While she waited, ploughing slowly but steadily through her backlog of work, a part of her mind dwelled constantly on an image of the new chapel. She saw it in her mind’s eye: a simple little building, beautifully proportioned, with perhaps one glorious window depicting the martyrdom of St Edmund. She could still see the glorious Chartres glass and to have just one example of that inspirational work in their own chapel was a dream that she knew she would fight for as hard as she could.
With a sigh, she firmly put the thought from her mind and went back to her accounts.
Josse had said farewell to the abbess, Brothers Saul and Augustus and Sister Caliste at the place on the road from the coast where the track for New Winnowlands branched off. He knew he would not stay long at home, for his mission for Queen Eleanor lay heavy on him. Investigate these rumours and find out if there is any truth in them, she had commanded. Well, he had, and there was. Perhaps he should simply have returned to the queen and told her so, but something in him stubbornly refused to admit the king’s guilt. Richard might have had his faults, but descending to the level of a devil-worshipper and child molester was surely too much to believe. A voice that could only be Josse’s own kept saying that there had to be an explanation…
So he had picked up the only lead he had and followed de Loup’s two companions back to England. All through the long miles from Chartres to Kent he had asked after them, but nobody could tell him anything of a tall man with fair hair accompanied by a smaller man with a deep hood. Not that he was surprised; it was hardly a precise description. He had no more luck with the name Philippe de Loup. As he reached New Winnowlands and gratefully surrendered his weary body to the various ministrations of his household, he concluded that the only thing to do now was head for London in the hope that pursuing his enquiries there among its swarming population might yield a new path to pursue. It was, he admitted, a faint hope.
It was sheer luxury to be home. Will took Horace away to feed him up and groom him till his coat shone like jet; Ella excelled herself by sending up from the kitchen such a splendid variety of dishes that Josse felt his waist expanding daily. Dominic and Paradisa, who since their marriage three years ago had shared New Winnowlands with him, adding two-year-old Ralf and the newborn Hugo to the household, spoiled him in every way and generally made him feel like a loved person returning to the heart of his family. Loving and delightful as they were, however, and despite the natural affection Josse felt for the abbess’s son and his wife, they were of course not actually his family.
He had little appetite for the next phase of his task and, indeed, was starting to consider returning to France to tell Eleanor what he had discovered and leave it to her to dig further. He had so very little to go on; the proposed trip to London would probably be no more than a costly waste of time. He seemed all of a sudden to be bereft of resolve: he missed his daughter, he missed Joanna and, after so long on the road with the abbess and her companions, he missed them perhaps most of all. Dominic and Paradisa did their best to include him in their life, but his common sense told him they would be equally happy without him. What, he thought miserably, am I to do with myself?
He frittered away several days at New Winnowlands. Then, returning one evening from exercising Horace, he rode into the courtyard to be met by Dominic and Will, both looking worried.
He slipped out of the saddle and Will hurried to take Horace’s reins. ‘What’s wrong?’ Josse asked.
Will jerked his head in Dominic’s direction and muttered, ‘Best ask him, sir.’ Then he led Horace away to the stables.
Fear bit deep into Josse’s heart. He spun round to Dominic. ‘What’s happened? It’s not-’ He bit back the words. He had been going to say, it’s not your mother?
Dominic seemed to sense it. ‘She’s fine,’ he said quietly, ‘as far as I know. No, Josse, it’s something quite different. Something really puzzling.’ He frowned.
‘What?’
Dominic grabbed his arm and together they hurried up the steps into the hall. ‘Come and see.’
Inside, Paradisa was sitting on the floor. Beside her, the baby slept in his crib and Ralf played with a set of wooden blocks. Next to Ralf, another child bent over the playthings, helping him to make tall stacks and then noisily push them over, a game that had the little boy squealing with delighted laughter.
The other child had long, curly brown hair. She appeared to be about six or seven. Sensing Josse behind her, she spun round and he looked into her brown eyes, which sparkled with golden lights. Her strained expression broke into a joyful smile and, leaping up, she ran to Josse and threw herself into his arms. He felt her firm little body shake with suppressed sobs and, gently stroking her hair, he said, ‘It’s all right, sweeting; you’re safe with me. I’ll look after you.’
It was Meggie.
Dominic and Paradisa managed to restrain their curiosity until later, when Josse had finally put his daughter to bed. The remainder of the evening had been occupied with supper, a bath for the little girl and a lengthy bedtime ritual during which her father demonstrated the advantages of her hastily arranged bedroom, snuggled her down in soft blankets and told her three stories.
Finally he sank down in his chair and, looking first at Dominic and then Paradisa, said wearily, ‘So what happened?’
It was Paradisa who told him. ‘I was here in the hall in the middle of the afternoon,’ she began. ‘Dominic was out with Will. I’d just fed Hugo and he was asleep; Ralf wanted to go outside and I said he could play on the steps but no further because I had to keep an eye on the baby. I was dozing — it was warm this afternoon, wasn’t it? — but suddenly I heard Ralf laughing. I thought at first that Dominic must have come back, but then I heard a child’s voice. I hurried outside and there she was, sitting on the bottom step beside Ralf and showing him how to do cat’s cradles with a piece of string.’ She paused, eyeing Josse anxiously.
‘Go on,’ he said.
‘She seemed to be quite alone. I didn’t want to scare her, so I stood in the doorway and said hello, then asked who was with her — I thought maybe she had run on ahead to the house, in which case whoever had brought her would not have been far behind. Anyway, she said she was looking for Josse and that they had brought her home from the big Shining City where the building was going up. I said, “Where are they?” and she said they’d gone.’
‘Did you look for them?’ he demanded. Then, hearing the echo of his voice, made sharp by anxiety, he said, ‘I’m sorry, Paradisa. I did not mean to interrogate you.’
‘It’s all right, Josse.’ She gave him an understanding smile. ‘I hurried out to look up and down the road, but there was nobody about.’ Her smooth brow creased into a frown. ‘The trouble is that I don’t know how long she’d been there. As I say, I was dozing, and she could have been there for some time, in which case whoever brought her could already have been some distance away. Oh, I’m so sorry, Josse!’
‘No need to be,’ he said hastily. ‘You’ve done nothing wrong, dear Paradisa — quite the opposite, in fact, because I’m sure Meggie must have been afraid, left here by herself, and you managed to reassure her and make her feel welcome.’