Bella and the Beast (35 page)

“But I'd planned to spend the evening with them.”

“They're busy trying to figure out the rules to an ancient Egyptian game. And they're fifteen, after all. Quite old enough to keep themselves entertained. They even promised to take themselves off to bed at a reasonable hour.” Miles stood up and held out his hand to her. “Come with me, please. It's time for us to determine what that intruder was seeking in those crates.”

His gaze was dark and steady on her. He had swept away all of her excuses. And she couldn't deny that the prospect of an evening in his company made her pulse beat faster.

Bella drew a deep breath. Truly, she could not resist him when he looked at her with such warmth. With trepidation in her heart, she placed her hand in his.

*   *   *

Half an hour later, they sat side by side near the blazing fire in his study. Miles had unlocked the storeroom and pulled out one of the crates, and they were now examining the contents. Although the task would have gone faster if they could have split the work, he had logically stated that only Bella would know if something was missing. So he had placed an ottoman close to her chair and perched on it while they looked through the papers and journals together.

Bella had a difficult time concentrating, for his nearness kept intruding on her attention. She was acutely aware of the brush of his hand against hers, the spicy allure of his scent, the enticing heat of his body. More than anything, she yearned to lay aside their work and cuddle in his arms instead.

Nothing could be more impossible. She knew the danger of succumbing to his charm. It would only bring her more heartache. Better to get this task over with and done. Then she would be free to go.

She flipped through the pages of a notebook, seeing the drawings of various artifacts that her father had found at the site in Persia, and the scrawl of his descriptions. These were his most recent writings, from the crate the intruder had been poking through when Lila had come downstairs and surprised him.

“Did you pack all of these journals yourself?” Miles asked. “Or did your brother and sister help with the task?”

“Actually, Papa put them away. He would store each notebook as he filled the pages and then start a new one.” She paused, struggling to fathom why anyone would be interested in the journals. “What if this is a wild-goose chase, Miles? What if the intruder didn't care about Papa's papers at all? What if he merely thought there were valuables inside the crates?”

Miles cocked an eyebrow. “We won't know until we look through them all. And I just have a gut feeling about this. I suspect you do, too.”

“Pardon?”

He took her hands in his and held them firmly as if to demand her undivided attention. The sudden gravity of his gaze should have been a warning. “You've been poking through the papers from the expedition to Egypt,” he said. “First the papyri in the storeroom, and then the records in the archives. It's high time you told me exactly what it is that you're seeking.”

 

Chapter 26

The command came from out of the blue. For a moment Bella couldn't breathe from the constriction in her lungs. His dark eyes were so direct and piercing that she feared he could see straight into her mind and hear her father's words.

Find Aylwin. Find the map. You have half the pharaoh's treasure.

She lowered her gaze to the open journal in her lap. “I was merely curious to learn more about my past,” she fibbed. “Although I was there in Egypt as a child, I have very few memories of that time.”

Miles grasped hold of her chin and tipped it up so that she had to meet his unwavering regard. “Don't prevaricate,” he said. “You've been looking for something and so was that intruder. There may be a connection.”

“I already considered that, but—” She broke off, realizing her slip. She'd just admitted to conducting a search, after all.

“Tell me,” he urged softly. “Whatever it is, perhaps I can help.”

Unable to look away, Bella bit her lip. His brown eyes were warm, reassuring, and she felt a sudden, aching need to unburden herself. No one else knew of her father's deathbed revelation, not even her brother and sister. And how could she expect Miles to trust her if she refused to be honest?

Oh, she did long to clear the air between them. To never again have to concoct a story to hide her true purpose here. To know that there were no secrets between them.

Yet would he condemn her for deceiving him? Would he react with fury as he'd done when he'd found out about Lady Milford?

Bella swallowed the dryness in her throat. “I'll tell you under one condition. You must promise you won't get angry and shout at me.”

A slight dip of his eyelashes implied regret for his earlier outburst. “You have my word.”

She hoped he meant it. He might despise her again, and that would be difficult to bear. Yet she felt compelled to confess, anyway. “You were right to think that I came to Aylwin House under false pretenses. I did. But only because on his deathbed, my father told me to return to England and find you.”

“To find
me
?”

“Yes, though I didn't know who you were at the time, not until Lady Milford came to visit me. You see, Papa fell very ill. On the night before he died, he had a moment of lucidness.” Her throat caught as she remembered sitting by his bedside, seeing his blue eyes open and focus on her. “He reached for my hand. And he said very clearly, ‘Return to Oxford. Promise me. Find Aylwin. Find the map. You have half … the pharaoh's treasure.'”

Miles said nothing. Only the hissing of the fire disturbed the silence as Bella waited tensely for him to react. Maybe he would think her real purpose was far worse than plotting to entrap him into marriage. Maybe he would brand her a thief.

She forced herself to continue. “I came here hoping to find the map and the treasure. Not to enrich myself, but so that I could provide for Lila and Cyrus. At the time, I didn't know you, Miles. I feared that you would try to stop me from claiming our inheritance.”

A frown furrowed his brow. He pushed to his feet and towered over her. “So all this time, you've been searching for a treasure map?”

“Yes, but I never found it.” Her fingers dug into the arms of the chair. “When you forbade me to enter the storeroom with the papyri, I thought I might as well look in the archives, to see if the map might have been misfiled with the other documents.”

He began to pace back and forth in front of the desk. “A pharaoh's treasure … that doesn't even make sense. My father funded the entire expedition. Since he had to pay the Egyptian government dearly for every artifact he sent back to England, he would never have promised half the contents of a burial chamber to your father, who was merely an employee.”

Bella hadn't considered that. Had she come to Aylwin House on a fool's errand? “All I know is what Papa told me. There must be
some
explanation.”

As if lost in thought, Miles frowned into the fire. “I assisted every day at the excavation site. I never heard any mention of a treasure map. Are you certain that Sir Seymour wasn't delusional from the fever?”

“I—I don't believe so. Papa seemed very determined that I would understand him. I told him we'd talk further in the morning. But he passed away during the night. I never had a chance to ask him for more information.”

Bella blinked to clear the mistiness from her eyes. Not for the world did she intend to succumb to tears. Now that she'd made her confession, it was too important to find out what Miles might know.

Which didn't appear to be much of anything.

Too restless to sit, she rose from the chair and watched him pace. “Hasani mentioned that your father originally went to Egypt with the purpose of finding the burial site of a young pharaoh. According to legend, it was untouched by grave robbers and full of many gold artifacts. But Aylwin never located that particular tomb.”

“Tutankhamen. But those stories of a vast treasure trove were merely hearsay. There was no actual proof to back up the rumors.”

Bella refused to let her dream fizzle to nothingness. It would be too devastating to fail to fulfill her father's last wishes. Yet she could see by Miles's expression that he was genuinely puzzled.

She stopped his pacing with a touch to his wrist. “Is it possible that your father might have discovered such a map and didn't tell you? Could it be among your collection of papyri?”

Miles slowly shook his head. “I'm familiar with every one of those ancient documents. They're all written in hieroglyphs. I've never seen a geographical map…” Then an arrested expression came over his face and he turned to her, catching hold of her arms. “What did your father say again? Tell me exactly.”

She dutifully repeated, “‘Return to Oxford. Promise me. Find Aylwin. Find the map. You have half the pharaoh's treasure.'”

His fingers tightened on her arms. “That isn't the way you said it the first time. ‘Find the map. You have half…' Then you paused before adding, ‘the pharaoh's treasure.'”

“Papa
did
pause there,” Bella said, remembering. “I thought he was just having difficulty speaking. He was very weak. Are you suggesting that he stopped on purpose?”

“Indeed. ‘Find the map. You have half.' He may have been trying to convey that
you
have half the map.”

The notion stunned her. “That can't be. Where is it, then?”

“Perhaps in one of the crates or stuck in one of his journals. But if you have half, then that means
I
must have the other half, which is why Sir Seymour insisted that you return to England and find me.”

“How incredible. Do you truly think so?”

“Yes,” he said in a galvanized tone. “Especially since I have a fragment of a papyrus document that has never made any sense to me. Come, I'll show you.”

Miles turned on his heel, picked up a branch of candles, and strode into the storeroom adjacent to the study. Bella followed closely behind. Excitement bubbled in her. Could his theory really be true? Oh, she hoped so. Nothing else made sense.

The tall cabinets of drawers looked the same as on the night when he had caught her snooping in here, the night when he had pulled her into his arms and kissed her for the first time, awakening her deepest feminine desires. That memory alone caused a flush of longing in her.

But she mustn't think such thoughts. Not now, not ever. Even if she decided to remain at Aylwin House for a time, her stay could only be temporary. Any longer, and it would be too tempting to give herself to Miles again even though he had made plain his aversion to marriage.

He proceeded to the far end of the small room and handed her the candelabrum. “Hold this, if you will.”

She grasped the ornate silver base while he opened the topmost drawer of a cabinet and withdrew a single, thin sheet of papyrus about the size of his palm. He carried it back out to his desk, where he laid it down carefully atop the polished mahogany. Bella set the candelabrum nearby so that the light of the candles illuminated the fragile sheet.

Hieroglyphic pictures in faded ink covered the scrap of papyrus. There were little holes here and there, and she could see the fiber of the reeds that had been used to make the paper. Much to her disappointment, however, she saw no roads or other topographical illustrations.

Miles picked up his gold spectacles from the desk and put them on to examine the papyrus closely. He pointed to one side. “See that ragged edge? It appears as if it was torn, perhaps in half.”

“But it doesn't look at all like a map.”

“True, but the words and phrases seem to be directions. Left and right, with references to specific landmarks. I would have to sit down and study the hieroglyphs more closely. But I do believe this papyrus could very well be what your father would call a map.”

The possibility was so amazing that Bella caught hold of his arm. “Oh, Miles. So the treasure map really does exist, after all.”

He removed his spectacles, tossed them aside, and smiled, his eyes softening as he brushed his fingers over her cheek. “Yes. But it's worthless without both pieces. Now we shall have to look for your half.”

*   *   *

An hour later, they had pulled out all three crates and searched fruitlessly through dozens of leather-bound journals and other papers. There was no scrap of papyrus anywhere, even though they carefully checked the individual pages of each notebook to see if it could have been tucked in between them.

While they worked, they'd speculated on what must have happened. Either Aylwin or her father had discovered the papyrus, perhaps in the tomb they'd been excavating. Recognizing that it gave directions to an undiscovered treasure trove, they had torn it in half, each man keeping a piece as a safeguard against thievery.

As he opened the last crate, Bella had a disquieting thought. “Miles, could this map have had something to do with your father's death? Do you suppose he might have been killed by someone who'd wanted to steal his half of it?”

Miles glanced up, his eyes meeting hers. His face had hardened into a bleak expression. “The likelihood had occurred to me, yes.”

A bone-deep horror gripped Bella. She forgot the notebook lying open in her lap as her mind grappled with the revelation. “Then perhaps that would also explain why Papa left Egypt so swiftly. He feared for his own life. So he took Mama and me away in the night.” She paused, feeling sick. “But Miles, he left
you
without protection. How could he have done so if he'd suspected there was a murderer on the loose?”

Miles stroked her arm reassuringly. “You needn't look so aghast. By escaping with his half of the map, Sir Seymour rendered my half utterly useless. So I was perfectly safe.”

“But he should have brought you with us.”