Chapter Twenty-Six

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

DIANA NOVEMBER 1918

After Clarissa's shocking revelation about Thomas and the ghost boy, which left Diana gaping like a landed fish, someone knocked on her door and the telephone rang and the headmistress was swept away into a whirl of business.

Diana grabbed a cup of tea and two slices of toast from the dining room that was filled with unusually subdued boys before returning to her room. She fell into an uneasy sleep, dreaming of vague impressions of galloping horses and bloody banners.

She woke unrefreshed before noon, took a quick bath, and checked in on Jasper, who was sleeping much more peacefully than she had. Laudanum would do that.

Emerging from the infirmary, she found Joshua once more hovering in the corridor. When Diana saw how he was dressed—heavy trousers, chunky knit sweater, waterproof mackintosh and boots—she groaned aloud.

"I'm going to regret having just bathed, aren't I?" she asked. "Where are we exploring now? Hopefully, by your coat, in the wide outdoors."

"I thought we should take a look around the area where Granddad found Jasper. Whether a ghost or something else led the boy there, we should check it out."

Diana couldn't argue with that logic. And the thought of being in the open air beneath Northumberland's skies appealed. Surely that would wipe away any lingering effects from the medieval solar this morning. It might also wipe her away, she realized, after ten minutes walking through a scouring wind that made it hard to breathe.

Joshua eyed her sideways. "Wishing you were back in London?"

"At least I don't have to trip over a hundred people just to get where I'm going. Speaking of which, where exactly are we going?"

Joshua pointed to some feature of the landscape that Diana couldn't distinguish. "Granddad walks the wall every day at sunrise—rain, shine, or blizzard. This morning he decided to check out the old icehouse, probably because he was telling you about it yesterday."

Diana squinted as they got closer to what looked like just another jumble of rocks, trying to trace a design. "Old icehouse?" she asked skeptically.

"Medieval, actually. All of this land belonged to the priory of Havencross. The icehouse was built around 1300, but when it became a private house it was deemed too far away and something nearer was constructed."

Diana studied the area doubtfully. "Jasper came this far? Alone and in the dark?"

"Certainly argues for a very persuasive ghost."

"If your grandfather hadn't come this way, it might have been another hour or so before he found him. With this wind—" Diana shook her head. "We've got to put a stop to this, Joshua. Or someone's going to die."

"I know. That's why we're here."

At Joshua's insistence, when the first pass of roughly twenty-five feet in diameter revealed nothing of note, they examined it again on their hands and knees. Diana wondered if he had a magnifying glass in his pocket, planning to whip it out like Sherlock Holmes if he found a clue.

She wasn't finding clues. She wasn't finding anything except heather, dying thistles, and sharp stones. Diana sat back on her heels and stretched. The ache of exhaustion had settled behind her eyes, and she blinked away the collection of dark spots that danced before her.

Instead of disappearing, the spots coalesced into an opening between two of the stones precariously stacked on the old icehouse foundation. Diana couldn't have said what caught her attention. Perhaps its angle? Gingerly, she worked one hand into the opening and pulled at the top stone.

It came out all of a sudden, knocking her off-balance and alerting Joshua.

"Found something?"

"I don't know. Probably just some animal burrowed into the ground here." But even she, London born and bred, could tell very quickly that this opening hadn't been made by animals.

After half an hour of concentrated work, they had moved enough stones—and used some of the sharper ones to dig into looser soil—to uncover an opening that was at least three feet across with inlaid brickwork around its edge.

"The outlet of a secret tunnel." Diana sighed. "I knew I was coming to the edge of the known world up here, but I didn't expect to be transported to an adventure novel."

"Priories, convents, and monasteries were wealthy places—some of them, anyway," Joshua said, repeating his grandfather's words. "They always had to keep in mind the threat of soldiers and marauders. It might even have served simply to hide portable wealth."

"Whatever its original intent, it's definitely the kind of thing that appeals to boys. Do you think—is there any chance this is what happened to Thomas?"

"Trapped in a tunnel? Not this one, at least. Not from this direction. I doubt anyone's moved those rocks since the archaeologists my granddad referenced from 1870."

"Then why was Jasper Willis out here?"

The eternal, unanswerable question. Except that Jasper had answered it: he said the ghost boy had led him to this spot. Even accepting the unbelievability of that, what would be the purpose?

Joshua was sifting through the loose soil they'd moved around the opening, his face closed off in thought. Diana allowed herself to watch him, appreciating his capable hands, his palms toughened by regular riding, the line of his jaw, and the hollow beneath where his jaw and ear met. She imagined pressing her lips to that spot and felt herself flush when Joshua's hands stilled. Had he realized she was watching him?

But he didn't turn to her, not right away. Instead, he used just his fingertips to brush at something that had caught his eye in the debris.

"Well, well, well," he murmured.

"What is it?"

Joshua plucked the object and held it between his fingers for Diana to see.

"Is that …" She narrowed her eyes and leaned closer, staring at the thin disk. "Is that a coin?"

"An old coin," he corrected her. "Possibly Roman. They still turn up from time to time around here." He handed it to her. "For luck."

She stared at the dark circle, grimed with age. It didn't look particularly lucky.

Joshua stood, his left leg catching. He expertly rebalanced and offered Diana a hand. She allowed him to help her up and then kept hold of his hand.

A million things swam through her head: Jasper's broken leg, the possibility of open doors at night, how to stop vulnerable boys from conjuring ghosts when she herself had seen an entire troop of medieval horsemen riding into Havencross this morning. And was the war ever going to end, and would the terrible tension that she felt snap when it did end?

Joshua didn't pry, didn't push, didn't try to pretend. He simply pulled her close and wrapped his arms around her. And for just a few minutes, Diana was at peace.