Free Silent on the Moor by Deanna Raybourn Page A

structure itself, Jacobean in design, was elegant if old-fashioned. Properly rebuilt and with thoughtful landscaping, it might still be redeemed.
    “It would take a miracle from God and more money than I will ever see in my lifetime to rebuild it,” Miss Allenby commented, intuiting my thoughts.
    “It is a handsome place,” I offered, following slowly as she led the way to the wooden door.
    “Handsome, but rotten through and through. I have a model of the house, as it used to be. It is a doll’s house really, but it was built by an architect who came to make a study of the house. He presented it to my grandmama when she was still in the nursery, and eventually it was given to me toplay with. It is a lovely thing, but it makes me quite sad sometimes to see how it used to be. Mind your step here, my lady. A bit of stone has come loose,” she warned.
    I followed her into a pleasure garden, this one derelict as well. It had been well-planned and probably well-executed, but little that was recognisable remained. Woody old vines choked a statue of an ancient king, and here and there a few scattered bits of stone spoke of ornaments long since destroyed.
    “That is King Alfred,” Miss Allenby informed me, gesturing toward the decrepit old king. “He is an ancestor of the Allenbys. We are of ancient Anglo-Saxon stock,” she said proudly. Her chin was tipped high, and I could well see the resemblance to old royalty in her profile. I had read long before that the athelings, the children of Saxon royalty, had been reckoned by the conquering Normans to be the handsomest people they had ever seen. It was not so difficult to believe Miss Allenby was of this tribe. I said as much to her and she laughed, clearly pleased.
    “There is an old tale that Pope Gregory once saw a group of Angle children for sale in the Roman slave market at Deira. He was so struck with their beauty, he asked who they were. He was told they were Angles, and he replied, ‘Non Angli, sed angeli.’ ”
    “‘Not Angles, but angels,’” I translated.
    “Precisely.”
    We passed through the pleasure garden and beyond another crumbling door. As soon as we crossed the threshold, I gasped, for stretching before me was the moor, vast and rolling, empty and endless as the sea. It was beautiful, and yet inhospitable as well.
    Miss Allenby stood next to me. “When I was a little girl, I was frightened of the moor. The way the wind always rises, keening like a human voice. The local folk call it a speaking wind. One is never entirely alone on the moor. That wind always blows, and that voice is always there.”
    “I can well imagine it,” I murmured.
    “But it can be a great comfort as well,” she said, turning aside. Her expression had not changed, but I noted the black of her gown and remembered the brother whose death had necessitated the loss of her home. Did she mourn him still?
    A narrow path wound its way through the moor grasses, here quite straight, there bending a little to skirt a bit of rock or a boggy patch. There was just enough room to walk abreast and we did so. I had thought the moor empty, but as we moved farther from the Hall, I noticed the occasional bird, beating its wings to rise above the grasses, or heard the bleating of sheep carried on the wind.
    She pointed out the dark, peaty waters that swirled and sucked in boggy places, ready to close over the unsuspecting. She warned me sternly against straying from the path, and lifted her arm to point out a shimmering expanse of black water in the distance.
    “Grimswater. It is an ancient place, that lake—full of magic. They say the god who lives there gave this moor its name.”
    “Really? I should have thought the name Grimsgrave quite appropriate in any event.”
    Miss Allenby gave a quick, light laugh. “The moor is not so sinister as that. Grim was a Saxon god, and grave merely means pit or shaft. This moor was mined in ancient times,even through the Roman occupation. Silver and