by Kate Bateman
Emmy glanced back. His sinfully broad chest and shoulders were sun-dappled by the leaves, and his face wore an expression of resignation. She couldn’t resist teasing him.
“Don’t you have a shovel?” she asked innocently. “A pickaxe?”
He frowned. “What for?”
“To dig up the treasure, of course. We’ll need to move a lot of earth and stones. Father always brought a crowbar. And a series of pulleys.”
He sent her an exasperated glare. “You never mentioned needing a blasted—”
Her smile gave her away, and he stopped midsentence and fisted his hands on his hips. “You little wretch. I don’t need anything, do I?”
“Only your hands and a little brute strength.” She chuckled.
She beckoned him on, leaving the main track to push between the trees and into the wilderness of brambles, grasses, and ferns. She could hear Harland snapping twigs and rustling leaves behind her.
“Are you sure this is the way?” he asked.
“Oh, yes. It’s not buried near the main house.”
“Of course it isn’t,” he grumbled. “Heaven forbid it should be somewhere easily accessible. Knowing your family, I expect there’s a series of booby traps and obstacles to maim us before we reach it. Don’t tell me, we have to swim through an eel-infested moat and crawl through a pit of brambles just to get close?”
She grinned at his morbid humor. He certainly was grouchy. Was he experiencing the same sexual frustration as she was? The same impotent fury at being thrust into this impossible situation? She hoped so.
Acorns and beech nuts blanketed the ground and crunched underfoot, and Emmy sucked in a deep appreciative breath. She loved the clean country air. It was a world away from the capital’s smoke-filled smog. Green leaves made a canopy above them, and the last of the day’s warmth filtered through. It wasn’t hot and lush, like the ambassador’s conservatory, nor was it rigidly tended like the pleasure gardens at Vauxhall. It was nature, wild and unplanned.
Everything in London had been tamed. Not just the gardens, but every person too—hemmed in by society’s rules, trained like vines over a trellis. Everyone was supposed to go in the same direction; any infringement would lead to exclusion and social ostracism. Anything too wild was forced back into line. Girls were scolded for laughing too loudly, for dancing too enthusiastically. For revealing they had a working brain. Part of Emmy’s delight in thieving had come from the knowledge that she was subverting every expectation. Breaking all the rules.
Except breaking the rules came with a high price if you were caught.
She glanced around, and for a brief, panicked moment she thought she’d forgotten the way, but then the trees thinned out and she saw the clearing she’d been seeking.
The ivy-clad ruins were as picturesque as she remembered. Grey stones, green with moss, were interspersed with later portions of crumbling red brick. Emmy dodged a patch of stinging nettles and rounded a waist-high wall to enter a roofless nave, the far end of which contained a circular window with two arches but no glass. No wooden beams or rafters remained. Doorways on what would have been the upper floors opened onto nothing. A set of crumbling stone steps led up to thin air.
Once, this had been a proper church, full of color and life. Emmy imagined it decorated as if for a wedding, with a roof, and pews, flowers, and candles. Rays of sunlight would pierce the stained-glass windows and sprinkle their jewel colors on the white cloth of the altar. A man would be waiting for her at the end of the aisle with a kind-faced priest ready to join them in holy matrimony. Emmy would walk forward, jittery with excitement and nerves. The man’s back would be facing her, his shoulders broad, but she knew his identity with a bittersweet certainty. Alex Harland would turn and smile at her as if he were the luckiest man in the world—
She tripped over a protruding stone and stifled a curse. Such foolish, impossible dreams. She turned and pasted a bright smile on her face as Harland stepped up behind her.
“What is this place?” he asked.
“It used to be an abbey, built by Cistercian monks. It fell into disrepair in the 1500s when Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries and took all their wealth for himself.” She shot him a glance over her shoulder. “Just think, all that social and political upheaval just because he wanted to divorce his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, and marry Anne Boleyn.”
Harland’s lips curved upwards. “Cherchez la femme.”
She raised her brows.
“It’s a French saying,” he said. “Surely your grandmother uses it? It means whenever there’s a problem, or a man behaving stupidly or out of character, there’s usually a woman at the heart of it.”
She shot him an indignant glare. “Oh, that’s typical—blame the woman! Men can make fools of themselves perfectly well on their own, without any help from us.”
His expression hardened. “How very true, Miss Danvers.”
Chapter 31.
Alex tamped down the wave of self-directed anger that Emmy’s innocent comment had roused. He was no better than fat old King Henry, was he? In imminent danger of making a fool of himself over her. She’d twisted him up so much, he could barely distinguish right from wrong, madness from reason. Passion from love.
No. Not love. He wasn’t even going to consider that dreadful possibility. His attraction to her was lust, nothing deeper.
As if the very heavens disputed his denial, a rumble of thunder sounded in the distance. Alex glared up at the overcast sky, then back at the tumbling ruins. No doubt a poet like Byron or Shelley would think the place was wonderfully romantic. It was certainly picturesque, in a gloomy, gothic kind of way. All it needed was some brooding, fever-browed lover stomping around, tearing his hair out and howling for his lost love.
He repressed a snort. He wasn’t such a fool. That was why he’d refused to travel in the carriage: pure self-preservation. He hadn’t trusted himself to be confined in such an intimate space with his prisoner for hours on end. He’d have started to sympathize with her.
He’d have made love to her again.
She was a siren, luring unsuspecting idiots like himself to their downfall. The French would call her a femme fatale—a woman fatal to his sense of reason. There was an enchanting sense of mischief about her, a playfulness that reminded him of a sprite or a fairy.
Alex cast another glance upwards, appealing to the heavens to deliver him from pert young women. He didn’t hold out much hope of a positive response. He’d have more luck asking the devil for assistance in controlling one of his own. Except he suspected even Old Nick would find Emmeline Danvers too much of a handful. He’d thrust her back up top just for five minutes of blessed peace.
She was picking her way through the ruins now, lifting her skirts to show a tantalizing glimpse of silk-stockinged ankle. Alex clenched his fists.
“Are you sure we’re not trespassing?” he growled, scanning the area with a soldier’s eye for signs of life.
“No. All this land belongs to Camille. If anyone sees us, they’ll assume we’re lovers sneaking off in search of some privacy.”
The mental images that glib little comment produced forced him to tug at his breeches in an unsuccessful attempt to relieve the throbbing discomfort there. He cast around for a less incendiary subject. “You like collecting words,” he said at her retreating back. “Words that have no direct translation in English.”
“I’m surprised you remember. But yes. The French have lots of words for things we don’t. Mie, for example, is the soft inside of the bread. The bit that’s not the crust.”
She disappeared around the edge of another partly ruined building, but her voice echoed off the stones. “Empêchement is an unexpected last-minute change of plans. It’s the perfect excuse for when you don’t want to be specific about being late.”
“I thought of a Spanish word to add to your collection,” he called after her. “Sobremesa. It’s the time after dinner when the Spanish like to sit around the table to argue an
d talk.”
He rounded the corner and caught sight of her again and the smile she shot back at him made his heart thud against his breastbone. “That is excellent!”
She climbed over a low wall and set out in a westerly direction. He knew it was west, because the setting sun was directly in front of her, and its departing rays rendered her skirts almost completely transparent. Alex counted slowly to ten and tried to ignore the glowing outline of her perfect derrière.
“Almost there,” she called cheerfully. “Did you know the French crown jewels aren’t the only ones to have been lost?”
“They weren’t lost,” Alex corrected dryly. “Lost implies they were mislaid. They were stolen. Most recently by members of your family.”
She ignored the dig. “There are plenty of instances where new crown jewels had to be made because the old ones had gone missing. King John once lost the English crown jewels in a bog not far from here.”
“That’s not true,” Alex scoffed.
“It certainly is. It was just after the famous Magna Carta was signed. Twelve hundred and something. King John was trying to suppress a rebellion and made a trip through the fens of eastern England.”
She waved a hand vaguely down the hill. “Over that way. He and his entourage travelled with carts laden with supplies, including one holding all the crown jewels. John had fallen ill, and so was in a hurry to get across the Wash—it’s a tidal area crisscrossed with creeks, streams, and treacherous patches of quicksand.”
She grinned, as if the prospect of danger pleased her. “The riders got across safely, but the heavy baggage cart containing the jewels sank forever into the silt. King John died a few days later. His son, nine-year-old Henry III, had to be crowned with one of his mother’s circlets.” She gave a delighted chuckle. “No wonder he’s remembered as ‘King John the Bad.’”
She gazed out over the fields and a wistful look came over her face. “They’re still out there somewhere, you know. Just waiting to be found. The landscape is always changing. A storm or high tide will uncover them eventually.”
Alex’s gut twisted at the yearning in her expression. If he turned her in, she’d never be free like this again. Never be able to stare out over the sunset, dreaming of treasure and adventure. She’d have no future at all.
He shook away the depressing thought. “Where exactly are we going?”
She continued a little way into the trees and then stopped in front of a shoulder-high stone monument shaped as an obelisk on a square-stepped base. It was clearly not as old as the ruins, but the lichen and weathering indicated it had been there for some time.
“What’s this?” Alex squinted to read the inscription on the engraved brass plaque that was affixed to the pale limestone. “It looks like a gravestone.”
“It is. Well, a monument, really. To Lily. She was my grandmother’s dog.” She pointed to the stylized floral carvings on the flat sides of the pyramid. “See the fleur de lis? That’s ‘lily’ in French.”
“It’s also the symbol of the French Royalty,” Alex said and was rewarded with a congratulatory nod for his perceptiveness.
“Father was inspired by Lord Byron, who did something similar for his beloved dog, Boatswain. The verse is his.”
Alex leaned forward and read the inscription:
NEAR THIS SPOT
ARE DEPOSITED THE REMAINS OF ONE
WHO POSSESSED BEAUTY WITHOUT VANITY,
STRENGTH WITHOUT INSOLENCE,
COURAGE WITHOUT FEROCITY,
AND ALL THE VIRTUES OF MAN WITHOUT HIS VICES.
THIS PRAISE, WHICH WOULD BE UNMEANING FLATTERY IF INSCRIBED OVER HUMAN ASHES,
IS BUT A JUST TRIBUTE TO THE MEMORY OF LILY, A DOG
WHO WAS BORN IN PARIS MAY 1798 AND DIED AT UFFINGTON NOVEMBER 18TH, 1810.
Alex glanced sideways at the woman next to him. Those same qualities could be applied to her. Beauty without vanity. Courage without ferocity. She’d accepted her fate without resorting to bitterness or treachery, with grace and even humor. What was he going to do with her? He had to make a decision by the time they returned to London.
“The grave of a dog wasn’t Father’s first choice of hiding place,” she said, unaware of his seething thoughts. “He tried several others before deciding on this. He submerged them in a pond at first, in a tin box wrapped in oilcloth and weighted down with rocks. That proved very messy to retrieve. Luc and I eventually rebelled against wading through pond slime every six months to add a new jewel. In the winter, we had to crack the ice. It was awful.”
She shook her head in memory. “Then he considered burying the box with a large number of truffles and using a specially trained truffle pig to find them.”
“A truffle pig?” Alex choked out. “You’re joking.”
She grinned, enjoying his surprise. “I swear I’m not. Camille suggested it. Her first husband had them at his country estate near Périgord, which is, as everyone knows, the truffle center of France.”
Alex gave a reluctant laugh. “And here I was, thinking things couldn’t get any worse. I take it back. Imagine if we’d had to transport a great stinking pig with us.”
“They’re ill-tempered beasts, apparently. Camille used to say you could recognize the pig owners by their missing fingers.”
“I wonder what it is about truffles that makes them so attractive to pigs?”
“To lady pigs,” Emmy clarified.
He wrinkled his forehead. “Only female pigs like truffles?”
“Oh no, I’m sure male pigs like them too, but it’s the lady pigs who are used to seek them out.”
She sent him a cheeky grin, and he just knew she was going to say something outrageous.
“Females find them irresistible because they smell just like virile man pigs. The girl pigs work themselves into a frenzy, trying to locate the source.”
“Good God.” Alex shook his head, bemused. Then again, who was he to scoff? He fully understood the strength of desire that could be aroused by smell. One whiff of Emmy’s blasted perfume was enough to drive him crazy. He’d probably break down doors to get to her.
His heart twisted in his chest as he realized how much he enjoyed her company. She was an amusing companion, and he felt as at ease with her as he did with Benedict and Seb. He liked her. Were they becoming friends? That would be a fatal mistake; it would only make it harder when he had to turn her in. Damn it.
Emmy knelt on the ground at the foot of the steps, heedless of the mud and her dress, and ran her fingers along the mortar strips between the stones.
“What do we have to do?” Alex asked.
“Pry off the front of this stone.”
With a sigh of regret over his pristine breeches, Alex knelt beside her and nudged her aside with his shoulder. “Don’t hurt your hands. I’ll do it.” He scraped away some moss and tried to pry the slab forward. “There isn’t really a dog buried under here, is there? I’m not going to come across bones?”
She chuckled. “No, you’re safe. The real Lily’s buried up near the hunting lodge. This is more symbolic. Father used to say it represented the death of the French monarchy, the end of France as it was before the Revolution.” Her face fell, and Alex kicked himself for making her remember something that brought her pain. He wanted her to smile.
The stone shifted beneath his fingers, and she made a sound of delight. “Yes! There you go.”
He pulled it forward and away, dislodging a bank of dark brown soil that had been packed behind it. Emmy started to scrape it away, and he did the same, their hands touching occasionally as they worked. A dull metallic thud sounded when his knuckles hit something hard, and Emmy gasped in anticipation. She reached into the dark hole they’d made and pulled out an unassuming black tin box, about eighteen inches long and a foot square. She rearranged herself to sit cross-legged on the grass.
Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes sparkled in excitement, and Alex curbed the impulse to lean over and kiss her.
She lifted th
e lid and he caught his breath. There, glittering in the dying rays of the sun like some magical hoard of leprechaun gold, lay a seething mass of diamonds, emeralds, pearls, and precious metals.
The missing crown jewels of France.
Chapter 32.
Alex could hardly believe his eyes. He reached into the tin and pulled out a gold crown, almost simplistic in design, with huge gems studded like barnacles around the sides and four large jeweled fleur de lis protruding from the top. He didn’t know much about antiques, but it looked ancient.
“That’s the crown of Charlemagne,” Emmy said matter-of-factly. “Kings of France have been crowned with it for hundreds of years. It was rumored to have been destroyed during the Revolution, but Father managed to steal it before it was melted down.”
She pulled out an earring and dangled it carelessly between her slim fingers. The pear-shaped diamond pendant was as big as a musket ball. “These were Marie Antoinette’s favorite earrings.”
She dropped the earring back onto the pile and withdrew a yellow-tinged faceted stone as large as a walnut and, in the other hand, a peachy-pink stone of at least twenty carats that was almost heart shaped. Tiny rainbows glittered on her palms as she held them up for inspection.
Alex whistled softly.
“The Sancy diamond,” she sighed reverently, inspecting the jewel in her right hand. “A pale yellow, shield-shaped diamond. It weighs over fifty carats and was purchased in Constantinople in the sixteenth century by the French ambassador to Turkey, the Seigneur de Sancy. He brought it to France, where Henry III, who was sensitive about being bald, used it to decorate the cap he always wore to conceal his head.”
She smiled at the jewel, clearly delighted by the history behind it. “During the next reign, when Sancy was made Superintendent of Finance, Henry IV borrowed it as security for a substantial loan to hire soldiers. A messenger was dispatched with the jewel, but never reached his destination; thieves had followed him. Knowing that the man was utterly loyal, Sancy searched for him, and when his body was discovered in a shallow grave, Sancy had him disinterred and cut open.”