by Candace Camp
Olivia looked slightly taken aback by her sister’s sharp response to her words. “I only mean that I think he is interested in you. Whatever is the matter?”
“Oh. I’m sorry, Liv, I should not have snapped at you. My nerves are a bit on edge this morning. The excitement of being so close to actually finding the treasure, I suppose.”
There was a tap upon the door, and Cassandra and Olivia exchanged triumphant looks. The parlor maid, Janie, opened the door at Cassandra’s bidding and stuck her head in.
“Mrs. Moulton requests your presence in the drawing room, Miss Verrere.” She spoiled her formal announcement by grinning hugely and adding, “A certain gentleman’s been asking for you, I hear.”
“Thank you, Janie.” Cassandra exchanged a glance with her sister and rose to go downstairs.
Sir Philip stood up with a look of relief on his face when Cassandra walked into the drawing room a few minutes later. “Miss Verrere. I am glad to see you looking well.”
“Why, yes, why wouldn’t I be?”
“Your aunt feared you were feeling ill this morning,” he replied, his tone laced with irony, as he came forward and bowed over her hand.
Cassandra directed a sweet smile toward her aunt. “Why, no, Aunt Ardis, though it is most kind of you to be worried about me. But I have been feeling quite as well as I did at breakfast this morning.”
“I was just telling your aunt and cousin how intriguing I found Chesilworth yesterday,” Sir Philip continued as Cassandra sat down in a chair at some distance from him, the other two women having carefully planted themselves in the spots closest to his chair. “I should very much enjoy going to see it again.”
“Would you? Then perhaps we should make another expedition this afternoon,” Cassandra suggested.
“Nothing could be more delightful.”
Joanna let out a forced twitter of laughter. “Oh, my, Sir Philip, I can assure you that there are any number of places much more interesting to visit than that musty old house. Why, as you could see, it is falling down.”
“Yes. I admire antiquities,” Sir Philip replied smoothly. “Nothing intrigues me more than things that are old.”
“It has quite a history,” Cassandra added. “Perhaps you would like to look at some of the books about it? The ones we were speaking of yesterday?”
“Yes, of course. I would be most appreciative.”
“Cassandra…” Joanna tittered again, casting a dimpled smile toward Sir Philip. “I am sure Sir Philip is not interested in reading those silly old books of yours.”
“On the contrary, Miss Moulton, I am indeed interested. Miss Verrere and I spoke about them at some length yesterday. We share a mutual interest in history, you see.”
Joanna clenched her jaw and had to force herself to ease her facial muscles into a smile. “I am sure that there are several excursions that you would find far more enlightening and pleasurable.” She went on to list every possible attraction that she could think of in the area.
Sir Philip hung on to his polite smile grimly. “Indeed, Miss Moulton, you offer a veritable feast of options. I had not realized that Dunsleigh had so much for the visitor. However, this afternoon I am committed to going to Chesilworth with Miss Verrere.”
Joanna’s eyes flashed, and Cassandra thought that she was about to deliver a dressing down to the intractable Sir Philip, but Aunt Ardis jumped in before her daughter could speak. “If that is where you wish to go with Joanna and Cassandra, then that’s where you shall go. We shall all go—you cannot be unchaperoned with two young ladies, you know—” She waggled a playful finger, at him as if he had suggested something naughty. “A picnic. That is just the thing. I shall have cook prepare us a hamper.”
Now it was Sir Philip who looked as if he might lash out. Cassandra cut in hastily. “How wonderful! I would not have expected Cousin Joanna to want to explore with us. You shall have to wear something old and worn, you know, for it will be quite likely to ruin your dress.”
“I don’t want to explore those old ruins!”
“Then what will you do while Sir Philip and the children and I are exploring?”
“Yes, do think, dear ladies,” Sir Philip had recovered his charm with some effort, and he smiled now at Joanna. “You would not want to get that beautiful hair of yours all covered with dust—and the thought of grime on your clothes, your porcelain skin, why, ’twould be a travesty.”
Cassandra could barely keep herself from rolling her eyes at his blandishments, but the honeyed words seemed to work, for with a few more remarks about how wonderfully refreshing it would be to return to Moulton House and find Joanna in her usual beauty, both she and her mother agreed that the excursion was one more fit for children.
“Now, dear ladies, if you will excuse me…” Sir Philip rose from his chair. “I have a few matters to attend to before I go to work at Chesilworth this afternoon, though I hate to cut our visit short.”
Joanna and Aunt Ardis both urged him to stay, but he smiled and persisted in bidding them adieu. Finally Joanna made a coy little moue and said, “Well, all right, but only if you will consent to come to our party tomorrow evening.”
“Party? What party is that?”
Cassandra had to press her lips together hard to keep from laughing at the faintly ill expression that crossed Sir Philip’s face as he said the word.
“Why, the one Mama and I are having tomorrow night. We were just saying this morning how lucky it was that you came to visit when we have a party in the offing.”
Cassandra, to whom the news of a party was a surprise, raised her eyebrows but refrained from saying anything.
“Of course, it is merely a small thing. We live so retired in the country, you know—nothing like the season in London. But, still, we must have our little amusements now and then,” Aunt Ardis explained with a girlish smile.
“A small dinner with a few friends,” Joanna added. “Do say you will come, Sir Philip. Everyone will be so disappointed if you do not.”
“Of course.” Sir Philip gave them a strained smile. “I will be happy to attend. But for now, I am afraid I really must go.”
He bowed over each of their hands, politely going to Aunt Ardis first, then to Joanna. Lastly he turned to Cassandra, taking her hand and bending over it.
In a low voice he murmured, “Ten minutes. The well we passed yesterday.”
Cassandra blinked, surprised. Sir Philip straightened, looking questioningly into her eyes.
She smiled and nodded. “Good day, Sir Philip. I look forward to seeing you soon.”
CHAPTER SIX
SATISFACTION FLICKERED BRIEFLY in Sir Philip’s face and was gone, then he turned and strode out the door. As soon as he was gone, Joanna and her mother burst into an excited babble, trying at once to arrange the dinner party, crow over their good fortune and everyone else’s envy at having such a prize as Sir Philip Neville at their dinner, and also speculate over the extent of Sir Philip’s interest in Joanna, the amount of his wealth and the size of Haverly House. They scarcely noticed when Cassandra slipped out of the room.
She dashed upstairs and grabbed a bonnet and the stack of Margaret’s journals. Then she scurried down the servants’ staircase and out the back door, flying across the garden and down the path toward the old well. She carried her bonnet by the ribbons, not taking the time to put it on, and so she arrived at the well bareheaded, with soft, windblown tendrils falling about her face.
Sir Philip, waiting for her, straightened, smiling at the sight of her. The sun glinted off her hair, as pale as moonlight, and he thought with a kind of fierce delight that her hair was every bit as lovely in the daylight as he had thought it would be.
“Miss Verrere. You are on time. I admire that in a woman.”
“Indeed? Well, I am glad I pleased you,” Cassandr
a replied tartly. “I take it you do not mind if men are late?”
He looked slightly startled by her words, then let out a laugh. “I stand corrected. I should say it is an admirable quality in anyone.” He reached out and took the journals from her. “Here, let me carry those. Would you like to sit?” He gestured toward the wooden bench running around the trunk of a large oak tree. “I noticed this seat yesterday when we were walking back from your home. Somehow I suspected we might have need of a clandestine meeting place.”
“I am so sorry. I must apologize for my aunt and my cousin.”
“It is only reasonable to assume that I have some interest in someone, to be calling here on such a flimsy pretext. It takes no great skill to see that Dunsleigh is hardly on the route to my estate.”
“I know. And you must think me foolish to have hidden my plans from my relatives.”
“Oh, no,” he responded quickly, sitting down with her on the bench. “I understand perfectly, and I suspect that you are following the correct course. I would say that the fewer people who know what you are about, the better.”
Her eyes glimmered with amusement. “To spare me embarrassment when it turns out to be a hoax?”
He shrugged. “Perhaps. Who knows what people might say or do? The talk of treasure seems to do extraordinary things to people.” He quirked an eyebrow. “Look at me. I would have said I would never be chasing after old letters in an attic.”
Cassandra smiled and pointed to the books he now carried. “After you look at these, perhaps you will feel better about what you are doing. I brought Margaret Verrere’s journals.”
“Ah.” He picked up the top volume from the stack, which he had set down on the bench beside him. He turned it over, examining the binding, then carefully thumbed through the yellowed pages. He looked through each book with the same care and said finally, “I must admit that they appear authentically old.”
“You see?”
“Not that I am an expert, of course. Still, if this is a forgery, I must say it was skillfully done—and would have taken a great deal of time, as well as talent.”
“I can assure you that my father did not pay enough for them to make it worth the effort. He was not a wealthy man.” She paused, then added, with a triumphant smile, “Another argument against Mr. Simons’s forging them—aside from his excellent reputation, of course—is that I have met the man who sold them to him.”
“What?” Sir Philip, who had been languidly leaning back against the tree trunk, sat bolt upright.
Cassandra nodded, pleased at the effect her words had had. “He came here to visit. His name is David Miller, and he is a distant relative of mine.”
Sir Philip’s brows knitted into a black frown. “How do you know he is a relative?”
Cassandra rolled her eyes. “Honestly, Sir Philip, I thought you had decided not to be so mistrustful of everyone and everything. I did not ask him for a description of his family tree. He told me that he was a descendant of Margaret Verrere, and I saw no reason to disbelieve him.”
“Perhaps Mr. Simons was the victim of a ruse, too. Perhaps it was your David Miller who forged the books, then sold them to Mr. Simons.”
“That’s absurd. It makes no sense—he would have made even less selling them to a dealer than Mr. Simons made selling them to Papa. Only a fool would do so much for no more money than that.”
“You’re probably right about that.” He was silent for a moment—no doubt thinking up more objections, Cassandra thought wryly.
Then he asked, “Why did he not sell them directly to your father?”
“Because he did not know that we were related then. He sold them to Mr. Simons last year. He is a merchant from Boston, and he travels to England every year. This time, when he came, he dropped by to see Mr. Simons, and Simons told him about selling the books to us. He was curious about us—wondered what his English cousins were like, you know.”
“Mmm.”
“He sold the journals here because he thought they would fetch a better price. He found them among his mother’s things when she died, and he has little interest in history or books. I think all your fears about the documents being forgeries are ungrounded.”
Sir Philip looked once again at the journal in his hand. It was hard for him to continue to believe that such a skilled and careful forgery would have been pulled off for no more reward that the sale of the journals had brought. “And what other profit could there be?” he mused aloud.
“What?”
“Nothing, just thinking to myself. You are right. It is difficult to believe that these journals are not genuinely old. And are they indeed the work of Margaret Verrere?”
“Oh, yes, you would have only to read the beginning, and you would have no question.” She pulled out the first journal and opened it, handing it to him to read. “It begins right after their elopement, during the ocean voyage. You can see all her worries and fears about her father, as well as her joy at escaping a loveless marriage.”
Sir Philip began to read, squinting down at the faded, spidery script. After a few moments he looked up. “Yes. I can see that it is indeed the work of a young girl, full of high drama and violent emotion.”
Cassandra quirked an eyebrow at him. “Something you disapprove of, no doubt.” She reached over and took the book, opening it to a place she had already marked with a scrap of paper. “Look, here is her first mention of sending the letter to her father. See? And down here she explains about wanting the two families to have to join together to search for the dowry.”
She ran her finger down the page to the passage she sought. “‘…for which reason I did leave part of the answer to the mystery in Neville’s hands.’”
“Since he spent his whole life searching for it, I would scarcely say it was in his hands.”
“Perhaps she left him word where it was, and it was somehow lost. I don’t know. She isn’t very clear here about where it is. But, later on, when she was older and she mentioned it again…” She put down the book and picked up a later journal, again going to a marked place.
“Here—‘…along with the Neville map, the one I hid in the Queens Book.’”
“The Queens Book?” Sir Philip repeated. “What is that?”
“I was hoping that you knew, since it is something in your house.”
“Something that was in my house almost two hundred years ago,” he corrected. “It isn’t a famous piece of family lore, if that is what you have been thinking. I have never heard of a Queens Book. Surely that is not the name of it.”
“I thought it must be a particular history of the queens of England. Or perhaps a specific one about a particular queen. It is difficult to tell with this writing. It is so fine, and the ink is faded. And the habit they had of capitalizing the oddest words—it makes it difficult to guess whether that is the title or what. But I presume that, being a book, it would be in your library.”
“Probably. Unless it was sold or borrowed or given away. Or perhaps even tossed out—it has been several generations, you know. Who is to say that someone along the line would not have thrown the book out?”
“Don’t say that!” Cassandra gazed at him in horror.
“It has been a great deal of time, Miss Verrere. Not all my ancestors were lovers of books—including my father.”
“Yes, but surely this was an important book, a valuable one, maybe. It was one that Margaret knew of, so it must have had some significance.”
“At the time.”
“Yes, but if it had significance, one would think it would have been regarded as important enough to be saved by future generations.”
“We do have a number of old books, especially on the higher shelves in the library. Certainly we can look for it at Haverly House.”
“We?” Cassandra’s breath caught in her throat. S
he had been half afraid that once she gave Sir Philip the clues to the location of the map, he would insist on looking for it by himself. Men were so often strange about things like that. Cassandra suspected that they disliked sharing the fun.
“Why, yes.” He cast an amused look at her. “You don’t think that I am going to slog through all those books on my own, do you? Oh, no, my dear Miss Verrere, if I search through the attics with you, then you have to help me search my library.”
Cassandra beamed. “It will be my pleasure, I assure you.”
“However, it looks as if we shall have some difficulty searching your attic.”
“What do you mean?” Cassandra glanced at him, startled.
“I mean, your aunt and cousin are difficult people to maneuver around.”
“Oh.” Cassandra sighed. “Yes. I am so sorry. Joanna seems to have set her cap for you in a most inflexible way.”
“Mmm.”
“I am sure it is most improper, but I think that the best way to handle the situation is to do what we did today. We will have to continue our search in secrecy.”
“You are a woman of great intellect—not to mention kindness.”
“What, to not make you endure Joanna’s and Aunt Ardis’s company?”
He grinned. “Did I mention that you are also exceedingly blunt?”
“No.” She grinned back. “You did not need to. It has been pointed out to me before.”
It was ludicrous, Philip knew, to be enjoying himself so much, to be sitting here and smiling over this woman’s behavior, which was definitely not what one would expect or want in a lady. And yet he could not deny that just being with her lifted his spirits immeasurably. Somehow being here in the backwater of Dunsleigh, meeting Cassandra in secret and crawling about through an old musty attic with her and her siblings, made him much happier than any of the entertainments at the far grander and more sophisticated Arrabeck House. No doubt his friends, if they knew of his odd start, would think that he had run completely mad.
