town living where she could go to the theatre and watch the dancing, even if she does not participate herself.”
He kissed her again, angling his head to avoid the brim of her bonnet. “There is no if.”
She grinned at him. “I am starting to believe you, my dear, Rupert.”
“We have to find the treasure first. Although, you are the treasure I needed to find most.”
She laughed, and Rupert grabbed Verity’s hand and led her along the path to the old chapel. The doors had been replaced sometime in the last century and were secured by sturdy locks. Rupert produced a loop of five keys of different sizes. The two largest keys turned smoothly in the chapel doors' locks, and it swung open without creaking.
“I don’t think we should take Rufus into the church with us. I will tie him to that small tree as otherwise, he will follow us in.”
“Good idea Verity, he is a lovely dog, but it seems disrespectful to take him inside,” Rupert agreed.
The chapel was relatively plain, showing few architectural features besides some vaulting to support the now neat slate roof. It was dim inside, the light coming from a large window at the front of the chapel. That window was leaded erratically as if it had once contained stained glass. Over the window's interior was a metal mesh that was clearly designed to prevent the window from being smashed to enable entry. The window was clearly dirty on the outside as the light was dappled from the tarnishing.
There was a faint smell of incense, still clinging to the atmosphere. The interior was mostly a large rectangle with space for several rows of plain dark wood pews and a cloth-covered altar underneath the large window. On the altar was a beautiful ornate silver cross, but it could have done with some time spent polishing it. There were also two brass candlesticks, still containing about four inches of candles.
The walls inside were plastered and whitewashed and seemed in good order. There were no apparent patches of damp or puddles on the stone slab floor from a high roof leak. The sidewall on the left had some arrow-slit windows like those in a castle. Too narrow for even a child to enter by, and some previous custodian had them glazed in plain glass.
Behind the altar were two standard flags on poles, bedraggled and blood stained as if they had fought the battles themselves, not the soldiers who carried them. Rupert examined them, “I believe this standard once belonged to our local regiment, but the other is from a regiment of the Scots Guards. I do not understand Ellesmere's connection, but there do not seem to be any talbots here. We’ve drawn another blank.”
“There are a couple of brasses in the floor here of medieval knights, they are rather blurred but they carry shields.” Verity knelt to examine them closer, and Rupert stood carefully so as not to shade the light. “Crusader’s cross quartered with some kind of tower or castle on the first. And the second has what looks like crows over a bend and wheat sheaths below. They are nothing like the sonnet.”
To the right of the altar was a small lady chapel. Furnished with a small altar and one prayer seat. There were a few window slits through the outside wall, and the only thing that might be of value was a renaissance style oil painting of the virgin and child which hung behind the altar.
His Great-uncle Frederick had bought the Madonna in Italy on his grand tour. Unfortunately, it was not a renowned old master's work, but a rather good modern copy. He apparently thought that the lady chapel needed something indicating its purpose.
As if reading his thoughts Verity said, “We could check the sides of the altars as the cloths could be hiding a shield?”
He smiled liking the idea that she may have known what he was thinking. “It feels a bit irreverent, but I suppose someone would change the altar cloths in a normal church.”
“I think if we do it with a prayer in our hearts, it would not be considered sacrilegious.”
The lady chapel altar turned out to be only a small wooden table, but the main altar proved to be made of some cream-coloured marble. It was carved with ornate gilded baroque curlicues and flourishes surrounding several bible quotes incised and gilded in Latin.
“I can understand why the cloth covers the altar so thoroughly, at least one of Ellesmere’s former owners must