by Candace Camp
“I know.” He caressed her hair, admiring the shimmer of light on the pale strands. “I told her she can have as grand a wedding as she wants, as long as it happens no longer than a month from now.”
“A month! But, Philip, you cannot plan a grand wedding in only a month. Why, there would barely be time to get out invitations.”
“Believe me, Mother trotted out all the arguments.” Philip lightly trailed his fingertips down the sides of her neck, watching in the mirror. There was something fascinating in watching his movements and Cassandra’s reactions in the mirror, almost as if he stood apart from them and observed, both feeling what he did and seeing it as a stranger.
“She said that anything less than six months was simply absurd and, moreover, would give rise to all sorts of speculation and salacious rumors,” Philip continued. “I told her, not as many rumors as would be caused by the infelicitously early arrival of a babe three or four months after we were married.”
“Philip! You didn’t!”
“I did.” His hands moved down to caress her shoulders and upper arms, then spread out across her chest. “There is no hope that I could wait six months to have you in my bed again. Why, look at me. Three nights since my vow not to come to your bedchamber, and here I am, sneaking down the hall to your room.”
He grasped her shoulders and pulled her up unresistingly. Moving close behind her, he slid his arms around her waist and bent to kiss her shoulder. “You are so beautiful,” he breathed. “I cannot stay away from you. It seems as if all I can think about is you. All day I look at you and imagine you unclothed.”
He slid his hands up and down her bare arms, then moved to cup her breasts through the cloth of her chemise. He stared, heavy-lidded, at their reflection, and Cassandra did, too, leaning back against him and going limp at the exquisite sensations pouring through her. Her chemise was thin, and the dark circles of her nipples were visible through the cloth. As he gently kneaded and caressed them, the nipples hardened visibly, thrusting against the material.
Letting out a sound that was half sigh, half groan, he nuzzled into her neck, his hands roaming over her body hungrily. He breathed her name as Cassandra turned in his arms, pressing herself into him. They kissed, slowly working their way across the room to the bed, stripping off articles of clothing and letting them drop where they were. Philip lifted Cassandra into the bed and lay down beside her. They made love tenderly at first, their desire growing more and more fierce as they went, until finally they could wait no longer, and he thrust deeply into her. Trembling under the force of their emotions, they rode out their passion, climaxing finally in a burst of raw pleasure.
Collapsing onto the bed, Philip wrapped his arms around Cassandra, holding her close against him. Their eyes drifted closed and, exhausted, they slept.
It was a few hours later, in the dead of the night, that the coolness of the air on Philip’s skin awakened him. He opened his eyes slowly, pulled up out of a panicky dream in which he kept running from windmill to windmill, searching desperately for Cassandra. He wrapped his arms a little more tightly around her to reassure himself that she was safely here in his arms. Then he blinked, his mind clearing.
Suddenly he sat up. “Oh, my God! That’s it. Cassandra, wake up. I figured it out!”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CASSANDRA OPENED HER eyes sleepily. “What? What are you talking about?”
“I know why we couldn’t find the treasure. It’s because of the fens! They were drained after Margaret Verrere left England. At that time there were big areas of marshland that are now viable pasture. Don’t you see?”
“Of course!” Cassandra sat up excitedly, her mind clearing. “It must have changed the landscape drastically. Remember how the creek seemed closer on the map?”
“And I just shrugged it off as poor map drawing. But we might have been looking in entirely the wrong place.”
“How can we find out what the landscape used to look like?”
Philip was already out of bed, pulling back on his clothes, and Cassandra quickly jumped out and followed suit. “The library. There must be old histories of the area that might have a map. Or maybe some sort of record of how the draining of the fens changed the landscape. If worse comes to worst, we’ll have to go back to Aunt Liliane and ask if she remembers people talking about where things were before the fens were drained.”
Philip lit a candle, and Cassandra opened the door to peer out into the hall. Seeing no one, she stepped out, gesturing for Philip to follow her. They glided softly along the hall to the back stairs and down to the library. There they closed the door, lit the lamps and began to search.
Cassandra vaguely remembered having seen an old book that appeared to be a vicar’s reminiscences of life in the parish in the middle seventeenth century, so she looked for it on the second floor of the library. Philip went to a section of shelves that contained several histories. They worked steadily away for some time before Cassandra found the vicar’s recollections she had remembered and pulled the book out, calling to Philip.
Unfortunately, when they looked through it, they found no map anywhere in it. Philip set it aside. “Don’t put it back up. Perhaps if we read through it, it will describe the area around Saint Swithin’s so that we can reconstruct the way it must have looked. But, first, let’s look for a map.”
Philip found a history of the shire, but it was written after the draining of the fens, and the only map in it showed the area in its present state. They continued to look, even though their initial excitement was wearing off into sleepiness. The room was turning light with the dawn when Cassandra pulled out a narrow black book that she had almost missed at the end of one shelf.
“‘A True Account,’” she read, “‘of the Draining of’—Philip! This book is about draining the fens.” She opened it as he strode quickly over toward her. “Look! A map! A map of the area before it was drained. There are three of them, of different parts. See?”
“Yes. There’s Saint Swithin’s. And the road. But look.” His forefinger jabbed at a large shaded area on the left side the map. “That is a fen. That’s where we were today. That couldn’t have been the road Margaret drew on the map. This road makes a big bulge around the fen.”
Cassandra nodded. “No doubt, once the fen was drained, the way we went today was much closer, so the road shifted over here. We were on the wrong road entirely.” She glanced up at Philip, frowning. “Do you think that this old road still exists?”
“There might be traces of it. It’s probably overgrown, but we might be able to follow it to the wall and the peat-cutter’s hut.” He grinned at her, excitement effectively chasing away his weariness. “Well? Do you want to try?”
“Now?”
“It’s light outside.”
“All right. I’ll get my bonnet.” She turned and looked back at him. “Should we wake the children?”
Philip hesitated, then shook his head. “No. I’m afraid of getting them excited and then disappointing them again. We may not be able to locate it, you know.”
Cassandra nodded her agreement and hurried away on tiptoe to get her bonnet. They stopped in the kitchen to grab a quick breakfast, startling the servants, then went down to the bottom of the garden, where Philip pulled a shovel out of the gardener’s shed. He propped it on his shoulder, and they set out once again for Saint Swithin’s.
This time, when they reached the church, they did not follow the existing road but walked along in the general direction in which the old road was drawn. Soon, a little to their surprise, they found themselves on a narrow trail.
“Do you think this is it?”
“It corresponds to the map. Look, the creek is much closer now. I suppose people continued to walk along here, and it didn’t become completely overgrown.”
There were places, they found out as they moved on, w
here the path did disappear for a time, but if they continued to walk in the right direction, after a while the trail would reappear.
“There’s the copse of trees!” Cassandra pointed out, her voice rising. “Oh, Philip, we really are on the right trail.”
They reached the stone landmark beside the road and launched in search of the peat-cutter’s hut. At first they walked past the remains of the hut, but on their second sweep they found it. There was little left except a rectangle of tumbled rocks, hidden by weeds and shrubs.
Cassandra and Philip looked at each other. Her heart was pounding in her chest. They were only five paces away from the dowry’s hiding place. Cassandra drew in a deep breath. She was scared. What if they failed again? Philip raised his eyebrows in inquiry. She nodded.
He turned back around and looked down at the jumble of rocks. “It’s hard to tell exactly where the corner was. It would be quite easy to go a little off.”
He positioned himself in what he hoped was the right direction and walked away from the corner. When he reached five paces, he stopped and began to dig. After a while, he had a hole, but no sign of a small casket. He began to dig out in a straight line on either side of the hole, creating a narrow trench. By the time the sun was climbing toward the center of the sky, he had dug a trench three feet to one side of the hole. He moved back and began to dig in the opposite direction.
Within minutes, his shovel clunked into a hard object.
Philip looked up at Cassandra. She moved closer, nerves leaping in her stomach. “Do you think that’s it?”
“It could be almost anything.” Carefully he began to dig away around the object, finally getting down and brushing aside the earth with his hands. Cassandra joined him, heedless of her dress and hands. The rounded metal top of a box appeared. They dug away from its sides, and began to rock and pull. Finally, as they tugged, it popped free, startling them. Philip pulled it the rest of the way up and set it on the ground beside the hole.
They looked at it for a moment, breathing hard from their exertions. It was a heavy box, despite the fact that it was only a foot and a half long and two-thirds as wide. It resembled a miniature humpbacked trunk, with little ornamentation and a hasp close secured by a heavy lock. It had held up well through the years.
Philip brought the shovel down hard on the lock several times until the lock broke and fell off. Scarcely breathing, Cassandra knelt beside him in front of the casket. Her heart was pounding. Philip gestured toward the little trunk.
“Go ahead. It is your chest, after all.”
Cassandra drew a long breath and pushed the lid up. It fell back, revealing a box full of little velvet bags and stacks of coins. On the top lay a large object swaddled in velvet. Philip reached in curiously and took out one of the bags and spilled out its contents into his hand. Several large uncut jewels fell into his palm, including sapphires, rubies and a very large uncut emerald. Another small bag revealed several jewels of antique cut and setting.
“These are worth far more than they were at that time,” he commented. He poked in the box beneath the bags. “Loose gold coins on the bottom, I believe. Yes, a tidy sum for our Lord Chesilworth.” He paused, then added, “Aren’t you going to unwrap that?” He nodded toward the large object.
“I’m scared,” Cassandra admitted. “I have imagined the gold leopard for so many years that I’m a little afraid to see what it really looks like.”
But she reached out her hands and picked up the heavy object. She set it in her lap and carefully unwrapped it. As the velvet fell away, a large gold leopard was revealed. It gleamed in the sun, an object of expert craftsmanship, each spot an indentation, its crouched stance so real that it seemed about to spring. Around its neck was a collar of small rubies. Its eyes were brilliant dark emeralds.
Cassandra could do no more than stare for a moment. It was so beautiful, so expertly wrought, that it quite took away her power of speech. “Philip…” she breathed at last, stroking a hand along its back, almost as if it were a real cat. “It’s beautiful. Have you ever seen anything like it?”
Before he could answer, a voice behind them said cheerfully. “I certainly have not.”
They swung around, Cassandra instinctively cradling the leopard to her chest. Standing several feet away from them was Mr. Simons. He was smiling, looking as jolly and avuncular as ever. The only thing that spoiled the image was the rather large shotgun in his hands, which he held pointed directly at Cassandra.
“Mr. Simons!” Cassandra stared, slack jawed.
“It was you, then?” Philip asked, his eyes hard and dark. “All this time? The break-ins? Everything?”
“My, yes. As soon as Mr. Miller brought those diaries to me, I could see the possibilities. If anyone could find the maps and the treasure, I knew it was Miss Verrere. She was always a sharp one, a better mind, really, than her father, even. When she dealt with me for a book, I rarely got much profit out of it.” He seemed quite happy to talk, rather proud of his actions. “At first I couldn’t bear to wait for her to find it. I was too greedy. I sent someone to get the maps, but I quickly realized how futile that was. Far better to let the two of you locate the maps for me.”
“And, of course,” Cassandra said disgustedly, “we played right into your hands by inquiring about the prayer book.”
“My yes. I had not seen it before, but it wasn’t hard for me to find out who had bought it from Sir Richard and where it had wound up.” He pulled the small prayer book from his coat pocket and held it up, almost as if he expected to be applauded for his cleverness.
“So you stalled us by sending us to places you knew it would not be while you searched for it—and had your man break in to steal the map we had.”
“Yes.” He sighed and repocketed the book. “Unfortunately, I could not seem to get either map. When I got the book and there was no map, I knew that you must have retrieved it from Bigby. Well, I had no choice but to follow and see what you came up with. I must tell you, I was quite disappointed by the results yesterday. All that tramping about fair wore my man out, having to hide as he did. That’s why I set about watching your house today. Thank God I did.”
“What about David Miller? Was he in on it? Your partner?”
Simons laughed, and Cassandra wondered why she had never noticed before that there was an ugly undertone to his laughter. “That innocent? Heavens, no. Of course, it was rather handy when he showed up again and wanted to visit you. I heard a good deal of useful gossip from him after he returned to London. But help me pull off such a scheme? Not likely. He would be shocked, I assure you.”
Cassandra shot Philip a triumphant look. “I told you he was not the sort to steal the dowry.”
“Since you also told me that Mr. Simons was not the sort, I can hardly give you much credit for prescience,” Philip replied sourly.
“Now, now, children, that’s enough. Time to end the chitchat. Miss Verrere, please be so good as to bring that lovely objet d’art over here to me. Remember, I will have the gun on Miss Verrere the entire time, so please don’t try anything foolish, Sir Philip.”
“I won’t.” Philip’s voice was grim.
Cassandra rose slowly, cradling the heavy statue in the crook of her arm. She started toward him, walking deliberately. He held his gun on her the whole time. As she grew close to him, she tripped and stumbled forward, flinging out her arms. The elegant golden leopard went tumbling to the ground. Instinctively Simons reached for the falling statue, his shotgun lowering. Philip, who had been watching closely, certain that Cassandra would not meekly hand over the fortune she considered her family’s, leaped forward and grabbed the gun.
The two men wrestled over it. Cassandra rolled out of the way and rose lithely to her feet. She glanced around for the leopard, thinking to pick it up and bash Simons over the head with it, but the two men were struggling right over it.
It did not matter, anyway, for at that instant Philip wrested the gun away from Simons and tossed it away. Simons started after it, but Philip grabbed his arm and whirled him back around, sending a fist crashing into the other man’s chin. The rotund little man was no match for Philip’s strength, and in a few more moments he was facedown on the ground, with Philip’s knee planted in the small of his back and his arms crossed behind him.
Cassandra quickly tore off the sash of her dress and tied it around Simons’s wrists. He moaned and fussed that she was tying it too tightly, but Cassandra merely let out an unsympathetic grunt. She reached into the pocket of his coat and pulled out the prayer book.
“This belongs to Mr. Bigby, I believe.”
They made an odd little group, walking back down the track to the church and then to Haverly House. Mr. Simons walked in front, his hands secured behind his back, and Cassandra marched a few feet behind him, shotgun trained on him. Philip brought up the rear of the procession, carrying the small casket of treasures on his shoulder. They passed a farmer on the road between the church and Haverly House, and he stared at them oddly but only tugged at his cap and offered them a good day.
When they reached Philip’s house, he turned both the gun and their prisoner over to his gamekeeper, instructing him to deliver Simons to the constable in the village and to assure the man that Sir Philip would be down shortly to inform him of the crime that had been committed.
With that responsibility taken care of, he and Cassandra walked into the house and up the stairs to the nursery. They found the twins and the two girls there, all looking rather glum. All four of the youngsters looked up at Cassandra and Philip, goggling at their dirty and tousled appearance.
Philip marched solemnly over to the window seat, where Crispin sat. The other three instinctively moved closer. He set the chest down in front of the window seat and with a grand gesture flung open its top, revealing the glittering leopard recumbent on the bags of jewels and coins. “Lord Chesilworth—the Spanish Dowry.”
