Jonah remained near the door to watch the road.
Isaiah followed Daniel upstairs.
They stopped outside a room with a heavy iron lock.
“Who’s there?” a woman called.
Her voice sounded strained but steady.
“I’m looking for Margaret Vale,” Daniel answered quietly.
Silence followed.
Then the voice asked, “Who sent you?”
“Your sister’s letters brought me here.”
The woman approached the door.
“Catherine burned them.”
“Her husband kept copies.”
A breath caught on the other side.
“Then she knows.”
Daniel knelt to inspect the lock.
He had repaired similar locks throughout Blackwood House.
Its mechanism was simple, though the iron was thick.
Isaiah held the lantern while Daniel worked the catch with a narrow tool.
The bolt slid back.
The door opened a fraction.
A woman stood behind it wearing a plain gray dress.
Her hair had gone partly silver, and she was thinner than in the small portrait Catherine kept beside her bed.
But her eyes were unmistakably the eyes of Margaret Vale.
She looked at them with equal parts hope and suspicion.
“How do I know this isn’t Richard’s trick?”
Daniel showed her the little wooden star from Eunice’s spoon.
Margaret pressed one hand over her mouth.
“Hester used that mark.”
“Eunice kept it.”
Margaret stepped into the hallway.
“Is Hester alive?”
“We don’t know.”
She nodded once, as though she had prepared herself for that answer.
They started down the stairs.
Halfway to the kitchen, a horse whinnied outside.
Jonah hurried through the doorway.
“Someone’s coming.”
Margaret froze.
Daniel took her hand only after she reached toward him.
“There’s a wagon beyond the cedars,” he said.
“We need to move.”
She shook her head.
“There are people downstairs.”
“Where?”
“Behind the old pantry wall.”
Isaiah looked at Daniel.
They had come to rescue one woman and found the familiar shape of another hidden room.
Margaret hurried toward the kitchen and pointed to a narrow panel.
Inside were two young women and a sick boy who could barely stand.
The boy clutched a folded scarf to his chest.
One woman called herself Lydia, the same name from Catherine’s letters.
The other did not give a name until Jonah assured her the wagon was real.
She said her name was Rose.
The approaching carriage stopped outside.
Jonah whispered that two riders had entered the yard.
Daniel helped the boy over the kitchen threshold while Isaiah guided the women toward the trees.
A door slammed at the front of the house.
