Cassolette

The train lurched forward slowly across the prairies, through clouds of billowing snowflakes. She just wanted to look at him, at his sleek black hair and perfect physique. To drink in the sheer intoxicating maleness of him, and the subtle scent of his aftershave.

  He, too, seemed hesitant to touch her. It was as close to a sacred moment, mutually shared, that either one had ever experienced before, or would again.

  "Oh, my darling." It was Jaye who broke the silence at last, standing on tip toes to kiss his mouth, his eyes, and his neck.

  They took their time building the tension, sensing that this was an extraordinary moment. At once it was heavily erotic, yet with almost religious undertones.

  Guy bathed her with his tongue, circling her nipples with his finger until they were rigid as holly berries, and glowed as rosily.

  "God, I want to taste you, it's been too long," Jaye moaned and took the entire length of his rigid shaft into her avid mouth.

  The train rocked them gently and its whistle screeched out forlornly across the lonely landscape.

  When he finally entered her she felt as if she'd been made whole at last, like a completed jigsaw puzzle. All the pieces fitting nicely into place, after a long time getting solved.

  "Oh, yes…yes…" she cried, enraptured. She marveled at how he stayed with her, although his passion was almost agonizing, until they both reached their zenith together in one long protracted shuddering rush.

  This then, was what had been missing in her encounters with the other men. This marvellous feeling of total bonding that defied all attempts at description. * * * Bell Island huddled secretively under a heavy blanket of snow, looking lonely and forlorn after all the frantic publicity of just a few months before. Jaye paid the taxi driver and let herself into Adelaide's house, just as a foghorn from the socked in harbor boomed out through the frigid air.

  It was good to be back, she decided, unpacking her suitcases before making a pot of tea. Then she drew the curtains against the fast approaching darkness and switching on the living room lamps. It was while shopping for groceries the next day that she bumped into Scott. "How long have you been back?" he asked, his green eyes unfathomable

  beneath slightly raised brows. "Just yesterday," she replied, feeling a little awkward at this unexpected

  meeting. This was one of her former lovers whom she suspected of perfidy. But was that as Joanna had suggested, just the incredible strain of the days leading up to the treasure find?

  "Look can we go somewhere and have coffee?" he asked hesitantly, as if fully expecting to be rebuffed. Jaye's changed attitude towards him had been evident from the start.

  "Sure, why not?" she agreed, after only the slightest pause. As it was almost noon, they ended up in the Ploughman Arms for an excellent soup and sandwich lunch.

  "Why the change, Jaye?" he asked her without preamble after they had finished the meal. "It just seemed to me that one minute everything was going great for us, and the next…well, you know better than I what that was about?"

  "Sorry Scott, I guess it was all the pressure and stress of the treasure hunt," she responded evasively. She didn't wish to insult this erstwhile lover by voicing her suspicions in regard to his motives and loyalties. But Scott wasn't as easily fobbed off as that. "It was as if you ceased to trust me as a friend," he told her bluntly. "And I

  have no idea why that would be." "Oh, alright then," Jaye answered a bit impatiently, stirring her tea with an agitated flick of the wrist. She leveled with him about her discovery of Martha Wilk's papers relating to Judge Absalom Percy, and why he hadn't seen fit to tell her about such an invaluable source. "You knew I was interested in anything relating to the Judge and his possible involvement with Bell Island."

  Scott looked taken aback, and covered up his discomfiture by taking a long sip of his tea. "Brad contacted me," he admitted at last, "and asked that I didn't give you any encouragement to start explorations on Bell Island."

  "But why, for heaven's sake?" Jaye demanded angrily. Then lowered her voice when she caught the disapproving looks from nearby tables.

  "Because he was trying to prevent you from making, what he thought at the time, was a disastrous move financially." "And you agreed with him, I suppose?" Scott nodded and pushed his cup away. "Yes, and so did Chris." "So it was just my welfare you three…musketeers were concerned about. Not

  any financial ambitions of your own?" "What on earth are you taking about? I mean apart from writing another very successful book about the treasure find, what would I, or either of the other two have to gain?"

  Jaye took a deep, ragged breath and tried to calm herself. "Which one of you is John Dorian?" she asked bluntly. "Or is that just a cover name used by all three?"

  For a heavily tense moment Scott did not speak. In fact, he appeared bereft of the ability. "I think you must be quite mad," he retorted at last. Then he paid for the meal by slamming a few dollars down on the table, got up, and left. * * * Over the next few days she had similar confrontations with both Chris and Brad. Both insisted that their advice to not go ahead with explorations on Bell Island were for her welfare only, and had no ulterior motive.

  "I think you need a long rest," Brad suggested somewhat testily, pouring them both a king-sized whiskey from the cocktail cabinet in his lounge.

  From where she sat, Jaye could see the lights of Vancouver, sparkling through a snowy evening like fairy lights on a forest of Christmas trees.

  "I apologize if I offended you," she conceded, taking a grateful sip at the power packed drink. "But this has been playing on my mind for so long, that it just had to be said."

  He did admit to deliberately stalling on getting the injunction overturned. "As I've said before, Jaye, I thought that you were about to make the biggest financial disaster possible. Throwing away millions of dollars into a project that had yielded not a sou in over two-hundred years."

  When he tried to make love to her later in the evening, she extricated herself gracefully but firmly. "Still don't trust me, eh?" he asked pensively. To which Jaye shook her head, while gathering up her coat and scarf. Because her reasons for not sleeping with Brad had nothing to do with trust, but everything to do with the blessed reunion she had had with Guy. On a train rattling across the snow enshrouded prairies. "I've met someone…" she was about to say. But then changed it to "I've rediscovered someone, and he's really quite special." * * * Chris was equally dismayed and defensive when Jaye postulated her suspicions to him. They were sitting in his office at the Municipal Museum, on an ice-whipped day in late January.

  "Now let me get this straight," he said slowly, and his stammer was quite evident. "You think that I'm John Dorian of Midas Holdings?"

  "I'm saying that it's possible," Jaye hedged, while rubbing at an itchy spot on her knee. "I believe that Dorian has to be someone that I know." "And why is that, for God's sake?" "Because someone with as much interest in Bell Island as he had would never

  stay at a distance from the scene of the action." Chris seemed more hurt than Brad had been, and less angry. "How could you suspect me of something like that?" he asked miserably. "Good God, Jaye, you were so special to me…still are."

  And he expounded as the others had done about the reasons he had tried to discourage her from the treasure hunt. "We all thought you were making a terrible mistake," he stressed unhappily. "And were just trying to save you from total financial ruin." * * * "Do you believe them?" Joanna asked, on a calm midnight that was swirling

  with silvery snowflakes. Jaye had telephoned her in a fit of pique and uncertainty. "I'm not sure," she replied honestly. Although she just couldn't imagine the three men joined in a conspiracy to cheat her out of Bell Island, so that they themselves could buy it and recover the treasure, she still wasn't completely convinced of their innocence.

  "If only the elusive and sinister John Dorian would present himself to me," she said to Joanna, only half in jest. "Then the matter would be laid to rest in my mind once and for all."

  That that w
ish would soon be granted, and in the most unexpected way, she had no way of knowing. * * * The snow, which had been drifting down intermittently all night, left a glistening white mantle in its wake. Jaye donned her ski boots and gear, setting out for a walk through the unblemished landscape, the icy air bracing as it stung her nose and cheeks.

  The evergreens seemed to sigh as they shook off the excess snow from their branches, sending it drifting down in clouds to the silent ground below.

  It felt very isolated and lonely, with only the trees for company. For not even the tiny furry creatures, or the birds in their nests had ventured forth as yet.

  So it was with a degree of surprise mingled with pleasure that Jaye heard the sound of barking coming from the direction of Angus' old place. It must be Ben, she thought at once. But then she dismissed the idea immediately. What on earth would Angus be doing back at a rundown shack, now that he was a wealthy man?

  But it was indeed Ben, who rushed to meet her through the heavy snow. His paws sinking in so deeply in places that it momentarily halted his progress.

  "Hello there, boy, it's lovely to see you," she greeted the friendly canine warmly, nuzzling his nose with hers, as she rubbed his ears. "Where is your master then? Is he inside?"

  "Come on in, lassie, I was just making a pot of tea," Angus invited from the doorway. "And I baked a few muffins earlier as well."

  "Are you living here again, Angus?" Jaye asked in some surprise, kicking the snow from her boots before stepping inside.

  "Aye, that I am," he admitted rather sheepishly. Then he added defensively, "But not for long I'm sure."

  It seemed that Angus got fed up with his new luxurious way of life, and hankered after the simple cabin that he'd called home for so many years.

  "I felt much the same way," Jaye confided, sipping on the tea while warming her frozen fingers round the cup. "And I ended up back in Toronto living in a cramped apartment above my old place of business."

  "Roots, lassie," Angus stated, shaking his head. "We canny escape them altogether, no matter how hard we might try. For this old shack has meaning for me. I'm connected to it in a way that I could never be to the new place."

  Jaye noticed that Angus had put on weight, and the added paunch gave him a stoutly affluent look. As if reading her thoughts, he patted his stomach and said that he intended to lose weight. "Too much of the good life, is not so good after all," he said ruefully.

  This statement seemed to open up a well of emotion in Jaye, who had been so conflicted for so long. She told him about her suspicions regarding the men in her life, and how she believed that one of them had to know, or actually be, the sinister John Dorian.

  "So you've been busy, lassie," Angus said with more than a touch of disapproval. "Jumping to all sorts of conclusions, based on no sound evidence."

  "But there were…indications," Jaye argued. "Their resistance to my digging for treasure chief amongst them."

  Angus bit into a muffin that he had spread thickly with butter and chewed it thoroughly before answering. "That was just to try and stop you throwing away your aunt's fortune on a

  wild goose chase," he insisted, shaking his head as if to clear it. "You can't know that," Jaye defended herself rather sulkily, pouring another

  cup of tea from the blue enamel pot, and licking jam from her fingers. "Oh, can't I, now?" Angus countered cryptically, his bulbous eyes inscrutable

  in the flickering firelight. And as Jaye started at him uncomprehending, the truth which had been so

  elusive in presenting itself became all too apparent. "It was you," she said in a shocked tone, barely above a whisper. But her eyes were questioning rather than accusing. "I never even considered you as a possible suspect. My God, I must be slipping."

  "I notice you didn't ask me why," Angus stated, in a ridiculously matter of fact way, considering the circumstances.

  "Because I already know. It dawned on me as soon as I realized that you were John Dorian."

  For who had a better motive for keeping up the heat on the owners of Bell Island? Angus was desperate to keep the dig going, so first with Adelaide then with herself, he had conjured up this Dorian character to reinforce the belief that there was, indeed, a vast treasure buried there, and that Midas Holding was willing to pay a hefty price to prove it.

  "You must have been very sure of me," Jaye remarked icily. "That I wouldn't agree to sell the Island to Dorian, I mean." Then she added as an afterthought, "What would you have done if I'd said yes to the offer?"

  Angus looked bewildered and scratched at his chin. "I'd have crossed that bridge when I came to it, lassie."

  The ruse, of course, had had the desired effect. It spurred on both Jaye and Adelaide to hold onto the island and search for the treasure.

  "But how could you lead me to believe that Aunt Adelaide was murdered by Dorian?" Jaye demanded. that was the truly wicked part of the deception that she found it difficult to forgive.

  "I'm sorry, lassie," Angus replied, looking truly contrite. "That was a bit beyond the pale, but I was desperate to have that dig go ahead." When Jaye didn't reply he added, "It's what Adelaide wanted…the dig to go on, I mean."

  "So she must have slipped after all, as the inquest found, and lost her footing on the rocks," Jaye said moodily. Angus nodded his head quite vigorously in agreement. * * * "I feel just awful about suspecting Brad, Scott, and Chris," Jaye admitted when she telephoned Joanna later on that evening. "I'm going to have to apologize."

  "Why, that crafty old rogue," Joanna declared. "I hope you gave him a piece of your mind."

  "Well I did, and I didn't," Jaye admitted conflictingly. She had been so relieved that it hadn't, after all, been one of her erstwhile lovers who had betrayed her. "It's just one big nasty ghost that can finally be laid to rest," she added. "And talking of ghosts," Joanna prompted. "Have you seen your specter with

  the cape and tricorn hat lately?" "No I haven't," Jaye answered with obvious relief. "And I sincerely hope that I won't ever again." For the memory of the strange figure still intruded on her dreams. Along with the uncertainty of whether he had been real, meaning of the flesh and blood variety. Or indeed a specter from another dimension.

  "You wouldn't know anything about him, would you?" she had questioned Angus closely. But the scheming old Scot insisted that he was completely innocent of any hanky panky in that quarter.

  "A Celt doesn't fool around with the spirits, lassie," he had insisted with such profundity of feeling that she had to believe him. "They don't take kindly to being mocked in that way."

  "So that's one part of the Bell Island mystery that will remain unsolved," Joanna mused. "Darn, and I hate loose ends so much."

  The conversation then turned to matters of the heart, and of Guy Chartrand in particular.

  "But he is quite a bit younger than you," Joanna reminded her. "And you don't even know how you'll feel about him when he's not surrounded by that infernal train. Isn't that part of the allure, after all?"

  "Well, I'll find out soon enough," Jaye laughed. For she had just heard Guy pull up outside in a taxi.

  Epilogue

  The Ploughman Arms was emptying out after the lunch time rush. Jaye finished her salad and gazed out the window at a vibrant spring day. Cherry blossoms were in bloom everywhere and tulips and daffodils graced the parks and gardens.

  It was here that she had first seen the disturbing portrait of Nathaniel York, who was the mirror image of the man who had haunted her. She shivered despite the warmth of the afternoon, recalling the otherworldly nature of the figure that had appeared at her gate, wearing a long dark cloak and tricorn hat.

  She resolved to take another look at the portrait, and was surprised and more than a little dismayed to find it gone. In its place, above the solid granite fireplace, there hung a landscape of Pendle Harbor with the rocky cliffs leading down to the sea beyond.

  "Where is the portrait that used to hang above the fireplace?" she asked the manager, whom she caught in his o
ffice eating a hasty sandwich. "The one of Nathaniel York."

  "Oh, that was taken back by the owner," he explained, obviously puzzled by Jaye's agitation. "It was only on loan."

  She immediately wanted to know who owned it, assuming it would be York's descendants. "No, it was the subject of the portrait," he replied, shaking his head. "But, Nathaniel York lived over two-hundred years ago," Jaye protested. The manager laughed and scratched his ear. "Well, he was very well preserved then, wasn't he?" he quipped. Then explained that it had been a selfportrait done by the artist.

  So it hadn't been Nathaniel York who posed for the portrait at all, but a present day individual who couldn't possibly have known what York looked like. For there were no other portraits of him, as far as Jaye knew.

  And she knew, instinctively, that this was the man who had appeared at her gate in cape and tricorn hat, and had scared the living daylights out of her.

  But who was he, and why, were the questions that she meant to get an answer to. * * * His name was Daniel Forbes and he lived on the Old Coast Highway, about three miles from Pendle Harbor. As soon as Forbes opened the door, she could see that he was the same living breathing man who had stood at her gate all those months ago.

  "What on earth induced you to do such a wicked thing?" Jaye demanded without preamble.

  "Sorry," Forbes muttered sheepishly, utterly taken aback by the shock of the moment. "I wanted to scare you away," he admitted afterwards, as they sat on opposite sides of an empty fireplace in a room that was part artist's studio, part lounge. "I'm an ardent environmentalist, a member of the Green Alliance actually, and I just didn't want to witness any more destruction of Bell Island in the name of greed."

  "And what made you think that whomever I sold the Island to—had your ruse worked—wouldn't dig it up as well? After all, that was the big lure of Bell Island."

  "Well I didn't, of course," Forbes conceded. "But first things first. I resolved to cross that bridge, if and when I came to it."

  He told her then that he was a descendant of Nathaniel York through the female line, as if this somehow excused his outrageous actions. So Jaye seized the opportunity to question him about the inscripted stone, the one that had been found by the early searchers buried deep in the treasure pit.