Page 5 of The Viscount Needs a Wife (All for Love #2)

“What is a portcullis?” asked Ezekiel.

“An iron grid with spikes that could be dropped down to block the entrance and chop off the heads of the enemy!” said his elder brother, Emanuel, with bloodthirsty relish.

A collective ooh went up from the children and Annis judged that was enough history for one day. “You may take a look around, but stay in pairs and don’t wander too far away. The servants will be here shortly with the refreshments.”

“And no climbing the tower,” said the viscount with a significant look at the Watson boys, who groaned at this curtailment of their fun.

“Why not?” said Japheth, inclined to argue.

“Because you may slip and fall and I’ve no mind to carry your broken body back to the house,” said the viscount with brutal frankness. “The stones are old, and the masonry no longer sound. They may crumble at any moment—especially with young boys clambering all over them.”

Mary unexpectedly entered the lists at this point and said, “Papa would say the same, you know he would.” This seemed to exercise a powerful effect on the young Watson males, and they scampered off to explore the ruins at ground level.

Elizabeth and Charlotte followed, linking up with their favorite Watsons.

“You have obviously done some research Miss Pringle,” the viscount said, falling into step beside her as she walked in a slow circumnavigation of the ruins, his young master once more installed upon his shoulders.

She smiled up at him using her hand to shade the sun from her eyes, as the angle was wrong for her bonnet to stop it. “Yes, I found some early records in the duke’s library.”

“Have you uncovered any hoary legends about the place?”

“No, unfortunately. The children would love that.”

“You could always make something up.”

“I don’t believe my imagination will stretch that far, my lord.”

“You read novels, surely?”

“I do,” she admitted. “But I lack the skill to make stories out of nothing.”

He waved at the tower and surrounds. “This is not nothing, Miss Pringle. There is history here, heartache, romance, tragedy... if these stones could only speak.”

“I believe you’re a romantic, my lord.”

He smiled, a shade wistfully she thought. “I was once.”

Guessing that he alluded to his loss, she laid a sympathetic hand on his arm.

Her gaze caught and held his for a moment.

His eyes were hazel green, she registered with a mild shock, a deep moss green at this moment.

Their intensity stirred something in her, and she had the oddest sensation of heat rising in her chest.

“Papa!” said Elizabeth, appearing breathlessly in front of the viscount. “You must come and see! The boys have found something!” She tugged at his hand.

“Can Miss Pringle come, too?” he asked, casting a sideways look at Annis, a half-smile on his face.

“Yes, yes!” said Elizabeth rounding the tower wall and leading them toward a gnarled old tree leaning at a perilous angle, perched on top of a distinct mound covered in ground creeper, around which the children were clustered.

She could see Emanuel, Japheth, and Ezekiel were down on their knees scraping at the earth with sticks.

“What have you found, boys?” asked the viscount, lifting Ewen from his shoulders and crouching down beside them. Ewen crept in, squatting next to him.

Emanuel glanced round, his face red with perspiration, a smudge of dirt on one cheek. He sat back on his heels so that the viscount could see, and Annis craned her neck for a view of what they had uncovered.

Some old, pitted stone was visible, partially exposed by their scraping the earth away from it. The part that was revealed had a curved edge and appeared to carry some markings, though she wasn’t close enough to decipher what they were.

“What do you think it might be?” asked Emanuel.

The viscount looked up and beckoned Annis forward.

“Miss Pringle?” he asked. Japheth and Ezekiel shuffled sideways to allow her better access, and she crouched down beside the viscount and put out a hand to touch the roughly pitted surface of the rock.

It was cold and damp to the touch, a dull grey, coarse stone, but obviously carved.

“Hard to tell,” she said slowly. “But perhaps part of a Celtic Cross? Or a gravestone marker? It was likely upright at some point and has fallen and been buried.”

Emanuel’s eyes lit up and he said, “Someone might be buried here?”

“It’s possible,” said Annis.

“Shall we uncover it?” he asked, addressing the viscount.

His lordship grinned. “Of course. The duke will want to know about this, I am sure. Here, let me help.”

The viscount found a stout stick and set to helping the boys uncover the stone while the girls crowded round for a view of the buried treasure.

It took them ten minutes of industrious digging and scraping to reveal the whole of the stone.

Annis was excited to see that her guess of a Celtic cross was correct.

It was incomplete, being only the upper half of a cross.

The lower extremity had clearly been broken with a diagonal crack sometime in its history, answering the question as to why it was lying flat on its back instead of standing upright.

As the viscount worked to clear the dirt from the markings, the intricate scrollwork was revealed and within it some clumsily marked letters, possibly in Latin.

“This must be late Roman, I think. I wish my Latin was better, I might be able to read it.” she said in frustration. “My lord, can you read it?” she asked.

He bent over the inscription running his fingers over it. Some of the letters were very faint or missing altogether.

“I can’t read the name, I think it has been partially erased, but this bit is hic iacit , which means ‘lies here,’ and this is filis —‘son of.’ Again the name has been damaged. So, this is the burial stone of some fellow, but I can’t tell you who.”

“Is the grave here then?” asked Emanuel.

The viscount shrugged. “It may be, but then this could have just been tossed here, given that the base has been lost.”

“Can we dig and find out?” pressed Emanuel.

“Not today. We will need shovels, not sticks. And in any case, we will need the duke’s permission to start digging up his grounds.”

Emanuel looked disappointed but accepted the viscount’s dictum.

The servants appeared just then, and they all left the interesting find to have refreshments and sit under the trees out of the sun.