A Heart's Treasure (4 page)

Xavier had smiled gently, unable not to under the weight of her highly unlikely claim. Despite the hollow threat of self-harm, her words were exactly what he’d expected of sensible Nellie. She’d a kind heart—who knew that better than he?—and she wasn’t one to be comfortable with the messiness of a refusal. She felt it, of course she did, even if it was caused by nothing more than wounded pride. Xavier knew about that…he only wished he better knew if it had actually been pride or her heart that had been the worst bruised?

They said everyone ought be crossed in love at least once in their life. It was supposed to grow one’s character, or teach one a life lesson, or some such rubbish—but Xavier knew it left a mark that could never be scrubbed clear. In the weeks since, he’d only grown less sure in this particular that he entirely trusted his sister’s spirit of resilience.

Today, however, she blinked away the tears and looked at him straight on, calm, levelheaded Nellie again. “You think that I should not be paired with Mr. Manning during our treasure hunt.”

“Yes.”

“The drawing took me by surprise, I admit it,” she said. “But just as I’d thought of the possibility he could draw my name, it was done, and we were committed.”

“I could easily—”

“No,” she said, sounding assured. “I’m glad for the excuse to spend some time with Mr. Manning. To come to a new understanding with him. I hope I may remain his friend.”

He said much the same,
Xavier thought with a twist of his mouth. He reached up a finger, stroking his sister’s cheek. “Perhaps it would be easier to stay behind, Nellie. I could make an excuse for you—”

“No,” she reached up and grasped his wrist with both her hands, the gentle pressure of her fingers telling him to listen. “It’s time to begin again.”

“You are very strong, my girl, but this cannot prove much of a pleasure trip for you, I fear.”

“No?” She put her head on one side, her expression taking on the stubborn aspect he knew so well. “It can if I decide it shall be so.”

He nodded, and sighed, and dropped his hand to his side, chagrined by his own renewed relief that she’d chosen not to undo his small, private, protected world.

For good or ill, the treasure hunt would go forward—and Xavier could only hope it wouldn’t end in heartbreak.

Chapter 2

The huntsman winds his horn:

And a-hunting we will go.

—Henry Fielding,

A-Hunting We Will Go

“Tally ho!” Michael cried with a flick of the driving whip, a sign of enthusiasm such as was infrequent with the man. It caused Haddy to frown at him, and murmur that hunt phrases were sacrosanct and ought to be used only for such, but the cry was echoed by the other passengers who were not such sticklers.

The first of the two carriages rolled forward, only achieving a good clip once they were finally free of London’s traffic and tollgates. No one had asked how Kenneth’s interview with Sir Roger concerning this journey had gone, or if it had even taken place. It was easy to imagine a note left on the mantel.

It was also easy to imagine Sir Roger’s wrath once Kenneth and Laura returned home.

Michael drove the ladies’ coach, and Haddy the second one. The ladies’ maids had been turned back before they’d ever left Mayfair, and no grooms accompanied them.

“Act as maid to one another, and of course you’re all safe enough with brothers coming out of every seam,” Haddy had supported Kenneth’s decision to travel more lightly. “We’ve fists and pistols aplenty to keep us safe from footpads.” He’d turned his attention to the heavily loaded coach he’d volunteered to drive, and frowned. “If need be, we can build a full encampment out of all the baggage you ladies have brought along.”

The ladies had only shaken their heads at him, saying that if they were not to have maids, then they must at least have access to their accoutrements. After a great deal of fuss, the coaches had been readied, and now they’d left the city behind, to everyone’s excitement and not some little relief.

The relief dissipated soon, as the afternoon grew heavy with heat, the open windows of the ladies’ coach only allowed dust to filter in and very little in the way of a breeze, and the conversation melted away by steady degrees. Summer leaned back against the squabs, a lacy handkerchief pressed to her nose and mouth, her face growing a little paler as they traveled onward down each mile.

“Remind me, whose idea was this?” Genevieve murmured into the growing gloom as evening approached. The brown curls which usually danced on her forehead were stuck to it now.

“Kenneth’s,” Laura and Penelope answered together, the one with a sour note, the other with resignation.

Summer merely coughed, her bonnet bobbing forward and falling over her face until she reached up, untied the strings, and discarded it altogether as the other ladies had already done. Her white-blonde hair was also stuck to her pale face. Genevieve sat forward and took her friend’s hand. “Just a little farther, I think,” she smiled, and Summer smiled back, however unsteadily.

“I’m well,” she said, and everyone knew it was not quite true, for Summer was the kind who could not dance two dances together without respite, and fainted at the sight of blood. Her health was not exactly infirm, but easily disturbed, as though to match the light, lilting voice that she seldom raised.

Genevieve looked at her, longing, as usual, for something of that delicacy, that irresistible softness. She herself was as hearty as the cattle on her father’s estate, and just about as subtle. It was unfair to compare herself with Summer, of course, who was slender as a reed, and walked as though on water, but Genevieve did feel as though her five feet and three inches was something quite monstrous next to this tiny, sweet-faced creature. Her own dark brown hair seemed plain when next to that ethereal blonde head, her dark brows and long lashes coarse beside those airy arches, and her curves almost obscene when seated near that slender form.

Despite all of that, Genevieve loved the dainty creature she called friend. Summer was everything gracious…so much so, in fact, that the lady had a knack of getting what she wanted; it was difficult to resist when such a delicate flower, in charming serenity, asked for something.

As to the other ladies sweltering inside the coach: Laura never quite forgot she was the eldest among them, and the death of her almost-fiancée had only added to her sometimes cynical air. Penelope was the least easily labeled. She was often gracious, like Summer, but there was something reserved about Penelope, especially of late. She could certainly be counted on to hold one’s secrets, as she held her own quite well. Genevieve counted both among her dearest friends…but she wondered sometimes if she really knew Penelope’s inner thoughts or cares as well as she thought she did.

Michael rode past the coach on his horse. Genevieve felt her mouth bend up, remembering how vexed her brother had been at having to take her as his hunt partner. She’d never give him the satisfaction of letting him know she, too, would have preferred a different partner. From the standpoint of the game, the two of them could be clever when they put their wits together, so that was to the good. On the other hand, that he was not Summer’s partner was perhaps a mistake. Michael was entirely too unhurried about this marriage of his. Genevieve failed to see how he could have escaped falling in love with his fiancée, but she’d begun to wonder if that were the case. Of course, he was young, only three-and-twenty, and that was an uncertain age for a man, so Papa had explained repeatedly. Still, Michael’s indolent courtship seemed increasingly worrisome.

She herself was only nineteen, the youngest among them, and a little concerned that in her first season she’d not “taken.” That probably added to her not at all liking the thought of the betrothal dissolving—oh, but surely it would not, that kind of thing just was not done. A man’s promise was a solid thing. And yet, the opposite thought of Michael and Summer moving ahead into a loveless marriage was just as terrible. Worse, perhaps.

Well, maybe this unplanned jaunt into the country would help. They would all be together a great deal, in a new setting. Sometimes romance flowered under such circumstances, or so she’d read in novels. Perhaps she could arrange for the two of them to be alone sometimes. Perhaps Michael just needed to stop and think, and be with Summer a little, to see her in a fresh light. One could get too comfortable in a relationship, so Papa said. Yes, yes, she would have to be sure that the couple had some special time alone in the next few weeks.

Another man rode past her window, and Genevieve allowed herself to gaze freely at him, since he’d not looked her way: Xavier. She’d admired Penelope’s older brother for years…or perhaps “admired” wasn’t quite the right word. She’d watched him with a mix of intrigue—there was a kind of mysterious air about him, a kind of reserve. Too, she felt some pity—although she’d known him so long that pity wasn’t an accurate word either.

He was…he was polite, and kind, and well-spoken, and—she admitted it freely to herself—rather handsome, eye patch or no. She’d call him the perfect gentleman…except for a certain dourness that stole over him at times. Yet “dourness” wasn’t quite the proper word, either. Sadness? Withdrawal? Whatever word that meant when a person pulls away and their eyes go blank and conversation turns icy cold.

But that reserved aspect of his being was a part of his charm, too. Curious.

Well now, that was the generally accurate word; she’d long been
curious
about Xavier. How had he lost the use of his eye anyway? Strange that she didn’t know the tale of it. But her interest wasn’t so much about the eye—it wasn’t as though the sight of a scar or an eye patch was rare in London—but her curiosity was about the man himself. What were his hopes and dreams? What did he ponder when his face closed up and his mouth went thin? She’d heard him laugh, and seen him smile—but in the presence of any particular lady…? Would he marry? She’d never heard his name linked with that of any suitable female.

Her reverie was broken when Laura sighed, “Here at last.” They’d pulled through the gates of a posting house into the large courtyard behind. Ostlers sprang forward to assist with the horses as the ladies hastily donned their bonnets once more, and a moment later the coach steps were lowered. Genevieve was handed down after urging Summer to go before her, and it was quite some ten minutes of bustle as cases were brought from inside and off the dusty roof of the second coach.

Summer smiled with obvious relief at being free of the carriage. “You’ll share a room with me, will you not?” she asked.

“Of course,” Genevieve answered.

Penelope and Laura exchanged nods acknowledging they’d be sharing a room with one another. The innkeeper stepped forward to assure the ladies he’d sixteen rooms free, should any of them desire one of her own.

“They can most certainly share,” Haddy jumped in. “As will we gentlemen.”

Xavier caught Genevieve’s eye for a moment as they both smiled at Haddy’s usual display at thrift. The Earl of Moreland controlled his family’s riches, but he liked a bargain more than most men of his standing. However, his suggestion was also entirely reasonable and therefore quickly agreed to, much to the innkeeper’s scarce hidden disappointment.

“I’m with Haddy,” Xavier stated.

Haddy nodded, surprising no one, his thick neck disturbing his limp cravat as he did so. Xavier and Haddy always roomed together when they traveled. This was such a long-standing arrangement that no one thought to dispute it. Michael only grumbled, “Kenneth snores,” but quietly, so the ladies should not hear such an intimate comment.

Before he would let the women follow the host up the stairs to their chambers, Kenneth called out to them. “I really think we ought to begin the treasure hunt soon. May I expect you ladies to return to this common room in no more than twenty minutes?”

“Twenty minutes?” Laura protested, but Summer said, “Of course,” thereby answering for all the ladies, will-they, nil-they. If the gentlest lady among them could be ready in twenty, it behooved them to be so as well.

* * *

Faces pink from washing away the dust of travel, it was not quite twenty minutes when the ladies returned. “That is some kind of miracle,” Michael muttered, but only Xavier heard him, which probably was just as well.

Laura indicated one of the windows. “It’s nearly full dark,” she pointed out as she stepped next to her brother, her gaze now on the object obscured in his hand.

“ ’Tis a ring of keys,” he explained at her unspoken question, dangling the ring with a metallic jingle for all to see. “Opperman—one of our footmen—has come before us and procured these keys from the lord’s man at the great house, and had them awaiting us here with the innkeeper. I have a treat, I believe, by which to begin our hunt.” He paused for effect, eyes glittering. “We are going past the locked gates into the Wycombe Caves.”

“Good gad,” Xavier said, exchanging a glance with Michael, who also looked taken aback. “Manning—”

“Not to worry. There are no more of Dashwood’s Apostles about. It’s been years since any of that…er…imprudence has gone on.”

“’Dashwood’s Apostles’?” Summer echoed, her brow wrinkling.

“The Monks of Medmenham,” Genevieve supplied, surprising a glance from the gentlemen. At Summer’s continued perplexity, she explained, “Members of the Hell-Fire Club. Dissolute types. Probably debauchers. Some said they were devil worshipers.”

“Well, now, Genevieve, that last was never proved, I daresay,” Kenneth coughed into his hand as though to cover her knowledge of the vulgar. He rushed on, “But, truly, the chalk caves are a wonderfully special place to begin our adventure, very unique. But if you ladies would rather not—?”

“Oh, Kenneth. Just tell us what we are to do,” Laura commanded. “You call them caves, so I hold out some hope they’ll provide a cooler atmosphere.”

“Quite,” Kenneth agreed, clearly pleased his plan was not to be put aside. “Here it is then. We are to enter the gates and walk down into the chalk mines. They are wide enough for approximately three across, and tall enough to walk freely upright, at least in most of the corridors, though you ladies may care to mind your bonnets. It’s three hundred feet down and in, and when we reach what was once known as…er…the ‘Inner Temple,’ there we shall draw to see which team will have the attempt at our first clue. Lamps will provide sufficient light, but it
is
a little unsettling down within, so if any of you ladies don’t care to go…?”