Page 25 of The Haunting of Rose Abbey

Edwina lay gasping. Stunned. Roses permeated the very air around her. The press of a hand gently stroked the back of her head, though no one else was anywhere near her. Peace filled her. Calm. Stretching out her hand, Edwina curled her fingers around the gun, though it was hardly necessary. Meg was moaning in pain. Blood streamed from Thomas’s eye.

Mrs. Page was on her knees, weeping, a rose petal clutched against her chest.

Bascomb shot Edwina a stunned look, his shocked gaze landing on the floor where the portrait of Lady Renalda rested.

“Lady Renalda,” Edwina whispered as a tear ran down her cheek. “I’m so sorry I said I didn’t believe in you.”

Epilogue

Six months later

Rose Abbeywashaunted.

Edwina walked to the edge of the graveyard, now neatly fenced off as it should have been years ago. The ruins of the church and what remained of the abbey would continue to stand until they crumbled back into the earth. Neither Bascomb nor Edwina had the heart to take either from Lady Renalda. She’d already lost so much.

“Thank you,” Mrs. Page said from beside Edwina, looking at the largest stone in the graveyard. It wasn’t easy to miss. Stark and white, it bore an angel carved atop, and one of Rose Abbey’s bloodred rosebushes was already curling about the stone. Mrs. Page’s doing, no doubt.

“It was the very least Jonah and I could do. I still think it impossible. What happened that day. But I’ve no other way to explain any of it.” Edwina had tried. One explanation was that a gust of wind had blown Lady Renalda’s portrait from the wall, except the windows had been shut. Another was that the doors hadn’t been properly maintained so the hinges had failed. Also not the case.

“So”—the housekeeper gave her a sideways glance—“you still don’t believe in ghosts?”

Edwina thought of all the times in the last few months when a comforting presence had enveloped her and she’d smelled roses in the air. The day she and Jonah had married, red rose petals had scattered across the bed. “No, but I believe in Lady Renalda.”

“I think she’s at peace now,” Mrs. Page said. “She is loved here. Finally. As she always should have been. I should tell you, Lady Bascomb. I know where—”

Taking the housekeeper’s hand, Edwina stopped Mrs. Page from finishing. “We don’t want to know. Keep Rose Abbey’s secrets, Mrs. Page, as your mother and grandmother did. As far as Lord Bascomb is concerned, there is no gold buried away beneath the rosebushes.” Only a series of tunnels, the responsibility of maintaining the rosebushes used as a map falling to each housekeeper of Rose Abbey. The secret passed down through the generations.

Her husband had chosen to keep the passage open only to the beach, sealing the entrance from the church due to safety concerns.“You never know,”he’d said and winked at Edwina,“when we’ll need to escape a Viking raid.”

“I blame myself for Meg. And Thomas. You should dismiss me.”

“I’m not going to endure Lord Bascomb alone, Mrs. Page.” Edwina squeezed her fingers again. Page had a hard, crusty shell, but inside beat a generous heart. She could not have known that the two servants were actually husband and wife. They’d fled London after stealing from their last employer and ended up in Portsmith. Hearing the tales of hidden gold at Rose Abbey from the tavern owner’s wife, the pair had sought positions at Rose Abbey. It was Meg who’d ascertained Bascomb’s handicap shortly after Merrywimple had arrived.

“It was kind of you to spare them. They didn’t deserve it.”

“I’m not sure they’d agree. But indentured servitude halfway across the world isn’t nooses around their necks.” Meg and Thomas should have been hanged, but Edwina had asked for them to be exiled instead. Even though they’d tried to kill her. More than once. But she thought Lady Renalda would have preferred leniency.

The first thing Edwina had done once the constable had been called was make sure the portrait of the abbess was returned to its proper place in the library. She still worked at the same desk, pausing throughout the day to speak to Lady Renalda. Edwina was fairly certain she listened.

“I should go back, Mrs. Page.” She placed a hand on the housekeeper’s shoulder, silently saying another prayer of thanks to Lady Renalda and her brave nuns. “Stay as long as you like. I’ll check on Mrs. Oates and dinner.”

The End