The Elusive Earl (Saints & Scoundrels)

by Michaels, Maddison

  The sun rose higher in the sky as they continued to trek up the mountain. They must have been walking for nearly an hour, and Bree’s legs were getting heavy, when the sound of a distant rumbling began to disturb the calm silence of the morning.

  “What is that noise? Another tremor?” Bree said.

  Daniel paused and listened. “No. It sounds like a waterfall.”

  Both of them widened their eyes at the same time.

  “The tears of the mountain!” she exclaimed.

  “It doesn’t sound too far away either,” Daniel added.

  About ten minutes later, the distant rumble had become a roaring thunder as they emerged into a clearing, where a massive waterfall was falling from above and breaking across the crystal-clear pool of water beneath.

  “It’s beautiful,” Bree exclaimed, standing and gazing in awe at the magnificent site.

  “It’s a bloody beast,” Daniel replied, striding closer to the spray.

  “What are we to do now?” she had to yell over the sound, as she trekked after him.

  “Follow me!” Daniel hollered back as he began climbing up onto the rocks nestled around the pool of water.

  “Oh good gracious!” Bree exclaimed, looking down at the skirt of her dress. Men had no idea what it was like having to wear such long layers all the time. Oh, well, the two of them were well past decorum in any event. She picked up her skirt and petticoats and hiked them up and over her shoulder. Hopefully, that would assist somewhat.

  Bree began to follow him up and across the rocks, edging carefully over them, as they got closer and closer to the heart of the pounding spray. As they arrived at the base of the thrashing water, Bree was completely soaked from the heavy misting of water through the air.

  Daniel stopped ahead of her, where the rocks ran out and the water streamed down. He, too, looked as if he’d been for a swim. His shirt clung to the breadth of his chest, and tiny rivulets of water cascaded down his neck, disappearing into the “V” of his loosened collar.

  “What now?” she shouted, pushing down on the wayward thoughts of how incredibly delectable he looked just then.

  “Now, we push past our fears and see what’s behind the mountain’s tears.”

  “Go through that?” Bree nearly screeched. “You’re not serious, are you?”

  A lopsided grin spread over his face. “Get ready to get even wetter, Princess.” He turned and braced himself for a moment before he pushed through the avalanche of water cascading down and disappeared through it.

  “Daniel!” she called, frantically trying to see beyond the thick wall of water. Darn it, where was the man? He wasn’t the one that took the risks; she was.

  Bree jumped and nearly slipped on the rock when he reemerged back through the water.

  He reached out a hand and grabbed her. “Careful.”

  She smacked his shoulder. “Then don’t scare me like that!”

  Daniel raked his fingers through his now thoroughly wet hair. “I had to check if it was safe. Come on, there’s a cave behind. Hold your breath.”

  He gripped her wrist and led her through the heavy downpour. The force of the water streaming down was particularly strong, and she was happy to have his added strength pulling her through.

  They emerged into a dark space behind the waterfall and walked into a cavernous area, which, thankfully, muted a great deal of the water’s roar. Bree glanced around, noting that rock walls surrounded them and the ground was covered in dirt.

  She sighed as she became aware of her soaking wet gown now clinging to her, with rivulets of water falling from it to the ground, forming a puddle at her feet. Wet and bedraggled was, unfortunately, a state she was beginning to get rather used to. She leaned down and tried to wring some of the moisture from the skirt of her dress. Straightening, she saw Daniel doing the same with his jacket.

  He motioned over toward a dark opening in the middle of the cavern. Bree looked at the black, narrow space and felt her heart start to race. Not again. Why was it that the majority of glorious ancient antiquities had to be buried either deep in the ground or somewhere in the center of a mountain, when dark confined spaces were the very thing she was terrified of? She hated to feel such weakness, but feel it she did.

  “Do you think Travis has even gotten this far?” she pondered aloud, trying to calm the rapid rise and fall of her chest. “Perhaps, we are wrong and he didn’t come searching for the treasure after all?”

  “There are footprints in the dirt, Bree, that aren’t ours,” Daniel replied. “I can’t tell how long they’ve been there, but you can stay here, if you like, while I can go and check.”

  She glanced over to the dark gap in the stone wall, then turned back to Daniel, who was looking at her with concern etched in his gaze. She hated knowing that he was so aware of her weakness. “I will be fine. Let’s get the lanterns lit and see what awaits us.”

  “Are you cert—”

  “Yes,” she cut him off. By goodness, if she could spend a night in a cave, she could spend a few hours looking for Travis in one. At least, that was what she would keep telling herself.

  Daniel narrowed his eyes at her but then nodded reluctantly as he unhooked his lantern from his belt and used one of his matchsticks, which had been kept safe from the waterfall by the little tin housing them, to relight the wick.

  Bree, in turn, pulled off the lantern hanging from her satchel and handed it to him. While he lit it, she found her eyes drawn back to the yawning blackness of the entrance of the passage. It looked so dark and forbidding.

  She took the now lit lantern from him and marched ahead to the recess. She could do this. She would prove to both of them that she could.

  “I shall go ahead,” Daniel said as he followed her.

  “No.” She stopped and looked back at him. “I can do it.” Goodness, she hoped that was the truth. Taking in a fortifying breath, Bree closed her eyes for a second before she stepped through the darkness and into the unknown passage.

  Her eyes darted around the stone corridor. Her lantern shed only a small beam of light into the blackness, but it was enough that she could see a slight vein of silver rippling through the rock walls. The passage itself couldn’t have been more than five feet wide and maybe six feet high. Daniel was going to have a difficult time navigating through it with his height. Luckily, it looked rather straight, even if it was narrow.

  Bree gritted her teeth and took another cautious step farther inside and then another. Slowly, she found herself traveling down its length before she could really think about what she was doing.

  The sound of water dripping on stones echoed up ahead. Glancing back, she saw Daniel only a few feet behind. He gave her a reassuring smile and nod.

  She gripped the lantern more tensely as she held it aloft and recommenced walking.

  Gradually, the passage began to widen, and she could see an open area looming just ahead. A minute later, they both stepped into a large, cavernous room.

  Bree took in a rather shaky breath, but in relief instead of fear. The room they were in had to be at least twenty feet high and probably sixty feet wide. The air itself smelled slightly stale, and a small stream of water trickled down from the ceiling at one end of the room. It was a welcome relief from the strict confines of the tunnel. But then Bree frowned. Apart from a statue of a lion standing proudly in the center, the room itself was a rectangular box with no other entry or exit, except for the tunnel they had come from.

  It was, for all intents and purposes, a dead end.

  Daniel stepped up beside her, his eyes busy darting across the chamber. “What now?” she asked.

  “I’m not certain.” He strode over to the far left wall of the chamber and began running his free hand over it as he walked around the room, tracing along each surface. “It doesn’t feel as if there are any hidden doors in the rock.”

  “Perhaps, this isn’t the right way to the treasure?” Bree wandered over to the statute, which was sitting in the center of sev
eral very large stone tiles. There was also an odd-shaped iron handle bolted into one of the squares a few feet in front of the lion. She tried pulling on it, but it didn’t budge.

  “Didn’t that poem in the journal mention a lion?” Daniel asked.

  “It did,” she agreed, putting her lantern on the ground and retrieving the journal.

  Bree closed her satchel and flipped through the journal until she found the parchment with the poem on it. “It says ‘find the lion who protects the gate, then use the amulet, and he will decide your fate’.”

  Daniel surveyed the statue. “Well, if this is the lion protecting the gate, then obviously we need some sort of amulet to open it.”

  “Like a key?”

  “Exactly,” Daniel affirmed, walking around the lion and observing it from all sides. “Though, I can’t see any keyhole.”

  Bree stared hard at the lion. The stone of it was etched in precise and smooth curves, looking marvelously realistic. “How is it going to decide someone’s fate?” she pondered.

  “I don’t know.” Daniel shrugged. “Besides, I wouldn’t have thought they even knew of lions back in Ancient Rome and Italy.”

  “Oh yes,” Bree answered. “There was a bustling trade importing exotic animals from all across the globe. And the lion was a very popular one, as he was considered both fierce and very noble. Many statues were made in its likeness, with the belief that the stone carving would scare off those with ill intentions and protect whatever it was the lion stood guarding.”

  “So, it could well be guarding the treasure.”

  “Perhaps,” she replied. “But we don’t have an amulet.”

  “Can I have a look at the journal?” he asked.

  She handed the book over to him, and an involuntary shiver ran up her arm from the fleeting touch. A part of her thrilled from the contact, and another part of her detested that she reacted to him so, particularly knowing that there was no future for them together.

  He glanced down at the text. “She writes, ‘The heart of the flower’ in brackets underneath the sentence about the amulet. But there are no other clues.” He blew out a breath. “I can see no flowers, or engraving of them, anywhere near the statue.”

  Bree sighed, wondering what her mother had meant by writing those words next to that particular sentence about the amulet. Suddenly, Bree gasped. “Oh my goodness, Daniel! My doll, Rosa!”

  She wrenched open her satchel, and with her free hand, she picked up her doll.

  “Rosa is Italian for rose. A flower.” Daniel stated, striding back around toward her.

  “Exactly! And I didn’t name the doll, my mother did—well, at least I think it was she who wrote the word ‘Rosa’ on my doll, though the writing has faded now.” Bree glanced over to him before turning her attention back to the toy. “She’s always had an unusually hard center… I never thought much of it, just that perhaps the material had bunched tightly together inside.”

  Daniel swore. “Of course. And you’ve had the doll since childhood, haven’t you?”

  “Yes.” She pressed her fingers against the doll’s center and her heart sunk. “We’re going to have to pull her apart, aren’t we, to see what’s inside?”

  Daniel placed the thick journal inside the left breast pocket of his jacket. “Unfortunately, yes. May I?” He held his hand out.

  Reluctantly, she handed the doll to him.

  His fingers began palpating the doll’s center. “There’s definitely something inside.”

  “Open her then,” she said, a horrible sadness welling up inside her at the thought that little Rosa was about to be destroyed.

  Daniel retrieved the dagger Roderigo had given him and placed the blade against the back stitching of the toy. He gazed into her eyes, a questioning look in the depths of his own.

  “Do it,” she confirmed.

  Carefully, he sliced through the stitching, opening up the inside of the toy in a manner that would allow her to sew it shut later without too much damage. Daniel replaced the dagger in his waistband. “You should be the one to see what’s inside,” he said softly, holding the back of the now-open doll out toward her.

  She reached into the open cavity, and her fingers clenched around a hard object. It felt like a small disc of some sort. She began to pull the tightly wound stuffing from off the object, slowly revealing a gold medallion beneath.

  Bree held it up to the lantern light, noting it had several odd holes cut out along the inside edges, but in its middle was a star intertwined with a crescent moon. She gasped upon seeing the pattern.

  “What is it?” Daniel replaced the doll in his own satchel, then moved closer to her to peer at the medallion.

  “Look at the symbol,” she said, handing it to him. “It’s the same as the medallion on the front of my mother’s journal and the same as…”

  “Your grandfather’s coat of arms,” Daniel finished for her. “The same symbol that is also etched on the front of the gold signet ring Alessandro wears.”

  She shook her head slightly. “What does that mean?”

  Daniel furrowed his brow. “I’m not certain. But if this is the way to King Aleric’s treasure, then I daresay your grandfather knows a lot more about it than he has been disclosing.”

  Bree’s eyes narrowed as she looked more closely at the lion. “Oh my goodness, Daniel!”

  “What?”

  “Look at the symbol on the lion’s chest.” She pointed to the star intertwined with a crescent moon. “It is the same as on the medallion, but instead of shapes cut out along its edges, it has shapes raised along it.”

  “The medallion is a key,” Daniel stated.

  “I think you may be right.” A voice from behind them spoke as the sound of a pistol hammer being cocked echoed loudly in the open space.

  Both she and Daniel spun around toward the narrow opening in the rock wall.

  Lord Mondesta stepped out of the tunnel, a gleaming black pistol pointing directly at them.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  “I have been searching for King Aleric’s resting place for over thirty years,” Lord Mondesta said, his voice tinged with an edge of excitement as he walked farther into the cavern. “It has been my life’s work. And you two have found it for me.”

  A heavy-set man materialized from the darkness behind him, holding a large lantern in one hand and a shotgun in the other as he followed Mondesta into the open space.

  “Now, please do not do anything silly,” Mondesta warned them both. “Or my man Bussoni here will have no choice but to shoot you.”

  The man called Bussoni placed the lantern on the floor and angled the shotgun up toward both Daniel and Bree.

  “I knew Isabella had found the treasure in one of these mountains, but I wasn’t certain which one.” Lord Mondesta continued, his eyes suddenly focusing in on the gold medallion Bree held. “And how clever she was hiding the key to it all in a stuffed toy, when I only thought to look for the journals.” He laughed softly. “Perhaps I should thank the traitorous Fabrizio for saving you, instead of hunting him down and killing him for his betrayal.”

  “It was you?” Bree gasped, his laugh sending a chill through her. “You killed my parents?”

  He bowed slightly, though the pistol remained steady and was aimed directly at them. “Yes. You were probably too young to remember, but I was forced to kill them both while you watched on.”

  “Forced to kill them?” Bree’s voice shook. “How could you be forced to kill anyone?”

  “Well, perhaps, I wasn’t forced to kill your father,” Mondesta conceded. “I had intended to kill him all along. But you must know, I had no intention of killing your mother. I loved Isabella. In fact, I was going to marry her after I had dispatched your father, but alas, she was rash and impulsive, which, regrettably, led to her demise.”

  “You monster!” Bree shouted. Daniel’s hand reached out and grabbed ahold of her arm, pulling her back as she tried to launch herself at Mondesta.

  �
�Rather impulsive, just like your mother was, aren’t you?” Mondesta merely raised an eyebrow at her attempt. “But not to worry. I have been called that many times, and to a certain extent, I think it apt.”

  “And are you the one they also call the Butcher?”

  “My first name is Calogero, which you may call me. But never call me by that other name, Principessa.” The man’s mouth tightened, and his eyes narrowed. “I am nothing like those messy village butchers that hack away at flesh, caring little for their craft. I am precise and methodical, whenever I have cause to use my knife skills. It is an art of mine I pride myself on.”

  Bree felt a whisper of dread curl its way through her at the look of complete seriousness on his sharp features.

  Mondesta’s eyes glanced tersely up at Daniel. “I hope you’re not trying to do anything stupid, Lord Thornton,” he cautioned Daniel, his eyes darting to where Daniel’s hand was now resting by his waist. “Your very lives depend upon you cooperating at this point.”

  “Let us go, Mondesta,” Daniel said. “You have what you need.”

  “Do you think I am stupid?” Mondesta’s voice was incredulous. “As soon as I let you go, you would inform the Prince of my treachery, and his men would hunt me down like a dog.”

  “This will not end well for you, Mondesta, regardless of what transpires here,” Daniel’s voice was blunt.

  “You should be more concerned for yourself, Lord Thornton, for you are the one with a pistol pointed at your heart.” Mondesta aimed his weapon at Daniel, his arm strong and steady. “In thirty years, I have never missed a single shot. Now, throw the dagger I daresay you were reaching for onto the ground over by Bussoni, please.”

  Daniel was still for a moment, but then he retrieved the dagger from his waistband and threw it to where Bussoni stood.

  Bussoni lumbered over and picked it up before placing it in the waistband of his own trousers.

  “Now, Principessa, come over here and away from your husband,” Mondesta directed.

  Bree looked up at Daniel, and he gave her a brief nod. Slowly, she walked over toward Mondesta, recoiling inwardly.