Christmas At His Chateau. Rebecca Winters

related to each other, were a complete family unit on their own; she only had one foot in and one foot out. A cuckoo. One who didn’t fit in, who shouldn’t even try.

      ‘That’s good, then,’ Marcus said beside her.

      He was closer now, within touching distance. He could reach for her if he wanted to. And she sensed he did. She closed her eyes and walked away, saw the open door of the vestry and headed towards it. She needed distance, space. Because letting Marcus take care of her, look out for her, even for just a few moments, was almost as dumb as going to the ball that evening. She couldn’t let herself get sucked into this vision of a fairy tale—this place, this man. The ball always ended badly for Cinderella, so she’d much rather be Rapunzel, safe in her turret…

      No, she meant tower. Safe in her tower.

      She entered and discovered where most of the debris from the tidy chapel had ended up. It was like the cellar all over again.

      Bad idea. She didn’t need reminders of the cellar right now. Or, to be more precise, of what had happened in the cellar.

      She turned to go, but Marcus was already blocking the door, watching her. She glanced around frantically, looking for something to distract her, to start a conversation. There was a pile of old papers on the desk. She picked them up. On top was a note from the clean-up crew leader.

      Found these in a trunk up in the tower. Thought someone might want to look through them.

      ‘I don’t believe it,’ she muttered. ‘Clear up one dusty dumping ground and then someone finds another one to be dealt with.’ She handed him the papers. ‘Sorry, Your Lordship, but this bunch is all yours.’

      He took it from her after giving her a small salute. That made her smile. While he leafed through the papers, many of them torn or mildewed, Faith wandered out to look at the window once again. He followed, still flicking through the stack.

      ‘Look…’ He pulled a faded and yellowing piece out of the pile. ‘Someone else has done a sketch of the window.’

      She walked over and took the piece from his hands, mildly interested. Even folded into quarters Faith recognised the pattern of lines. She’d been working with them all week. But when she unfolded it her hand flew to cover her mouth.

      ‘What?’ he said. ‘What is it?’

      She shook her head, an expression of total disbelief on her face. Her mouth moved once or twice but no sound came out.

      ‘Faith?’

      She held up a hand and took a deep breath. ‘Marcus, this is the cartoon!’

      He frowned, and she knew he was thinking of comic books and kids’ TV shows.

      ‘The original drawing that the glaziers worked from!’ she explained as she turned it round in her hands and checked the corners and edges. ‘Yes! Look, there’s his signature—Samuel Crowbridge!’

      Marcus squinted at the drawing, but he hardly had time to focus on it before she danced away with it, spinning round and then running to the window to hold it up and compare.

      ‘That’s two pieces of evidence in one day!’ she yelled over her shoulder. It was more than she could ever have hoped for.

      But then she stopped smiling, stopped talking, and her eyes grew wide again. She ducked down and spread the cartoon on the floor, smoothing it out gently. She was staring at the drawing, but her brain was refusing to compute. It kept telling her eyes the information they were sending it was wrong. Return to sender.

      Marcus walked over and stood behind her to take a look.

      And so he should. Right at the bottom, roughly where the rectangle they’d been discussing earlier was, were some words. She looked up at him.

      ‘This isn’t in the window now. Somebody changed it.’ She lowered her voice to barely a whisper. ‘Somebody took it out.’

      Marcus wasn’t moving. His eyes were blinking and his mouth was slightly open. ‘“Proverbs Four, Verse Eighteen,”’ he finally read, his voice hoarse. ‘Why would someone want to take that out?’

      Faith swallowed. ‘Because to someone it meant something.’

      But that would make it… That would make it…

      ‘Bertie was right after all,’ she said, looking up at him. ‘Once upon a time there was a message in this window.’