Chapter 26
Standing in the excavation site beside Tobias, Hart paused to lean on his shovel and glance up at Emeline’s bedroom window.
Behind them, Ackerman and his nephews were digging out the cave-in and preparing to shore up the trench with planks of wood, while Tobias and Hart uncovered more cooking utensils and other grave goods at their end of the site.
Was she awake yet? Although he had asked Sarah to take breakfast to her, what if the maid had forgotten? Perhaps he should go up and check.
“You didn’t have to come down here at all,” Tobias remarked. His breath was visible in the November morning air as he brushed centuries of dirt from a drinking horn with a decorated metal rim. “I know you have other concerns today.”
“I believe Emeline is fine.” Hart frowned. “She seemed herself earlier, when I—” He broke off, realizing that he couldn’t say he’d last seen her in bed at dawn, curled up like a kitten in his arms.
“Yes…?”
“When I was keeping an eye on her—to be certain there were no lingering effects from the cave-in.”
“A very close eye, no doubt.”
“And what of it?” he flared. “I love her.” Hearing his own voice saying those words was a bit of a shock.
“Oh, I know that.” Tobias grinned. “I suspect the only person who didn’t know it was you, my friend.”
Hart blinked at that, realizing that his days of being heartless and uncaring were over. Thank God.
Just then, the garden doors opened and Emeline emerged, arm-in-arm with Louise, with Monte capering along beside them. Mrs. Peachey brought up the rear, pushing a tea cart laden with breakfast rolls and a steaming pot of coffee.
Although the ladder had been lost during yesterday’s cave-in, Hart found a foothold in the trench and climbed up onto the lawn.
Walking toward Emeline, his blood thrummed, and again it came to him how easily she could have been killed.
Every moment of life now felt like a precious gift, one he would never take for granted again.
Reaching out to him with both hands as they met, Emeline stood on tiptoe and murmured against his neck, “Thank you for staying with me last night.”
“I mean to make a habit of it, very soon.” He managed to resist the urge to catch her up in his arms and indulge in a long kiss. Casting an appraising eye over her sky-blue gown, cape, and bonnet, he added, “I’m glad to see that you have dressed warmly. How are you feeling?”
“Quite well.” Color touched her cheeks as she added, “When I awoke and remembered everything you said last night, I thought perhaps it had all been a dream.”
“It was no dream.” He held her closer for one sweet moment. “I love you, Emeline.”
Before she could reply, they were interrupted by Monte who began leaping about at their feet. “Won’t you pick him up? He is longing to be with both of us, I think.”
“He is a tyrant,” Hart said with mock severity, even as he crouched to lift up the scruffy dog, and Monte happily made himself comfortable in the crook of his arm. Straightening, Hart saw that all the men in the trench had stopped working to stare at them.
“Good morning!” called Emeline, waving. “Thank you all for helping to rescue me yesterday. I’m doing quite well!”
With that, Hart wrapped his free arm around her waist. “We all have a lot to do,” he announced to the others, smiling. “I hope you’ll join me in working harder to unearth the artifacts so that we will be free to begin preparations for a wedding.”
“A wedding!” Tobias echoed loudly.
“Miss St. Briac has done me the honor of agreeing to be my wife,” Hart replied. Emeline leaned her cheek against his shoulder, and it was the best feeling in the world. “We both would like to be wed as soon as possible.”
“Congratulations!” exclaimed Tobias, and the other men joined in. When the cheers had died down, he added, “As for uncovering more artifacts, you’ll be glad to know I’ve just found something new and quite astonishing.”
Monte was quickly set back on his feet while Hart moved a chair from their rest area for Emeline to sit on. He placed it at the edge of the pit, where all the recent items had been discovered, and Sarah brought her coffee and toast from Mrs. Peachey’s cart.
When Emeline was properly settled, Hart rejoined Tobias in the trench. “Show us.”
“I believe it may be the place where the coffin lay,” he said, pointing to a dark stain in the soil, perhaps two feet wide, not far from where they had found the hanging bowl and the drinking horn.
“I think the wood of the coffin has dissolved, just like the frame of the burial chamber itself, but it left behind a mark.”
“Yet, there are no bones…” mused Louise, who was back in the trench near Tobias, writing in her notebook.
“It’s rather a mystery, isn’t it, why some ancient graves hold complete skeletons and others nothing at all,” said Emeline from her chair, looking down over the others.
“I suspect it has to do with the degree of acidity in the earth surrounding the grave. But we will sieve every bit of this soil,” said Hart. “There may well be evidence of a body. Teeth, or bone fragments.”
Suddenly Emeline leaned forward, pointing. “I just saw something, glinting in the sunlight. Oh, I want to come down and join the rest of you!”
“You’ll get dirt on your pretty gown,” warned Louise.
“Devil take my gown,” she exclaimed. “Hart, do help me!”
He obeyed, reaching up to catch her as she jumped from the edge. Once on her feet beside him, Emeline removed her bonnet and cape.
“Won’t you be cold?” whispered Hart.
“No. Though when it is time for luncheon, I shall change into my trousers and wool coat.” She gave him an irresistible smile. “I am just fine! And I need to be here, working alongside the rest of you.” Her gaze returned to the wood-stained area that might have marked part of the coffin.
“What do you think you saw a few moments ago?” Hart asked.
“It looked like a bit of gold, but now it’s gone. Perhaps I imagined it…”
The morning slipped away. More grave goods were uncovered around the periphery of the chamber: an iron spur, a pot, the remains of a wooden bucket with iron hoops. Hart was completely engrossed in his work, troweling carefully down in the coffin area, when Emeline gasped.
“There it is again, do you see?” She pointed over Hart’s shoulder to a tiny glint of metal.
When Emeline pushed her skirts aside and crouched beside him, Hart handed her his small, soft brush. Slowly, as she brushed, a paper-thin gold foil cross emerged into the daylight, no more than one inch in length.
“It’s in the shape of a Latin cross!” she whispered. “But what can it mean? The Vikings were pagan, weren’t they?”
“I suspect there is a great deal we don’t understand yet,” he replied, turning to meet her gaze. Their faces were just inches apart, and deep love swelled in Hart for this woman who seemed to be created just for him. “Beginning with your glass beakers that may pre-date the Vikings by centuries.”
“But if the grave is Anglo-Saxon rather than Viking, it’s equally confusing, because weren’t they pagan as well?”
“Not necessarily.” Tobias, hovering in the background spoke at last. “There were certainly pilgrims, newly converted to Christianity, who traveled through Britain after the Romans left. Perhaps they converted the fellow buried here?”
Emeline’s eyes lit up. “I have just recalled what Mrs. Dawson told us about the history of Woodcroft Priory, shortly after we arrived.” She looked at Tobias and Louise.
“Don’t you remember? She said that the oldest ruins are said to date back to the 7th century, founded by Clement, a Benedictine monk.
Those were the early days of Christianity in Britain.
Can you imagine? Perhaps Clement himself is here! ”
“Slow down.” Hart put a hand up. “I think we should do more research before we rush to conclusions.”
“But isn’t it exciting?” Emeline had returned to brushing the dirt near the gold foil cross, and soon a second, virtually identical cross emerged, perhaps four inches to one side of the first. What could it mean?
“If this is the head of the coffin, and the bones have disappeared with time,” Emeline mused, “perhaps these crosses were placed over the eyes? They are exactly oriented where the eyes would be…”
“Brilliant.” Hart longed to kiss her.
“I can’t stop wondering who these people were, when they lived here, what they believed.” Smiling, she shivered slightly.
“Are you ready to go inside for a bit to warm up and eat something?” he asked.
“Just a bit longer. Please!”
Tobias used tweezers to gently remove the foil crosses, marking the spots where they had been with two pebbles.
When excavation continued, everyone agreed that if this was truly where the body had lain, they must be as painstaking as possible, so trowels were set aside.
Hart and Emeline took turns carefully brushing away at the dirt, moving down from where the crosses had been.
After another hour, Hart’s breath caught at another glimpse of gold.
The excitement was palpable as they gradually revealed a small, irregularly shaped, inscribed gold coin, in approximately the place where the body’s heart would have been.
“This could be just the clue we’ve been waiting for,” said Hart.
Emeline looked up at him, a hint of color in her cheeks. “There is something I must talk to you about, regarding this coin…and some others.”
“Let us go inside then,” he replied. Privately, Hart wanted to get her alone, to hold her in his arms, to feel the lush curves of her body beneath his hands and soak up her response. “We’ll have lunch and…” Catching her eye, he flicked up one brow. “Talk.”
Emeline blushed but continued to meet his blue gaze.
Ackerman had located another ladder and now one of the nephews lowered it into the pit. As Hart and Emeline climbed out, Louise called, “Emmie, do take care and rest! You have just come through a terrible ordeal.”
“Nonsense!” she replied. “I have never felt more wonderfully alive than I do today.”