He lifted out a large bound folio in brown leather. It was the size of a large modern notebook, tied with a leather strap.
‘That’s sat there for over a hundred years, then. Unless anyone else knew about that secret compartment,’ Aunt Bill observed.
‘No one knew except me. I never told Charles or Edith. Grandfather showed me the secrets of Trevarron before he died. Unless they found out of their own accord, then, yes, the secret died with me.’ He gave me a wry look. ‘Although I didn’t die…’
‘Not yet,’ I replied, a little tartly.
‘Hm. Well, one hopes one may be alive a little longer yet.’ A smile tugged at the edge of his mouth. ‘There is, after all, so much to savour in a life well lived.’ William’s gaze dropped to my chest, even though the dress I was wearing was high-necked and distinctly less revealing than the ones I’d worn in the 1700s.
Was heenjoyingthis?
‘William!’ I hissed, feeling myself blush. ‘It’s not the time.’
‘No? Then perhaps it will be time later.’ He raised an eyebrow. I blushed harder.
We still hadn’t made love since that first, passionate and angry connection after I’d rescued William from gaol. But, he’d held me when we danced at the ball, and we’d shared a moment where I’d felt that familiar chemistry, and now this.
I wondered suddenly whether, even though Aunt Bill had told us something horrifying, having a sense of purpose – the rescue of Violet and Lady Hermione – was restoring William’s sense of self. He was still struggling with the knowledge that he was no longerLord of Trevarron, but at least he had a mission now – a way to make himself feel more like his old self.
‘Loves, I’d never usually want to interrupt your flirtin’, but time is of the essence.’ Aunt Bill cleared her throat. ‘’Ave we got a getaway plan, or not?’
‘Here. This is what I spoke of.’ William opened the folio and rummaged around in it for a moment before holding up a folded piece of paper. He beckoned us to a beautiful walnut table inlaid with mother of pearl in a design of roses. Aunt Bill found an oil lamp and turned up the flame. We sat down on the leather chairs at the table and looked at the map.
‘My grandfather, as I said, was very much a secretive man,’ William began. ‘My own father had secrets, but of a terrible kind.’ A dark expression crossed his face. ‘However, my grandfather taught me the secrets of Trevarron as a house. Or, the ones he knew.’ He blinked for a moment. ‘He certainly didn’t teach me about the time portal. But he did show me this.’
William pointed at the map in front of us. It was drawn on thick, cream paper, like parchment, with the drawing made in brown ink. Trevarron House was drawn in a surprisingly draughtsman-like way in the front and rear view, and then there were cross-section diagrams similar to the ones that estate agents would use to show buyers a house’s layout.
Obviously, because Trevarron was huge, the diagrams were very complicated. It took me a while to understand where anything was.
‘Now. This is the house, and the grounds, as you can see. Here are the outbuildings: the stables, the gatehouse.’ His gaze flickered to mine, and he smiled, subtly. ‘And the main gates.’
‘Yes. What’s this about a getaway, then?’ Aunt Bill prompted.
‘I will tell you. I see that impatience runs in the Penrose family.’ William raised one eyebrow. ‘When Trevarron was built, life could be a little more dangerous than it might be in your time,’ he began. ‘And, there had been smuggling on the coast for some time already. Grandfather said that his ancestor knew smuggling wouldbecome all the more important as time went on, and he was right. As you know, Tegan, when I became Lord of Trevarron, I had no choice but to become involved. It was either go against them or join them, and I had debts.’
I knew that Charles, William’s brother, had run up big debts, gambling and investing the family money badly, and William had turned to smuggling to try and retain the Trevarron family estate.
‘Trevarron is ideally situated for smugglin’,’ Aunt Bill agreed. ‘I don’t doubt it was a terrible temptation.’
‘Not so much a temptation as an inevitability.’ William sighed. ‘Anyhow, my ancestor had the forethought of mind to cut out tunnels leading from the beach alongside Trevarron to the house itself. Smugglers would use them – I would use them – to bring cargo in.’
‘I’ve heard about those old smuggling tunnels,’ I said. You couldn’t grow up in Cornwall without knowing about them. Most of them had collapsed, or were incredibly dangerous to enter if they hadn’t. ‘Some of the old houses in villages along the coast still have doors in the basement that lead to the old tunnels.’
‘That’s right. My old cottage does, in fact, in the kitchen.’ Aunt Bill nodded. ‘Course, I ’ad it closed off, years back. Years back, in our time, I mean,’ she corrected herself. ‘Spooky old thing, it was. I went down there a couple o’ times before I ’ad it closed off. Steps cut in the dirt an’ stone, leads down to a tunnel, cut out o’ the earth. Bolstered by wooden posts, but so many o’ them had rot away. There’d been fall-ins, places where the tunnel collapsed. I couldn’t’ve got very far in there if I’d tried.’ She made a face. ‘Not that I wanted to, mind.’
‘Really? I didn’t know that.’ I’d had no idea about a tunnel under Aunt Bill’s house, and the thought of it spooked me. In Cornwall there was the legends of the Knockers, which were said to be fairy or elflike creatures that lived in tunnels and in the old Cornish tin mines. They were named for the knocking noises that they made underground. It was likely, of course, that earth beingdisplaced or trapped air made the strange noises, but the Cornish were always a superstitious folk.
‘Aye. Some nights, ’specially if it’s bad weather, if there was a big storm an’ the sea was crashin’ up against the rocks, it’d make terrible noises. Chillin’. Sounded like cryin’.’ Aunt Bill shivered.
‘Hm. Well, that’s the other part of the secret.’ William nodded. ‘Here, you can see there’s a tunnel that leads from under the house, out under the grounds, to St Nantes,’ he looked up, and the realisation hit me before he said it.
No.
Surely not.
He couldn’t be about to say what I thought he was about to say.
‘There’s a tunnel that leads from Trevarron House to your cottage, Bill,’ William said. ‘Trevarron House and Yew Tree Cottage are linked. That was the escape route my ancestors built if the Lords of Trevarron ever had to leave the house unexpectedly. And that’s the escape route we’re going to use to get Lady Hermione and Violet away from here.’
