Page 3 of Most Ardently (Return to Culloden Moor #5)

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PIE AND FAIRYTALES

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T he kitchen was filled with the sweet scent of baking cherries and sugar. Violet sat at the worn wooden table, waiting for the pie to finish. Her consolation pie. And though there was nothing to celebrate, it still cheered her to think that she might have found a new message, a subtle wave and a tease from her father.

She absently traced 3-4-8 in the dusting of flour on the tabletop, studying the pattern as if it might suddenly reveal its meaning.

“What is that?” her mother asked, entering the kitchen with a handful of afternoon eggs.

Violet shrugged. “Just something Father inscribed. I found it on the underside of a shelf today.”

Her mother set the eggs in a bowl and came back to peer at the numbers. Then she smiled. “I would wager it is another Bible clue. It has been years since I’ve found one.”

“Bible clue?” Violet inhaled carefully so she didn't give her excitement away.

“Of course.” Her mother nodded, wiping her hands on her apron. “Third book, fourth chapter, eighth verse. Your father was fond of hiding such riddles for me to find.” Her eyes took on a distant look, as if seeing directly into the past.

Violet's excitement made clear thought impossible. She had to get the family Bible, which lay on her mother’s bedside table. But before she took a step, her mother raised a finger.

“The question is, which third book? Leviticus from the Old Testament, or James, from the New?”

Violet paused, considering. The choice seemed significant, as if the wrong path would lead her further from the journals, not closer.

“Knowing your father,” her mother continued, turning to check the pie in the oven, “it would be James. Let me think...” She closed her eyes briefly. “Ah, yes. 'Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you.'“

After their simple supper of eggs and turnips, the cherry pie provided a momentary brightness in their increasingly dim circumstances. Tortured beyond bearing, Violet volunteered to clean up.

“You must go out to watch the sunset, Mother. I know how you love this time of evening.”

Her mother hesitated, then nodded. The weariness in her eyes was momentarily buried in a grateful smile. “Perhaps I shall. Thank you, my dear.”

The moment her mother left the kitchen, Violet abandoned the dishes and flew to the library once more. Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.

The yawning, empty space was dimmer now, but there was still enough light to see by. Draw near to God was obviously a directive to look up, so once again, Violet studied the ceiling. But it wasn’t enough to look to God. She had to draw near .

Without another thought, she fetched the rolling ladder and positioned it beneath the most ornate section of crown molding where the shelves nearly met the ceiling. The ladder creaked as she ascended. She was giddy with excitement and felt like a little girl again, as if her papa were watching her do something rather clever.

The uppermost part of the shelving featured elaborate scrollwork, a decorative flourish that seemed excessive in an otherwise practical space. To reach it, she had to climb on the uppermost wrung and hold onto the empty shelves, but a little danger couldn’t deter her now.

She carefully reached over and ran her fingers along the surface she could not see and brushed against something. Something shallow and flat that whispered as it slid.

She abandoned the ladder altogether and stepped onto the next shelf to peer over the top of the scroll work. And there, in the darkness, a single, thin, colorless journal sat waiting in the dust.

Seven years it had been waiting for her.

She extracted it, nearly losing her balance in her excitement. And after she had it tucked into her bodice, she searched for the red one. But alas, there was nothing else waiting in the dust, so she descended, still grateful for the one she’d found.

Back on solid ground, she lifted the cover. The pages were filled with her father's distinctive handwriting, and her heart soared, only to plummet again as she read.

It wasn't the journal she sought, not the one containing the riddles and maps that might lead to the Jacobite treasure. This was simply a retelling of the Knight and Maiden story, the tale of Durrafair that had colored her childhood. Page after page of the same fairy tale Father had told her a hundred times, transcribed in his own hand.

She sank to the floor in a puddle of disappointment. Was this all that remained? A fairy tale? And yet, why hide this particular journal so carefully if it held no special significance?

Violet thumbed through the pages again, searching for any hint of a code or hidden message, but she found nothing. Just the tale she knew by heart, of a knight who promised to return for his lady, and a maiden who waited faithfully.

She closed the book and held it to her chest. There was still hope. Barnaby Pringle might still have the second journal, the one with the actual treasure clues. She just had to retrieve it before it was too late for Iris.

“I will not give up, Iris,” she whispered. “I promise.”

Outside, the wind picked up, rattling the library's windows like impatient fingers urging her onward. And somewhere in Perth, the red journal waited…