Treasured

by Candace Camp

  “There.” Coll drove the last nail into the brace and stepped back to survey his work. “That’s the last.”

  “You think it will hold?” Jack, who had had his shoulder to the crossbeam, holding it steady as Coll hammered, moved away, wiping the sheen of sweat from his brow.

  “Oh, aye, it will hold well enough. Whether that brace is enough to keep the roof from caving in is another matter.” At Jack’s sharp glance, Coll laughed and shrugged. “’Tis the best we can do, and I think it is sturdy enough. But I am a Scot, so I expect the worst.”

  Jack rolled his eyes. He found, strangely, that he was beginning to like Munro. The longer he was around him, the more he realized the truth of Isobel’s words: the two of them were like kin. Nor could he suspect him of murder now that Coll had come to his rescue twice.

  His would-be assassin was Isobel’s brother, obviously. Andrew had come to mind immediately as the one most likely to be able to imitate his sister’s handwriting, and Andrew’s fleeing the house had confirmed Jack’s suspicion.

  At first he had been furious and considered hunting the man down to have it out with him. But an evening of reflection convinced him that the ticklish situation was better left this way. The man was Isobel’s brother; he could do nothing to him without bringing hurt to her.

  Isobel knew. She had an air of sorrow about her that Jack did not know how to breach, except at night in the warmth of their bed. She had not questioned her brother’s departure—or, indeed, talked about Andrew at all—proof enough that she understood the implications of Andrew’s precipitous departure. But knowing Andrew’s guilt and wishing her brother to suffer for it were entirely different things; it would cause her pain for Andrew to be brought to justice. He was out of their lives, and for Isobel’s sake, Jack could live with that.

  “Will you be looking for the door now?” Coll asked, pulling Jack back from his thoughts. Jack turned to see the other man casting a speculative look around the walls of the room. “Do you really think there’s an opening here?”

  “I am almost certain of it. Somewhere in here, there is a little hole and a fine line through the mortar between the stones.”

  Coll wandered closer to the wall. “We might cast our eyes about a wee bit before we leave.”

  Jack chuckled. “It’s tempting, but Isobel will have my head if I sneak a glance into the tunnel without her here.”

  “You are right about that.” Coll sighed.

  “However, there’s nothing to say I could not go to the house and ask her to join us.” Jack rolled down his sleeves and grabbed his jacket. “There is time before tea, after all.”

  Coll grinned. “True. There is a place or two above I can work on while you’re gone.” He bent and picked up his tools, following Jack out of the room.

  Jack left him shifting the debris and climbed the rope ladder to the surface. Dusting himself off as best he could, he shrugged into his jacket and turned toward the house. To his surprise, Robert Rose was sitting on the remains of one of the stone walls. As Jack walked toward him, the man stood up, giving him a stiff nod.

  “Mr. Rose.”

  “Mr. Kensington.” Robert cleared his throat. “I have come about a . . . a matter of some delicacy. A family matter, actually.”

  “Very well.” Jack’s curiosity rose.

  “I am not one to go against my own, but in this case, I believe it is my duty to do so.”

  “Yes?” Jack said when the other man did not go on.

  “The fact is—I am aware of my cousin’s whereabouts. I am here to take you to him.”

  “Andrew?” Jack asked, surprised. “He is still here?”

  “Yes. That is what I am saying. He came to me for help, you see, when Isobel tossed him out.”

  “Isobel tossed him out?”

  “Yes.” Robert frowned at him. “You do realize what he did, don’t you?”

  “Yes, of course. I just did not realize . . .” Jack pushed aside the warm feeling the thought engendered in him; that was something he would consider later, at his leisure. “That’s not important now. Why have you come to me?”

  The older man blinked. “Why? Well, I— Don’t you want to find him? He tried to kill you.”

  “Much as I would enjoy the thought of thrashing Andrew, I cannot see that it would serve any purpose. I cannot think of anything to do with him that would not grieve Isobel. Tell him to go; I won’t pursue him. I won’t go to the authorities. I will not even spread it about London that he is a would-be murderer. I just want him gone from my life and Isobel’s.” Jack swung on his heel and started toward the house, leaving Robert staring after him.

  “Wait!”

  Jack turned around. Robert was hurrying after him down the path, his face filled with alarm.

  “You don’t understand.” Robert came to a halt in front of Jack, pulling out his handkerchief and dabbing at the sweat on his upper lip. “He will not go. That is what I am trying to tell you. I advised him to leave the country, to go to America or India and make a new life for himself, but he refused. I even offered to give him the money to do so. He will not go. He—” Robert drew a deep breath. “He is determined to kill you.”

  “What?” Jack stared. “When everyone will know he is the one who did it?”

  “He is not rational, I tell you. He has an obsession, an idée fixe, that if you were dead, all his problems would be over. That is why I had to tell you despite my blood tie to the lad. I could not in good conscience allow him to commit murder. He is hiding in the caves, plotting his revenge. I can take you there; perhaps between the two of us we can make him see reason. And if not . . .” Robert squared his shoulders. “Well, if not, we will simply have to take him to the magistrate.”

  “The devil!” Jack cast a regretful look toward the house. “Oh, very well.”

  “Come, we should hurry.” Robert started purposefully away from the house.

  “Wait. I should tell Coll.”

  “Coll? Why?” Robert scowled. “This is a family matter. We don’t need that interloper. And we cannot wait. I don’t know how long Andrew will remain there. If we miss him, we won’t know where he is.” Robert took Jack’s arm, and he seemed so agitated that Jack gave in, letting him steer him toward the cliff.

  Jack followed Robert down the path that led in an easy manner around the highest point, then down to the seashore. They strode along a narrow beach between the rocks and the sea, and after several minutes, Robert turned right, skirted a large rock, and Jack saw a yawning hole in the cliff before them. Jack had to duck down to enter the mouth of the cave, but once inside, he was able to stand up straight. It was dim, the only light coming in through the cave opening, but Robert picked up a lantern by the entrance and lit it.

  “Do people come here frequently?” Jack asked.

  Robert turned, holding a finger to his lips, and pointed back into the cave. Jack trailed after him across the damp floor. The path rose, then flattened out, going through a long, narrow passage before opening up into a large vaulted cave. Columns rose from the ground and seemed to drip from the ceiling, highlighted eerily by the circle of light from the lantern. Robert set down the lantern, motioning silently for Jack to stop, then went quietly ahead by himself, disappearing into another opening on their right.

  Jack waited, glancing around him with interest. They seemed to be in some sort of central chamber, and he could see two other tunnels branching off ahead besides the smaller opening Robert had entered. He would have to come back with Isobel and explore the place. Jack was gazing back the way they had come when the scrape of a boot drew his attention, and he turned around.

  Robert had returned and was standing a few feet on the other side of the lantern. In his hand he held a pistol pointed straight at Jack’s heart.

  Isobel stood at the window of the sitting room. In the distance, above the trees, she could see the top of the single stone wall still standing at the castle. She wished she had gone with Jack and Coll to the ruins this morning. She
certainly was not getting anything done here.

  Her aunt and Millicent were rummaging through one of the chests Isobel had brought down from the attic. Since the discovery of her father’s body, Elizabeth had taken to looking through everything she could find that might pertain to her father and his demise. She had found nothing, but she had not given up, and she was now deep into a trunk of Isobel’s father. Isobel had tried to enter into the project, but she had soon lost interest.

  “Oh! This box!” Isobel turned back at her aunt’s pleased exclamation and saw Elizabeth pulling a rectangular wooden box from the trunk. “Isobel, look.”

  “I remember that.” Isobel walked over and sat down beside Elizabeth. “It used to sit on Papa’s desk. It was lovely.”

  The top of the dark mahogany box was inlaid with a rose done in pieces of paler wood. Elizabeth opened the box, but it was empty, and she closed it. Smoothing her hand across the design, her voice soft with nostalgia, Elizabeth said, “It was my mother’s. John and I loved it when we were little; she would never let us touch it. It was a wedding present, I think from her sister.”

  “She and Malcolm must have loved each other very much,” Isobel said. “You could tell that in the note he wrote her, even though it was brief.”

  “No doubt. I don’t remember how they were together; I was so young and I never thought about things like that. But she felt it deeply, I’m sure; she would never talk about him or his death. It was too painful. Sometimes I would see her sitting in front of the fire, just staring into it and turning her wedding ring on her finger, over and over.”

  “What a lovely inlay.” Millicent leaned closer to admire it, and Elizabeth handed her the box. “Oh!” Millicent’s eyes widened in surprise. “It’s heavier than it looks.” She trailed her fingers over the pieces of wood fitted together. “It reminds me of one Jack’s father had. It had an inlay of wooden pieces—angel’s wings, they were. His was not nearly so fine, of course, just a cheap sort of thing. But it was clever. It had a secret bottom.”

  “Really?” Intrigued, Isobel leaned over. “How did it work?”

  “I’m not sure I remember.” Millicent handed the box to Isobel. “Sutton’s little chest was heavier than it looked, too. That is what made me think of it. It was because of the extra compartment that one couldn’t see.”

  “What if this one does, too?” Elizabeth’s eyes sparkled. “Perhaps that was why Mother never let us touch it.”

  “Do you think it might?” Millicent looked intrigued, and she tilted her head to the side, thinking. “Now, what was it that made it open? Sutton never would tell me how it worked, but Jack figured it out, the clever boy. There was a little pin that released a spring. Let me think. Oh! One of the pieces lifted out. You pushed it aside a tiny bit and you could pop it out. Then he slid something to one side.”

  “We’ll have to see if Jack can open this one.” Isobel ran her forefinger over the inlay. “If this one had a hidden drawer, I would think Grandmother would have saved that note in here instead of sewing it into her Bible.”

  She stopped. The faintest bit of roughness was at the edge of one of the petals of the rose. Leaning closer, she used her fingernail and discovered that the piece seemed just the faintest bit loose. Remembering what Jack had done when they were searching her grandmother’s room, Isobel took a pin from her hair, carefully inserting it into the crack. She gave a little twist of her wrist, and the petal popped out.

  Elizabeth gasped, and Millicent exclaimed, “Look at that!”

  Isobel pushed and pulled, twisted and turned, and finally the center of the rose slid over into the empty space of the petal. A pin popped up, released by the movement, and something clicked in the bottom of the box. Isobel tugged and the bottom slid out, revealing a folded piece of paper.

  “Isobel!” Aunt Elizabeth breathed. “What have you found?”

  “I don’t know.” Isobel picked up the piece of paper. Below it, resting on the velvet-lined bottom of the drawer, was a watch key. She looked up at her aunt, who was staring back at her, stunned.

  “It’s just like the key you found in the cellars!” Millicent cried.

  “Not exactly, but I’ll warrant it fits just the same.”

  “Then Mother did have a key to the stairs. Why did she never say anything?”

  Isobel shook her head, filled with foreboding. “And why did she never use it on the door in the cellar?”

  “Perhaps she did not know one could get into the cellars that way,” Elizabeth suggested. “She might have only known about the stairs.”

  Isobel opened the long paper. This was a more formal piece of writing than the note she had found in Cordelia’s Bible. The lines were straight, the writing slow and careful.

  “It’s dated just a few days after Culloden,” Isobel said, her eyes dropping first to the bottom of the page, where a signature slanted across the page. “And it’s signed Fergus Rose.”

  “Who?” Millicent asked, confused.

  “Cousin Robert’s father. Malcolm’s brother,” Elizabeth explained. “Tell us what it says, Isobel.”

  Isobel stared at the page, hardly able to take it in. When her aunt said her name again, Isobel replied, “It’s a confession.” She swallowed and began to read aloud, “ ‘I, Fergus Alan Rose, on this day did conspire to end the life of my brother, Malcolm Dennis Rose, Laird of Baillannan—’ ”

  “What!” Elizabeth clapped her hand to her mouth, her eyes huge. “My uncle killed Papa?”

  “That is not the worst of it.” Isobel stared at Elizabeth in consternation. “It goes on to say: ‘. . . aided and abetted in this endeavor by Cordelia Fleming Rose, wife of Malcolm. Having agreed upon this course of action with my sister by marriage, I followed my brother to his assignation with the harlot, and there, in concert with Cordelia Rose, I did take his life with my blade.’ ”

  Isobel dropped the letter into her lap and stared at her aunt, unable to form a coherent thought.

  “The harlot?” Millicent asked, wrinkling her brow. “Who is that?”

  “I have no idea. ‘His assignation with the harlot.’ He couldn’t have meant Malcolm’s wife. Malcolm must have had a—” Isobel sent an apologetic look to her aunt. “He must have had a mistress.” She stopped, struck by a thought. “That note wasn’t sent to his wife! That was a letter to another woman, telling her to meet him at ‘their place.’ No doubt the cellars.”

  “But why did Mother have it?”

  “I don’t know. But she must have found it, intercepted it, something.”

  “That was why she killed him,” Elizabeth said flatly. “That was how they knew he had a tryst.”

  “She killed him out of jealousy,” Millicent said.

  “Uncle Fergus killed him from jealousy, as well. He was always a bitter, mean man. He resented the fact that your father, Isobel, inherited Baillannan and all that went with it. I know it from little comments he would make about only the oldest son inheriting. He would have felt the same way about my father.” Elizabeth sighed. “Sad to say, I am not surprised to learn he killed my father.”

  “Auntie, I am so sorry.” Isobel reached out to take Elizabeth’s hand.

  “You have done nothing to be sorry about.” Elizabeth was pale, but she no longer looked as if she might faint. “No wonder Mother never wanted to talk about him. She hated him.”

  “And loved him, too,” Millicent put in sadly. “’Tis easy enough to do both.”

  “What will Robert say?” Elizabeth shook her head. “He will be appalled. With all his insistence on honor and duty and the family name, and now he finds out his father killed his own brother?”

  “I wonder if perhaps he does not already know it,” Isobel mused.

  “You think he’s known all these years? Surely his father did not tell him.”

  “I don’t know, any more than I know why his father would have written down such an admission. No one knew; they had gotten away with it. Yet he wrote a confession and gave it to my grandmo
ther.”

  “It is odd. It gave her a great deal of power over him,” Millicent mused.

  “Yes, but she could not use it without revealing her own involvement,” Isobel said.

  “Perhaps that was the point.” Elizabeth paused, organizing her thoughts. “Mother and Uncle Fergus did not get along well. She tolerated him and he, her, but they were never more than civil to one another. I—I loved my mother; you must understand that she loved John and me, and she was never cruel or hurt us. But she was not an easy person; she was . . . indomitable. And she was clever. I can think of no nicer way to put it: she was cunning. Fergus was much the same, at least in regard to his cunning. I do not think that they trusted each other. They might have allied themselves in this one thing, but they would be suspicious that the other might betray them.”

  “You think this confession was meant to be a way to keep them both in line?” Isobel offered. “It makes sense. Neither of them could accuse the other of murdering Malcolm without ensuring his or her own downfall as well.”

  “But why did your mother not sign it, too, Elizabeth?” Millicent asked.

  “I don’t know. I would have thought Uncle Fergus would have demanded it.”

  “What if she signed one as well?” Isobel asked. “One that Fergus would hold over her head just as she held this over his.”

  “A perfect stalemate.”

  “Is that why you said you thought your cousin already knew about this?”

  “No, I hadn’t thought of that when I said it. It was just—I could not help but think of how Cousin Robert was when I was clearing out the attic. He was willing to take all those things in the attic, not only his father’s things, but other trunks as well. He even came over to help me go through them one day. He spent all his time in the attic opening trunks and glancing through them, then moving on to something else. I thought it was just because he did not want to be bothered with anything that did not interest him, but maybe he was searching for this.” Isobel waggled the confession in the air.