Tomorrow's Treasure (40 page)

“I do not understand.”

“You will.” She wondered if he was truly as calm as his tone implied. “As you suggested, Miss Varley, it is time to set aside any fondness.” His gaze narrowed a little as he held an arm toward the door. “It is necessary for you to accompany me to the top floor, to Henry's old rooms. I cannot hint of a ghost as I did when a boy, but I can unlock the mystery of the Kimberly Black Diamond. And that of your parents.”

Evy's breath caught, and her heart constricted. Her parents? There was no mystery surrounding her parents … was there?

“Shall we go?”

For once, Evy didn't argue. She simply nodded and followed Rogan from the room, nearly overcome with an odd sense of dread, as though her life was about to change. And she wasn't at all sure she was going to like the results.

The stairway to the third floor was dark as Rogan allowed Evy to lead the way. They passed the familiar rooms she and Aunt Grace had occupied, went by the schoolroom and across the narrow, dimly lit hall to another smaller stairwell that was uncarpeted and bleak. It looked even dimmer toward the top landing. Evy paused, hand on the rail, looking up.

“Childhood fears of ghosts?”

Evy ignored Rogan's question and pushed aside the cowardly impulse to run. With resolute steps, she moved upward.

The rooms once belonging to Henry Chantry were much as she remembered. Little if anything had been done to them in the years since Rogan had brought her and Arcilla here. A musty odor of old furniture and draperies hung in the air. Rogan went to the window and threw it open. A chill, damp wind stirred the curtains as he turned to face her, arms folded, gaze firm, and a trace of a smile on his lips.

He took a key, opened an old metal box with engravings of lions and elephants on it, and took out a lump of what looked to Evy like rough rock.

“That is not gold, is it?”

He took her wrist and placed the lump on her palm. She rubbed her thumb over the rough surface, thinking only that it was unimpressive.

“There is a crystalline structure running through the rock. See it?”

It looked dull and was marbled with flaws and fissures.

“That's quartz you're looking at. It's held together by a substance that fills every crack and fault line.” His eyes met hers. “Gold.”

Evy looked at the thin layers of bright metal that twinkled in the light from the window. “Master Henry found this?”

“He and the Hottentot must have taken it from the ridge. It is gold, all right. If this ore is typical of the vein, it is an unusually rich find.”

Considering Rogan's geological studies, she would take his word for it.

“Henry learned about this deposit as a young man in the mining camps around Kimberly. An old Afrikaner of Dutch ancestry from the Transvaal had a Hottentot slave who led them to the ridge of gold somewhere in what is known as Mashonaland. The Afrikaner and Hottentot were attacked by tribesmen and killed. Henry writes that he barely escaped with his life thanks to a fast horse and his skill with a rifle and pistol. During the next year he tried to retrace his steps back into the area to relocate the gold deposit, but was unsuccessful. His efforts gave rise to the suggestion that he was a deluded adventurer. That's when the mocking notion of Henry's Folly began. Soon afterward the Zulu War broke out, and his return to the region was impossible. So he drew a map from memory, detailing the trek with the Hottentot. I found his map, which he left me in his will, here with the quartz.”

Evy looked from the rock to Rogan. “But if this proves there was gold, why did Henry come back here to Rookswood after the Zulu War? Why not return to Mashonaland and search?”

“That”—he took the rock and put it back in the box—“is the mystery I have sought to understand for several years. It never made sense that he returned to England. How could he be content knowing, yet not acting? He wanted another expedition. I know that for a fact. He wrote about it. Well, I now have an answer.”

He locked the box and looked at her, his gaze steady and even. “Evidently Henry had to leave Capetown and promise never to return. If he came back, Julien would turn the matter of the theft of the Black Diamond over to the law. Henry was in quite a dilemma. His individual shares in the diamond mines were all in South Africa, as was the gold deposit. And yet he dared not go on another expedition without Sir Julien's permission.”

“The law? Then it was Henry who stole the diamond?”

“Not according to Lady Brewster, his older aunt by marriage. I found a letter she'd written to Henry. It was with the map. She apologized for accusing him of stealing the Black Diamond and for rashly joining with Sir Julien to send him away.”

Rogan paused, as though hesitant to go on, to unveil what came next. But why should he be? Surely there was nothing in this story that mattered to her?

She moved to sit in a nearby chair, disregarding the dust. “Then, if Lady Brewster claimed that Master Henry did not steal the Black Diamond, did Sir Julien ever locate it?”

“No, not that I am aware. No one yet knows what happened to the diamond once it was stolen from Julien's library at Cape House. Heyden insists it was brought here to Rookswood, that Henry was the thief.”

“Heyden?”

“Heyden van Buren. The van Burens are Boers, of Dutch ancestry. At one time Carl van Buren was Julien's partner. They were both young men then. They located their first diamonds together in the river diggings in West Griqualand, close to the river Vaal. Van Buren was killed in the same mine explosion that cost Julien his eye. Later, Julien bought out Carl's younger brother for a handsome sum, and the man reverted to farming in the Transvaal. Heyden van Buren is his son.”

She noted an edge to Rogan's voice. “You sound as though you do not trust this Heyden.”

“Perhaps I do not. He is here in England now, traveling with representatives from the Boer Republic under their leader, Paul Kruger. The Boers are protesting British incursion into the Transvaal. There are rumblings of war. Heyden van Buren, from what I have seen of him, is a Boer zealot.”

“Surely none of this concerns my parents?” Yet even as she spoke, uncertainty nudged her. Evy searched Rogan's face for clues. “What can you possibly know of my father or mother?”

“I knew next to nothing about what Mrs. Junia Varley was like until I read Lady Brewster's letter. A very telling letter that mentions Junia.
I wrestled with whether to share the information with you, since it is unpleasant. I decided I must since it involves the theft of the Black Diamond, and, unfortunately—your mother's involvement.”

She stared at him mutely. “Oh, but surely there is some mistake! It just cannot be.”

“I am sorry. The letter to Henry mentions that your mother was in Cape House the night the Black Diamond was stolen.”

She watched him, trying to take this information in. “How could that be? How could she have been at Sir Julien's estate when she was with my father at the compound at Rorke's Drift?”

“Your mother knew not only Henry, but Sir Julien. Lady Brewster's letter makes that clear.”

“Impossible, I tell you.”

“Lady Brewster had no reason to lie. She wrote years ago, after Uncle Henry returned here to Rookswood. The letter was private. Neither Lady Brewster nor Henry expected anyone other than themselves to know its contents.”

Evy jumped to her feet. “Preposterous! What would my mother be doing at Sir Julien's house on that night or any other? There is some mistake, there has to be.”

“There is no mistake. Sit down, Evy.” He came around from behind his uncle's desk. “There was no romantic affair, if that thought is upsetting you. That would indeed be a tragedy, would it not? If we were blood cousins. No, this ugly matter involves not the fire of passion, but cold, hard greed.”

She caught her breath. “Then of what do you accuse my mother?”

He shook his head, the shadow of his usual smile on his lips. “I do not accuse her of anything. Someone else has accused her. Lady Brewster's apology to Henry in her letter pointed out the fact that it was your mother who stole the Black Diamond and ran away from Cape House.”

Evy gasped and stood so abruptly that she swayed a little. Rogan reached to catch her, but she wrenched away.

“You
dare
suggest that my mother stole your family diamond? She
was dedicated to teaching Christianity. If she had been greedy for gain, she would not have become a missionary with small hope of having anything more in this world than a medical hut. She certainly would not have been risking her life in Zululand, where she gave her life in martyrdom.”

“I understand the complications, even the contradictions, but Lady Brewster wrote Henry that the family nanny finally confessed that she had helped your mother escape by arranging with an African worker to have a buggy ready near the stables.”

“There is no proof to any of this. There can't be.”

“It's all in the letter. Your mother stole the Kimberly Diamond, then ran away from the Capetown estate, taking the diamond and the buggy.”

“I want that letter.” Her voice shook, but she didn't care.

He frowned. “No. Not yet.”

She stamped her foot. “You are lying.”

His dark eyes flickered, and she shivered at goading him so. But it had to be a lie. It had to be.

“For what reason would I lie, Evy?”

“Only you would know. You brought me here to flaunt this in my face. Why that should be, I do not know.”

“I brought you here to show you … this.” He took the letter from his pocket and held it in front of her. “No one else knows about it, just as they did not know of the map. Sir Julien has accepted what he believes is the inevitable loss of the diamond. Henry was the only other person who knew about your mother, and he's dead, as is Lady Brewster who wrote this incriminating letter. There is talk, of course. But without this letter dated many years ago, it is only a tale. As far as everyone else is concerned, the guilt lies with my uncle. I could destroy this letter and there would be nothing in writing to incriminate the memory and reputation of your mother.”

She searched his face. Why had he said this to her? What was on his mind?

“I was going to show this letter to your Aunt Grace and draw the
truth from her. Your mother was her sister. She could have written Grace, who may be keeping matters quiet.”

This was too much! “So now you are insinuating that Aunt Grace knows where the diamond is hidden!”

His frown was quick, impatient. “I did not say that. However, she may know something, and I need any information she has.”

Evy hesitated. “Yet you did not go to her. Why?”

“When I learned of her frail health, I decided against speaking to her. If she knows anything about the diamond, it is for you to find out—at the appropriate time, when you believe it is safe to question her. This”—he held the letter up—“will remain in my control. One day I may surrender it to you to do with as you wish. But not until I have all the information I can get on the Black Diamond.”

Evy stared at him, and one simple fact filled her mind: She simply must get the letter.

Before he could guess what she was about, she snatched it from his hand and darted to the door, flinging it open and dashing into the hall. Rogan reached her before she hit the dark stairwell. His strong fingers closed about her wrist, and he retrieved the letter from her trapped fingers.

She spun to face him and was met by his smile. “Your determination is commendable, my dear Evy, but I'm afraid I must disappoint you.”

She hissed her frustration and lunged to grab the letter back.

Her fingers tweaked it from his grip, surprising both Rogan and herself. A burst of energy shot through her as she sped down the steps. She traversed the corridor, running hard past the schoolroom, past the rooms she and Aunt Grace had once occupied, and toward the flight of stairs to the main house.

She heard him behind her, yet she kept her pace down the stairs, the hall, and then the second flight of stairs.

Evy glanced over her shoulder and saw him. She would never make it back to the cottage. It seemed as though he was letting her stay ahead, knowing he could overtake her when he pleased, perhaps outside—unless
she surprised him again. Was there time enough to take his horse? She had noticed it tied near the tree.

Did she dare? The feel of the letter in her hands brought her the answer: yes. She had no other choice.

She ran past the gallery of Chantry faces, down toward the final flight of stairs into the baronial hall. Rogan took a shortcut over the banister and ran ahead, reaching the front door, smug and smiling. Evy paused. He blocked her exit, and yet … off to one side was the library.
The library! With the fire still crackling in the fireplace! Yes! Yes, of course
—