One Week as Lovers (19 page)

“What was it?”

“Mm. Just a cobweb.”

Not believing him for a moment, Cyn brushed frantically at her hair. Then her dress. By the time she’d finished, she’d given herself a stern lecture about fear and foolish missishness. This was the likeliest spot they’d found in this whole damn shoreline, and she wasn’t going to miss out because of spiders. Or decomposition.

Cyn threw back her shoulders, hit her head on a low bulge in the ceiling, and headed for the opposite side of the narrow hollow. But before she reached for the wall, she tugged on her thick gloves. If it was any kind of treasure worth finding, it wouldn’t be hard to feel even past salt-stiffened leather.

They worked in silence, aside from her occasional squeaks of panic whenever she felt something shift away from her searching fingers.
Just rocks,
she told herself.
Just pebbles.
But when she reached deep into a wide hole, the distinctive sounds of skittering claws clattered up from the dark.

“Oh, God,” she whispered. “Oh, God. Oh, God.” She took three deep breaths and then eased her hand back in. A mouse couldn’t hurt her. Even a rat wouldn’t do damage past the gloves. And she couldn’t just move on. The hole was a good fifteen inches wide. The perfect hiding place.

She ran her hand down the concave wall of the hole, wondering if the grit that shifted under her fingers was sand or droppings.

“Here!” Nick shouted, scaring the stuffing out of Cynthia. She snatched her hand out of the hole so fast that she fell to her backside with a squeal. That squeal turned to a groan when rocks dug into her bottom.

“I’ve got something,” Nick said, completely ignoring her moan of pain. “I’ve got something.”

The scrape of metal against rock ricocheted through the tiny cave. Cynthia, on her knees now, held her breath and watched Nick’s back as his arms shifted and tugged.

“Almost.” Metal screamed, Nick grunted, and then hundreds of tiny rocks pinged against the ground. “Got it!”

She scrambled up to her feet.

“It’s a box, Cyn!” He was moving toward the light as he spoke, and she hurried to catch up. “And it’s heavy.”

Her blood pounded against the walls of her veins, banging out a crazed pulse. They’d done it. They’d actually done it. “Let me see!”

Just under the edge of the mouth of the cave, Nick stopped and turned toward her, box balanced on both his palms. It was small, but solid, constructed of rough wood banded with iron and rivets. In short, it looked like a smuggler’s chest of treasure. Inconspicuous and sturdy.

“Oh, Nick,” she breathed, daring only to touch one finger against a metal corner.

“It’s yours. Take it.” His smile stretched to a grin that narrowed his eyes with its intensity. When she took the box from his hands, her own eyes widened. It
was
heavy. She hurriedly set it on the ground and tugged off her gloves.

“I told you I had a good feeling,” Nick said as he knelt beside her.

“Stop saying that.” She tried to toss him an exasperated look, but when she turned toward him he kissed her. A brief, happy kiss that was over nearly before it had begun. Still, she felt stunned by it.

“Go on,” he urged.

Lips still tingling, she nodded and ran her hand over the cool metal bands. There was a loop for a lock, but it seemed to have been secured with string. Another hint, perhaps. How would an eleven-year-old boy secure his treasure?

Nick handed her a penknife, but he needn’t have bothered. She’d barely put the knife to the string when it gave way. Too much moisture for too many years.

“Ready?” he breathed, and Cynthia lifted the lid.

Gold glinted under the pale sun, throwing starbursts against the dull wood of the small chest. Those starbursts were absorbed by the flat darkness of tarnished silver and copper.

For a moment, for one glorious, joyous moment, his heart floated, buoyed by its own desires.

And then the sparkle of the gold lost its enchantment, and more details began to filter past his vision. The thick wooden walls of the chest, compressing the space inside to a few square inches. The relative scarcity of gold coins in comparison to silver.

But still…it
was
treasure.

Cynthia met his gaze, her eyes half excitement and half doubt.

Lancaster offered her a smile, eager to keep the hope alive for both of them. “We found it.”

“We did.”

“They look like old guineas.”

“They do.” She raised her hand, and then dropped it for a brief moment before reaching to touch the coins.

“You have your treasure.” He recognized the undercurrent of his own words as he spoke them. Her treasure. There was money here, but not enough to share. Not enough to buy him out of his indenture. Even assuming the space dropped all the way to the very bottom of the chest, there couldn’t be five thousand pounds here. There couldn’t even be a thousand.

Coin slid against coin, the metal sound trying to convince him he was wrong. He hoped he was.

“How much do you think it is?” Cynthia whispered.

“Let’s count it.” The words tripped lightly from his tongue, as if he’d just proposed a picnic.

Nodding eagerly, Cynthia picked out a handful of coins and began to separate them into piles while Lancaster’s heart flailed around, searching for its mooring. What could he do now? What could he do?

He tried to ignore the panicked flutter in his chest.
There may be more money than it seems,
he lectured himself.
How can you possibly tell with one glance?

But the piles were growing, the gold guineas not keeping up with the rest of them. His heart was falling too fast, and the descent began to burn.

Cynthia cleared her throat and began to count, while he tried very hard not to see which pile she was counting, not to calculate the amounts as she added them. But there was no escaping the sum.

“If the guineas are worth twenty-one shillings…” she murmured. “And most of them are five-guinea coins…I believe it’s three hundred four pounds and eleven shillings. Or thereabouts.” Her voice wavered a bit at the end.

Lancaster sat down hard. She’d always been good at sums.

“Nick? Are you all right?”

“I’m fine, yes.” Fine. Or completely devastated.

“You don’t look fine.” Her hand curled around his arm.

“I only thought it would be more, that’s all.”

“I did too.” She sat down beside him and they stared at the coins together. “A thousand pounds at least? Maybe more? But it is a child’s fortune, I suppose. Three hundred pounds. A respectable amount.”

“Respectable,” he agreed, “Yes. Definitely so. But,” he added as if it were his only concern, “not enough to pay your stepfather’s debts.”

“No, not that much.” Her hand played idly with the coin towers. “Perhaps it will be enough to buy my family some space, at the least, though I’m sure I can’t imagine Richmond being so generous.”

So it all came back to murder again, it seemed. The death of Richmond to protect Cynthia. But who would protect Lancaster? There were only so many creditors one could run over with the carriage. The sick thought made him laugh.

“What is it?”

“Nothing. Did you anticipate this? Perhaps you’ve an alternate plan?”

“No. I just…I guess I didn’t think it through.” Her words cracked a little at the end, but she shook her head as if she’d shake off the emotion too.

“We’ll find a way, Cyn,” he murmured, reaching for her limp hand.

Finally, his gut seemed to realize what had just happened. It dropped as if he’d just jumped from an impossible height.

This was the worst possible outcome. Not enough to pay off his creditors, not enough to marry her, not even enough to buy her free of Richmond and send her to America. Worse than not having found the treasure at all. At least then he’d have hope.

He’d promised something important to this woman. Despite that she hadn’t believed him, he’d promised to find a way to marry her. Now what could he do?

She grabbed up the coins and began dropping them back into the tiny chest. With clumsy hands, he tried to help.

“There,” she said with a determined nod. After closing the lid and dusting off her hands, Cynthia stood. “We can think while we walk.”

Think. Yes, he needed to think. Conjure up a miraculous solution to this problem. Funny, a few days ago he hadn’t even believed the treasure existed. Somehow he’d traveled from disbelief to total dependence, and now he was lost.

“I’ll go first,” he murmured, dropping down to his knees to ease his legs out into thin air. “Toss the chest down to me before you follow.”

Was it possible he’d been here only a week? No, it wasn’t possible. Because when Cyn dropped the chest and then scooted her legs out over the ledge, he didn’t gasp in shock at the view of her exposed limbs. Her hiked skirts were already a familiarity. A pretty reminder of the intimacies shared the night before.

How, in the space of one short week, could he have wandered from old acquaintance to renewed friend to reckless lover? And how could he move now toward fond memory? He couldn’t.

Cyn inched toward him, her boots scissoring at the rope, trying to catch it between her feet. Lancaster got beneath her and wrapped his arms around her knees to give her some leverage. As she slid lower, he let his arms slide higher, until his cheek was pressed to her bare thigh, her legs clasped tight in his arms.

A small voice floated in like a lapping wave. “Blimey!” it whispered.

Lancaster froze, Cynthia’s skirt bunched on his shoulders. “Oh, bloody hell.” He couldn’t turn to look, so he just eased Cynthia lower as she shimmied down the rope. One of her boots banged into his knee. “Don’t turn around,” he ordered, but it was too late. He looked up to see Cynthia’s neck crane toward the beach.

“Bloody hell!” she yelped, and Lancaster finally dared to look.

Four boys stood frozen in the sand, mouths hanging open as if they’d been stopped in the middle of a song. They ranged in size from tiny to lumbering, but each one seemed entranced with the sight of Cyn’s thighs.

“Drop!” he muttered, and Cynthia let go of the rope. “Pull up your hood.”

She reached for the cloak just as the tiny one pointed. “That’s Miss Merrithorpe,” he said, then added helpfully, “The dead one.”

Two of the remaining pack crossed themselves with shaking hands while the third turned and bolted, ruining any hope Lancaster might have had of gathering them all around and threatening to sell them to pirates if they breathed a word.

“It’s a ghost,” the rather portly child cried out, but the little one shook his head.

“What would a ghost want with climbing down ropes?”

Gads, when had children gotten to be so sensible? Damned observant monkeys, the lot of them.

“She’s not Cynthia Merrithorpe,” Lancaster said quickly. “So of course she’s not a ghost.”

“Begging your pardon, milord, but if she’s not Miss Merrithorpe, then I’m not Henry Johnson.”

“Listen. Henry, is it? This woman is my companion from London.”

The boy’s jaw edged out. “I ain’t heard nothing about a London lady around here.”

“You don’t think Miss Merrithorpe—assuming she weren’t lying dead at the bottom of the sea, I mean—would find herself alone on a deserted beach with a gentleman, do you? Completely improper, and Miss Merrithorpe was a lady.”

The boy looked incredibly doubtful at that. Apparently the delicate flower of femininity argument wouldn’t work in Cyn’s case. “Well then, Henry, what would Cynthia Merrithorpe want with a crumbling bit of cliff anyway?”

Sly intelligence narrowed the boy’s eyes, and Lancaster tried not to cringe. “But what in the world would a London doxy want with those cliffs, milord?”

The other two boys began backing away.

“Grab him,” Cynthia whispered too loudly, and all three spun around and ran.

“Damn it,” Lancaster muttered as he made a short attempt at giving chase. The boys were fast and less hampered by the pull of the sand. Well, all except the big one, but Henry Johnson was the problem and he was already halfway to Neely.
“Damn it.”

Cynthia stopped at his back. “Henry is too smart by half. He always has been.”

“I’ll say. Well, I suppose that clears up any question of what our next move must be.”

“Oh? What’s that?” Her hand touched his shoulder, so he turned toward her, forcing it to slide off.

He met her gaze and didn’t even attempt to look light or happy. “We’re leaving Cantry Manor. Today.”

“I’ll pack the last of the cherry compote too. It’ll go well with the brown bread.” Mrs. Pell was a blur as she darted from the pantry to the table and then to the shelf above the stove.

“I’m sure this is entirely unnecessary,” Cynthia grumbled. Of course, Nick chose that moment to stride in from the hallway.

“Don’t be ridiculous. If your stepfather gets word you’re here, he has every right to take you by force. If we’re not here, he can’t do that.”

“I’ll be twenty-one in nine days.”

“And you’re free to return here in nine days. But for now, we’re going.”

“Where?” she cried.

Nick stopped his pacing and met her gaze. “Do you know the Duke of Somerhart?”

“Who?” She felt her face cool with shock. “Of course not. A
duke?
”

“Somerhart isn’t too far from here. About a six hours’ drive.”

“And…But…We cannot simply waltz up to a ducal estate and beg protection!”

Nick stared thoughtfully at the floor. “He owes me a favor.”

“A
duke
? That makes no sense. What could you possibly have done for a duke?”

His eyes crinkled in a smile. “I helped him find his runaway bride. Well, she wasn’t his bride yet, in truth. But they married shortly thereafter, so I gather it all worked out.”

“But…This seems a rather large favor to ask anyone, much less a man of such standing.”

“He was a broken man, Cyn. Tormented by unrequited love.” Something about his own words made him chuckle, and the laughter made Cynthia want to yell.

He’d taken full control of the situation, brushing aside every argument she’d made for calm. They could at least wait and see what happened.

“Where’s Adam?” Nick asked.

“He’s not back yet. Which is exactly my point! We don’t even know what those boys might’ve said.”

“Stop being so obstinate. One boy we might have been able to coerce into silence. But four boys? It’s hopeless. I don’t doubt someone’s sprinting to your stepfather’s door right this moment, eager to be the one to carry the story.”

The fact that his words were true didn’t make them easier to swallow. She’d meant to leave Oak Hall and the village of Neely behind. She’d meant to sail much farther away than the Somerhart estate. But now it felt too rushed. Her last night here in Cantry Manor and she hadn’t realized it. Her last evening in the kitchen with Mrs. Pell, and now she couldn’t even remember what they’d prepared. Her last walk along the sea. Last glimpse of the village.

How could she leave without even a fare-thee-well?

“I’ll simply hide in the passageways if he comes. I lived with you for days and you never even
heard
me.”

“Cynthia,” Nick scoffed, dismissing her objections with an exasperated shake of his head. “Have you packed yet?”

She clenched her teeth together to keep from screaming. “Yes, but I’m not going anywhere until Adam—”

The kitchen door flew in, propelled by gangly limbs. The face that followed looked a bit different than it had when he’d left.

“Adam!” she gasped. “What’s happened to your face?”

“They said you was a trollop!” he cried, then pressed his fingers to his split lip. His eye seemed to be swelling as she watched.

“Oh, Adam!” Cyn moved aside for Mrs. Pell who was already approaching with a cold rag. “Lord Lancaster here told them I was a trollop from London! There was nothing to defend.”

“I didn’t like it,” the boy answered, voice conveying the finality of the statement. He did spare a scornful look for Nick.

“I said lady companion! But I take it from your gallant action that tongues are wagging.”

“Aye. They are.” Adam snuck a hesitant look at Cynthia from under Mrs. Pell’s arm. “I told my mum I’d be gone for a while. Maybe a week or two.”

“No,” Nick said flatly.

Mrs. Pell cocked her head. “Be good for the boy, your lordship. Get out and see a little bit of the world.”

“We are about to become
fugitives,
Mrs. Pell.”

“Quite an adventure for a young man, milord.”

Nick scoffed. “An adventure in questionable conduct!”

“Oh, fiddlesticks,” the housekeeper snapped. “What other kind of adventure is there?”

When he looked at Cynthia, she shrugged. She saw no reason to deny the boy a trip to a grand estate, but Nick looked filled with doubt.

“What did your mother say, Adam?”

“She said to be careful, take good care of Miss Merrithorpe, and do as Lord Lancaster says without question.”

A brief tremor of some strong emotion rippled over Nick’s face, but it passed so quickly that Cynthia couldn’t place it. “I find it hard to believe your mother supports this,” he muttered.

“She trusts you, milord.”

“Well, she shouldn’t. She knows nothing about me.”

Cynthia wasn’t the only one studying Nick’s face now. Mrs. Pell stopped her work to watch him. When he caught them both looking, he scowled and threw up his hands. “Fine. You may ride with Jackson and learn about driving the carriage, would you like that?” Before the boy could answer, Nick stalked toward the hallway. “I’ll get the trunk.”

Mrs. Pell snapped the towel in Adam’s direction. “Get your things, boy. His lordship won’t wait on the likes of you.”

Cynthia turned back to the jug of cider she was securing for the trip, but Mrs. Pell’s familiar hand invaded her vision and covered Cynthia’s fingers. “You need to marry him, sweeting.”