.”

Crowther, who had continued perusing the ledger, ran his fingers down the list of births from both years. “I cannot find a date of baptism to a child born of a woman named Hannah in 1766. But… there is Mary, baseborn daughter of a woman named Anna—no family name is provided. She was baptised the first Sunday of May.”

Thorne and Roland exchanged glances. If Hannah knew she was carrying in a child in the late summer or early fall, that child would have been born in April, or thereabouts. Hannah could have indeed shortened her name to Anna.

“Edwin, could you lend me the room?” the reverend said unexpectedly, interrupting Crowther’s continuing perusal of the book. “I wish to discuss something privately with Lord Percy.”

Both Roland and Thorne jerked, having forgotten Reverend Shepherd’s presence while considering the information. The clerk blinked and then nodded, closing the old book as he got to his feet.

After they could hear the closing of the church front door, Shepherd turned a hard look at both men, though Roland couldn’t help but notice that Thorne got the brunt of it. “Why are you looking into Hannah Percy?” the reverend asked mildly.

Roland was unimpressed by the reverend’s disapproval. “It is a family matter. But I take it, then, that you are familiar with the scandal.”

“Familiar with it, aye. One could say that. It all happened, of course, before I was born.” The reverend looked to be only in his mid forties at best. “I do know, however, His Grace was quite adamant that the matter be kept silent and forgotten. So much so that my own predecessor made sure I was aware of His Grace’s wishes before he passed on. You do not have the title yet, Lord Percy, and so neither do you have the authority to overturn the duke’s wishes.”

Steepling his fingers, Roland considered how to convince the reverend to cooperate. After all, he did not wish to reveal anything more about the tunnel, or Alnwick Castle’s illicit visitor. “I do not wish to overturn his wishes. But it is imperative that I know what became of Hannah Percy after she left the duke.”

“Is it?” The reverend looked at Roland sidelong. “She has been dead for many years. The dead do not recognise any mortal urgency, my lord.”

“Dead to the line, or dead and in the ground?”

“Most assuredly, in the ground. She passed away some fifteen years ago, and I attended her funeral myself. Perhaps you should let her enjoy the peace she could not find in life, my lord.”

That was a bitter revelation. No matter how much his grandfather might regret it, it was far too late for him to make amends with his sister. Still…

“I wish I could,” Roland said, trying tact. “I am not at liberty to discuss all my reasons, but I assure you, reverend, I am not asking for this information for a trivial reason. Hannah Percy may be beyond time, but there is a young life at stake, not to mention that of her surviving family’s.”

Roland had anticipated the possibility that the reverend would be unmoved by his plea, but he still expected the man to pretend to consider it.

The reaction he got instead was wholly unexpected. “Hannah Percy conducted herself in a scandalously improper manner for a lady of her breeding, Lord Percy, and your fascination with the consequences of a lady’s liaison with a man of the lower classes is nearly as outrageous as her disregard for her station. I will do naught to indulge your curiosity, and I must ask you to leave, my lord. Mr Crowther and I have other business to attend to this day, and I must lock up the office.”

Surprised, Roland opened his mouth to argue.

“Lord Percy,” Thorne interrupted him as he stepped around the desk, trailing his fingers on the wood. “The reverend is caught between your hammer and the anvil of the duke’s wishes. There is no reason we cannot come back with the duke’s permission this afternoon. But for now, Mr Harding is expecting us back.”

The reverend swallowed heavily, and Roland, wondering what the devil his brother was about, slowly nodded his agreement. Shepherd opened the vestibule door for Roland, a clear invitation to leave, and Roland stepped out into the main church.

Thorne remained silent until they exited St Michael’s, stepping quickly back down the street. The reverend did not follow.

“Well,” Roland said slowly. “That was… odd. But I suppose you are right. It would be easier to forge a request from the duke than it would be to argue with the fool.”

“We may not need to,” Thorne replied, and he pulled a ledger from where it was tucked inside of the coat.

Roland let out a bark of laughter. “Sir Bastard, you surprise me. Stealing from a church? What would God think of that?”

“ Borrowed . It isn’t stealing if I do not intend to keep it, you barbarian,” his brother replied peevishly. “And I suspect God will forgive me even so. There are many wrongs to set right in Alnwick, and the air is thick with deception.”

Grunting his agreement, Roland held further comment as they returned to the castle and entered the foyer. Thorne continued towards his study, his brother barely pausing to shuck his coat and gloves. As they hurried past, Roland saw the drawing room’s door was open, and Grace stood waiting just inside the open doorway.

“We learned a few things at least,” Roland said, grabbing Grace by the hand and taking long strides to catch up with Thorne again. Grace had to quicken her pace to a trot, but it was only for a few steps. “It seems Hannah stayed in the area, and survived to her forties at least. The question then is whether John the farmer did right by her.”

Thorne threw open the study door in a hurry, nearly startling poor Mr Harding into knocking off the piles of paper forming on the table he had appropriated as his own.

“I believe he did,” his brother said as he plunked the old book down on Roland’s desk, flipping through pages quickly and tracing the dates. “As I was looking over Crowther’s shoulder, I read a little further ahead. Here.” His finger stabbed a line on the page opposite the entry about baseborn Mary, daughter of Anna.

Bertram Robson, son of John Robson (farmer), November 9, 1766

“Bertram Robson,” Grace read aloud, having beaten Roland to Thorne’s side. Across the room, Mr Harding paused his shuffling. “And the mother’s name is not listed. You think this could be Hannah’s son?”

“There are only a few reasons a clerk might leave off the mother’s name, especially when he has faithfully recorded them even on the baseborn children like Mary. She might have died, or given up the child—” Roland began.

“Which she clearly did not intend to do.”

“Or, she was deliberately absent for another reason. Such as obscuring a connection to the child,” Thorne finished.

“Baptising a child months after his birth would also serve the same purpose.” Roland dishevelled his hair again, thinking. Briggs would have a conniption next time he set foot in the hallway, so he crossed his arms over his chest instead. “Why does John Robson’s name sound so familiar?”

“It is a rather common name in these parts, my lord,” Harding volunteered from his table. He laid his hand on his ordered stack. “There are at least six in the church registry. I’ve got petitions from a couple of them somewhere in this.”

“Was Robson not the name of the parish constable in Alnmouth? That seems like an odd sort of coincidence,” Thorne added, closing the register and leaning on Roland’s desk.

"If we believed it was a coincidence, we would be making cakes of ourselves," Roland muttered. “No, this fortuity was orchestrated by human hand. I will be making a trip to Robson’s house at once, to see if I cannot find Bertram and learn if he knows anything about our missing girl.”

Grace’s eyes opened wide as she took in the light outdoors, already beginning to turn a more golden shade.

Thorne straightened. “We should ride in force. Mr Harding and Colonel Ellesmere can join us?—”

“I will take Colonel Ellesmere. But you need to stay,” Roland told his brother, gripping his forearm for emphasis. “Thorne, we might be grasping at straws. If we have guessed wrong, and Willa’s kidnapper is still nearby…”

Roland would take leave of his senses if anything happened to Grace. Fortunately, Thorne understood him perfectly. “All right. I’ll stay nearby and set a guard on Wes and Lady Grace.”

“Thank you,” Roland said in an undertone, ignoring Grace’s apprehension. He turned to his lady wife, wishing he dared kiss her goodbye in front of Harding. Perhaps it was just as well he couldn’t, because Grace looked like she might burst into tears if he did.

Had he really promised her that they would always take their risks together? A child’s promise. She could not follow him now to Alnmouth and he… well, he would never know the dangers of the birthing bed.

But now was not the time to borrow trouble against the future. Roland had to settle for taking her hands, rubbing the backs of them with his thumbs. Before leaving, he gave one last order to Thorne. “Go back and keep watch on Reverend Shepherd. I am left wondering whether he was truly instructed to keep all information on Hannah from me or if it was a clever ruse to continue hiding some other bit of truth.”