Treasure, Darkly (Treasure Chronicles Book 1)

by Jordan Elizabeth

  “You were to be back sooner.” His words ground through clenched teeth.

  “It was such a lovely day,” Amethyst sang. “Who cares how late we are?”

  Clark bowed. That might appease her brother. “I shall apologize to your parents immediately.”

  Jeremiah snorted. “Look—”

  “Is supper ready yet?” Amethyst pranced by Jeremiah and patted his arm. “I can’t wait to eat. We nibbled on Mother’s food along the way, but I’m starving. Let me tell you about the river. It really does look black.”

  Jeremiah sent a final glare at Clark before following Amethyst.

  Eric glimmered by the doorway. “Thank you…son.”

  methyst flopped backward onto her bed and spread out her arms. “If I were back in New Addison City, we’d be going on picnics and shopping. The stores have wonderful summer merchandise.”

  “And the city smells with all the heat and garbage.” Her mother continued sorting through the clothes in her cedar wardrobe. “You promised us you’d spend the summer here. You can go back in the fall.”

  Amethyst lifted her wrist overhead to study her silver charm bracelet, a gift from a suitor years ago. If she went back, she wouldn’t be near Clark. “Can Clark come with me?”

  Georgette paused with a wooden hanger in her hand. “I’m not sure he would like that. He’s grown up in the west.”

  “So?” She sat up on her elbows. “He’s part of the family.” That was what her parents wanted them to believe. She would have so much fun showing him around the city. They could visit her favorite cafes and take the buggy ride through the park. At the clubs, she could show him off as her newest beau.

  As her new brother. Amethyst winced.

  “Clark belongs here. We’re not hiding him, but it would be best if he stayed at the ranch.”

  In the city, someone might recognize him as Eric’s son. That might be why her mother was hesitant. “I’m sure Clark would enjoy it.”

  Georgette smoothed her hands over the clothes and shut the wardrobe drawer. “They seem appropriate enough for this terrain. I don’t foresee needing to buy you anything new.”

  “I can’t go shopping?” Amethyst wrinkled her nose. “Mother, that isn’t fair. I know the shops here are wretched, but I can order from back east. We’re not poor.”

  Georgette sat beside her on the bed and sighed. “There are other things to do besides shopping.”

  Like cycle riding and pistol shooting. “Mother—”

  A knock sounded at the door. “Am, are you decent?”

  Her heartbeat sped. “Enter. Mother and I are discussing how I have been forbidden the wonderful joy of owning a new dress,” Amethyst wailed.

  Georgette frowned. “That’s not the point.”

  The door opened enough for Clark to enter. He bowed to the bed and removed his cowboy hat, the beaten rim proving it a castoff.

  “I’ll take Clark shopping.” Amethyst whirled off the bed to grab his hat. “He deserves a stunning wardrobe.”

  He snatched it back and bopped her head, laughing. “I’ve already been spoiled beyond belief.”

  “Clark?” Georgette rose and smoothed her skirt. “I hope you’re feeling welcomed. I understand this is all very new. Never feel out of place, please. I also understand you and Amethyst are both adjusting to the ranch. I’m glad you have each other now.”

  Amethyst ducked her head to stifle a blush. They were both new to Treasure Ranch, but it had become more than that.

  “You’ve been unbelievable.” Clark’s voice croaked. Could he be choked with emotion?

  “Will you take me riding?” Amethyst asked. “I enjoyed seeing the area from a cycle.”

  “I was hoping you could teach me manners.”

  Amethyst blinked. “You’re not a bumpkin.”

  “That’s an excellent idea.” Georgette patted his arm. “I’m sure Amethyst will prove an appropriate teacher.”

  He nodded. “I don’t want to embarrass you or Garth.”

  “Your father and I could never be embarrassed by you.” Georgette stepped into the hallway.

  Clark lowered his voice. “Eric told me about a new assignment we need to work out. An old friend of Eric’s has special handguns. They don’t require bullets. They have lasers that self-charge over time.”

  “Aren’t those already used?” Clark wanted to keep her on his team! She clasped her hands behind her back to refrain from clapping.

  “They have handguns with lasers that you can wind to recharge or buy new cartridges for. These recharge over time slowly, but faster if in the sun. The old friend has them stored in a hidden cellar.”

  “Certainly I’ll go with you.”

  Clark kicked the heel of his boot against the floor. “Here’s the thing. He lives about two days away, so we would have to spend the night somewhere.”

  “So? That would be a fun trip.” Curled up in bed together. Her cheeks reddened.

  “Your parents wouldn’t approve. We’ll have to take someone else with us.”

  “Like a servant?” A Bromi could be bribed.

  “I was thinking Jeremiah or Zachariah. Zachariah doesn’t do much.”

  Her brother went to the army station in town every day, leaving in the morning and returning at supper. “He would be best. What’s our excuse for going to…?”

  “Hawk Valley. Eric said he’s an old friend of your father’s, too. I think you should pretend to recall his name and suggest paying him a visit. Can you do that?”

  Amethyst set her hand on her hip. “Of course. My friends and I put on dramas in the city.”

  “Donald Boroughaghans,” Amethyst stumbled over the name, “would certainly love to hear from us.” Rusted gears, she should’ve practiced that.

  “Burrows,” her mother supplied. “Donald Burrows.”

  “That’s right.” Amethyst tipped her head, grinning. “Him.”

  Georgette’s silver needle slid through her cross-stitch pattern. “How did you remember that name?”

  “It came to me.”

  “We haven’t mentioned Donald Burrows in years. I lost touch with him after his wife died.”

  “So we should get to know him again. I can tell him about what he’s missing in the city.”

  “I’m sure he’s perfectly happy being a lawyer out here. He never liked the bustle of cities.”

  “We can visit him, right?”

  “That’s a two-day trip.” Georgette kept her gaze on her needlepoint.

  “Clark and I will go. We can see the scenery. We can take Zachariah, too,” she added. It might look suspicious if everything she did involved just Clark.

  Georgette glanced at Clark, who stood in the parlor doorway. “I’m sure he doesn’t want to run all over the west. Let him settle down. You need to relax—”

  “I’m bored,” Amethyst whined. Her parents wouldn’t want her to suffer. “It will be such a fun trip, and Donald whatever-his-last-name-is can meet Clark. We don’t want to hide him.” The secret love-child.

  “I don’t mind traveling to meet someone close to the family,” Clark said. How smooth he spoke. On the outside he appeared calm, but he had to be as nervous as she was on the inside.

  Georgette sighed. “I’ll send Donald a telegram asking if we can visit.”

  “We?” She couldn’t mean the entire family. That might make it harder to steal the laser handguns—more people around to see what was happening.

  “Your father can’t get away, but it might be nice to take a trip.” Georgette picked up her needle. “I’m sure Donald will enjoy meeting Clark.”

  Amethyst twirled her charm bracelet. Donald probably would, especially after Georgette explained he was Eric’s child, not theirs. Georgette would have to go, too.

  A Bromi servant strapped Amethyst’s trunk to the top of the Treasure coach.

  “Do you need that much?” Clark nudged her. “We’ll only be there a week.” He’d packed a valise, even though Garth had offered to purchase him a stea
mer trunk.

  “A proper girl must always look nice.” How easily she acted. Only half the trunk contained items. The rest of the room would be used for the weapons. Eric hadn’t explained how big they would be, but it wouldn’t hurt to be prepared.

  “Clark, it wouldn’t be right for you to drive.” Georgette tugged on her leather traveling gloves.

  “I wouldn’t mind.” Driving a coach would give him fresh air. He wouldn’t need to be careful not to ogle Amethyst in front of her mother.

  “You don’t know the way, either.” Georgette smiled. “We’ll have plenty to chat about inside the coach, and any time you feel stifled, you can ride up there. Learn the countryside.”

  The Bromi servant opened the coach door and took her hand to help her up.

  Clark winked at Amethyst, who blushed. “I may take you up on that. I like knowing where I’m going and how to get back.”

  By seven at night, the coach slowed in the town of Rusty Port on the river. People bustled around the clapboard buildings.

  “We stop here,” the Bromi told Clark in his language. “It’s halfway to Hawk Valley. This is also the only place with a proper inn for Mistress Treasure. It’s busy since it’s on the river.”

  Clark nodded, mentally inserting the directions into his brain. “I’ll help the ladies if you get the luggage.”

  The inn had three floors, with a downstairs restaurant and separate saloon. Georgette had telegraphed ahead with reservations for four rooms, three on the second floor and one in the cottage house out back for the Bromi.

  “I have my own space?” Clark dropped his valise in the doorway of his bedroom.

  “Of course.” Georgette rested her hand on the doorframe. “As my son, you deserve the same amenities as we do.”

  Clark gazed at the dresser with a mirror and washbasin, at the bed with a quilt and two pillows. This mere inn room was far better than anywhere he’d ever stayed, apart from at the Treasure ranch. “Ma’am, I can’t…thank you.”

  “Please, call me Georgette.” She crossed the door to a card hanging near the window from the ceiling. “If you need anything, pull on this and it will notify a servant in the kitchen that you requite assistance. This is one of the best riverside inns.”

  “Remarkable.” The bedrooms at the ranch had the same system, but with a smaller cord near the doorway.

  Georgette stepped into the hallway. “We’ll rest for an hour and meet for supper at my room. We can all walk down together. Amethyst?”

  Clark peered after Georgette. Amethyst’s trunk rested just inside her door, but the rented room and hallway lay empty.

  methyst?” Georgette stepped into the room. “Are you in here?”

  “She can’t be.” Gripping the doorframe, Clark leaned back to study the hallway over his shoulders. “Did she go in another room?”

  “I don’t see why she would have.” Georgette straightened her hat. “She must have gone back downstairs to get something.”

  Leave it to Amethyst to wander off without saying anything. Hadn’t she thought her mother would worry, or was she too used to doing as she pleased? Georgette had wanted to rest before supper—she had to be tired, and concerned of how her daughter would feel.

  “I’ll get her.” Clark patted Georgette’s arm. “You can lie down.”

  She glanced toward the stairs with her lips parted before she smiled at him. “Thank you, dear.”

  Clark pushed their luggage into their rooms and shut the door. Let Amethyst find whatever she’d wanted. It had probably been a drink so she could embarrass her mother by hanging over a stranger at the bar. Things might be looser in her city, but a woman without morals in the west would bring shame. He’d seen his mother frown at her reflection every day in the commode mirror.

  “Don’t you think you’re pretty?” he’d asked her. She would have him sit on the dresser while she applied her cosmetics and fastened her hair. The other girls would tell her she looked fine, no matter how the product came out, since it worked in their favor if they stayed more appealing.

  “I wish I was a different kinda pretty.” She’d had to apply thicker creams and powders to hide the wrinkles and sun spots. “I wanna be the kinda pretty that comes from having a family—a husband and my boy. Other boys to look up to you. Some girls I can teach home stuff to. I wanna have my own garden and my own bed.”

  He’d vowed to give her that, and he’d failed. Scowling, Clark marched toward the stairs. Laughter rose from the first floor where the revelers clanked tankards. Most of the men wore torn shirts and stained denim overalls. A few wore the fringed deerskin of the Bromi tribes. Some men wore proper clothes—captains from the river boats. Amethyst could’ve gone to any in the crowd. She might find a rogue dashing.

  Clark stood on the stairs to scan the crowd, spotting a few tarnished silvers. Their breasts popped from bright corsets and skirts had been hiked up to waists, revealing fishnet stockings. The regal women would’ve headed to the dining hall. He ducked through the double doors in the back and checked the tables, but couples sat in the chairs, along with a group of four businessmen in black suits.

  She had to have gotten somewhere. He wandered to the street, but didn’t see her amongst the sparse wanderers and passing vehicles.

  Clark leaned his elbows against the counter to appear casual. “Excuse me, sir?”

  The clerk looked up from his tally book, squinting through wire-rimmed spectacles. “Yes?”

  “I’m Clark Treasure—”

  “Treasure,” the clerk repeated. His skin paled beneath his ginger beard.

  Clark refrained from smiling. So, the prestigious name preceded them. “Did you notice my sister come back down? I was supposed to meet her. She’s wearing—”

  “You didn’t come with a sister.”

  Clark set his jaw. A clerk should know better than to interrupt. It created bad feelings amongst the customers, ruining business. “She was with us when my mother signed in.”

  “Saw your mother and you. No one else.”

  Rude and unobservant. “Check the list. Our mother would’ve signed her name.” He’d seen Georgette use her fancy scrawl on the smudged sheet.

  The clerk’s hands shook as he passed the tally book across the counter. “Ain’t in there.”

  Clark turned the book to face him. Toward the top of the page, he spotted Georgette Treasure, followed by an ink smear, then Clark Treasure. He stretched his fingers to keep from clenching them. “Someone crossed off my sister’s name.” The clerk hadn’t done it then. His hands shook too hard to make an even line.

  “Y-your mother missed. She marked up.”

  “My mother,” Clark said slowly, “does not mess up her handwriting. She attended a private school for calligraphy from when she was seven to eighteen.” Such a school might not even exist, but it would make sense for a wealthy woman to have attended one.

  “She…musta been tired from the trip.” The man gulped and tugged on the collar of white button-up shirt. Nervousness.

  He wasn’t just a bad employee.

  He knew something he didn’t want to tell.

  Amethyst bit at the hand clamped over her mouth, but the captor held tighter.

  Shaggy hair beneath a cowboy hat. He looked so familiar. The rugged cow smell marked him as someone not from the city. Had she seen him at the ranch?

  He’d clamped something cold around her wrists, pinning them behind her back. The more she wriggled, the tighter they became.

  He pulled a bandana from his pocket and shoved it into her mouth. Sweat and something gritty coated her tongue. Her throat threatened to gag as she twisted her head aside. Laughing, he pushed her onto the bed. She stared at the ceiling, at a water stain near the window. Staying overnight should’ve been fun. Once her mother fell asleep, she’d planned to sneak into Clark’s room. He had to be fantasizing about the same thing. She wasn’t supposed to be assaulted. Did the fool think he’d get money from her?

  Amethyst twisted to kick her hee
ls against the wall, but he grabbed her ankle. “We can’t have you making noise. That would arouse too much suspicion.”

  She swung her other foot forward to knock off his grip, but he seized that with his other hand and shoved her into the bed. The brown quilt bunched beneath her head, jabbing into her neck.

  “You just don’t want to behave, do you, Treasure?” When he spoke, she saw his teeth. They were too white and even to belong to a common cowman. Her mother and Clark would find her. She was only two hotel rooms away.

  “How’re you still alive?” he continued. “I know I shot you dead. If you were still breathing, you should be lying somewhere, all bloody.”

  Her eyes widened. The Horan boy, whatever his name was. Hadn’t that first shot been a careless accident?

  “What’s so special about you, girl?” He leaned forward to rub his thumb over her cheek. “You’re not very observant. Never saw me coming in behind you folks. See now, here’s the thing. I know the army wants you.”

  She shook her head, but he slammed his hand into her shoulder. Pain dashed through her nerves and she winced. Why would the army want her?

  “We come here to trade on the river,” he drawled. “Maybe you didn’t know that. I was heading here with an army fellow, and he got to talking about this other fellow they’re looking for. Said he can bring back the dead. When I saw you outside, I knew what fellow the army wanted.”

  Clark. The Horan man was going to use her as bait for Clark. She shrank into the feather mattress to escape his glare.

  “You,” he said.

  If anyone hurt Amethyst, he would kill him or her. Clark rested both of his fists on the counter to avoid grabbing his pistol. Threatening bodily harm wouldn’t work in a crowded inn.

  “I know you’ve got something to do with this,” Clark growled through clenched teeth. “The Treasure name is one of the most predominant in the country. This act won’t get you anywhere.”

  The man backed against the wall and paled further. “I…I don’t know what you mean. I…I haven’t done anything.”