A Heart's Treasure (8 page)

They made their way to an upstairs sitting room that Haddy had bespoke the night before, the windows already open against the growing heat of the day. The innkeeper’s wife came up behind them to announce what was available for their breakfasts. Soon they were joined by the other ladies, and belatedly the men entered as a group. Upon seeing the eight tables all laid out apart from one another, they promptly seized some of the furniture and pressed the tables edge to edge, making one long one at which they all could sit. The innkeeper’s wife, Mrs. Hummock, was startled when she returned with a rack of toast to find them thus arranged, but only for a moment before she assured the others that their breakfasts would be forthcoming shortly. Haddy was disappointed to learn there were no kippers to be had, and mumbled something about ham having to do.

* * *

Xavier saw at once there was nothing for it. With the tables pushed together, there was only one seat left by the time he moved around the table; he must take the chair to Genevieve’s right.

This put his blind eye toward the lady—but he reminded himself not to be glad of the paltry convenient way to avoid her gaze. He pulled out the chair, also checking the impulse to make an excuse about not being hungry. After all, he’d decided just this morning that he’d not let this journey discomfort him. He could fake being in a state of utter calm and control. Hadn’t he had many opportunities in which to practice?

Take this morning. He’d pushed his eye patch up somewhat out of the way while he’d shaved, but hadn’t completely removed it. Haddy had still been in the room. Xavier had one hard and fast rule: he didn’t subject others to the sight of his injured eye, not even his best friend. He just behaved as if he always left the patch on when he shaved. Haddy, bless him, had seen the act dozens of times, and today hadn’t bothered to pay Xavier any particular mind anyway.

As he’d listened to Haddy’s mild curses at the unaccustomed task of also shaving himself, Xavier had relaxed so far as to take a moment to re-evaluate his own visage. Despite the fact he knew every inch of his puckering scar, every raised dot where a surgeon’s stitch had gone in or come out, he knew at a conscious level that his appearance disturbed others less than his instinct always made him think it did. His chin was strong, his mouth even, his nose straight. His hair was thick and dark, with a bit of wave that others tried to emulate with the use of pomade but which haloed his own head quite naturally. Even the good eye was an acceptable gray with long dark lashes complementing it. He also knew that, even with the scar and patch, he’d turned a head or two.

Well…perhaps his birth had done most of the head-turning for him; there was always a young miss on the hunt for a title or a fortune. He was Viscount Warfield, a title he’d use until he took his father’s place as the Earl of Fenworth—and there were too many eligible females wanting a chance to be a viscountess and eventually a countess. If the title wasn’t enough, he’d plenty of the ready to satisfy all but the most avaricious seeker. And certainly no one could fault his standing as a most acceptable social
parti
. He was welcome anywhere he’d worked to make it so. How better to hide from the truth than in a crowd? How better to learn to ignore a lady’s too-long stare than to encounter such stares often?

So he’d remembered who and what he was as he gazed at himself in the morning mirror. He was Lord Warfield the Pleasant. The partygoer. The ever-gallant, the sociable fellow…who was at heart always alone. And that was his secret, the price he paid for his ability to go forth of a morning, to dance with a lady and make conversation with her: that he was alone in his bed at night, unable to inflict anything but his daylight public persona on a woman. It was his way of facing the world despite his marred appearance, and had been so for a very long time.

And would continue to be so. Especially with Genevieve, a friend too dear, too long a part of his world, to lose through selfish yearnings.

Now he waited until the innkeeper’s wife had set a full plate in front of him and he’d nodded his thanks to the lady. Then, forcing his chin up, he turned so he could see Genevieve. She wore a pretty pale yellow dress this morning, with a variegated orange-gold ribbon at the high waist and its match in her short wavy dark hair, making her look fresh as Spring. “Good morning,” he said.

“Good morning,” she replied with a little nod. Did her gaze search his face a bit more than usual…or was he imagining it?

“I trust you rested well?”

“Indeed. And yourself?”

“It was cooler near morning,” she said.

He’d lied by saying he’d slept well; apparently neither had she, although it didn’t show. She parted her lips to say more, but Michael interrupted by calling down the table. “Tell us, Manning,” he said to Kenneth, one arm hooked over the back of his chair in one of his nonchalant poses. “What does the day hold for us? What manner of wonders have you prepared for our amusement today?”

“You shan’t know the answer to the clue set forth yesterday until we’ve obtained Oxford, but I
do
have another small surprise for the day.”

“Do tell,” Laura instructed her brother as she spread marmalade on her toast.

He reached into his coat pocket and drew out a slip of folded white paper. “I believe I shall call them Little Riddles. Small tests as to my companions’ knowledge of their own fair land, which—I say with quite some confidence—I expect to be most limited.”

There were some good-natured noises of false offense.

“You mean those of us who get our noses out of a book now and again,” Haddy challenged. “But you are mistaken, my dear bookworm. Just because I prefer hunting to studying doesn’t mean I don’t know a thing or two.”

Laura looked up from her toast. “That’s as may be, but what point is there to these Little Riddles anyway?”

“The joy of knowledge is not enough?” her brother replied archly.

A series of boos forced a grin from him. He waved down their protests, crying, “Very well, very well. Some sort of forfeit is to be levied for wrong answers?”

Laura’s eyes narrowed. “Tokens must be returned?”

“No, tokens are only for the treasure hunt.” Others shook their heads along with Kenneth.

“A kiss,” Summer said, somehow her soft voice managing to override everyone else’s, as usual. They all turned to her as she breathlessly rushed on. “A wrong answer means one must deliver a kiss to one’s partner.”

“No. I’m not kissing my sister,” Michael declared flatly.

“Then whichever lady you choose,” Summer went on, ducking her head under the weight of their collective stares. “And not for a wrong answer. Whoever gets the answer correct, he or she gets to choose whom to bestow their kiss upon.” Her eyes flickered to Michael, then returned demurely to her lap.

The partners Haddy and Laura eyed each other doubtfully.

Xavier wasn’t aware his hand had knotted into a fist atop the table until he saw Genevieve stare down at it.

She started to speak, “I don’t think—”

“Come now, one would think we’re not all friends,” Penelope spoke louder.

Xavier forced his hand to relax.

“I’ve had a kiss from each of you at every Wassail,” Penelope went on, “and at each New Year’s Eve since I can recall. What makes our little adventure so very different from those occasions? I find it a perfectly appropriate gesture, the Kiss Triumphant for the Conquering Pair.” She glanced about, and nodded her head firmly. “There, no-one speaks against me. It’s decided. Kenneth, go on. Let us hear this first Little Riddle.”

Kenneth handed the folded white paper to Laura, who was on his right. “It’s just a little thing. I’ve compiled a question or two regarding each county through which we travel, one for the breakfast meal, and perhaps another at luncheon. Merely to help us enjoy our travels. There is no time limit. They are not meant to be especially difficult. In truth, I expect one of these fellows to know this first one right away.”

Laura unfolded the paper. “‘What is the motto of Oxfordshire?’” she read.

“The motto?” Haddy echoed, a disbelieving look on his face. “What manner of question is that? Who knows mottos and things like that?”

“Not huntsmen obviously.” Michael laughed. He gestured toward Xavier. “Come along, Warfield. Seems to me I’ve heard you mumble a motto or two in your time. What do you think?”

Xavier sat very still until he shook his head once, denying he knew.

There was a long silence, into which Genevieve finally chose to leap. “It’s surely something Latin.” When her comment brought forth no response from anyone, she looked to Xavier.  “You know your Latin. Surely you can venture a guess, Xavier?”

He knew he was looking oddly stubborn…but a kiss…?

Genevieve heaved a sigh as she picked up her knife and fork anew, and sliced her butter-fried eggs into pieces. “It seems we don’t know,” she said to Kenneth. “Perhaps you have another question?”

Kenneth parted his lips to reply, but Xavier interrupted.

“No,” he said, his voice a little thick. Genevieve’s silverware ceased its slicing. “It’s ‘Sapere Aude,’” he supplied. “It means ‘Dare to be Wise.’”
The perfect advice for me,
he thought. It was, after all, a game. Only a game, no matter that it involved a kiss. What was a kiss anyway? And he could peck the cheek of his own sister, or Laura, or even Summer if he chose—he needn’t make Genevieve his choice.

Though he would, he determined with a stiff jaw, to prove to himself that he knew how to play silly games and yet keep his aplomb.

“You’re exactly right, Xavier,” Kenneth commended him, then included the entire group. “You see? They’re but a simple riddle or two a day, to keep our ennui at bay,” he chanted, smiling at his own poetic wit.

“The kiss,” Summer prompted Xavier, even though she blushed at her forwardness. “You must claim your reward.”

“Ah, yes,” Xavier heard himself mumble. He dare not think. He leaned forward, pressing his mouth quickly against the smoothness of Genevieve’s cheek.

Applause filled the room, making the innkeeper, who’d just arrived with a new rack of toast, look about with a puzzled air. Xavier didn’t bother to enlighten the man, and sank back into his chair, flooded with relief that it was done.

He was so busy concentrating on eating with the exquisite manners of a preoccupied man, he was unaware that, despite her occasional smile or nod, Genevieve was unusually silent for the remainder of the meal.

Chapter 5

One more such victory and we are lost.

—Pyrrhus,

279 B.C.

Genevieve remained occupied with her thoughts as the carriage rumbled toward Oxford. Even though she’d had most of the morning as they drove to contemplate the shifts in Xavier’s mood, it was her own reaction that bewildered her. Not to mention that very brief and clearly reluctantly given kiss… It had tingled her skin. Actually made it shimmer with sensation. Why had it felt different from every other kiss Xavier had ever pressed to her cheek? Just because this time she’d seen he was reluctant to give it?

No certainty surfaced despite the three hours of thought-filled travel. She hadn’t much listened to the other ladies’ desultory comments about the brown-faced Oxford sheep they passed, or the not-quite-as-hot-as-it’s-been weather, or what might await them in Oxford. She was in point of fact relieved to change both locale and conversation when the carriage came to a halt. The door was opened by Haddy, who was seated upon Kenneth’s horse. As he leaned down on the horse’s neck to peer in at them, he jovially cried, “Why, what a lot of wilted wonders.”

If any of the ladies had pondered why Haddy remained a bachelor, they no longer did so. As a group they cast him dark looks as they donned their bonnets anew.

Becoming belatedly aware his comment may have had an unwelcome reception, Haddy hurried on. “Our last hostess provided a midday repast for us, which even now is being readied for your pleasure.” He swung down from the horse, secured it to the carriage, and offered his hand to the vehicles’ occupants.

Genevieve’s spirit rose to find their brothers laying a cloth on the shady bank of a river, upon which was being settled a repast of cold fried chicken, pickled vegetables, fresh bread with sweet cream butter, and an apple tart, along with an opened bottle of white wine to slake their collective thirsts. Haddy swept his arm toward the picnic.

“You needn’t ask me twice,” Penelope declared, crossing at once to settle directly next to the golden chicken pieces atop their wrapper of grease-spotted brown paper.

The others followed suit, arranging themselves around the offerings, although Genevieve moved past the cloth to take in the view.

“What river is this?” she asked, only then looking about for a place to seat herself.

“It’s the Thames, though locally it’s known as the Isis,” Kenneth supplied.

“You were last to come to table,” Michael joked, pointing at his sister with a chicken leg. “Therefore you must pour out the wine for the rest of us before you sit.”

“I thought penalties were just for the treasure hunt,” Genevieve protested mildly, even as she crossed to where the bottle—just uncorked by a seated Kenneth—was extended toward her.

“We’ve no servants, so penalties seem a fair way to divide up the duties we must perform for one another,” Michael countered.

“Fair if
you
are determining the rules, you mean.”

“Exactly so.”

Genevieve made a face at him. “For that, you shall be served last.” She stood over the hamper, peering down into it. “There are no glasses,” she announced.

“Pass the bottle ’round then,” Haddy said in his practical fashion.

Genevieve pondered, shrugged, and tilted the bottle to her lips with care. As she pulled it away from her mouth, she nodded at the sweet flavor, becoming aware that Xavier watched her. As soon as he realized she’d caught him at it, he lowered his vision to fix upon the slice of bread in his hand.

There is that tingle again,
she thought, one hand rising of its own volition to her throat as she changed abruptly from handing the bottle to Haddy and offered the bottle toward Xavier instead.