Page 29 of The Forgotten Boy

“Well,” Joshua said, “let’s see how good my memory is. If I’m right, this is where Clarissa and I emerged all those years ago when she showed me the secret passage.”

He and Diana had to move boxes of old agendas and pieces of worn-out desks and chairs to get to the passage’s opening. No one had bothered to conceal it beyond the piles of junk—it was simply a low rectangle cut into the wall that levered open to reveal, not the matching servant’s room next door, but a narrow corridor between the two rooms. It couldn’t be much wider than Joshua’s shoulders, and she saw him raise his eyebrows at the sight.

“The space was certainly much bigger when I was young,” he noted, but his grin belied any hint of apprehension he might feel. “Good thing I’ve got you. If I get stuck, you’ll have to find an ax or something.”

You’re putting a lot of faith in a woman whose last experience in an enclosed space left her paralyzed and choking. She would never tell Joshua that. She would never tell anyone that.

With considerable sarcasm, she retorted, “Yes, I can see myself explaining to Miss Somersby now: ‘No worries, just one of your masters is stuck inside the walls of your house, and I’m going to ax him free. You don’t mind if I bring down a ceiling or two in the process, do you?’”

Joshua laughed and touched her hand with his. “I’ll go first.”

Although his hand had only rested on hers for a moment, it felt cold when he withdrew. She watched his strong, straight back moving carefully down the hidden passage and, with a quiet sigh, followed.

It wasn’t so bad. Although narrow, the passageway was the same height as the rooms it was carved out of and was constructed of the same wood and plaster. Their torches shone brightly, and for some time Diana saw little but dust.

“I knew it.” Joshua’s satisfied voice floated back to her, and she moved up to where he’d stopped.

He leaned his back against the wall, allowing Diana to see past him to where a second passage angled off from the straight path they were on.

“That direction”—Joshua gestured with his torch to the straight path—“leads to the stairs that go down to the second-floor linen closet in today’s staff corridor. That’s the direction Clarissa brought me years ago. She didn’t tell me where this other passage leads.”

“Maybe she didn’t know,” Diana offered.

“Let’s find out, shall we?”

In spite of how tight her entire body was held, Diana felt the first thrill of curiosity and wondered how much of that she was picking up from her companion. Either way, she said, “Let’s.”

Unlike the path they’d been on, the offshoot passage rambled in twists and turns until Diana had no idea where they were in the house. Still on the attic level, at least—until they reached a stone staircase so tightly wound she couldn’t see more than two steps at a time.

Joshua continued to lead the way going down, but now Diana kept close enough that she kept bumping him with her torch. She was not about to let him out of her sight in this confined space. Already her blood pulsed so loudly that she was sure he could hear it. She thought maybe he had when he began to narrate what he could see. Since there was nothing to see but stone, it was less informative and more just comforting hearing his voice.

“It’s odd, don’t you think,” Joshua said, “that the spiral stairs were constructed of stone when the passageways are more like regular corridors. Only smaller and hidden. Maybe Gideon Somersby had a thing for the medieval and wanted to put touches of the old house into the new one.”

“Where no one could see it but him?”

“Exactly. Possessive. A very Victorian male thing to do.”

The staircase ended in a vestibule-type space that was just big enough for Joshua and Diana to stand together. She took his torch and directed both lights onto the wall where he pressed and prodded until finding the right catch. Cautiously, he pushed the door open just enough to peer through.

They were definitely in the family section of the house—unless Clarissa outfitted her schoolmasters’ bedrooms in rich velvet drapes and thick carpeting. Diana turned off the torches as Joshua eased the door wide enough for them to slip through.

It was not only empty, but had the impersonal air of a room long unused. Although everything was clean and dusted—Diana ran a finger along a carved end table—the single-size bed was unmade, the mattress shrouded in heavy linen. The heaviness of the décor had a masculine feel to it and, on a hunch, Diana crossed the room and opened the door on the opposite wall.

It gave onto a room nearly three times as large, with an enormous mahogany four-poster bed and a matching wardrobe. The bedding was fresh, and the array of things—books, slippers, bedrobe, brushes—were a dead giveaway: Clarissa Somersby’s room. And before it had belonged to her—

“Gideon Somersby, the original owner.” Joshua had followed the same train of thought. “A very Victorian male in every way, including the dressing room off the marital bedroom that he could sleep in when his wife didn’t want him.”

“Allowing him to use his own private staircase to access the servants’ quarters,” Diana finished. “What do you want to bet only the prettiest maids were assigned to that attic bedroom?”

“I’m feeling pretty glad that my female ancestors who worked here lived at the farm,” Joshua answered, a little absently. He had taken a step into Clarissa’s room but no farther.

Diana felt the same hesitation, but her curiosity had sparked with the realization that Clarissa Somersby had a direct—and private—route to the school side. Even if the other end of that passage didn’t go to the medieval core, coming out in the attics would allow her to get to the infirmary and Diana’s bedroom without passing through any inhabited or heavily traveled corridors.

But why? Diana fluttered her fingertips at the silk around her throat as she tried to imagine the elegant, reserved headmistress creeping through that claustrophobic passage in order to slam things, knock on doors, and move objects.

And slip so silently across the floor that she could rake her fingernails down Diana’s neck without her knowing?

No, the headmistress would not do such things.

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