The path was a new one for her, though evidently at one time it had been much used. It led through the woods, which were wild and thick and almost as punishing by their closeness as Wicklow had been. She hurried up a hillside toward a clearing. When she reached the spot she realized she had walked to the Wicklow family plot on a rise of land that both overlooked the river and gave a view of the road leading to Williamsburg.
She had not made a good choice of direction if she meant to improve her mood. The air here was still and there was an atmosphere of despair such as one might expect to find in a cemetery. But there was more. There was the disquieting feel of unrest, as if those who lay within the iron gates had not found the peace that death promised.
A high iron fence of ornate Oriental design surrounded the plot. The fence was wrapped in the tangle of a honeysuckle vine that still bore a few stray blooms. A single bee buzzed in a lonely vigil about one of those blossoms to collect the sweet nectar that lent a faint fragrance to the air.
The cemetery itself was nestled inside a copse of small oaks which in the hot afternoon cast gloomy shadows over the weather-darkened gravestones. Amanda felt flushed and warm after the exertion of her walk. She did not like this place. Already she regretted having come. But as she drew near, she was compelled by a rather sudden if morose curiosity to take a closer look at the tombstones. Without hesitating more, she unfastened and swung open the heavy gate.
It was almost as if she had entered a closed-off room, dank and musty with age. The temperature seemed a few degrees cooler inside, but surely that was her imagination: the coolness was caused by the shade, nothing more.
She had meant to visit this place sooner, but somehow had put off doing so. Jubal Wicklow was buried here, and it was a simple matter to tell which was his tombstone. There was one that overshadowed the others both in design and in size and was as ostentatious in its own way as was Wicklow. Almost as prominent as his stone was the empty patch of ground beside it that had been reserved for Evelyn.
Amanda could not make herself walk on that bit of earth. She made her way cautiously around it. Poor Evelyn. Where had her bones come to rest? Had she once hoped to lie beside her husband in eternity?
Just standing by Jubal Wicklow’s grave gave her a shivery feeling. His stone was nearly as tall as a man and carved of gray marble. Formed into the top was a small figure she recognized as a likeness of the Turkish King; above it were the three circles like the windows at Wicklow.
Amanda drew nearer, feeling, oddly, an aura or presence about the place that made the hairs tingle on the back of her neck.
Slowly she knelt before Jubal’s tombstone and scraped away a layer of velvety green moss that had crept up from the ground. A heavy stillness hovered like a grim cloud inside the black iron bars of the cemetery fence. It seemed greatest near the old man’s grave.
“Jubal Wicklow,” she read aloud from the marble pillar that stood like a pagan tower among the simpler tombstones bearing Christian symbols and inscriptions. Below his name she found the dates of his birth and death carved into the stone. Beneath the likeness of the king the word “Guardian” had been carved. Just beneath that was an inscription lettered in Persian.
Slowly she traced a finger over the symbols. Not because she wanted to but because some peculiar prompting made her do so. She believed she had seen the inscription elsewhere, and at last realized it was the same as that written on the base of the Turkish King.
Her curiosity aroused once more, she thought there must be some reason of significance for Jubal Wicklow to have had the passage repeated on his tomb. She determined she would copy the symbols and see if she could find a translation.
If there were any truth to the tale of gold being hidden in the house, it stood to reason that Jubal would have left a clue. It occurred to her . . . No, that was not the case at all. She had not really come to the conclusion without help. Her mind had been guided to believe that the inscription was meaningful.
Amanda rose to her feet. The atmosphere of the graveyard depressed her. She did not think she could stand any more of the gloom of the place. It reeked of heartache.
She decided to walk down to the river and follow its bank back to Wicklow.
But just as she pushed the gate open to leave, she heard the sound of a horse’s hooves on the road below. She knew the rider could not see her because of the shield given by the clump of trees.
And yet she had a clear view of the road for many yards in each direction. Perhaps if the hoofbeats had not stopped, she would not have been prompted to stop and look, but when the rider halted and dismounted, Amanda paused to see if there were some trouble.
She was surprised to see that the rider was a woman dressed in a dark gray riding habit. As she dismounted, she was mostly hidden behind her horse, but Amanda could determine that she had shielded her eyes and was looking about as if uncertain of her direction. Amanda was about to start down the hill to offer assistance when she heard the sound of another horse approaching. Some instinctive feeling made her draw back in the cover of the trees until the second rider galloped into sight. This one she recognized at once. There was no doubt the red-haired man was Gardner, nor that the roan was the gelding he rode.
Gardner dismounted quickly and passionately embraced the woman who waited. They were clear of the horses by this time and the woman had removed her hat, but was still unrecognizable because a scarf she had tied over her hair partially hid her face.
Amanda’s breath caught in her throat. She was filled with a queer apprehension that grew even greater a moment later when the couple led their horses from the road and into the forest. Uneasily she latched the gate behind her and hurried along the path to Wicklow, having abruptly forgotten her desire to walk by the river.
She knew she had witnessed an assignation, and suddenly she was remembering the woman she had seen in the window that first day Gardner had come to Wicklow. Was it the same woman who had impersonated her and claimed the emerald earrings in Williamsburg?
She broke into a near-run before she reached the house, the dull, nagging edge of doubt racking her mind. Had she been suspicious of the wrong brother all along? Who was the woman Gardner had met secretly? She wished she had been able to glimpse that mysterious face.
As Amanda ran up the broad steps, Wicklow seemed unnaturally quiet and repelling. The sun was beginning to slide from the evening sky, and as she entered, she found the hall dark. For a moment she had the sensation she might be stepping into a dark tunnel from which she would never emerge. She knew immediately she would find no one else inside and was struck as suddenly by how starkly alone she actually was.
She would have welcomed even Ezra’s annoying squawks and recitations as she climbed the dark stairs, but he too had deserted her. She felt, as she never had, the vastness of Wicklow, its size and silence, its strangeness seeming to mock the emptiness in her life.
It was true she had filled the house with people, but none of those staying at Wicklow were bound to her by more than the urgency of their own needs. Now she wondered too if there were not among them some involved in a plot to oust her from the house.
She was convinced beyond a doubt that both Ryne and Gardner believed there was gold hidden in the house, and one of them wanted her out of the way in order to find it. Which one? How would she know which one? She lay down upon the bed and buried her head in the pillow. She needed a plan to protect herself . . . if it were possible to do so alone.
***
“She is sleeping so soundly I hadn’t the heart to awaken her,” Emma reported as she returned to the dining room, having come down from Amanda’s room.
“Is she ill?” Trudy asked.
She sat next to Ryne. Gardner was at the head of the table and Emma at his left. Trudy was smiling and radiant, having been barraged by a steady outpouring of compliments from Ryne since she had come downstairs.
“Poor dear looks exhausted,” Emma went on as she took it upon herself to direct Gardner’
s Mrs. Campbell to begin serving dinner. “All that worry over the jewelry being taken, you know. Upset her badly. Worse than she lets on.”
“A baffling puzzle,” Gardner commented as he swirled the contents of his wineglass in a slow circle before tasting it. “My bet is one of Mother’s former servants came searching for the jewelry, found the receipt by chance, and seized upon the opportunity to claim the emeralds.”
Trudy’s eyes dropped to her lap beneath the arresting smile and penetrating blue gaze of Ryne’s eyes.
“Meet me in the garden . . . midnight,” he whispered to Trudy as Emma turned her head to Mrs. Campbell and ordered that a tray be prepared for Amanda. When Emma looked around, Ryne spoke up loudly. “What other explanation could there be?”
Trudy giggled behind her napkin as Ryne caught her eye and again exchanged a private message with her.
Emma’s brows raised disapprovingly. She shot Trudy a dispraising glance which seemed to have a withering effect on the girl. Trudy’s smile disappeared and she began to toy with the food before her as if her appetite too had vanished.
Ryne, however, was undaunted by Emma’s censuring glance and continued his fond perusal of Trudy.
He quite blatantly placed his hand over Trudy’s on the table and said, “I would like for you to ride with me tomorrow, Trudy. Would you?”
Trudy’s lips quivered slightly and spots of color rose to her cheeks. “I shall have to ask my aunt’s permission,” she mumbled.
Ryne’s mouth spread into a grin of amusement. “Have you any objection, Mrs. Jones?”
Emma focused her remonstrative gaze steadily on his face.
“Perhaps another time, Mr. Sullivan. Too much sun isn’t advisable for a young lady, you know.”
Ryne raised Trudy’s hand halfway to his lips and squeezed it. “Another time,” he said softly, cocking his head to one side. “Another time.”
Gardner watched with interest the drama played out before him and smiled inwardly at seeing his brother crash against a stone wall in an attempt to make a conquest of Trudy Cole. He could charm the girl but he could not fool the aunt, and she would have no part of his schemes.
Emma Jones would like to snare Ryne for Trudy, but as a husband, not as a paramour.
He watched Ryne down a glass of wine and signal for another. A woman would be Ryne’s undoing too—a sort of family curse, he supposed.
Gardner was lost in thought, his jaw line tight as he explored a problem that weighed on him like a millstone. He did not hear Emma speaking to him until she had called his name a second time.
“Mr. O’Reilly, what is your opinion? Do you believe your grandfather had a cache of gold in this house?”
Gardner caught the deep gleam of interest in Emma’s black-button eyes. The topic of conversation always came around to the hidden gold among those who were new to Wicklow. That his grandfather had pirated a fortune in gold coin and hidden it at Wicklow when the house was built was a rumor that would not die.
Gardner drew in a deep, thoughtful breath but his expression remained sober. As a matter of fact, he did believe the rumor. He had recently found reference to the gold in papers his mother had entrusted to him before her death. But he decided, as a matter of caution, that that opinion was best kept to himself.
“Well, Mrs. Jones,” he answered slowly, “I think my grandfather was a man who enjoyed creating a sensation in any way possible. You need only to look round this house to see to what lengths he would go for that end. It is likely he started the rumor of gold himself, and equally as likely it has no basis. Keep in mind that two generations of Wicklow descendants have failed to find any treasure.”
Ryne laughed. “My brother does not tell you that as youths he and I nearly took this house apart plank by plank in search of that gold. If Grandfather did hide gold here, he did it exceedingly well and left no clue.” Ryne tilted back his head and downed the entire contents of his wineglass in one swallow.
“If gold were found now, it would belong to Miss Fairfax, would it not?” Emma smiled comfortably and served another helping of yams to her plate.
“It would,” Gardner admitted. “But the Wicklow gold has no more substance than those ghosts who are said to haunt the house.” He laughed. “You have not been confronted by them, have you, Mrs. Jones?”
“I am not superstitious, Mr. O’Reilly. I find it much easier to believe in gold than ghosts.” Emma laid aside her fork and dabbed her mouth with a napkin. “It might interest you to know that Miss Fairfax believes she has a found a clue which confirms the story of hidden gold. Is that not so, Trudy?”
A blush came easily to Trudy’s fair skin. “Yes,” she answered in an almost nervous voice, giving the impression that she was just a little afraid of her aunt. “Amanda found a ship’s log kept by your grandfather. One entry states that a chest of gold was secreted out of an Eastern country and brought to Virginia.”
“And does it tell more about the gold?” Ryne asked.
“No,” Trudy said. “The writing is faded and difficult to read. We have not gotten beyond that account. Your grandfather was fond of inserting poetry in the midst of an entry, and that has absorbed our interest as well.”
“Poetry, you say,” Gardner commented lightly, though his fingers were gripping the stem of his glass so tightly the knuckles stood out. “You must keep us posted,” he went on. “If you find another mention of the gold, perhaps I can be convinced my grandfather did not originate those rumors as a prank.”
“But beware,” Ryne chimed in, his voice unsteady from the wine he had consumed. “If the tale of the gold is true, it stands to reason that the ghosts exist as well. We might find the treasure guarded by the ghost of Grandfather Jubal himself. I have heard he was a heartless bastard to his enemies.”
“Mr. Sullivan!” Emma exclaimed.
A wry grin appeared on Ryne’s face as he made a half-bow from his chair.
“Forgive me, madam, Trudy. I have let my manners lapse. Curse of the Wicklow blood, I suppose.” He laughed loudly.
Gardner shook his head. “Perhaps we should find another topic if this one is going to cause my brother to cut a sorry figure in the presence of ladies.”
***
“Bloody hell, Ryne. Just what is it you are after here?” Gardner growled. “Must you lust for the girl right under Amanda’s nose? Even a blackguard like you ought to have more feeling. After what you’ve done to Amanda . . .”
Emma had sent Trudy upstairs about an hour after dinner and then had gone to Amanda’s room with a tray. Gardner and Ryne found themselves alone together in the study.
“Just what have I done to Amanda?” Ryne walked slowly to the table that held a tray of crystal decanters. He poured a generous glass of brandy for himself.
Ryne contrasted his brother like darkness to daylight, needing only a mask to make him appear a bandit in his black waistcoat, shirt, and breeches.
Gardner scowled as he removed and tossed aside a coat of pale blue velvet piped in gold braid. In his tan breeches and cream brocade waistcoat he looked totally the gentleman in company with an irascible highwayman. He shook. Ryne was forever exasperating.
The night was quiet and still, almost stifling outside, but the atmosphere in the library was as charged as the air before a storm, so great was the hostility between the brothers.
Gardner deliberately held his temper in check until Ryne left the table to pace across the floor. A moment later he went to the table and poured a snifter of brandy for himself. He took a long swallow.
“Don’t play the simpleton with me, Ryne,” he drawled. “I know you too well. You’ve seduced the girl.”
“The devil I have.” Ryne spun around. “Is that what she told you?”
Gardner gave him a cold look. “She told me it wasn’t your fault. But I know your game.”
Ryne’s temper eased. He took a slow sip of brandy.
“She admitted having been bedded?”
“She did not deny it.”
<
br /> “I suppose that knowledge ended your interest in her.”
Gardner scoffed. “That knowledge prompted me to ask for her hand in marriage.”
“How noble you are, brother.” Ryne shrugged nonchalantly but his eyes had become hard and cold as glass.
“When is the wedding to be?” he asked, turning his back to Gardner and gulping the remainder of his brandy.
“She declined.”
“She did what!”
“She declined,” he repeated. “And it’s just as well,” he mumbled under his breath.
“What’s that?” Ryne asked.
“Nothing.” Gardner scowled. “Nothing.” He drained the last of his brandy from the glass and set it aside. It would have been a dreadful mistake if he had married Amanda. At least luck had been with him that she had not agreed to his hasty offer.
“What does this mean?” Ryne asked. “If it’s some trick between the two of you—”
“Damn you, Ryne!” Gardner slammed his glass to the tabletop. “I don’t know why I bothered with you. What I do know is that I’ve enjoyed about all your company that I can stand in one night. I’ll leave you an open road to your midnight rendezvous with Trudy.” He laughed. “And I hope that stern-faced aunt of hers leads you to the altar by the nose.”
Ryne glared angrily at his brother, but Gardner had already turned his back and was storming out of the room. Ryne cursed and kicked a leather ottoman so hard it crashed into a bookcase and knocked two volumes from the shelf. Damn Gardner and that green-eyed vixen. They were going to ruin his carefully laid plans. And neither of them knew just how dangerous that could be.
Still cursing beneath his breath, Ryne poured himself another few swallows of brandy and drank it down slowly. He had to be careful. Any more and he would not be clearheaded enough to do what must be done before morning.
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