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My legs were trembling at the thought, because it seemed so weird. Hans from Herefordshire? Surely not.
She paused, with a hand on her hip.
“Let me think. Somewhere with weird churches.”
My turn to scoff. “That could be anywhere in Herefordshire.”
“No, there was one of them he was talking about with George… One with some weird things on it. Carvings of a serpent, and a green man, and an upside down hand.”
I stopped in my tracks. “Are you sure?”
She looked at me. “Um, yes. I’d say that’s pretty memorable.”
“Garway,” I said. “That’s the church at Garway.”
“Possibly. I don’t remember the name.”
“It is,” I told her. “That’s the Garway Templar Church.”
“I guess so, then,” she replied, unaware of the coincidence.
Or synchronicity.
“It’s only a few miles away from Orcop,” I went on. “Where I grew up.”
She laughed. “Maybe you did run into him at the local shop at some time. I don’t imagine they have all that many around there.”
She didn’t even saywow, that’s strange, don’t you think?Nothing. She got straight back to work, passing it off as nothing but two people living in the same county, but she didn’t know Herefordshire. The village communities were so small and interconnected that it was insane to think a man like Hans could have lived in Garway without me never so much as hearing about him. It gave me shivers.
If I’d have had anything like a decent relationship with Mum I’d have called her on the spot and asked if she knew him.
“When did Hans join the Regency?” I asked.
Eliza shot me a piercing stare this time.
“What’s the interest in Hans all of a sudden?”
“Nothing,” I said. “It’s just a bit close to home. Literally.”
“Not all that long,” she said. “Just a few weeks before you started. Like I said, I don’t know all that much about him yet. None of us do really, bar Frederick.”
Those eyes. His smile as he reached for me…
I got a wave of something so deep in my stomach I thought I was going to be sick on the spot. I put my hand on my belly and held back a retch, but Eliza saw me.
“Are you alright? You look like you’re going to throw up.”
I nodded, but I was lying. I wasn’t alright at all.
She moved a little closer, but I held out a hand shaking my head.
“I’ll be fine, don’t worry.”
“Hardly. You’re as white as a ghost.”
I’m sure I was. A ghost from the past.
The room started spinning, so I closed my eyes. I heard a ringing in my ears as pictures of Garway church flashed through my mind one after the other. The carvings. The altar. The way I’d been lighting candles there on visits since I was a little girl. My mother and grandmother were religious women. Garway was the church they would pray in, every Sunday for years. I used to play around the gravestones, making up stories.
