Authors: Julia Ross
"No." His tone
was indignant. "Just a sign that
Ι
have finally come to my senses."
"Faith, sir!"
she replied. "Ever since
Ι
first laid eyes
on
you, you have been robbing me of mine."
She turned her head away,
yet she knew he studied her, his gaze straying over her extravagant bonnet, the
low neckline of the fashionable gown, the fitted bodice with its sets of tiny
bows and seed pearl embroidery. His lazy inspection sent tiny waves of
breathless delight over her skin, as if she bloomed for him,
unfol
ded petals to offer her vulnerable heart.
"You love me,"
he said.
Juliet nodded.
"Then here we both
sit,
in
all our finery, two
fools of love."
"Yet how can we be
certain it is real?" Juliet insisted. "We both thought ourselves
in
love before."
He folded his arms again,
as if resisting an impulse to touch her. "Because this is nothing like
that first childish infatuation, at once so exciting and naughty. This love
frees and transforms. If, for whatever reason, we must now lose each other, it
would be nothing like our cynical response to the loss of that first
love-"
She was genuinely
surprised. "Your reaction may have been cynical. But mine?"
"
To
retreat to Manston Mingate to play chess with an old
woman was deeply cynical, Juliet. It was as much a denial of the needs of the
heart as what
Ι
did by becoming a rake.
By
the way, who
w
a
s
Miss Parrett?"
Of course, he must change
the subject. What use to talk about their feelings for each other?
If, for
whatever re
a
son, we must now lose
each other-
Nothing could change the fact that she was still married to someone
else. Juliet took the lead he had offered.
"Miss Parrett had
been my grandmother's companion. Whenever we visited, she was there: this
valiant woman who knew just how to offer real warmth to children. Kit and
Ι
adored her. We missed her terribly after my
grandmother died.
Only
Ι
knew that she had eventually retired to
Manston Mingate. After
Ι
eloped with George, she
was the
only
person
Ι
wrote to, except for that one letter to my mother, when it was too
late."
"So Miss Parrett
knew the name of the
inn
where you were staying?"
Juliet nodded. "And
when my letters stopped, she wrote to
in
quire after me, but when my mother's carriage turned over, "I’d run
out into the storm and almost drowned, too.
Ι
caught a lung fever and was
too
sick
to
be moved. The
inn
sent back a message demanding payment for the room
and the removal of my useless self, which is how Miss Parrett found out about
the accident at the ford. That was when she discovered
Ι
had been abandoned by George and that my
father had shut himself away, receiving
no
messages."
"A
l
most de
a
d with grief - p
α
le
a
s
a
ghost
and
sick with
a
fever."
It had been such a soft
murmur she hadn't quite been sure of his words. "What?"
"Nothing. Just
something the innkeeper at the Three Tuns said once. Go
on
."
"Miss Parrett dipped
into
her slender resources to
hire a private carriage and she came to fetch me. It's
no
exaggeration
to
say she saved my 1ife."
"She is buried in
Manston Mingate?"
"In the churchyard.
Ι
used to visit her grave every Sunday."
"I’d have liked to
have known her," Alden said. "
To
say thank you."
The carriage lurched as
it
turned
in
to another
inn
yard. Hooves boomed and ran as fresh teams were
rushed out of the stables and the tired horses led away.
Alden swung down as soon
as their coach stopped. Juliet leaned from the door and watched him exchange
letters with a man
on
horseback: a groom from
Gracechurch Abbey. As their new team was being hitched, the groom turned his
horse and galloped away.
The coach dipped as Alden
stepped back inside. He opened another short letter and perused it.
"You conduct urgent
business?" Juliet asked.
"
Our
business,"
he said, smiling. "Lord Edward spun a spider's web to entrap us. For the
last several weeks,
Ι
have been spinning one
of my own. With any luck, we'll turn the duke's son from spider to fly."
"Can you tell me
about it?"
"Of course.
Ι
have sent out a network of messages. The
first was a note to inform Blackthorn Manor that a certain assistant named
Bill
was responsible for your escape and was
motivated by secret information he had gleaned from you concerning a treasure.
That message will immediately get back to Lord Edward.
Bill
may expect a knife
in
the back."
"Lord Edward will
murder him?"
"
Ι
doubt very seriously that he will do
it
himself," Alden repl
i
ed dryly. "Though we live
in
a world where children are executed for stealing a
spoon. If Bill is lucky, Mr. Upbridge will ask him about the message. If he is
wise,
Bill
will flee before
retribution arrives. As
it
happens,
Ι
believe the man is stupid. Let us leave him
to providence and the duke's son, Juliet, but either way he'll be removed from
Blackthorn Manor."
Alden had faced death
himself several times at the end of a blade. It was another reason why
gentlemen wore all that lace and silk, to disguise the lethal capability beneath,
yet she shuddered.
"
Ι
should
want mercy for the man,
but
Ι
can't quite-"
"In another few
days, he would have raped you. He has been abusing other women for years -
night after night, helpless lunatics, tied to their beds. He deserves to hang.
Starvation
in
an alley or a knife
in
the dark is almost too good for him."
"
Ι
am glad," she said, "that
no
other women will suffer. And the other letters?"
Alden opened his writing
case. "Are from a network of spies
Ι
have set to watch Lord Edward. We aren't the
only
ones with reason to wish ill to the duke's
son. For several months he has been encouraged to invest ever more wildly,
in
ever more extravagant schemes.
Ι
have done what
Ι
can to exacerbate that. He will have to go
after the treasure very soon or face ruin, but he can't
move until your father leaves Felton Hall. Even a
duke's son can't chance being discovered digging pits
in
a peer's grounds at night. "
"Then send him a
message telling him my father has left for London."
Alden grinned with wicked
confidence. "
Ι
already have."
"Though you know
there is
no
treasure," she
said.
"Ι know no such thing."
"Alden,
Ι
grew
up
with the legend.
Kit
and
Ι
analyzed patterns
wherever we found them, looked for imaginary clues
in
every ragtag collection of books and documents at
Felton Hall, then dug holes all over my father's estate."
"And the
locket?" The feather danced as his quill scratched over the paper.
"
Kit
and
Ι
studied it, too - the
numbers and symbols inscribed inside were meant to be a code telling where the
treasure was hidden. Five or six new holes were dug as a result. Why would Lord
Edward risk so much over the implausible existence of this lost hoard?"
Alden folded another
note, pressing his seal
into
the wax. "It's the
nature of our age, Jul
i
et. We are all gaming
mad."
"Does the game ever
stop?"
"How can it?"
He closed the writing case and set
it
aside. "Yet you and
Ι
have already thrown our
cards onto the table."
"What do you
mean?"
"
Ι
mean that we began with a rather wicked game.
Ι
initiated it, but you
didn't shrink from the gamble. Faith!
To
invite a perfect stranger into your kitchen at Manston Mingate?
To
agree to play chess with him? Now we have stopped
playing and passed the turning point."
"What turning
point?"
His eyes were dark, lovely, as he smiled.
"The one when you must risk showing another person the truth about
yourself, including your pettiness, your mistakes. At that moment you are
vulnerable to a terrible hurt, but if you don't take that risk, intimacy is
never possible. Not that Ι ever thought before that true intimacy was what
Ι wanted."
"But you have risked it with me?"
"Ι have risked it with you. It's a
matter of discovering whether you can trust. Ι trust you. Ι love you.
Ι am fighting now to see if we can truly have a future."
"Ι am almost afraid to think of
it," she said. "Ι am still another man's wife."
He turned to stare through the dirty glass.
"That is the subject of my third set of letters. Ι am trying to find
out everything there is to know about George."
"How can that help?"
"Ι don't know. But it can't hurt."
THEY STOPPED IN SEVEN MILES TO CHANGE HORSES
AGAIN. ALDEN received another batch of letters. While he read them, Juliet drew
a plan for him of her father's estate, marking the places she had dug up with
Kit. He studied it. The carriage rocked on. She watched him with thinly
concealed craving, the ardent hands, the quick intelligence, and waited.
"So where is the Felton Hoard?" he
asked at last. "Your best guess based entirely on the locket?"
She pointed out the spot where she had sketched a
spring near the corner of a pasture.
"Here, without question. Ι can describe every blade of grass,
if you like, though it has changed since Kit and Ι were children. My
father drained the little pond, here, ditched below it, and put in a new trough
for the cattle. . . ."
He listened intently until she had finished, then
grinned. "A perfect spot for some revelry. Invitations of one kind or
another will now be issued to all the interested parties."
"Including George?"
He snapped open the silver lid of the inkpot in
his writing case. "Is that all right?"
"Ι am not afraid of George,"
Juliet said, "as long as I'm with you."
"Yet the result may not be pretty." He
touched a letter he had received at their last stop. "Lord Edward has just
been informed he needs a titanic infusion of cash now. He has already made his
move to go after the treasure."
"So we must go straight to Felton
Hall?"
He was writing rapidly, folding and sealing note
after note. "Things are moving even faster than I'd dared hope. You don't
have to come, Juliet."
"No." She tried to make her voice as
courageous, as carelessly certain, as his. "No, Ι am sure that Ι
must be there - now Ι am learning to be quite good at risking
things-"