Lord of the Manor (Trysts and Treachery Book 5) by Elizabeth Keysian (best romantic novels in english txt) 📕

He was telling them to go without looking for the treasure? Had they destroyed their beloved chapel for nothing?

“Don’t be downhearted. If you wish to remain in England, you all have skills that will serve you well in another village or town—somewhere your history is not known. I’ll give you whatever coin I can spare—Master Swaffham has already found a buyer for the tiles from the guesthouse and for some of the limestone. Kennett can no longer hurry me to make good my debt to him. His worth in the county has suffered a blow.”

Cecily trembled in Allan’s grasp, feeling as if the ground were giving way beneath her feet.

And then realized with a shock that it actually was.

“Cecily!” He caught her just she was about to plunge into a hole that had opened up beside the chapel wall.

She clung to him, and gazed down into the small void that had opened up, keeping well back as clods of earth, still with grass attached, broke off around the edges and tumbled into the hole.

“What was that?” Benedict came puffing up. “Did something fall?”

Allan, still holding Cecily around the waist, peered down. “Aye. It appears as if something has. Can you send someone to fetch a light?”

Cecily clutched at Allan’s arm. “You’re not going down there?”

“Only if I can ascertain that it’s safe. It must be a crypt or the cellar of a building long since lost. Either way, I need to be sure. We dare not continue work on the chapel if the ground surrounding it is unstable.”

Fear worked its icy fingers into Cecily’s flesh. If it wasn’t safe to work on the chapel, would they stand any chance of finding the Templars’ cache? This collapse would make it far harder for Allan to demolish the rest of the building—it might cost him more to take it down than he would make from selling the stone blocks.

Benedict returned with a glowing lantern. Allan released Cecily, lay on his stomach, and lowered the light into the hole.

“The structure is small. More like an old wine cellar or root storage hole. There are some sacks in the corner. Wait—what’s that?”

Cecily’s heart sped up, and prickles of excitement scudded down her spine. Had he found the hoard?

“What do you see?”

“Simply some very old, very mouse-bitten sacks. But there’s a glint—I’m going down.”

“Nay!” Benedict grabbed the back of Allan’s doublet. “I’ll fetch a rope in case we need to pull you out in a hurry. We know not how stable the sides of this hole might be.”

Cecily waited, all thought suspended, as Martin and Anselm joined them, and Benedict returned with a rope to tie firmly around Allan’s waist.

Could it be true? Could it be that the solution to all their problems had lain just a couple of yards below the turf, had been there, beneath their feet, all this time?

Allan jumped into the hole, and the lantern was handed down to him.

“It’s not deep. A barrel-vaulted roof, just a small one, is about a foot above my head. Some tree roots have worked their way in amongst the stones, which is why the roof has partially collapsed. The stonework is rough, not shaped, or faced. I’m certain this is just a storage cellar—something practical and workaday.”

“What is practical and workaday?”

The new voice had Cecily spinning around, her nerves stretched to the breaking point. Standing right behind her, his hands resting casually on his hips, stood Master Kennett Clark.

The very last person any of them wanted to see.

Chapter Twenty

Cecily had built up the fire in her cottage and now sat huddled by it. Charlemagne dozed on his perch, from which hung the new hood and jesses that Allan had given her at Christmas. That time felt dim and distant, though it was but a few weeks past. So much had happened, what with Allan being cast into prison, the discovery of the forgotten cellar, and the inopportune arrival of Master Clark. Several months’ worth of excitement had occurred in just a few weeks.

She eyed her cottage door, which was locked, with the key on the inside. Darkness had fallen, and the room was even gloomier than usual, with the shutters drawn over the window holes to protect against prying eyes. But tonight, Cecily wasn’t tensely waiting for the men to arrive for a covert celebration of Mass—she was waiting for Allan.

Her gaze slid to the heap of sheep’s fleeces that hid the trapdoor to her underground hiding place. Would Master Clark think to look beneath the fleeces, should he chance to visit? Could she even risk allowing him over the threshold?

It had been a nightmare getting rid of the man on the day when they’d found the Templars’ cellar. Fortunately, Allan had been the quickest thinking of all of them, immediately demanding that Martin start handing him blocks of stone so he could shore up the sides of the hole. He’d greeted his brother-in-law with a studied politeness that did him credit, and, when pressed, had informed Master Clark that they were sinking a new well and were just completing the first few tiers of stonework.

Allan’s new laborers had gathered around the hole, holding the rope, hefting stones, passing tools down, but keeping as far back from the edge as they could. They had repulsed every effort on Master Clark’s part to come closer and look into the hole, claiming that the edges were not safe. They’d pretended, as she was later informed, that Allan was precariously perched on the top of a long ladder going deep into the ground, instead of on a packed earth floor only eight feet below the turf. Fortunately, Master Clark could find no vantage point that revealed the actual situation.

Eventually, the unwelcome visitor had received enough apparently accidental elbows shoved into his ribs, stones dropped close to his feet, and warnings shouted in his ear that he realized he was in the midst