Claire Delacroix by The Bride Quest Series 3-Book Bundle

quietly.
    And Brianna realized that her father’s secret was hidden there.

    Father and daughter reached the floor of the chapel above and Connor genuflected before he lifted his lantern high. The light flickered off the simple contents of the chamber and, as always, Brianna was awed by its beauty.
    A simple altar carved of wood spanned the middle of the room, a silver chalice and plate reposing in its center. A square linen cloth adorned the altar, IHS worked in gold thread on the corner hanging to the front. A thick rug was cast across the wooden floor that the family’s knees might be protected. ’Twas a small chapel, by any calculation, the roof was so steeply pitched that only the very center was usable.
    But behind the altar on the east side rose a massive crucifix that had fascinated Brianna since her childhood. Wrought of wood, the juncture of the arms was marked with a great quartz half-sphere polished to a gleam. No matter where the light was in the chapel, that stone seemed to shine with an inner light.
    ’Twas said that a fragment of the True Cross was trapped within the stone, though Brianna had never had the opportunity to see it closely for herself.
    Her father quickly lit the two plump beeswax candles on the altar and the wicks sputtered fitfully before they caught the flame. The tiny room suddenly danced with warm candlelight, the gold of the crucifix gleaming mysteriously. The quartz glowed, as always it did.
    In the blink of an eye, Connor had set aside his lantern and reached for that very stone. Brianna watched as he ran his hands over it. Her father moved so quickly that Brianna could not have said precisely where he touched the great jewel.
    She did, however, see it open like the lid of a box and hear the faint creak of a hinge. Brianna gasped, her father fired aquelling look across the chapel, and footsteps sounded below in that very moment. Connor reached inside what looked to be a tiny chamber hidden behind the stone, removed something roughly square, then closed the compartment again.
    Then the priest’s blessing echoed from the solar below. Brianna heard the servants’ murmured greetings to the man of the cloth passing through their ranks. She smelled the tang of the incense in the censer Father Padraig always carried and heard his footfall on the ladder.
    Her sire fairly flew across the chapel. He pushed Brianna to her knees before the altar and pulled her cloak closed.
    And just as the priest’s shaved pate glowed in the shadows of the stairs, Connor shoved whatever he had retrieved into Brianna’s hands. ’Twas a flat cold box and she immediately pulled it beneath her cloak. Her fingers told her ’twas metal and unadorned, about the size of her hand laid flat and as thick as both hands together.
    “Letters penned to me by your dame when we were betrothed,” Connor whispered. “We must hide them anew.”
    Brianna clutched the precious relic of her mother and hid it deep within the folds of her cloak. “But where?” she murmured, barely daring to give voice to the words as the priest drew near.
    “In Eva’s crypt,” her father declared without hesitation. “You know the place. Your dame will see that they are held secure, for she intended them to be yours.”
    Brianna’s fingers curled around the cold metal hidden within the heavy wool folds of her cloak. “I shall read them!” she breathed, unprepared for her father’s fierce glare.
    “Nay! They must be hidden,
immediately
, and none must see you at the deed.” Connor’s hand closed tightly overBrianna’s own when she wondered at his urgency. “Swear to me that ’twill be precisely thus,” he whispered urgently.
    Brianna had only a moment to make her pledge, even though she did not fully understand her father’s reasoning. The tension eased from his features and they both inclined their heads to pray.
    “Good evening,” the priest declared from the stairs behind.
    Connor raised his voice then and turned slightly.