Page 120 of A Rare Find

Nicholas Fluff had ceded his own chair to Mrs. Alderwalsey, and now he carried over another, for her. There wasn’t space at the table to accommodate it. Or rather, no one made any space.

Elfreda gave him a grateful glance but remained standing.

“As for the fruits themselves,” said Papa, and laid the coins down one by one on the table. “Frankish. Islamic. Frankish. Byzantine. Islamic. Anglo-Saxon.” He held up the last coin. “This is a penny of Ceolwulf the Second.”

“It’s not,” Elfreda responded instantly. “It’s a penny of his father, Burgred. The annal says the Great Heathen Army encamped in Twynham in 868, and the penny supports that chronology. Ceolwulf the Second ruled later.”

There was a sound like gravel crunching under carriage wheels.

The Barrow Prince was laughing.

“Let me see.” Hudson Roach stretched across the table and snatched the penny from Papa’s hand. “Burgred Rex,” he confirmed. “There are a few perforations on the obverse, but you can still read the letters.”

“I thought it was Burgred,” said Papa. “But the B looked like a C, because I am not wearing my spectacles.”

“Oh, pish,” said Mrs. Alderwalsey. “Spectacles aren’t the problem. Harold, you have always been blinded by your own conceit.”

Papa’s head whipped around. “How dare you!”

“How dare I?” Mrs. Alderwalsey had taken over Mr. Fluff’s tea as well as his seat. She sipped delicately. “I was at your breeching ceremony. I dare anything.”

“Miss Marsden,” rasped the Barrow Prince, “was the hoard on the bluff?” Her gaze skittered away from his almost at once. She studied her interlaced fingers where they pressed into her belly.

“No,” she said, drawing a breath, then lifting her eyes, looking at him directly. “The army encamped on the bluff, but the hoard was in a well. It’s fascinating how it ended up there. My grandmother was a scholar—”

Papa emitted a rude noise.

Mrs. Alderwalsey pointed a spoon at him, and remarkably, he quailed.

“My grandmother was a scholar,” continued Elfreda. “She prepared a translation of a nun’s chronicle, a nun from Twynham Abbey. That’s what led me to the hoard. The chronicle recounted—”

Mr. Incledon interrupted.

“Your well is from the Dark Ages?” He addressed the question to Papa.

Papa gave an uncomfortable shrug. “It is much older than the hall, yes.”

It was not, but Elfreda avoided correcting the factual error.

“I didn’t find it in our well,” she said, “but in a well beneath Holywell Rock.”

“Holywell Rock!” Papa couldn’t hide his surprise. “How the devil did you move Holywell Rock?”

“Fire setting,” suggested the Barrow Prince. “Heat the rock, then add cold water, so it cracks. That’s what I’d have done.”

“That’s what the Romans did.” Sir Graham nodded.

“A farmer moved it,” said Elfreda. “He’s very strong and used a lever.”

She hadn’t thought of fire setting, but even if she had, she would have dismissed the technique. Too slow. She’d been in such a rush to tell Papa, to tell the Barrow Prince, to make her discovery real. But it had already been real. By rushing to Incledon Hall, she’d made her discovery Papa’s.

She wadded the empty reticule in her hand.

“The hoard isn’t still in the well?” he asked.

“It’s in the library,” she said. Mr. Peach had helped with that too.

“Good.” Papa exchanged a look with Sir Graham. “We’ll return directly.”