He shook his head. “I beg your pardon, for I’ve done it again. I always speak of the tragedy as if it were a recent occurrence. To my doddering mind it still is, I suppose. That January of 1800 will forever linger with me as the night of devastation.”
An icy shiver snaked down Raven’s spine.
“Eighteen”—Jane swallowed, her complexion unnaturally pale—“hundred?”
“Simply heartbreaking,” the vicar said with sadness haunting the depths of his cloudy gaze. “Not a soul in the manor house on the hill survived. Not the fourteen servants. Not even Lord and Lady Northcott.”
Raven’s throat went dry. Only this morning he’d read those names. Only this morning he’d imagined the pen in a capable, manicured hand, dipping into a pot of ink before scrawling the names in the register, a head bending to blow a stream of breath to dry the page.
This morning, just hours ago, those strangers had been alive to him. Now they were gone. The vision in his mind evaporated like a curl of smoke from the last ember in a grate.
In the moment that followed, the soft rasp of Jane’s slippers on the floor was the only sound to disturb the solemn quiet. She came to his side and curled her hand over his sleeve, either in comfort or regret, or perhaps both.
“Was there a child?” Raven heard himself ask the vicar.
The old man nodded, looking heavenward. “Such a great and woeful loss. He was so small that there were no remains found to place in the family crypt. I like to believe that he was so precious to the angels that they chose to take him in body and spirit.”
Jane went unnaturally still and Raven knew they were both focusing on the same three words—no remains found.
Raven shifted from one foot to the other. An uncomfortable, itchy awareness covered his skin, the primary discomfort residing at the mark on his shoulder. It seemed to contract and pulse like a fresh wound trying to heal. He wanted to scratch it until it bled. Until the skin was scraped raw.
He didn’t like those three words. There was no real finality in them. It left too much room for the most dreaded of all things . . . hope.
Jane’s fingertips brushed over his sleeve in a small, comforting caress. “Wouldn’t it be possible that the baby might have survived by some miracle?”
“Hope is one of humanity’s greatest gifts, Miss Pickerington. Though, in this particular circumstance, I’ve also discovered that it is a tool used by charlatans and opportunists to bring further pain to the remaining family. It would have been better if they’d been allowed to grieve their loss in peace and be healed.”
“And just what are these charlatans trying to gain?” Raven asked, confused.
But the answer that came was nothing he ever could have expected.
“Why, the earldom, of course.”
* * *
The pieces fit together for Jane in a sudden breath of enlightenment. “The Earl of Warrister. I’d completely forgotten the rumors.”
Looking up at Raven, she saw a brief flash of shock in his expression an instant before his handsome features rearranged themselves into inscrutable lines and angles. She felt guilty for luring him here for such terrible news. And yet, even as she was dismayed to hear about the tragedy, she was also filled with a sense of certainty.
The mark was not a coincidence. It couldn’t be.
“The Earl of Warrister is quite reclusive, though ’tis no wonder, what with the accusations,” the vicar added with a sigh.
“From what I now recall, his lordship still holds fast to the idea that his grandchild survived the fire, does he not?”
“Sadly, yes, even after all this time. There are some who believe that the earl’s mental faculties are somewhat . . . diminished. His nephew, Lord Herrington, has been the most vocal about his own suspicions.”
“Then Lord Herrington must expect to inherit,” she mused absently.
“The law of primogeniture will make it so, I’m certain. The baron is, after all, the eldest of the earl’s nephews. And better he than a usurper.” The old man’s age-rounded shoulders lifted in an inconsequential shrug as he began to cross the room with his prayer book in hand.
Jane’s gaze strayed to the baptismal record. Drat. In her haste, she’d put the book on the wrong shelf and it wasn’t pushed in all the way either. She only hoped the vicar wouldn’t notice or else he might imagine they were a pair of those charlatans he mentioned.
“Regrettably,” the vicar continued, “many are ensnared by the promise of money and power. Why, even in the wake of such a catastrophe, there were those who swarmed the rubble left behind in order to see what treasures they might take for themselves. A pity. Especially because Lord and Lady Northcott were always so kind and generous. There wasn’t a single parishioner who was ever infirm or hungry that her ladyship did not try to lend aid to in some way or another. His lordship beamed whenever she was on his arm, as any man would have done, I’m sure.”
“She was pretty, then?” Raven asked, his voice more tender than Jane had heard before. And in the muscled forearm beneath her hand, she felt the faintest tremor.
“Aye. None lovelier.”
She witnessed a soft smile touch Raven’s lips. A wealth of emotion welled in her throat as she thought of that fire and the child who’d lost his parents—the child who’d grown into a man who was starting to believe.
“What else do you know about the Northcotts?” she asked, completely missing the fact that the vicar had gone still, his uplifted arm half-suspended in the air.
With his prayer book in hand, he hesitated at the sight of the misplaced baptismal record. When he turned around to address his guests, his genial manner was gone.
He looked carefully from Jane to Raven, his wizened gaze narrowing. “And just what is your name, sir?”
“That,” he answered with a mystified shake of his head, “is a very good question.”
Chapter 15
After their unceremonious departure from the chapel, Raven walked with Jane to the hill where the Northcott house once stood, his thoughts distracted and distant.
The last day of October seemed to be exiting in proper gloomy fashion. As they approached the top, a chill breeze sent crisp leaves skittering along the path ahead of them, rushing from the dark clouds gathering overhead. They settled, shivering against the remains of the manor house foundation.
Even after all this time, the memory of that night showed itself in the scorched fieldstones, laid out in long rectangles like an ancient skeleton that the earth was slowly devouring. The fire had destroyed everything else.
Or nearly everything, Raven mused.
Was it possible that the child had survived? Perhaps, like the other items looted from the ashes, the child had been taken away as well.
But for what purpose? Surely not to be left on the doorstep of a foundling home. After all, why go through all the trouble of saving an infant only to abandon it?
Raven didn’t know the answer. In fact, he was no longer sure of anything.
He felt altered, rearranged. It was as if someone had taken an egg whisk to his insides and was waiting to see what kind of pudding would come out after he steamed.
Jane stood by him, quiet aside from the silent murmur of her lips as she made her mental notes. He was oddly comforted by the familiarity of her habit. With so many uncertainties surrounding him, he found himself gravitating to the only things he knew.