And Then She Fell (The Cynster Sisters Duo 1)

As Channing had said, the path was even, a very gentle downward slope leading them, somewhat deceptively, deeper and deeper into the old woods. The line of ramblers stretched out as they fell into groups, chatting as they walked. Topics were inconsequential; various guests stopped to point out a bird flitting through the branches, or to examine a fern, and gradually the group devolved into couples ambling companionably.

A full half hour had elapsed before Violet and Channing led them around a curve in the path, and the ruins rose all around them. Coming up behind their friends, Henrietta and James both stared, eyes widening as they raised their gazes to the tops of the high stone walls, mottled and pocked with mosses and lichens, and draped with encroaching creepers, then looked further, gazes sweeping over a wide expanse filled with the remnants of tumbled-down walls.

Henrietta slipped her hand onto James’s sleeve; the chill of the shadows—and doubtless all that looming rock—sent a shiver through her, and she shifted closer, nearer to James’s warmth.

He turned his head and smiled, closing his hand over hers on his sleeve, then he looked past her and drew her on, to the side, as others of the party rounded the curve and, as they had, stopped to stare.

“It’s a sight worth gawping over,” Henrietta murmured, looking again at the columns and the curves of arches that rose, skeletal memories of grandeur, here and there among the walls. After a moment, she said, “Come on. Let’s explore.”

They did, as did all the others. They paced around long-forgotten cloisters and strolled down stone-paved corridors now open to the sky. Navigating through what, from the arches distinguishing it, appeared to be the old priory church was an exercise in slipping between massive carved rectangular stones strewn like children’s blocks by some giant’s hand.

James and Giles met on what both agreed had to be the front porch of the church. Both stood and looked around while Henrietta, picking her way through the ruined nave, and Miss Findlayson, clambering up from below, joined them.

“I’d take my oath,” Giles said, pausing to give Miss Findlayson his hand up the last steep step, “that when they built this place, that hill”—releasing Miss Findlayson with a smile, he turned to survey the hill behind them, the one the ruins appeared to be built into the side of—“wasn’t there.”

Hands on his hips, James nodded. “I agree. That wall”—he pointed to a wall at the rear of the ruins, the top of which showed just above the hillside as if it were a retaining wall holding back the mass of the hill—“looks to be the central wall of the main priory building, the building that would have housed the dormitories and living quarters. See?” He pointed to the rim of the wall. “Those are capstones, so that was the top of the wall.” Lowering his arm, he looked around once more. “And Violet was right—this appears to be only half the priory. The rest, presumably, lies beyond the main building—beyond that wall and now buried under the hill.”

Giles was nodding. “So the hill couldn’t have been there, not back when this place was in use.”

Scanning the wall in question, Henrietta said, “I know it’s been centuries since the priory was inhabited, but I wonder how and why the hill came to form there?”

They speculated at length—given the age of the trees growing over the hill and in some places overhanging the top of the wall, some act of disrespect at the time of the Dissolution became their favored theory—then James and Henrietta parted from Giles and Miss Findlayson and plunged back into the maze of ruined walls, making their way to the rear of the ruins, to what James had hypothesized had been the central wall of the main building.

“If we look closely, there should be a pattern of rooms lying on this side of the wall.” He gave Henrietta his hand to help her over a fallen rock.

They enjoyed themselves, with a certain sense of triumph discovering the remains of long-ago rooms, tracing the outlines, comparing each room’s relationship to the main wall and the other rooms, and speculating as to what each room might have been used for. The sun’s rays were angling through the surrounding trees when the sudden sound of voices—not chatting but arguing violently—reached them.

A gentleman’s voice and a lady’s voice.

James looked at Henrietta; she’d heard them, too. Quietly, he walked a short distance along the corridor to where an archway allowed him a restricted view into the next section of the ruins.

He halted abruptly, then held still, looking out at the vignette framed by the ancient stone.

Silently, Henrietta glided up and stopped beside him; placing her hand on his arm, she looked out, too.

Rafe Cunningham had finally cornered Millicent Fotherb

y. He was arguing . . . or was it pleading? James and Henrietta could hear the voices, the tones, but not the words. Millicent was wringing her hands and shaking her head; her expression stated she wasn’t going to be moved, no matter the violence of Rafe’s feelings.

Abruptly, Rafe threw his hands to the sky, then looked down at Millicent.

And Millicent finally spoke. Whatever she said, it struck Rafe like a blow—James and Henrietta saw the jerk of his spine, the jolt of his head.

But then Rafe shook his head and growled—one word of utter denial.

And swept Millicent into his arms and kissed her.

James tensed—he couldn’t allow Rafe to assault Millicent—but Henrietta’s fingers curled in his sleeve. “Wait!” she whispered.

James wondered what he was supposed to wait for . . . but then Millicent’s arms, at first lax by her sides, slowly rose. And tentatively, so gently and warily it was difficult to watch, she raised her arms and her hands stole up to Rafe’s shoulders, then slowly slid to cup his nape.

And Millicent was kissing Rafe back.

James relaxed. “Ah.”

After a moment—long enough to confirm that Millicent wasn’t about to change her mind—he turned away. Catching Henrietta’s hand in his, he met her eyes and grinned. Then he lifted her hand, pressed a kiss to her fingers, and they headed back along the corridor. “Where were we?” he murmured.

Henrietta glanced around. “About here, wasn’t it?”