A Rumored Fortune

by Joanna Davidson Politano

  My eyes fluttered closed as confusion burst through my heart and swirled about, tainting my firm decision with doubt. It always happened this way with Andrew. I decided against him, piling up my logical reasons, only to have him flood them away with his unexpected words that captivated and enticed, leaving the door of my heart cracked dangerously open, for in my loneliness I deeply wished what he offered.

  As soon as I stepped away, reason returned to my poor mind. I looked at Andrew, this man who had once meant so much to me, and offered a polite smile. “Good night, Mr. Carrington. I thank you for the walk and hope we can always be friends.”

  “Of course.” He smiled, the wan tip of his lips indicating he recognized defeat.

  Perhaps now he would give up.

  I roused Lucy and sent her back to her room. Leaving that encounter felt easy and surprisingly freeing, despite the fact that I walked away alone. Sometimes being in your own company fulfilled you more than sharing space with someone who intensified your aloneness with every word.

  11

  Winter is deceptive because even when plants enter hibernation and appear dead, they are still working and preparing for the next season.

  —Notebook of a viticulturist

  Donegan dropped the blade of the oars into the murky water just off the shore and gave one more long pull with both handles, thrusting the bow of his boat into the wet sandy beach. With unease weighing on him, he rose and climbed onto the sand. He allowed himself one guilty backward glance toward the distant shore that held Trevelyan and wondered how Tressa fared.

  Long strides carried him deep into that dark path through the forest, the way lit only by the moon glowing off the smooth stone border. Shivering against the chilly air, he lit his lantern and ran the remainder of the way to the hillside where a plateau held a perfect little cabin like a toy on its palm. Clenching his jaw, he climbed the steps and rapped on the door. He exhaled his impatience at the silence that followed and tried again, harder this time. The little windows shook with the power of his fist. He would not be ignored.

  At last, a shadow crossed the nearest window and the door opened enough for a dim face to peer out. “Yes?”

  “We need to talk.”

  The large, white-haired man inside hesitated, then opened the door for him to enter. “That was never part of the agreement.”

  “It has become part of it. I’ll not continue in this bargain without a few explanations, especially why you are doing this to her.” Donegan heaved the door shut behind him and strode deeper into the room. “She’s become the target of all manner of possible treasure hunters, from wandering vagrants she hires as trappers to suitors and relations. She has a keen mind, but a soft heart that is in danger of overpowering it.”

  “So.” The old man’s shrewd eyes settled on Donegan’s face as a smile tugged at his lips. “You’ve met my daughter, have you?” Shadows highlighted the cragginess of his features in the nearly dark room. He crossed the raftered kitchen and poured two cups of steaming liquid from the kettle already over the stove. “Tea, Mr. Vance?”

  “I’m not interested in tea. I want answers.” Donegan yanked out a chair and sat at the table, arms folded. “She needs money. Creditors are demanding pay, food is running out, and they have nothing save rumors of a hidden fortune. Tell me where it is so I may pretend to help her discover it.”

  “No.” The man’s massive paw clutched the little spoon and stirred before he lifted the cup to his mouth and sipped.

  Donegan’s gut clenched. “Have you any heart? You’ve left your family with nothing.”

  “I left them you.”

  “Then tell me where you hid it. Let me help them.”

  Silence billowed over the dim cabin for long moments where only a single oil lamp flickered. Then Harlowe spoke again. “How does the vineyard look to you?”

  “Terrible.”

  “Salvageable?”

  “Maybe.” Donegan fingered the little cup. “I’ve torn out all the extra foliage and many of the failed grafts. I plan to dig a trench to—”

  “No.” His massive hand banged the table’s surface, rattling the cups in their saucers. “No. I want nothing changed.” Tension stretched across his face. “Your only task in the vineyard is to perfect my soil composition and keep things running.”

  Donegan eyed his employer in the dancing lamplight. Only a threat to his vines elicited a strong reaction from him, it seemed. Pity for Tressa curled through Donegan as he looked at the damaged old man who was meant to be her protector.

  No, him. She had him now too.

  “Who’s been to the house? I want names of everyone.”

  Donegan kneaded his forehead. “An older gentleman visited for a short time, and the servants called him Prescott, but I didn’t catch the nature of his call.”

  “A greedy businessman. Who else?”

  “A few family members, I believe. I’m not sure of their names, but one of them claimed you built your fortune on money borrowed from his father and never repaid.”

  He scowled. “I’ve done no such thing. I suppose if this person believes me dead, there’s no one to challenge his wild stories. Watch them. Anyone else?”

  “A wandering vagrant named Clinton Dowell caught poaching in the woods.”

  Harlowe let out a low growl. “Who is this Dowell? Is he old or young?”

  “Seems quite young. Skinny fellow who looks like he’s lived in the woods for years.”

  “Has he asked about the fortune?”

  “No, but everyone else is gossiping about it. Servants and guests and laborers. Everyone is speculating about where you hid it.”

  He looked down with a grunt and pondered something with great focus. “Has Tressa looked for the fortune?”

  “She hardly knows where to start.”

  “But she’s asking you for help? She trusts you?”

  Donegan glanced down at the rough floor. “Not really. She’s asked me to translate your notebooks so she can read them.”

  A string of unreadable emotions passed over Harlowe’s face. “She wishes to read my notebooks? You must not let her.”

  “Why, did you write the location of the fortune in there?”

  Harlowe stared into the tiny flame of the lamp. “There’s more to my story than the fortune. Why does no one remember that?”

  “I’m beginning to believe this fortune doesn’t exist. That’s the secret you do not wish her to discover from those notebooks, isn’t it?” Donegan eyed the man hunched over his laughably small teacup.

  He stared down into the liquid. “Fine, then. She can have the notebooks if she truly wants them.”

  “And the fortune?”

  His jaw flinched. “Maybe. No.”

  Doubt wedged its way into Donegan’s mind. Could this foolish old man have made up the whole thing? He narrowed his gaze at the silent mountain of a man with delicate lines of pride streaking across his aged face, and it all seemed plausible. “Tell me where it is, Harlowe. No more excuses. I’ll be leading your family to the money or to you, take your pick.”

  “No.” The great man rose and walked to the window, blocking the dying sunlight, and remained silent for several breaths. “If you tell them my secret, you’ll get nothing. Absolutely nothing. I need more time.”

  “Then give me your reason.”

  He lifted his troubled eyes to Donegan. “Because I’m still not certain of who tried to kill me. As long as he thinks he’s succeeded, we’re safe.”

  “You’re sure this killer believes you dead?”

  “Truly, I should be. If not for a fisherman who happened to see me clinging to a remnant of my boat, I would have drowned as he intended.”

  “So when we first met in France—”

  “None of this had happened yet.” He sighed. “It was the fisherman who rescued me who gave me the idea to hide out for a bit, and his son delivered my offer to you. I needed someone to protect them and bring me food while I figured out who was behind it.”
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  “Have you any suspicions? Is it because of your fortune?”

  The aged face turned into the shadows in the characteristic move Donegan knew meant he would receive no answer.

  Donegan rose and shoved the chair under the table. “All right, I’ll keep your secret a little longer. But at least let me give them a small portion of your fortune to tide them over.”

  “No.” Pain shadowed his face. “That is all anyone ever wanted of me, and I’m tired of hearing about it.”

  Donegan hesitated at the door. “Why do you push her away?”

  The man’s jaw worked for a moment. “She married me for security. Not love. Don’t make more of the marriage than what it is. I made that mistake for far too long.”

  “Not her. I mean Tressa.”

  He swung his heavy gaze to Donegan then, pain evident through the depths of his blue eyes. “Tell me, Mr. Vance. How soon after my death did she begin searching for my fortune? Did she grieve for even a day?”

  “You left them with no money for provisions, no way to pay their workers. You left them nothing.”

  “Only if money is everything.”

  Donegan braced himself on the creaky second-story timber walkway on the courtyard wall and stared down the line of castle windows ahead. Hers was marked by the sheer curtains fluttering in the breeze, aptly matching her lovely feminine nature. He might have been able to recognize it as hers even if her lady’s maid hadn’t pointed it out to him. He strode across the rickety timbers, clutching the papers he sought to deliver, wondering if he was the only one to use this walkway in recent years.

  It was not invading her privacy if she was not in the room, was it? He’d seen her slip out to the gardens with that dark-suited gentleman and her maid hours ago, and they hadn’t yet returned.

  Dropping through the window, he strode into the dim space belonging to the remarkable princess of the castle and looked around at what appeared to be the oddest wallpaper he’d ever seen. A glass lamp on a side table was the only light source. He knelt and heightened the wick, broadening the lamp’s glow.

  Rising, he blinked to adjust his eyes and froze, stunned. Awed. For there he stood in the midst of the grandest paradise ever created by human hands, and it washed his black-and-white, practical mind with flavor and beauty that he never realized he lacked until then. Vivid color and elegance had spilled out of the lively girl onto every bit of her chamber, with light being the most brilliant pigment in her palette as it covered every plain surface, crowding out any trace of blandness. What would it do to his mind, to his senses, to reside every day in the midst of this little haven that so refreshed him with a single glance?

  There in the midst of her splendid creation, he was overwhelmed with a powerful desire to shield the girl from the unseen danger that lurked about, the cloaked killer who had attempted to strike down her father. He simply could not let that shadow of evil snuff out one who embodied such beauty. There was little enough of it in the world as it was.

  Dropping the translated pages he’d brought on a linen-covered table, he spun in a slow circle to take it in, his worn work boots swiffing over the floor as he glimpsed the inner working of her imagination. Thoughts and impressions spilled about the canvas of her room as if she’d dipped her brush into her mind and spread them over the wall to see and analyze. How could this be the same girl who so craved her father’s money? “How soon after my death did she begin searching for my fortune?”

  Then his gaze struck upon a paper propped against a wall and he crossed the room to examine it. Lifting the wilted corner, he glimpsed the elaborate sketch of a face wrought with such delicate detail and emotion that he could nearly picture her passionate little face as she drew it. It was the face of Josiah Harlowe, transformed from the worn-out bear of a man he knew into a proud, legendary creature full of strength and nobility. Vines curled about the edges of the picture in artistic chaos, blending with his wild beard until they appeared to be one. Donegan lifted the page so it caught the glow of light on the other side of the room and simply absorbed the sight of this sketch and everything it told him about old Harlowe, the man who was one with his beloved vines and nothing else, and even more so what the picture conveyed about its creator.

  Suddenly little pops echoed from the hallway. She was returning to her little garden world. Not ready to part with the stunning piece that revealed so much, he tucked it into his cloak and sprinted toward the window. Sailing through the room, he banged his shins against a tiny table and crumpled in pain. What a pointless little piece of furniture. He clenched his teeth to suppress grunts of pain. Before he was prepared, the door unlatched. Judging his distance to the exit, he dove behind the curtains of a closer window and waited, feeling the steam of his own breath trapped by the fabric. He tested it, but this window was firmly latched against his escape. She slipped into the room and sighed deeply.

  Now it felt like prying.

  12

  You can tell the quality of a man’s soul with one look at what he creates, for what he’s poured into his creation has come from within.

  —Notebook of a viticulturist

  I eased into the sanctuary of my bedchamber, anxious to be alone in my own private space. But I found an unfamiliar stack of papers on the dressing table and felt an odd sense of having been invaded. Crossing to the table, I lifted the papers and focused on the scrawled words, squinting to make out the unfamiliar handwriting. It was translated pages of Father’s notebooks, which meant Donegan Vance had been here.

  A swish of boots on the wood floor startled me and the papers fluttered from my trembling fingers. The man’s tall figure emerged from behind the curtain. “Good evening.”

  “Donegan.” I placed a hand over my chest as if the motion would still my thudding heart.

  “You finally used my Christian name.”

  “Only because you surprised me.”

  “I merely thought I’d act as a gentleman and alert you to my presence.”

  “How kind. How did you get in here?”

  He jerked his head toward the open window and the timber walkway outside. “I didn’t think you’d want anyone else knowing about the papers I brought. I meant to slip in and out before you returned, but I lingered too long in this surprising chamber.” His gaze flicked over my personal haven. “It would seem you enjoy the outdoors. So much so that you brought it inside.”

  My neck warmed as I looked about the room painted with every possible element of a garden, both real and imagined, and saw it through a stranger’s eyes. What lady in possession of her wits went about painting her walls? “You find it humorous.” My mother and the household servants had come to accept my oddity, but a stranger happening upon this room would believe the worst.

  “Unexpected.” His look absorbed the entirety of the room in several long sweeps, then once again rested on me with a smile. “Yet utterly fitting.”

  “I appreciate your approval.” I exhaled and knelt to collect the papers.

  “I wish to help.” His voice rolled through my chamber.

  Rising, I brushed off my hands. “You’re welcome to pick them all up then. It was you who startled me into dropping them.”

  He shuffled them together and rose to hand them to me. “I mean, help with the search. With everything.” Suddenly his overly masculine presence towering over me in my bedchamber rattled my senses, leaving me breathless and slightly off balance. “But I wish to be a part of the entire search.” His glance swept around my room once again. “Who are the Malverns?”

  I blinked at the name that he had no reason to know. “Why do you ask?”

  “It seems they were important to your father. He talks of them in the notebooks but never says who they are.”

  I glanced at the pages on the table, yearning to read them. “They built Trevelyan many generations ago. It was their summer estate until my father purchased it.”

  “There’s a stronger tie than that.”

  “Perhaps he inherited something fro
m them. He believes them responsible for his fortune, although I’ve no idea why.”

  He nodded with a frown and dragged his palm down his stubbled cheek. “So his hiding place could be a sort of tribute to them.”

  Instantly my mind returned to the undercroft where that elaborate Malvern vine tapestry hung, yet I dared not voice my silly notions. “I’ll leave it to you to come to your own conclusions on the matter.”

  “I need you to tell me everything you think of. And one other thing.” He eyed me intently. “I’ll need to join the family dinners to catch whatever information I can.”

  These demands drew my frown. I considered thrusting out my chin and declaring I could do it alone, but both of us knew that to be untrue, especially considering Father’s notebooks were in Welsh. Besides that, some primal, empty part of me yearned to partner with someone, to share the burden so abruptly loaded onto my shoulders.

  But this man? I surveyed his roughly stubbled face, the imposing stance, and the snapping eyes that matched his words. “I’m not sure I trust you. You’ve done nothing but ruffle feathers since arriving.”

  His eyes glowed with humor in the dimly lit room. “You’ve struck upon the finest reason in the world to trust me. I’m nothing if not honest.”

  Yes, painfully so. “I suppose that is true.”

  “Let me help you, then. Strength comes to the branch through connection, and that’s what I’m offering.”

  Connection. The word resonated with the deepest parts of me, catching my interest immediately and stilling my doubts. It was a word with a lifelong significance that I couldn’t explain, and his words folded over my objections, tucking them back for the moment.

  I met his gaze. “I suppose you may join the family for dinner and glean what information you will. But I’ll warn you that Mother prefers for the garden to remain outside. You’ll need to dress for dinner. And I beg you, don’t ruffle any feathers.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “Demanding, aren’t you?” The curtains fluttered in the open window as a wet breeze swept through my room and ruffled the papers on my table. Donegan glanced toward the papers. “Why do you want to read these notebooks?”