A Heart's Treasure

by Teresa DesJardien

  She watched as he sidled up next to Summer, watched as that girl’s hand came from Xavier’s arm and latched on to Michael’s. She saw Summer’s face light up as Michael spoke to her, no doubt exercising that occasional and persuasive charm of his.

  She knew he’d more of a talent for noting subtleties than he was commonly given credit for…but in this case he certainly didn’t seem to feel threatened. Had he really grown to become an insensitive clod, who loved only himself? Who did only as he pleased? Who truly didn’t care if Summer’s desires were ever met or not? She paled to think it could be true, and some corner of her mind refused to accept the possibility, but another part asked: when was the last time Michael had demonstrated any affection for anyone other than himself?

  Well, he’d just moved her, his sister, from harm’s way when that carriage was approaching… The thought restored the color to her face, and she allowed an audible sigh of relief to escape her lips. She knew Michael loved her, even if it was in his abstracted, careless way. So she had to believe he was capable of loving others as well.

  …Although, of course, the familial and easy love for one’s sibling might be far too little for a spouse, or even a fiancée.

  “Oh, Michael,” she murmured cheerlessly to herself, “I do wish you could fall madly in love with your own betrothed.” She kicked at a stone, immediately bruising a toe for her effort, and wished she could limp in the opposite direction, instead of following so docilely behind as her party searched out yet another of Kenneth’s tokens.

  * * *

  “Oh! I see it. Xavier, there’s the card,” Summer cried, pointing.

  Xavier stepped forward, pulling the playing card from where it was wedged into a seam between a windowpane and its casing. “A Knave of Hearts? Does that represent our Peeping Tom, or King Leofric?”

  “Both, I rather suppose,” Kenneth approved the logic of the question as he stepped near.

  Xavier came away from the window. “I wouldn’t have spotted it. Well done, Summer,” he said as he handed the card to her.

  She held it in both hands, admiring it before grinning up at him. “You’re the one who led us here.”

  Genevieve threw Michael a speaking glance, do you see how she smiles at him?, but Michael either didn’t see or didn’t care to react.

  “That was simple logic. We know the lady rode from one end of the city to the other, and back to the castle. We know she was escorted by two knights, so the road needed to support three mounted figures abreast, and therefore our target would probably be on one of the main thoroughfares. From there it was a matter of finding a house with shutters, for all the townspeople were ordered to close them, and no one cracked theirs open but for our Tom. When I saw the pub sign that read The Blinded Tom, it was natural to suppose the house, with shutters, would be somewhere nearby,” Xavier explained his reasoning.

  Summer gave a twinkling laugh. “But then we saw so many houses on this street had shutters.”

  “As I said, it was your sharp eye that won us the token.” Xavier sketched her a bow of thanks.

  “And the fact it was the first house next to The Blinded Tom,” Summer grinned as she curtsied in return. She spun to Kenneth. “Is this truly the house?”

  “Who can say?” he replied honestly. “My servant clearly thought it was…or that it served well enough. Did Peeping Tom truly exist, and was he really struck blind by God for his nefarious curiosity?”

  “Good gad, let us hope not,” Michael said in an aside to Haddy, who chortled quietly.

  Summer tucked the card in the back of her glove, as she’d not brought her reticule with her. “We now lead in tokens,” she told Xavier, dimpling all over again.

  “Our two to Laura and Haddy’s one, and Michael and Genevieve’s one card token as well.”

  “And none for us. Yet. But we are next to play,” Penelope said, glancing at her partner, Kenneth.

  “Exactly so. But that must wait a while yet.”

  “Ah, yes. It seems to me there is a duet that has yet to be sung,” Penelope said with a bit of an evil grin.

  Haddy sighed. “I’ll lead the way.”

  The group discussed which song ought to be sung as Haddy led them to the High Street, and some of the suggestions had to be whispered in his ear, for even the titles of such ditties couldn’t be spoken aloud before the ladies, let alone truly considered for public exhibit.

  Haddy countered every suggestion with the firm words, “‘Praise God From Whom All Blessings Flow,’” until of course it was quite clear this was what they would sing.

  Laura mouthed the words. “Oh dear. I’m unsure of the second stanza,” she said to Haddy, who talked her through it twice.

  “Enough!” Kenneth cried good-naturedly. “If we go on this way, before long Haddy and Laura will have talked us into an eight-part harmony. Let us be on with it, I say.”

  As the two unfortunates began to sing, carriages rolled by with curious faces staring, and strollers paused to see whatever could be happening, as it certainly was not the season for carolers. Children pointed, and shopkeepers came from their shops to see what the noise was all about. Laura’s face was stained a bright pink, but her voice stayed true, which could not be said of Haddy’s bass. At the conclusion, there was scattered applause, and a few coins were tossed at their feet.

  Haddy looked up from the sight of the coppers in the road, and flashed Kenneth a flustered, hostile glare. “Do you see what you have brought us to, fiend? Singing for pennies?”

  Kenneth responded by roaring with laughter, which continued even as he was forced to take to his heels as Haddy came after him, hands outstretched.

  Children darted forward to retrieve the abandoned pennies as the rest of the party followed, also laughing, at a far more leisurely pace.

  “Only look at Kenneth! He has quite lost his dignity,” Laura sniffed as they saw the laughing man disappear between two buildings, Haddy fast on his heels. The color was finally beginning to recede from her face, for the townsfolks’ attention had shifted from her to the two darting gentlemen.

  “Have you only just noticed?” Genevieve grinned.

  “Noticed?” Laura echoed.

  “That we’re all quite losing our dignity.”

  “It’s the nature of the journey we’re on,” Xavier said, chiming in on Genevieve’s lead.

  She nodded at him. “We might as well give in to it and enjoy ourselves.”

  “Give in to it? I was right yesterday, you did strike your head,” Laura said crisply. “Just because we’re on an adventure, as you so care to think of it, doesn’t mean we must behave as complete nodcocks. Look you, Michael, you would never behave so foolishly, would you?”

  “Oh no,” he assured her at once, “not unless there was a wager involved.” He grinned from ear to ear. Laura gave him an exasperated look.

  Genevieve laughed. “I’m merely saying I don’t think we have a choice.”

  As though to punctuate her statement, Kenneth came from an alleyway, spotted a stalking Haddy, and disappeared with a large whoop back the way he’d come.

  Laura stared after him and grimaced. “Perhaps we could abandon them?”

  “I suppose,” Genevieve dimpled, “but I think it would be so much easier to abandon our dignity instead.”

  “I’m surrounded,” Laura conceded when she met smiles all around. “I see the way of this crowd. I have been made to sit in a common room—”

  “And therein kissed a man,” Summer noted, her eyes twinkling.

  “Yes, I’ve been placed in a situation where my personal honor superseded society’s dictates, and I hope I lived up to that challenge.” She nodded at Xavier formally. “So,” she added, smoothing her skirts with both hands and lifting her chin. “If I must forsake propriety, I must.” Then she gave a sudden, impious grin, and cried, “Last partner to the carriage purchases our luncheon.” She grabbed her skirts with both hands and began to run the length of the High Street.

  “I cannot
believe it,” Genevieve cried, her mouth hanging open just like everyone else’s. She was the first to recover, however, and she began to run in pursuit, her laughter trailing her, as did Penelope. Xavier followed the dark girl with his one eye, catching tantalizing glimpses of half boots.

  Summer stood at Xavier’s side, drawing his attention downward to her diminutive self. “Oh dear, we shall lose now, because of me. I’m so slow.” He smiled at her, even if a part of him noted she presumed he’d not abandon her in the street. After all, he wouldn’t.

  “Not at all,” he responded, offering her his arm. “If we hurry, we may win out over Kenneth and Haddy, who, after all and greatly to our advantage, don’t know a wager is on.” They hurried forward, his arm pulling her along gently.

  When they reached the carriage, laughing breathlessly, Michael was already up on the box, and had since paid the two young boys they had set to watch the horses. One of the two still held the head of the leader on the second carriage.

  “Get in,” he cried. “I mean to find Kenneth first, and allow Haddy to be our host for luncheon, ha!”

  “Who shall drive the second?” Xavier asked up at him even as he handed a breathless Summer into the carriage. “I would prefer not to attempt it in town.”

  “We’ll come back for it. We have no idea of our destination, after all, until we solve another clue.”

  Xavier glanced back down the street. “We need to find them soon, I think, before the local magistrates take offense at our public and disorderly ways.” There was a chorus of giggles from inside the carriage. “Ladies. Running in the streets,” he tsked his tongue, but his eye was filled with amusement.

  “Our dignity is forsaken, by virtue of committee vote. We’ll not be taken to task for it at this late date. At least, not until we have returned to civilization,” Penelope told him, leaning forward to pull the door closed.

  “Up, man, or wait behind,” Michael urged, recalling Xavier to himself. As Xavier reached up to mount the box, Michael turned to the boys who were still standing and staring openly. “Here then, another tuppence for you both if you watch that carriage one more time?”

  The boys nodded eagerly, the one moving to take the head of the second horse, next to his mate, as though to demonstrate their continued reliability.

  Kenneth was easily found, hailing them from the doorway of a chandler’s shop. “See what I bought?” he said as he lifted a rectangular shape, showing it to both the men and the ladies with their faces at the open windows of the coach.

  “A lantern?” Laura asked. “Why the expense?”

  He looked at Penelope for a moment, then back at his sister. “We could have used a lantern at the coach when the wheel broke.” He shrugged. “And I thought it was attractive.”

  Laura looked at the lantern a second time. “It just looks like a lantern to me.”

  “But see how well made it is. Sturdy, reliable. See this metalwork here? How there are horizontal marks at even spaces? Now that is subtle, but craftsmanship all the same.”

  Laura hmphed, but chose not to pursue the subject, and Genevieve was glad she let it go. Even a man with little funds available to him needed the occasional expression of his independence, and this was a small and reasonable enough way to find such a little pleasure, surely.

  Haddy was located a minute later, sitting on a large rock, obviously waiting for someone of his party to make an appearance.

  “What? Gave up on the chase?” Michael teased.

  “Got tired of being gaped at by the locals,” Haddy agreed, standing and dusting off his backside.

  “Never mind that, Haddy. We’ve all decided to give up on our dignity,” Xavier said, leaning down to offer a hand.

  Haddy took it, pulling his stalwart frame atop the carriage. Despite his stockier frame, he was adroit, and in a moment was sitting on the roof, legs dangling over. “Have we?”

  “We have.”

  “Might as well.”

  “That is the general consensus.”

  “Just so we don’t slouch into frivolity,” Haddy warned.

  “Heavens, no. We couldn’t have that.”

  “Dreadful stuff, frivolity. People say and do the most doltish things when they think they are being light and humorous.”

  “It’s my experience, Moreland,” Michael said after clucking to the horses, “that people say and do the most doltish things regardless of their humor or the lack of any.”

  “You’re quite right, of course. Which is why we don’t need silliness on top of everything else.”

  “So, we are to have no decorum, accompanied by a lack of buffoonery?” Xavier questioned. He shook his head, grinning. “Sorry, Haddy, it can’t be done. I’m afraid you’re in for a torturous time, for the ladies are determined to be gay.”

  “Gad,” Haddy groaned as the carriage pulled next to the one the local lads yet secured.

  “And, just so you know, you’ve lost a wager by being the last back to the carriage. You owe us all luncheon,” Xavier explained.

  “Devil you say. How can I lose a wager if I didn’t even know it existed?”

  “You must ask Laura that question, although I doubt she’ll ever admit she rather supposed all along that you would be the unfortunate loser.”

  “Laura? Cheeky to bet against her own partner.” Haddy crossed his arms over his chest in a silent protest against either fate or his partner, as Michael tossed the boys their coins. They ran off with their newfound riches, with cries of “Thankee, m’lord!” Haddy unfolded his arms and climbed down, only to mount the second carriage. “Where to?” he asked to the group in general.

  “Hold up. We’ve a clue to solve,” Kenneth called. He jumped down from the men’s coach and approached the ladies’. “It’s Penelope’s turn.” He pulled a white note from his pocket, saw it was the wrong one, and pulled a blue one forth. He made a half-bow to Penelope and reached up to place the note in her hands. “If you will, please.”

  The ladies all leaned forward in their seat to hear.

  “‘It is in the black country you find me.

  Once second only to Canterbury.

  Out of the castle, in the moat went one:

  Richard fled me, but then his time was done.’”

  Penelope followed by this by at once saying, “Oh, I know it! Kenneth, I know it. It’s Lichfield.”

  “Correct,” he said, making an exaggerated swipe of relief with the back of his hand at his brow. “You’ve saved me from a forfeit.”

  He smiled at her, and she smiled back, and for a moment each of the occupants of the carriages fell silent, each sensing that something more was going on than was being said.

  Genevieve interrupted the sudden silence, leaning forward further. “But, Nellie, how did you know?”

  “I’m sure I don’t know how it is that I remember, but I do recall my tutor once said that—oh, hundreds of years ago—that the see of Lichfield was second only to Canterbury’s, in power and prestige and all else that matters. But I confess, I don’t know of which Richard the poem speaks.”

  “The second, actually,” Haddy called from his perch. “Richard the Second. He jumped over the castle wall and made his way through the moat to make his escape. Unfortunately he was recaptured and hence carried to his death.”

  Several of the party exchanged surprised glances.

  As Kenneth pulled a playing card from his pocket, he glanced up at Haddy with satisfaction. “You see, good fellow? Not all my clues are too obscure.”

  “All the ones I have to answer are,” was the acerbic reply.

  Kenneth grinned. “I wish I could say I’d arranged it that way, but it’s merely fate’s fickle touch, you know.”

  “And clearly Fate is telling us to take ourselves to Lichfield,” Haddy said dryly. “I say we get to it.”

  Penelope accepted the playing card, turning it over to expose that it was a queen of diamonds. She looked up at Kenneth, her expression questioning.

  “Because the next c
lue has to do with the acquisition of knowledge,” he told her without further prompting. “The diamond represents riches, although these riches are of the mind rather than the purse.”

  “And why a queen?” she asked.

  Genevieve lifted her eyes from the card, glancing between Penelope and Kenneth, for the woman’s voice had softened.

  Kenneth made no reply for a moment, and the two sets of eyes held across the space of the carriage, but then he gave a small but eloquent shrug. “No particular purpose,” he murmured, and quickly turned away.

  Genevieve rounded on Penelope, but that woman’s eyes had already settled on her reticule where she was tucking the playing card and did not rise.

  “You’ve been given a hint for the next clue,” Summer informed Genevieve. “You already know it has to do with the acquisition of knowledge. You must be sure to tell Michael when next we stop.”

  “Yes, I must,” Genevieve murmured, dragging her attention back to Summer. “Of course.” She looked back to Penelope, who was sitting quietly watching out the window, her hands serenely folded, her expression only mildly thoughtful.

  “Nellie?” she heard herself ask.

  Penelope turned to her, the softness gone now and replaced by the recently more familiar aloofness. “Yes?”

  “What…I mean to say, is everything well?”

  “Well? Why yes. Although, it is a trifle warm today, is it not?”

  “Yes, it is, but I really meant…with Kenneth?”

  “Kenneth?” Penelope blinked, expressionless except for a very slight tightening around her mouth.

  “Are you two getting on…?” Genevieve finished lamely, faced as she was by that smooth set of features.

  “Why, yes,” was Penelope’s simple response as she turned back to the window.

  Was I quite mistaken? Genevieve thought. Had there been no tension in the carriage just a minute ago? Or if there had indeed been some kind of strain between he and she, some wordless exchange occurring, what did such an exchange mean? Was it the natural response to a relationship gone sour…or something else?