A Finer End

Faith slept after Winnie’s visit, deeply and dreamlessly, and when she woke she knew what she was going to do. Garnet’s legacy should not be allowed to vanish. She, Faith, with Winnie’s help, could carry it on. She would learn to make tile.

She was still mulling over the details of her plan when Nick knocked. He fussed over her and Bridget, but she sensed an awkwardness in his manner, and an unfamiliar chasm between them.

“Nick, what is it?”

He hesitated, then met her eyes. “I’ve come to say good-bye.”

“What do you mean, good-bye? I’ll be going home tomorrow, to Jack’s, that is. And then Winnie’s asked me to come and stay with her at the Vicarage.”

“I know,” Nick replied. “She told me. But I’m leaving Glastonbury. I have to go back to Northumberland, Faith, and take care of some things.”

Faith stared at him. She suddenly realized that she’d foolishly assumed Nick would always be there, as constant as the sun and the moon.

“But … you’ll come back, right?” she asked, making an effort to keep her voice steady.

“I don’t know yet. But if I can get things sorted out, I think I may try to get into theological college. I thought—I thought that no one who had screwed up as badly as I have could possibly be a priest, but Winnie says you can’t understand other people’s mistakes if you haven’t made some yourself. Seasoning, she called it.” He smiled. “Don’t look so shocked. It’s what I’ve always wanted; it just took me a while to figure it out.”

“But … Father Nick?” She studied him as if seeing him for the first time. Nick, a vicar like Winnie? “Well …” she said slowly, “I suppose I could get used to it.”

Gemma and Kincaid had turned over all their information on the murder of Garnet Todd and Bram Allen’s suicide to DCI Greely. His team had already found Garnet’s missing earring near the pool above her house, and a strand of Garnet’s long salt-and-pepper hair snagged on a button on the jacket Bram Allen had worn the night she died.

Now, they sat in front of the fire in Jack’s parlor, drinking tea and sorting through the events of the past days. Andrew’s dog Phoebe, brought temporarily from the house on Hillhead, had curled herself up against Gemma’s feet.

“Will Fiona be all right?” asked Kincaid.

“She’s very strong,” answered Winnie. “But this … I don’t know. I’ve seldom seen two people love each other more.”

“Even though Bram wasn’t what she thought?”

“I’m not sure,” Winnie said slowly, “that it matters. And are any of us ever entirely honest about ourselves?”

Gemma thought of her own failure to communicate with Duncan about what lay closest to her heart. “What about Edmund? Do you think he knows now that his and Alys’s child survived?”

“I hope so,” answered Jack. “He deserves peace, after eight hundred years.”

“As does little Sarah Kinnersley,” Winnie said softly.

“What will you do with the manuscript?” Kincaid asked.

“Study, first,” Jack replied instantly. “Consult with some of the experts on chant, and with conservators. The manuscript itself is remarkably well preserved, and we want to keep it that way.”

“You won’t try to keep it hidden any longer?”

“I think almost a millennium is long enough, don’t you? People should hear this—who knows what good might come of it?”

“It’s quite a responsibility, isn’t it, though?” mused Gemma. “If it’s what you suspect it is.”

“But there have always been caretakers in Glastonbury,” Winnie pointed out. “Think of the monks, and Bligh Bond, and the Chalice Well Trust.… We’ll be following a well-established tradition. I think Edmund would have wanted that.”

“What about Simon?” Kincaid asked. “I’m afraid we did him a disservice, regardless of any past indiscretions.”

“Perhaps …” Winnie smiled faintly. “Although I did learn he’d contacted someone about publishing Edmund’s communications, without consulting Jack.”

“So there’s still a wolf under the sheep’s clothing, after all.”

“I’m sure he meant to tell me,” Jack replied stubbornly, making it clear that he and Winnie would have enough differences of opinion to make life interesting.

“London is going to seem extremely dull compared to Glastonbury,” Kincaid said with a grin, “but I suppose we’d better be getting back.”

“Wait.” Jack rose. “I have something for Gemma.” He left the room, returning with a flat, paper-wrapped package.

“For me?” Gemma took it, curious. When she undid the twine and pulled back the paper, she found herself looking at an oil portrait of a hunting spaniel, who gazed back at her with eyes as soulful as Phoebe’s. “Oh …” she breathed. “It’s lovely.”

“See, I didn’t forget,” Jack told his cousin.