A Heart's Treasure (27 page)

Genevieve felt several shades of pink creep up her face at Kenneth’s insinuation, a fact that caused Penelope to fix her eyes briefly on the other woman as an awkward silence fell.

It was Penelope who ended it. “It’s water under the bridge,” she said. “And I’ve not cheated. I’ve merely paid attention when Kenneth spoke of matters of interest to him. Shall we be on our way to Trafford Heath to find the token?” she effectively ended the finger pointing.

“I’ll tell Laura the coaches are ready to travel, and notify Summer and Michael. See how those two wish to go on,” Xavier offered, moving toward the inn. Haddy let him go without any suggestion to accompany him.

The others didn’t immediately climb to their respective seats, uncertain when and if either of the once-betrothed couple would be accompanying them. To everyone’s surprise, Summer was accompanied from the inn by Xavier within three minutes, pulling on her gloves, her face as calm and sweet as ever despite the signs of recent tears. Behind them came Michael, silently carrying one of her hatboxes in one hand and two portmanteaux in the other.

It was a calm-faced armistice—and everyone went wordless, for they felt the energy surging under the temporary ceasefire.

Xavier lifted his hand, offering assistance into the carriage. Genevieve felt his fingers linger just a little longer than truly necessary, and she made a little surprised noise when he pressed her fingers with his own before releasing them.

Summer was just about to be handed up when Michael called out. “Summer, do say you will ride atop the carriage with me. It promises to be a lovely day.” He closed the door of the second carriage, and crossed the cobbles to stand near her.

“I am Lady Rose to you,” Summer said in her quiet voice, firm with resolve. “And, no, I’ll not sit with you.”

“You will. Sooner or later,” Michael told her, grinning, moving to step around Xavier and offer her his hand.

She disdained it, reaching for Xavier’s instead. “Whyever would I?” she asked as she settled in her seat, not bothering to look out the door toward the man.

“Because I love you. Adore you. Desire you. Need I go on?”

Xavier looked at Genevieve, fighting a smile, and much to her surprise, he gave her a wink.

Summer, unaware, sniffed. “Please close the door,” she said to Xavier.

The door was duly closed. Michael stepped back, looking through the window at the woman who studiously ignored him.

“Are you so sure you can win her back?” Xavier asked as he mounted the box and leaned down to present an arm up to his friend.

“I must. But it’s true she’s quite determined to play hard to catch. Re-catch, ha! Delightful sport, isn’t it? I confess, I’m finally glad we’ve come on this excursion,” Michael said with a contented sigh as he settled beside Xavier and gathered up the ribbons.

Inside the carriage, Summer was silent but Genevieve found her tongue and began to chat happily, unaware that Summer and Penelope exchanged a speaking glance with one another.

Chapter 19

As lines so loves oblique may well

Themselves in every angle greet

But ours so truly parallel,

Though infinite can never meet.

—Andrew Marvell,

The Definition of Love

“This was too bad of you to bring us here, Kenneth,” Penelope said semi-sternly as she picked her steps, with the delicacy of distaste, away from the weather-bleached bones yet chained overhead that were all that remained of James Price.

“Somehow it had seemed more clever, and less gruesome, when I thought of it at home. My apologies to everyone. It never struck me how disturbing such a sight might be.”

“I know he was a thief,” Summer said, “but it seems so cruel to leave him here this way.” She walked at her brother’s side, quite deliberately avoiding being anywhere near Michael.

“Cruel, yes, but perhaps necessary. It certainly tells any footpad who passes by what the locals do to those who dare rob the mails in this county,” Haddy said.

In her hand, Penelope carried a five of clubs playing card. Kenneth had explained that it had been twenty-three years since James Price was first set to swinging on the heath, and he’d added the numbers two and three to arrive at five.

“And why a club?” his sister asked as they made their way back to the carriages.

“For the club a footpad often carries, you see.”

She looked less than impressed.

He laughed. “Don’t mock me. I’m largely inventing the points of the hunt as we go, you know.”

When they’d returned to the carriages, Penelope said, “It seems there’s another clue to be revealed, if we’re to know our next destination.”

Kenneth drew out a piece of blue paper. “Let me think…whose turn is it? I confess I’m a bit confused on the matter. It ought to be Genevieve and Michael, but…Michael, you suggested to me this morning there was to be an exchange of partners?”

“Yes,” Michael said eagerly, just as Summer declared, “Indeed not!”

“Well, which is it?”

“As I recall, the last thing Lord Yardley said on the matter was that he absolutely refused to be any partner of mine,” Summer said in quiet dignity.

“Any partner in terms of this treasure hunt,” Michael corrected. “Which I now rescind. What do you say, Xavier, Genevieve? Are you still in mind to take new partners?”

“I’ll allow Genevieve to choose,” Xavier said quietly.

Genevieve felt a pins-and-needles shiver run up the nape of her neck at the steady gaze he turned upon her, and started to shake her head. It suddenly seemed more than awkward, rather blatant, this exchange of partners, as though she opened a secret door into her innermost thoughts, allowing others, and perhaps even him, to see some of the crazy fluttering that ran through her at the idea. But before she could shake her head, she stopped herself. After all, there was more to be considered than just her own wishes. One purpose for agreeing to this journey had been that Michael would learn to appreciate his fiancée, and that he and Summer would come together at last. The former had been accomplished, but now the latter seemed an even more unlikely ending. Would Summer have anything to do with Michael unless she was forced to it?

For a long moment Genevieve stared at her friend, at the obviously piqued angle at which she held her chin, at the pretty face she’d somehow smoothed to show little sign of alarm or discomfort—and she suddenly understood that Summer was vexed, oh yes, but she wasn’t…distressed. Angry, indeed, but there was that in her eyes…but perhaps Michael knew the lady’s temperament, in this arena, better than did her friend?

Summer met her gaze, blinked calmly once, and waited as did all the others.

“Time is fleeting, my dear people,” Kenneth prompted.

“I see no impediment to exchanging partners,” Genevieve spoke slowly. “Summer already has her three tokens in her reticule.” She didn’t look to Xavier, afraid her color rose. “Even though she becomes Michael’s partner, her token count remains correct.”

All waited for an outburst of some kind from Summer—but it didn’t come.

“Summer?” Kenneth asked uncertainly.

“She wishes to be my partner,” Michael said, moving to her side. “Isn’t that correct, my love? You wish to play the game with your betrothed.”

“Lady Rose to you. And you’re no longer my betrothed.” She didn’t deign to look at him, but idly played with a tiny loop of thread on her glove. “I released you, if you recall.”

“I can correct that,” he said, his hands in his pockets as he rocked on his heels, a grin on his face. “Lady Rose, I ask you anew, will you marry me?”

“I certainly will not.”

“What if I take your hand?” He extracted his hands from his pockets and grabbed one of hers.

She didn’t pull it free. “Lord Yardley, I should like my hand back,” she said though.

“What if I go down on one knee?” He promptly dropped one knee to the dirt.

“Then you will get a dusty knee,” Summer said crisply.

Genevieve stared at the sight of her brother so willingly making a fool of himself. Summer, standing cool and unmoved. Haddy grunting and going to check the teams. Penelope put one hand to her mouth to hide a smile. The remaining members of the party merely watched with faintly puzzled or uncertain looks on their faces—with the exception of Xavier, who had a smile lingering around his mouth which Genevieve looked up in time to discover. It was a strange little smile, one she could only classify as being somehow…well, tender. It sent another shiver coursing up her spine, and she tore her vision away, that he might not look up and see her just as the shiver curled up into the back of her eyes.

“But what if I make a flowery speech?” Michael went on.

“I could wish you wouldn’t—”

“Could wish it, but don’t. My dear, my own, my heart! It will make the sun rise each morning for me if you would be so good as to say you would be mine. Birds shall not sing for me until you have promised to wed me as soon as may be. The leaves on the trees shall not dance until you have—”

“Pish,” said Summer, staring off at the horizon as though in extreme boredom, but she made no attempt to move away.

“Those leave shall not dance until you have whispered the golden,” he pressed on, “blessed words that you’ll have me.”

“Partner,” Xavier said near Genevieve’s ear, causing her to spin toward him too rapidly, so that she almost reached out to touch him, to steady herself. “Would you ride with me, instead of inside the carriage?”

“Yes,” she answered simply, although she didn’t wear a riding habit, nor would she ask that one be unpacked. No one would appreciate the delay, least of all herself. If she delayed, she’d probably change her mind.

“Give me a moment to find the sidesaddle,” he said. All of the ladies knew how to ride, but the relentless sun had kept them from it.

As he readied the horses, she’d time to begin to regret agreeing to ride beside him anyway. There would be no one to interrupt their conversation should it grow awkward. No one to fill in any silences that might fall. No way to pretend to be ignoring his presence, the presence that caused her eyes to be unable to meet his, that tied her tongue, and made her feel all muddled inside.

It didn’t soothe her nerves that Michael spoke on, mindless of his fellow travelers, declaring his undying affection. Summer allowed him to go on holding her hand, even though she delicately yawned behind her other hand.

As soon as Xavier stepped back, declaring the horses were saddled properly, Kenneth drew a card from his coat pocket. As Michael went on proposing marriage to Summer, Kenneth slipped a playing card—a ten of hearts—in the man’s hand where he knelt, then moved quickly away from the scene. Speaking loudly, to override Michael’s proclamations, he said, “I declare it the new partners’ turn, Genevieve and Xavier’s. Here is your clue. And oh,” he said, pulling the paper back out of her reach momentarily, “before you may have it, understand that you’re not to look at Haddy’s map.”

Genevieve lifted her eyebrows, nodded acceptance, and snatched back the paper.

“‘
My Guild Festival dates from the time of my charter in 1179,
’” she read aloud, “’
And is celebrated every twenty years. In ancient times, I was the capital for the Duchy of Lancaster. I was occupied by the Old Pretender in 1715, and by the Young Pretender in 1745.
’” She looked up at Kenneth to needle him lightly. “But it doesn’t rhyme.”

“I should care to see you get anything to rhyme with ‘1715.’ Believe me, I made the attempt, and it was the wartiest piece of poetry you’d ever read.”

“On this journey, that’s saying something,” Penelope teased.

Kenneth turned to Penelope and gave an exaggerated frown, and she giggled. Genevieve’s eyes widened at the sound, for Penelope wasn’t usually one given to girlish giggling. They widened further when Kenneth began to stalk the woman with claw-like fingers, causing her to squeal and dash around the group of people and around to the other side of the carriage. She came around the other side as Kenneth pursued her, her eyes glittering, her cheeks flushed, and she moved quickly behind her brother, crying, “Kenneth! Do stop! Xavier, help!” She giggled again as Kenneth reached around the taller man. “Xaiver, make him stop!”

Have they mended fences so thoroughly then, that they may act in something like their old camaraderie? Good for you, Penelope,
Genevieve thought with a little nod of approval.

“Manning, my sister says you’re to stop behaving like a noddy,” Xavier said dryly, though there was an edge to his voice that made Genevieve glance up at him and remember last night.

Kenneth took one more lunge for Penelope—another giggle—and then abandoned the chase, tugging his waistcoat back into place and running a hand through his hatless hair in an effort to restore his decorum.

“You are the apple of my eye,” Michael went on. “The honey on my bread…”

Xavier ignored both his sister and Michael to speak to Genevieve. “Our clue time is running out. Have you a guess?”

She shook her head, feeling the shyness creep back into her manner, causing her to not quite meet his eye. “It has to be a place, rather than a person, yes? I’m afraid the farther north we go, the less my knowledge of the land and its local history becomes. Although, I’ve a thought as to the duchy, I think it must be Lancaster. That must be north of here, for we are undoubtedly going to travel through Lancashire, and one is named for the other, surely?”

Xavier rubbed his chin. “And talk of the Pretenders doesn’t bring any different thoughts to my mind. It might be easier to say where Pretenders were
not,
rather than where they were. Very well. Kenneth, we say it is Lancaster.”

“Sorry,” he said, his tone of relish showing his claim of regret wasn’t quite true. “Dear me, it’s time for a forfeit.”

Genevieve sneaked a glance at Xavier as Kenneth pulled the forfeits bag from his pocket. Xavier didn’t appear particularly upset by the turn of events. She chose to model his behavior as Kenneth presented the bag to her.