Follow My Lead (44 page)

“Because we are the Order of St. Clare—we believe quite strictly in the lack of personal possessions, to a degree some other orders find extreme.”

“That actually makes sense with our case—for you see, the author of these letters gave her paintings away,” Winn said, pulling the letters—which had since been carefully wrapped in the vellum and then kidskin leather Mr. Ellis procured for them—out of a portfolio she held tightly in her hands.

Mother Agnes glanced at the letters but declined with a simple wave to read them. “Our beliefs make it highly unlikely that any correspondence your author kept would have survived even her lifetime, never mind beyond it.”

At Winn’s silence and Jason’s quizzical looks, Mr. Ellis jumped into the fray.

“But you do have a library, do you not?” Mr. Ellis asked. “Important papers, ecclesiastical texts, perhaps a registry of the members of your order?”

“We do, and you are welcome to look,” Mother Superior said, leading them into the convent and down the hall to a modest room, with little more than a neat desk, a number of locked cabinets, and an unadorned window for light.

“This is my office. All the information you seek would be in these cabinets,” Mother Agnes said, pulling out a key from the depths of her scapular and unlocking them with smooth, measured movements. She revealed a number of books and ledgers, all neatly delineated, in progressive states of age.

“Please be kind with the older documents,” Mother Agnes said, and then with a discreet bow of her head, “I leave you to your searching.”

“Mother Agnes—forgive me,” Winn said, stopping the woman at the door of the spartan room. “We came here—that is, we were told a rumor that there once
was
a sister of some artistic repute.”

“I was told the same rumor as a novitiate,” Mother Agnes replied with a smile. “Only then it wasn’t an artist who painted with Dürer, but an astronomer who studied with Galileo. I’m sorry, my dear. Every place has its own mythologies.”

Winn could feel all of her senses, all of the instinct that Mr. Ellis had ascribed to her, sitting up and shrieking against what Mother Agnes had just said. Because if it was true . . . then they would be back to square one. Back to the list. A list that had more than half the items checked off it already. To have hopes brought up and then doubted . . .

But she kept it to herself. She kept it to herself, set her shoulders, and turned to her friends.

Friends. How terribly funny to think of them as such. And how completely right.

“Well, gentlemen,” she said with a smile. “No time like the present.”

They each chose a cabinet and began. The light moved across the floor, the sun shifting places in the sky as morning became afternoon. They heard the church bells every hour, on the hour. Heard the girls move from their classes. If Winn had brought her head up from the books at all, she might have wondered where Gail and Evangeline had gotten to . . . a question that Mr. Ellis answered when he asked the novitiate, who brought them a small repast of bread and cheese around two and told them that the young fräuleins had elected to sit in on a few of the classes at the school.

Mr. Ellis proved to be as good as his reputation. He was meticulous, respectful, and thorough in his searching. Jason, too, had by now, after all that time in Nuremberg and then the proceeding time at various book rooms and libraries of churches all over the Innere Stadt, worked up a surprisingly good tolerance for the quieter, dustier aspects of study. She found herself glancing at him more than once, his eyes straining on obscure German handwriting, and . . . well, it was silly, but she was proud of him.

Silly, because . . . he had always been this way. At least with her. He had always been steadfast, he’d always tried so very hard. There was no need for pride, and yet there it was anyway, shining and precious.

He glanced up and caught her gaze. Smiled. She glanced down immediately. She had to stop doing that. With their adventure ending, seeking his eyes was a habit she had to break. She had to maintain her distance.

But—those few kind glances aside—as diligent as they were, as tirelessly thorough, they needn’t have been.

Within the first hour, she knew they weren’t going to find anything.

No second half of correspondence, no record of a sister of the Order of St. Clare from around 1500 . . . no other leads.

It must have been past six when she closed the last book in the last cabinet. The light from the west was coming in bright yellow and orange, illuminating the dust that floated on the air like a dancing summer snow.

No one said anything for some minutes. Just allowed their eyes to adjust back to seeing distance, stretched their backs.

And again, her gaze unerringly found Jason’s.

“Well . . . I think I shall go examine the chapel before we lose the light,” Mr. Ellis said, backing out of the small office. “I’m terribly interested to see how they intend to repair the roof.” They heard rather than saw him almost bump into the little candled prayer altar down the hall. “Oof! Here’s hoping there hasn’t been further damage caused to the works inside!” he cried, and was gone.

“Mr. Ellis is nothing if not the epitome of tact,” Jason drawled, smiling that half smile at her.

But she couldn’t smile back at him.

“I’m never going to find her, am I?” she said, leaning against Mother Agnes’s desk.

“Of course you are,” Jason replied, leaning against the desk next to her, crossing his arms over his chest, mimicking her exhausted posture. Perhaps he wasn’t mimicking. Perhaps he was truly as exhausted as she. “How could you possibly even think it? There’s half a list of Viennese nunneries yet to go through.”

“I know.” Winn shook her head. “Of course tomorrow is going to be another search of other churches, until another rumor is tracked down and another possibility opens up. But I felt so damned sure that this was the place. I had my hopes up. It’s so hard to have them let down again.” She chanced it, chanced connection, and reached out and patted his shoulder. “I’m simply indulging in a moment of self-pity. It will pass soon enough.”

He looked for a moment as though he wanted to say something—a kind of anticipation crossed over his features. But then it fled, and he shrugged in his nonchalant manner.

“Self-pity?” Jason grinned. “How is it possible that you made it this far into the journey without indulging in self-pity?”

“I don’t know.” She smiled at him. “But I do think I would have succumbed to self-pity much sooner if you hadn’t been with me every step of the way. Making sure I didn’t fall into too bad of trouble. I would have been robbed, or taken for a ride all around the Germany, or ended up in a Turkish harem. I do thank you for that.”

He looked at her then, his lazy half smile taking on a look of reluctant honesty.

“Actually,” he said, his voice barely more than a gruff whisper, “I think you would have managed fine without me. I don’t know how, but . . . you would have found your way.”

Winn felt the tears sting at her eyes. She did her best to blink them back, but . . .

“Oh for God’s sake, what did I do now?” Jason asked, worriedly coming off the desk . . . as if tears from a woman were an indicator of disease. Luckily, his reaction had her laughing.

“No, no . . . nothing terrible.” She giggled back her tears. “That is simply the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

“Oh,” Jason replied, relievedly settling back down against the table. “Well, it’s true. You would have been fine, Winn. Not that I’ve minded coming along with you, of course.”

She threw her head back in laughter at that one. “Oh, you minded. You minded several times in several different ways.”

Jason sputtered in protest, before he finally shook his head in acknowledgement. “Yes, all right . . . I did mind. Some. Not all.”

“Not all?” she asked, looking into his face, and finding it raw and honest.

“I want you to know—this is the best adventure I’ve ever had,” he breathed.

“It’s the only adventure I’ve ever had,” she replied.

They held still there, the dust from all of their efforts settling around them, the golden sun casting him a reddish halo that threatened to unsettle her as much as this conversation. But as unsettling as it was . . . she was loath to have this moment end.

“I want you to know something else,” he said, and her breath caught. What did he need her to know? She had no idea. What if . . . what if it was something she couldn’t bear to hear?

“I have forty-eight stable workers in my employ, at four different estates. That number fluctuates by five or so as I have local boys hired on when I visit my hunting box.” He grinned. “I also tend to vote for conservative fiscal measures in the House of Lords, but strangely turn Tory when it comes to social matters. Drives my secretaries and fellow Whig party members absolutely mad. And I know the salary of my valet, and I know that I am going to have to have the fields of Crow Castle—that’s my family seat—dredged within the year else the crops will suffer.”

Winn’s jaw dropped; she could only gape.

“Stop looking at me like a fish,” Jason mumbled, blushing.

“Forty-eight stable workers?” she finally asked.

“Give or take five,” he replied.

“But we spoke of that ages ago.”

He shrugged. “It’s been bothering me.”

She let out a great breath. It was relief, she told herself, this feeling in her belly, that Jason’s confession had been one of responsibility rather than . . . anything else.

But, not willing to reflect any longer, Winn wiped her eyes, squared her shoulders, and came off the edge of the desk.

“Shall we find the others?” she asked with a smile as Jason followed her lead. She took his arm, and they stepped out of the office and into the hall. “Tomorrow is another day of scouting churches. For I have to find some evidence of Maria F., because I will not be returning to England as George Bambridge’s bride.”

She continued to walk, but Jason became still. He caught her hand, forcing her to stop and turn around in the tiny hallway of the convent dormitory.

“There’s a third option,” he said seriously.

“What?” she asked.

“Other than finding Maria F. or marrying Bambridge. Winn—there is a third option.”

And then . . . panic rose in her chest. Her hand remained firmly in his, and she fought to keep it there . . . to not pull away and run . . .

“There is no third option, Jason,” she said, her voice weaker than she would have liked.

“Yes, there is,” he countered. “I know you think you owe him a debt of honor, but if you were already mar—”

“No, Jason, there is no third option,” she repeated, forcefully this time, with conviction. “Because there is no second option.” She pulled her hand out of his grasp and watched his face go from open and hopeful to hard, aristocratic lines. “I will not marry George because I will not fail at this,” she said. “I cannot. I have to find my evidence—the life I want is within my grasp.”

“The life you want is a good one, but there are other lives to be had,” he argued. “Why are you so afraid?”

“I’m not afraid!” she practically yelled. Then, more calmly, “But you cannot save me from this, Jason. I’ve told you that I have to have my voice, my independence . . . I will not be forced to rely on anyone or have anyone need me, ever again. It’s all I’ve ever wanted. And if I . . .
give up
, I will hate myself forever. And anyone that asked me to.” She looked down at her toes then, unable to hold his eye any longer as her answer to his unasked question made impact upon his features. “Please tell me you understand,” she whispered.

When Jason’s voice finally came, it came out harshly. “I do,” he said. “So this is your choice, then?”

She flicked her gaze up at him, uncertain. He was pale, awed, refusing to look at her directly. Instead, he focused beyond her, down the short corridor.

“I will work my way through all the convents and monasteries in Vienna, in Europe, if I have to, to earn my own life,” she vowed.

He nodded, and took in a deep ragged breath. “Then turn around.”

Turn around? She blinked in confusion. His eyes fell to hers quickly, and he nodded, his face still giving nothing away. So she turned at his command and followed his line of sight to the end of the short corridor, where it turned to the left. In the corner of the hall was the small prayer altar, set with votive candles that Mr. Ellis had nearly tripped over. Or perhaps he had nearly tripped over one of the few chairs that were situated next to it. But that was not what had caught Jason’s attention—and now hers.

On top of the prayer altar was a small triptych painting, set in thick pine, so it stood up of its own volition. The center panel rose in an arch and was no more than a foot and a half tall, a foot wide. Its two side panels were set on hinges, and each were half of the center panel’s width, so they could be closed like church doors.