Page 46 of The Forgotten Boy

“What a pity you don’t know a trained surveyor who could read your old map and help you decipher it.”

She thought of Rachel’s advice and Duncan’s years of cutting comments and her own fragile but growing confidence. “Noah, would you like to read my map and come exploring with me?”

“I’d love to,” he said. “Tomorrow’s a slow day. I’ll take it off. I can drive to the farmhouse tonight and come over first thing in the morning. Deal?”

When had she last felt so happy? “Deal.”

The night passed with only a handful of minor incidents: the sighing sound before speech, the distant thunder of horses in her dreams, the impression of light coming from the corridor outside her bedroom. It had become so familiar that she wondered if she’d be more disturbed if she didn’t experience anything.

She dressed warmly in the morning and had the nineteenth-century plans spread out on a 1950s army desk in the old school dining hall when Noah arrived.

The first thing he said was “Rachel told me to bring you back for tea today, and I’m pretty sure she’s going to beg you to spend Christmas with us, so be ready with strong excuses if you don’t want to. She’s worried about you being all alone without family.”

It had been years since Juliet had spent Christmas with anyone but Duncan—and last year he’d left at noon and hadn’t returned for hours. Mentally, Juliet started making a gift list for all the Bennetts.

Noah had brought a clean copy of his Havencross surveyor’s map and used it to mark symbols from the Victorian map as he explained to Juliet what they meant.

“Property boundary lines, the current house, the river and bridge, road.” He pointed out each one as he spoke as Juliet nodded. “Those are all marked with lines. The abbey ruins are the ones indicated by the dashed lines.”

She touched the outline of a small circle that lay on the far side of the medieval chapel. “What’s that?”

“The original well. It’s been covered over for at least a hundred and fifty years. When they ran water lines to the house, they found that the sides of the well had collapsed in and made it unusable.”

“I don’t suppose there are any topographical symbols for concealed tunnel openings?”

“They wouldn’t stay concealed if they were marked on a map,” he pointed out reasonably.

“All right, let’s get to work. What exactly are we going to do?”

He grinned. “We’re going to behave like Rachel’s boys—turn over everything of possible interest that catches our eyes. And get good and dirty in the process.”

He wasn’t joking. By the time they’d covered the tumbled foundation walls for two of the abbey buildings—the cloister and chapter house he called them—Juliet was sweaty and sore.

“Who knew crawling around on your hands and knees, poking into every possible crevice, could be so exhausting?” Juliet leaned back on her heels and used one gloved hand to brush a strand of hair out of her face. “Oh wait—I totally knew that. It’s why I’m a historian and not a landscaper or builder.”

Noah’s laugh reached in and scooped out her breath. It was a laugh she could listen to forever, because there was nothing cynical or ironic or cruel behind it.

“Short of digging up the ground, I’d say we’ve exhausted the possibilities here. Like you, I think the chapel is our best bet. It’s a sacred space that was supposed to give invaders pause. Didn’t work that way in practice, but it still seems the easiest place from which to smuggle objects or hide people underground.”

“Shall we have lunch first, then tackle the chapel?”

“Perfect—because Rachel sent food.”

It was Juliet’s turn to laugh. “I love your sister.”

It slipped out naturally and before Juliet could feel awkward, Noah said, “I think she feels the same about you. Even though we grew up here and she loves raising the boys on the farm, she gets lonely during the week without Antonia.”

“Pity I’m only here for the winter.”

Did she imagine that Noah’s eyes lingered as he helped her stand? “A great pity.”

After a fortifying, warming meal at Clarissa’s Formica table in the small kitchen, they tramped out back to the chapel. The roof was long gone, but it retained its walls up to ten or twelve feet in places, and there were flat slate grave slabs along both long sides of the nave.

“So, if you were a secret tunnel entrance where would you be?” Juliet murmured.

They quartered the space systematically, guided by Noah’s expertise. He started at the doorway end, and Juliet at the altar end. When she took a break to get a drink from her water bottle, he stretched in an unfairly alluring way and joined her.

“You hum when you work,” he noted. “Did you know that?”

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