A Treasure Worth Keeping

by Marie Patrick

  “I am the man Cara is promised to marry?”

  • • •

  The front door of the earl’s home was almost as impressive as the massive portals to her grandmother’s town house. The duchess’s carriage had broken all records for slowness as it rolled through the streets of London, but now waited in the drive along with the maid and footman her grandmother had insisted accompany her. Caralyn quashed the tide of nausea twisting her stomach and let the iron knocker fall. The sound carried through the manse.

  Dogs barked in the background as the door opened to reveal an older, slightly stooped man, his ginger hair liberally streaked with grey. He looked at her and tried to straighten, but age had done its damage. “Yes, Miss?”

  “I’d like to see the earl.” Despite her fear, despite the urge to cry or run away, her voice remained strong.

  “Of course.” He opened the door wider and allowed her to enter. Caralyn tightened her grip on the handle of the valise. Heavy with gold coins and various pieces of gem-encrusted jewelry to replace her dowry, its weight pulled at her shoulder. “Please wait while I see if his lordship is receiving visitors. May I tell him who is calling?”

  “Caralyn McCreigh,” she said. Her voice echoed in the great hall as did the butler’s footsteps, reminding her of the cave where they’d found the statue of the Blessed Mother. Caralyn gazed around the large room where she waited. Unlike her grandmother’s great hall, which was light and airy, the earl’s hall seemed dark. Unable to help herself, she strode to the window and opened the heavy draperies, allowing weak sunlight to flood the area where she stood. She shivered but didn’t know if she did so because of her fear or the dampness seeping into her bones. Oh, how she missed the warm bright sunshine of the islands.

  The butler touched her arm. “This way, Miss.”

  Caralyn jumped, startled, and followed the man into a massive library. He closed the door behind him, leaving her alone in the room.

  Two stories high, bookshelves and curio cabinets lined the walls. A spiral staircase rose to the second floor where, in a corner flooded with pale sunlight, a grouping of deep, comfortable chairs flanked the wide window. She saw someone’s foot bobbing, but the person sitting in the chair, his back toward her, did not rise.

  “Well, this is certainly a surprise,” the earl greeted her warmly. He came down another set of spiral stairs to her left, a book in one hand, his other hand gliding along the railing. “I didn’t expect to see you until tomorrow when you married my son.”

  Her stomach clenched as he reached the bottom step and came toward her. She clutched the handle of her valise tighter, gripping the wooden rings with fingers that had suddenly turned to stone.

  “I am Rayne Youngblood, Earl of Winterbourne.” He kissed the tips of her fingers then stood back. “Ah, you are lovelier than I hoped. Your father said you were, but you know how fathers can exaggerate.” He chuckled lightly. “Please.” He gestured to a chair while he seated himself behind a mahogany desk.

  Caralyn sat on the edge of the chair, placed her valise on the floor beside her, and fidgeted with the pleats in her skirt. Now that she was here, words failed her. She didn’t know how to begin, didn’t know how to say what she needed to say. She glanced at him and decided he had a kind face. Perhaps he would understand.

  “Though this is a pleasant surprise, my dear, I am curious about the reason for your visit.” He looked at her, his bushy white brows raised as he twisted the onyx signet ring around and around on his finger. “I feel you have something important on your mind.”

  As she watched him, Caralyn’s heart beat triple time in her chest. She had the strangest feeling she knew this man, but for the life of her, she didn’t know how.

  “Forgive my boldness, milord,” she said before she lost her nerve, “but I’ve come to ask that you release me from my father’s promise. I do not wish to marry your son.”

  “I see.” He twisted the ring a little more then, as if trying to break his own habit, stopped, leaned forward, and folded his hands on the desktop. “May I ask why?”

  Caralyn swallowed hard. Her father had always instilled in her the valor of honesty. “I’ve met someone.”

  “This man you’ve met,” he said as he took off his glasses and held them by the earpiece.

  Those eyes! She knew those eyes! But . . .

  “Are you in love with him?”

  Caralyn forced her attention away from his sherry-colored gaze and sighed. “Yes. I am in love with him, and I want to marry him if he’ll have me.”

  “I see.” He drew a deep breath. “And what of my son, the man you’re promised to?”

  She rose from the seat unable to sit still and began to pace. “I apologize, sir, but I cannot, will not, marry your son. I will meet with him and offer my apologies in person but nothing will change my mind.” She stopped before his desk, her direct gaze meeting his. “Do you not want your son to be happy? Do you not want him to have a successful, loving marriage?”

  He didn’t answer. Instead, he returned her stare, unrelenting, unblinking. “What if I insist? What if I hold you to the promises made on your behalf?”

  “I would beg you to reconsider.” Oh, how she hated the pleading tone in her voice, and yet she couldn’t help it. “I can replace the dowry my father agreed upon.” She lifted the valise from the floor, opened it, and shook the contents onto the shiny surface of his desk. The earl jumped and gasped, whether from the thundering explosion of sound as the treasure hit the desktop or the surprise of seeing such a fortune, she didn’t know. And didn’t care.

  His eyes opened wide as he picked up a gold crucifix. The emeralds embedded in the gold twinkled in the weak light coming in the window. “Is this what I think it is?”

  “Izzy’s Fortune,” Caralyn said. “It’s yours if you will release me from my father’s promise.”

  The earl sighed and shook his head. He inspected the piece in his hand. “Let me think on this for a moment.”

  Caralyn sat, her eyes boring into him, her heart pounding. She twisted her hands in her lap and resisted the urge to run her damp palms on her gown. She didn’t blink, didn’t take her gaze from him for one moment. And she prayed. Oh, how she prayed.

  Again, the earl sighed. “Very well, Miss McCreigh. You’ve shown a great deal of courage coming to see me as you have. I will—”

  He never finished the sentence, never said the words she so wanted to hear. Instead, she heard the door behind her open and close and the earl grinned as someone walked into the room. “Son, you’re just in time.”

  Caralyn cringed. Her stomach, already twisted with fear and unease, clenched, as did her jaw. Finding whatever dregs of courage she could, she rose from her seat and turned to face the earl’s son, hopefully, for the first and the last time.

  She gasped. Tears filled her eyes. She trembled. Indeed, she shook so badly, she thought her knees would buckle. Joy such as she’d never known flowed through her veins. Her heart raced, her pulse pounded in her ears.

  Tristan opened his arms. Without hesitation, without a second thought, Caralyn flew into them. His lips met hers in a kiss so gentle, so tender, she felt as if heaven had blessed her. “Oh, Tristan,” she whispered, amazed. “I’m so glad you’re here but I don’t understand.”

  “Neither did I until I met your grandmother. I think your father and mine,” he glanced at the earl, “have something to tell us.” His arms tightened around her. “I’m never letting you go again, my love,” he whispered as his lips found hers once more.

  The earl chuckled and looked toward the chairs flanking the window on the second story. “Daniel, you can come out now. I do believe it’s time to confess to our plan.”

  Caralyn looked toward the chairs as her father slowly stood, a sheepish grin on his face. He held up his hands in surrender. “Forgive me, Cara, but I wanted for you a love like your mother’s and mine, and a man who could understand your passion for adventure.” He stepped down the spiral staircase and strode to t
he desk.

  Rayne took off his glasses and wiped his eyes as he addressed his son. “And I didn’t want for you the marriage your mother and I had. I wanted better for you, Tristan. I wanted you to find love, and I believe you have.”

  “I knew from the moment I met Tristan, he would be the one for you, Cara. I knew, or rather, I hoped, given the opportunity, you would fall in love with each other. Forgive us our deception. We are but old men who only wanted happiness for our children,” Daniel said as he put his arm around his oldest friend.

  Caralyn didn’t know what to say as she stared at them. She should be furious, and yet as Rayne and her father stood together, the both of them hopeless romantics and matchmakers extraordinaire, she couldn’t be. She glanced at Tristan, the man of her dreams, the one she could love until she took her last breath, and grinned. “Should we forgive them?”

  Tristan held her gaze. In the depths of his sparkling, sherry-colored eyes, she saw the promise of everything she ever wanted. “I think we should.” He lowered his voice and whispered in her ear. “Because they were right. I do love you, Cara mia. Will you marry me?”

  “Oh, yes.”

  Epilogue

  “Wake up, sleepyhead.”

  The words whispered in his ear caused gooseflesh to pebble his skin. Tristan roused from sleep slowly as only a contented man can. Warm fingers tickled the thick mat of hair on his chest and caressed lower. His whole body came alive. He caught Caralyn’s hand and opened one eye. Bright sunlight streamed through the window and fell upon the impish grin on her face.

  How he loved this woman. With every beat of his heart, every breath he drew, he knew how lucky he’d been to find someone as passionate, as beautiful, as adventurous as she.

  “Now, you know what will happen if you continue to do that.”

  Sleep tousled hair brushed against his chest as she nodded. “I know.” Her grin grew and a wicked light danced in her sea-blue eyes. “Happy anniversary, my love,” she murmured before she kissed his cheek.

  Startled by her words and the fact he may have forgotten such an important date, Tristan mentally went over the calendar in his head and realized she must be mistaken. He smoothed his finger along the soft skin of her jaw. “Cara mia, today is not our anniversary.”

  Caralyn nodded. “Ten years ago today, I offered you an outrageous proposition. I hired you to help me find a treasure.” Her eyes darkened to an even darker blue. “I fell in love with you the first time you kissed me, and when you played your violin, I knew my heart would always be yours.”

  His heart swelled in his chest—with pride, with love. A lump rose in his throat and he couldn’t speak, but his lips could convey what he felt in his heart and he tasted her mouth with the sweetest of kisses as his hands caressed her through the silkiness of her nightgown.

  “I have something for you.” She broke the kiss and stretched across him. Her breasts pressed against his chest and he groaned before he reached for her.

  “Do you know what you do to me?”

  She giggled and slapped his hand away as she dug in the bedside table drawer and withdrew a thick envelope.

  “What is it?”

  “Open it and see.”

  Tristan sat up in bed with his back against the cushioned headboard. Caralyn settled beside him, her hand resting on his chest as he opened the envelope. A sigh escaped him as he read the letter from the lawyer.

  “It took me almost ten months, but I finally tracked it down. This is a map to Calico Jack Rackham’s last treasure. Or at least a map attributed to him before he was put to death.”

  Tristan closed his eyes against the sudden moisture that made his vision blur. Beyond the privacy of their bedchamber, Winterbourne Manor burst at the seams. Friends and relatives converged on the manse to celebrate two amazing events. The release of Dr. Brady Trevelyan’s third book, Adventures of a Treasure Hunter, and Graham Alcott’s marriage.

  The bigger surprise had to be the upcoming nuptials of Graham and Irene Baker. Graham said she reminded him a great deal of Caralyn. He met her, of all places, on the beach in Long Island, New York, while she dug for Captain Kidd’s buried treasure. It had been love at first sight.

  He heard servants scurrying here and there, heard the voices of his guests, but above it all, he heard and reveled in the laughter of his children.

  His children.

  Jemmy, the child of his heart, home from school for holiday, chased his younger siblings up and down the hallway. His first born, Rayne Brady—all of eight and as serious as his grandfather had been—recited the rules of the game of chase. With his natural inclination for figures and finances, he would be running the Winterbourne estates before long, much to Jemmy’s profound relief as the boy had no desire to be landlocked.

  Daniel Graham was thirteen months younger than Rayne and full of the same spirit of adventure Tristan never lost. He and Jemmy talked constantly of sailing the seas to find lost treasure.

  A shout from the hallway made him swivel his head toward the door.

  Temperance, a miniature version of Caralyn with snapping sea-blue eyes and light brown hair that curled around her little face, peeked through the bedroom door. Even at three years old, his daughter knew exactly what she wanted. He couldn’t help the grin that tugged at the corners of his mouth. Last week she’d told him, quite emphatically, definitely no to peas and carrots, but yes to Papa’s kisses. Again, his heart swelled almost painfully in his chest as she squealed, “Papa!”

  “Good morning, my little sprite.” Tristan grinned as his daughter burst into the room, leaving the door wide open, and jumped on the bed. She snuggled between him and her mother, her little body warm. Caralyn wrapped an arm around her and nestled closer as Temperance grabbed the letter from his hand and pretended to read.

  It didn’t take long for her brothers to follow her. Rayne and Daniel perched at the end of the bed and Jemmy, at nineteen, too old to climb into their bed, slumped in one of the chairs flanking the fireplace, his leg swinging over the arm.

  Tristan glanced at each one of his children then turned to Caralyn, the woman who’d been the answer to every dream, every desire he’d ever had. “It’s a wonderful gift, Cara mia, but I don’t need it.” He smoothed his finger over her cheek and drew in a breath in an effort to keep the emotions threatening to overwhelm him at bay. As it was, he had to swallow—hard—to remove the lump from his throat. “I have everything I want right here. I don’t need to hunt for treasure because you, my love, and our children, are the only treasures worth keeping.”

  About the Author

  Marie Patrick has always had a love affair with words and books, but it wasn’t until a trip to Arizona, where she now makes her home with her husband and two furry, four-legged “girls,” that she became inspired to write about the sometimes desolate, yet beautiful landscape. Her inspiration doesn’t just come from the Wild West, though. It comes from history itself. She is fascinated with pirates and men in uniform and lawmen with shiny badges. When not writing or researching her favorite topics, she can usually be found curled up with a good book. Marie loves to hear from her readers. Drop her a note at Akamariep@aol.com or visit her website at www.mariepatrick.com.

  A Sneak Peek from One Day’s Loving by Rue Allyn

  Boston Massachusetts, Late June 1870

  “I regret, Mr. Van Wynde, I cannot accept your proposal. You will understand that with my grandfather’s passing last week I could not entertain any offer of marriage.”

  Persephone Mae Alden of the Boston Aldens stared wide-eyed at the man kneeling before her on the floor of the manse’s formal parlor. Thanks to her parsimonious grandfather’s belief that women were sin personified, she had never entered the social scene. Nonetheless, skepticism came easily after living, since childhood, with the cruelest hypocrite on earth—almost as easily as the knowledge that the way to survival lay in dissembling and avoidance. Never, never, risk telling a man exactly what you think—it wasn’t safe.

  Stil
l on his knees, Charles Otto Van Wynde, III looked up, calf-eyed, at Mae. “Had I not wished to give you my support during this sad time, I would never have spoken. Please tell me I may hope for a different answer in the future.”

  Mae was torn between the urge to giggle and the need to flee. Until today, she had never met Mr. Van Wynde, though she’d read of him and his nine sisters in the social columns of the Daily Advertiser. Despite his Brahmin name, Mr. Van Wynde had no money to speak of. The inappropriate timing of his offer had much more to do with obtaining the support of her grandfather’s fortune for his unmarried siblings than with any inclination to offer her solace. Mae wished for Edith and Kiera. With her older sisters’ help, she might have avoided this encounter. But Kiera had run off to San Francisco. Then newspaper reports of a murderer matching Kiera’s description hit the Boston streets, so Edith left to find Kiera and bring her home. Mae had promised to lie to protect their whereabouts while Grandfather remained in a coma. That he would die just five days after Edith’s departure was bad luck.

  Like it or not, Mae was on her own.

  “Please get up, kind sir. I cannot bear to look down upon one as considerate as you.” To name him considerate was to push dissembling to its limits. Heavens, the will had not even been read before Van Wynde came knocking on her door, offering condolences and heart in the same money-seeking breath. Mae told herself she was doing him a favor. She doubted very much that Grandfather would leave more than a pittance to any of his three granddaughters.

  Van Wynde straightened his spare form, bringing his oddly round face to eye level with her. “Can I say anything to change your mind?”

  “Your request honors me. However, I do not wish to mislead you. My heart is given elsewhere.” She would not tell him her heart was given firmly to the principle that marriage was a trap to keep women in servitude to men. Such a statement would only encourage him to try to prove otherwise and lead to embarrassment for them both. She had no desire to prolong this absurd encounter and suffer unwanted attentions simply to assuage his male pride.