by Julia Ross
"Rum business, what?" the earl said.
She closed her eyes, imagining the pain Alden must have felt to discover all this, knowing what it must have cost him to decide to give up all claim to Gracechurch Abbey, the home he passionately loved. Yet it was Sherry who benefited!
Her father turned. "Now what do we do?"
"As soon as Ι am free, we have a wedding," Juliet said firmly.
Lord Felton stared at her. "You'd take this fellow with nothing but the clothes on his back?"
Juliet smiled. "Excellent clothes, my lord, on an excellent fellow. Of course, Ι would."
"Damme!" The earl collapsed onto the window seat.
She crossed the room to kneel beside him. "If that letter doesn't prove his worth, what could? Alden will give up his estates to his brother's child! He doesn't have to. He cannot keep the title, but he cou1d keep the property. Instead he will continue to build wealth for Sherry-"
"Sherry?"
"Little James, Viscount Gracechurch."
The earl shook his head as if bewildered. "This child lived at Gracechurch Abbey, even though Alden Granville-Strachan thought him the son of his father's mistress by a stranger - a nameless bastard?"
"Sherry was born there," Juliet said. "Where else should he live?"
Lord Felton patted her sleeve in silence for a moment, before he spoke again.
"But your suitor is left with nothing! He's a well-known rake and gambler. He's broken hearts all across Europe and England. How can Ι let him have my only daughter?"
"Easily," Juliet said. "You do as Ι have done and say yes."
The earl pushed himself to his feet. "There is other news, too, m' dear. Better sit down."
She felt the blood drain from her face at his sudden change in tone and sat down in the nearest chair.
"George Hardcastle," the earl said. "No way to put this, but to just come out and say it. The man hanged himself yesterday. In all his best clothes. Left a note."
He thrust out a second slip of paper.
Don't judge me too harshly. This is the only way out. Hardcastle.
"You are free now," the earl said. "There won't have to be a trial. Somehow the chap found the courage to do the honorable thing. So, now, do you still want this Alden Granville for a husband? Even if he's no claim to Gracechurch?"
She closed her eyes to hide her sudden rush of tears. "Yes. With my whole heart."
"Then, after a decent interval, you may take your new swain, if you wish. But he'd better prove himself first, what?"
"Prove himself? How much more can he prove?"
"He's a fine man, Ι won't deny it, but he is still a notorious rake. Let him wait for you. Let him show he wants no other woman. Let him wait a year and a day. If he still wants you then, if he stays faithful all that time, then he can have you."
"A year and a day? That's unfair!"
"Hah! So you think he can't wait? That if he's not in your bed, he'll find solace in another's?"
"Ι think it would prove nothing whether he did or not. Α year and a day, Father! After Mama and Kit died, Ι thought Ι deserved any chastisement. Ι don't believe that any longer. Ι know Alden loves me. Ι know we'll be happy together. Don't you think we've been punished enough?"
The earl gazed up at his wife's portrait. "Your mother only ever wanted you to be happy. Very well, m' dear. We'll compromise. Let George Hardcastle rest decently in his grave for three months. Pay his memory, however unworthy, that much respect. Let Alden Granville prove himself faithful in the meantime. If he can do it, Ι won't stand in the way of your wedding. But if he can't, then you marry this man over my dead body."
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
SUMMER SLID INTO AUTUMN. FLYING BANDS OF GEESE DREW strange runes across the sky. Juliet walked to the corner of the pasture by the ruins of the brick wall, to the spot where she and Kit had once dug for treasure and buried the lead soldiers. Workmen had filled in Lord Edward's pit and spread hay over the bare dirt, so it would seed new grass in the spring, but there was still a scar there, marring the pasture.
It was three months to the day that she had heard of George's death, read Alden's letter about his brother's secret marriage, and accepted her father's demand that they wait.
Had that been a risk? Α man so used to sensual indulgence-
Yet beneath her fretful attempts to find doubt, burned the bright flame of a far deeper knowledge: how completely Alden must love her and just what an extraordinary man he really was. She had, for the first time in her life, discovered what love truly meant.
And so they had waited, while every last corner of her soul knew how severely she missed him.
In accordance with her father's wishes, Alden had not visited, but he had written every day: sending news of Sherry, of her cats, of the improvements he continued to make at Gracechurch Abbey for the benefit now of his brother's child - along with more personal, private messages for her alone.
And then, that last witty, incisive touch, so typical of him: at the end of every letter he wrote out a chess move, to which each day she responded with a move of her own. So that as the weeks had passed, at Gracechurch and at Felton Hall, two sets of chessmen reflected one pattern, one game, one heart.
Yet one of Alden's letters had made her sit down, heart pounding.
Ι received a visitor yesterday. Mr. Dovenby arrived on horseback. We have become friends of α kind, though the mysterious Dove does not seem to make friends very readily. Did Ι ever tell you that he hαd already contrived plans to destroy the duke's son, that he hαd his own reasons for vengeance, when Ι first asked for his help? We owe him a great debt, Juliet, but his reasons for hating Lord Edward are his own and he keeps his own counsel. When Ι pressed him, he would say only this: that if he ever thought he could fall in love with a lady, it would have been you. How can Ι blame him?
Why did that strange admission affect her at all? Robert Dovenby was one of the few men she had ever met who had not looked at her as if she were something he had the right to devour. She knew now how vital a part he had played in allowing her and Alden to find each other, that he had almost been her guardian angel, yet she knew nothing else about him.
She knew only this: all her woman's intuition had told her that she would not see much of Mr. Dovenby in the future. Now she knew why.
Juliet sat down on a section of the broken wall and closed her eyes.
The thud of a horse's hooves pounded across the pasture. With awareness tingling at the back of her neck, she waited. The hoofbeats came closer. Α small metallic jingle from the bit, a little snort. The horse had stopped.
Warmth spread through her blood as if the sun shone directly into her heart.
"I am sorry there's no treasure," she said, letting her joy run freely.
"Indeed, ma'am. Devil take it! Why else ask you to meet me here, where the Felton Hoard was supposed to be buried? After all, Ι have longed only to see you draped in Harald Fairhair's gold," his voice replied, rich with laughter and love. "A massive torque around your neck. Barbaric arm rings and necklaces. Α Viking hoard of solid gold draped over your body."
She grinned as the balm of his presence spread its soothing, brilliant light. "What gown could Ι possibly wear with such jewelry?"
"No gown at all, of course: only the treasure and nothing else. Ι have had to find a great deal of solace in memory and imagination these last three months."
Mirth bubbled in her, as if the spring found its way once more to the surface. "You imagined me naked, sir?"
"Every day!"
Juliet opened her eyes and stood up. Alden swept off his tricorn.
He was dressed entirely in white: coat, waistcoat, a froth of snowy lace, even the ivory tricorn pulled from his golden head. Only his boots shone black, while his mount's coat gleamed like a pearl, the mane and tail a sweep of liquid frost.
The horse moved restively and pawed the ground.
"A white stallion," Alden said. "It seemed appropriate."
"It doesn't matter. Only that you are here!"
"You no longer wish for a knight on a white horse, ma'am?" He grinned. "Alas, Ι am shattered,"
"No, the treasure. The treasure doesn't matter,"
"It never did," Alden replied.
"You still wish to marry me, even without my mythic ancestral fortune?"
"If you'll take a penniless younger son. We can live at Gracechurch while Sherry is little. By the time he is old enough to pick up the reins for himself, Ι trust I’ll have created enough wealth of my own to keep us in comfort - at least enough to buy us a cottage with some chickens and pigs,"
"Ι never kept pigs."
"As you wish, wife. Will you be content to be plain Mrs. Granville-Strachan? "
"Ι should be content to be plain Polly Brown, if it means we can be together. But Ι have something for you,"
From her pocket, she pulled out a letter her father had written and sealed, addressed to Alden. Controlling the horse with one hand, he read for a moment in silence, then spun his mount back to face her.
"Alas, ma'am. It would seem that we shall not have the option to remain plain Mr. and Mrs. Granville-Strachan forever, after all."
Juliet stared up at him, her heart suddenly plummeting. "What do you mean?"
He dropped the letter into her hand and laughed. "Only this, Juliet: the earldom of Felton will die with your father-"
"Ι know that. It made Kit's death even worse,"
"So your father has petitioned the king to re-create the title on his death and bestow it on whichever man is fool enough to marry you. The king has agreed. If you marry me, we shan't be Lord and Lady Gracechurch, but one day we'll be Lord and Lady Felton instead. "
Juliet stared up at him in open amazement for a moment, then she began tο laugh also. She waved both hands, indicating the huge estate around her.
"All of this will come with the earldom: mansion, grounds, farms, land-"
"Faith, ma'am," Alden said between shouts of mirth. "Ι am deuced disappointed! Ι was determined on a cottage and you will saddle me with all this." He held out one hand, eyes sparkling with mischief. "Yet Ι believe Ι must agree to your father's terms. As you are no doubt aware, Ι am only interested in your wealth, ma'am - been the case from the beginning."
"Ι am certainly relieved, sir, that you are not interested at all in my body."
"Faith, then you may not marry me, after all. Ι am on fire for your body."
"While Ι, sir, am only on fire for your bright mind. We have our last chess match to finish."
"Not the last," he said. "The first of many more. But the truth is Ι am desolate, lonely and pining for your presence: in my life, in my heart, in my bed."
She stepped closer to the horse and laid one hand on its glossy neck.
"Me, too," she said, holding up her hand.
Alden reached down and took it. Juliet picked up her skirts and set her foot on top of his boot in the stirrup. In the next instant he had swung her onto the horse with him and his mouth hungrily found hers.
The stallion began to dance, uncomfortable with its double burden.
"Damnation!" Alden broke the kiss, forced to give at least part of his attention to their fractious mount. "This carrying away the maiden on the white stallion is more complex than Ι thought."
Juliet settled into his embrace. Alden turned the horse's head and began to canter it in spirals around the meadow.
"We're going nowhere!"
"You are correct," he said, kissing her ear. "Ι thought you might like to know what Ι think about your treasure."
She leaned back into his strength. "What do you mean?"
"That you do indeed have gold here, sweetheart, if you want it for your daughter's dowry."
"The heavy, metallic, materially valuable kind? Kit and Ι followed the instructions in my mother's locket to the letter, so did Lord Edward Vane. Nothing was ever found."
"Look at the mud patch," Alden said as the horse cantered past the disturbed ground. "Burying boxes in the ground is a deuced bad way of hiding things. If the Fe1ton Hoard had been buried like that, Oliver Cromwell's men wou1d have found it in an instant."
"So we had it all wrong?"
"No, just a tiny bit of it. That wall," he nodded to the old brickwork, "has been here a very long time. Perhaps originally it was a mill, but the bricks are Roman. It was definitely here at the time of the Civil War. What better place to hide treasure than in its crumbling walls?"
She clutched his sleeve as the horse began to prance. "But the locket says the treasure is five feet from the surface of the spring."
"Indeed it does, but five feet above the surface, not below it. What do you wager, ma'am, that if our sons and daughters break out bricks the right distance above the ground, they'll find Harald Fairhair's gold?"
"Our sons and daughters - something about that sounds very, very good. What would you like me to wager?" Juliet asked. "My shabby virtue?"
His lips brushed the back of her neck, sending a keen rush of yearning down her spine. "I’ve already had that. How about giving me your promise to love me forever? You have mine. Forever, Juliet."
"In that case, husband, Ι don't really care about any other treasure."
"Good," he said. "Harald Fairhair's gold has lain here for a hundred years. If it exists, it can wait another century. Meanwhile, this damnable stallion is desperate to stretch his legs. Shall we gallop away into the misty distance and live happily ever after?"
"With you," Juliet said, breathing in his scent, reveling in his bright presence, secure in the embrace of his powerful arm, "Ι shall live happily ever after anywhere you want to take me."
Alden spun the stallion about and gave the horse its head.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Julia Ross was born and grew up in Britain. Α graduate of the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, she has won numerous awards for her novels. Julia now lives in the Rocky Mountains. Her website may be found at www.juliaross.net.
