Free Summerset Abbey by T. J. Brown Page B

eyes pleaded with her, but it wouldn’t do any good. Rowena dropped her gaze and remained silent.
    And hated herself for it.

CHAPTER
SIX

    T his is all wrong.
    The family crypt lay about a mile from the main house, right behind the old chapel. The chapel itself had been allowed to fall into disrepair after Victoria’s great-grandfather had built a new one adjacent to the house. The crypt, built into the side of a small berm, had not been relocated. On top of the berm sat a large marble wall that proclaimed the names of the fallen male Buxtons. The female Buxtons had burial plots surrounding the berm.
    The entire family stood on the berm where the name Philip Alexander Buxton had been freshly carved at the bottom of the list.
    Well, not the entire family, Victoria thought. Prudence wasn’t here.
    Victoria had whispered that fact to Rowena before they left the house, but had received a black look in return. Rowena hadn’t wanted to rock the boat; she was scared of falling over and drowning.
    But Victoria was not afraid.
    Restlessly, she twitched her shoulders and stamped her feet quietly to warm them. She, Elaine, and Rowena had walked to the crypt, spurning a ride in the trap. They had dressed for thechilly weather in tweeds, knitted scarves, and walking shoes, but the cold seemed all-pervasive and she wished the vicar would stop pontificating and get on with it. But he kept talking, talking, talking and not saying a bloody thing. And as she had learned last night at supper, talking did no good at all.
    It wouldn’t bring her father back.
    Someone had set up a spray of white stargazer lilies against the wall and Victoria leaned close to Rowena. “You know, he far preferred Scilla nutans over Lilium orientalis .” She’d meant to whisper it, but evidently wasn’t discreet enough because Aunt Charlotte shushed her and the vicar paused for a moment before continuing. “Well, he did,” she muttered stubbornly.
    To distract herself, she stared at the old stone chapel, almost completely overrun now with English ivy, or Hedera helix, she told herself. The overgrown chestnut trees in the back completely shaded the old garden, and she could see that many of the diamond-pane windows had been broken. The church looked like she felt: lonely, empty, and devoid of warmth.
    With a sigh, she turned back to the vicar. As she turned her head, she thought she saw something move in one of the windows of the chapel. Turning back, she stared hard but saw nothing. Was it a face? An animal? A chill went down her spine. Could it have been a ghost?
    She chided herself for her imagination and turned back to the service. The vicar had finally stopped speaking and a flurry of activity commenced as the pallbearers picked up the coffin. They carried it, slow and dignified, down the little path leading from the memorial on top of the berm to the entrance to the crypt on the other side.
    Victoria’s heart sped up as the finality of it all hit her.
    Papa!
    Suddenly she couldn’t bear to hear the sound of the iron door shutting her father away from the light. She turned toward the woods on the other side of the chapel.
    “I’ll meet you back at the house,” she said over her shoulder.
    “Victoria, wait!” Rowena called, but Victoria ignored her as she hurried down the hill.
    She wanted to run, but knew that if she did she wouldn’t get very far before her lungs closed up, so she made herself keep it to a brisk walk and prayed that no one would follow her.
    Once she stepped into the woods, she felt safe. Automatically she began ticking off the genus and species of the autumn-colored trees she walked past. Silver birch, Betula pendula, downy birch, Betula pubescens, crab apple, Malus sylvestris, wych elm, Ulmus glabra .
    The names were familiar to her from years of walking through similar forests with her father, listening to him practice his lectures. His passion as he talked botany had been infectious and she loved nothing better than