Scoundrel's Daughter

by Margo Maguire

  “Stow it,” Alastair hissed. “We’ll talk later. I don’t want…” He gestured with his head and shoulders, and Dorothea could not tell if he meant it as a shrug or if he was indicating that he didn’t want her to hear what Neville was going to say.

  She had a suspicion that it was the latter.

  Dorothea settled into a corner of the wagon bed and drew her legs under her, thinking that perhaps, if they didn’t notice her, they would forget she was there and speak freely again. But they rode on for quite a distance in silence.

  When the wagon stopped, Neville jumped down and told her to get out. Paco got out of the wagon and pointed to a steep hill. “We go there,” he said.

  Dorothea groaned inwardly. She knew she could not make it, especially after the night she’d had. Her heart had beat erratically and, just as her mother had predicted, she had suffered the ill effects of too much exertion. She did feel better at the moment, but she knew that the terrifying hunger for air could easily return.

  Alastair did not seem to have much patience for her weakness and did not even glance her way as he drove the wagon up the steep path.

  “Come on, girl,” Neville said harshly. “Ain’t got all night.”

  The moon was a bare sliver in the sky, and its light was frequently obscured by clouds. Somehow, though, Dorothea managed to follow the men up the hill without falling and rolling all the way back down. The others were well ahead of her by the time she reached the top. At that point, she was able to follow the light that emanated from the broken windows in a battered old house.

  She approached it warily, carefully pushing the door open. The house had obviously been abandoned for many a generation and was little more than a hovel on a hill. Dorothea tried not to judge her father by these surroundings, but she was beginning to think that Jack might not have been entirely mistaken about Alastair.

  He kept company with two ruffians, and he dug up the ancient manor house in the dead of night and without permission.

  It didn’t seem right, but perhaps it was difficult to find men who would leave their homes and travel all over the world so that Alastair could pursue his quest for ancient treasures. Perhaps her father was no happier about the men who worked for him but had had to settle on these two out of necessity.

  “You’ll want to bed down in the back,” Alastair said. “There’s still a blanket in there, isn’t there, Nev?”

  The other man nodded, and Alastair tipped his head toward the room, gesturing her into it.

  “Father,” she said. “I’d hoped to ask you…You spoke of things my mother told you—”

  “Go on, girl,” Alastair said brusquely. “Out of here while I make some plans.”

  Chagrined at being brushed off so easily, Dorothea retreated into the other room. She found a blanket on the rotted floor and wrapped it around her shoulders, though she wasn’t cold. She supposed she did it out of habit more than anything, and then it occurred to her to wonder why she did not feel cold. Nor was she short of breath.

  She placed her hand on her heart. It was beating normally, without palpitations, as she would have expected after such exertion.

  It was strange. Dorothea should have felt awful, but she did not. She felt strong and healthy, as if there was no obstacle she could not overcome.

  She glanced around the dark room and saw no furniture. There was a dankness to the place that made Dorothea’s skin crawl, but she knew she could do nothing until her father finished with his men. Then she would ask him what she needed to know.

  They kept their voices low in the other room, and their furtive tones made the hairs on the back of Dorothea’s neck rise. She crept closer to them in order to hear what was being said and considered herself fortunate that the floor was mostly dirt and did not creak.

  “—too sickly to bother with us,” she heard her father say. “She won’t be a problem.”

  “Then we get the cloth to Salim Zengui tomorrow, and he pays us right away,” Neville said. “We don’t wait for any middleman, agreed?”

  “Nine thousand pounds,” said Paco, his voice deep and curt. “In three parts, Bright.”

  “Three equal parts,” added Neville.

  “All right, all right,” her father said in a harsh whisper. “You’ll get your money. And we won’t hand over the cloth until the Turk pays up. Satisfied? We take the cloth down to the cove—wave a torch. Zengui will send a boat.”

  “He better have the cash on his little boat, or he won’t be seein’ no cloth.”

  “I promise you, he will,” Alastair said. “I’ve dealt with him before.”

  Dorothea could not believe her ears. Jack had been right all along. Her father was exactly the rascal Jack described.

  “Dis cloth have power,” Paco said. “Zengui…He will burn it.”

  “He can hang it in his privy for all I care,” Neville said. “I just want my money. It ain’t been no garden party, chasin’ after Temple all week and then diggin’ half the night in the rain.”

  “You’re lucky we didn’t have to dig for a week,” Alastair said. “I’m the one who knew where the wall would be. I’m the one who pointed us in the right direction.”

  “Not until yer brat figured out the clues.”

  Thoroughly disgusted, Dorothea considered confronting them all at once, but realized that was a foolhardy notion. These men intended to make a great deal of money with the sale of the Mandylion and would not take Dorothea’s interference lightly.

  She wished Jack were here to help her figure out what to do. Somehow, she had to get the cloth back and into Jack’s hands. Perhaps then he would forgive her for being such a blind, trusting idiot. She felt sick about the way she had defended her father while she doubted Jack’s story. All her life, she had trusted everything her mother had told her, including the stories about Alastair.

  Obviously, Honoria had known Alastair well, but had kept the truth to herself. It wasn’t just his wanderlust that had made them incompatible. Her mother must have been aware of Alastair’s chicanery and refused to live with it.

  Unfortunately, she had been less than candid with Dorothea, who wondered what other things Honoria had kept from her.

  Retreating into the back room, Dorothea sat on the floor. She raised her knees and laid her head on them, pretending to doze. If her father happened to come in, she wanted him to believe she’d been asleep all through their discussion. She did not fear any reprisal from Alastair, but she was not so certain about the other two men. To Dorothea, they did not seem like fine, upstanding Englishmen.

  Unfortunately, neither did her father.

  A couple of very long, uncomfortable hours passed and Dorothea finally heard the sound of snores coming from the other room. She stood up, dropped the blanket and stretched to get the blood flowing in her arms and legs.

  She crept toward the front of the house and listened for any sounds besides those that would be made by sleeping men. When she dared, she peeked around the corner.

  In the faint light coming in through the window, she saw that all three were lying on the floor. Her father snored loudly, while Neville’s snores were much quieter. Paco made no sound, and Dorothea stood watching him for several long minutes to assure herself that he was asleep before she ventured into the room.

  She was going to run away, but not until she found the Mandylion to take with her.

  It was next to Alastair. He lay flat on his back, with one arm folded over his chest, the other at his side. The silver rod lay beside him, within easy reach of his hand, and Dorothea knew that he must have fallen asleep holding it.

  Silently, she moved toward him, afraid to breathe.

  She closed her hand around the ornate silver shaft and felt the same heat as before. Confidence welled in her heart, and she slipped away as quietly as she’d come in. Without a sound, Dorothea returned to her place in the back room. She did not attempt to leave through the main door, because she remembered it had stuck when they’d first come in and was likely to be
stuck now. One push and everyone would awaken.

  There had to be some other way out.

  She closed her eyes and took a few deep breaths, forcing herself to stay calm. She was not trapped here. There was a way out. Perhaps she could crawl through a broken window or a rotted door somewhere.

  Dorothea only knew that she had to get back to Jack, and she wanted to take the Mandylion with her.

  Somehow, she was going to have to search the house for an exit. All the windows in the back room were broken, with edges of jagged glass protruding from the window frames. Dorothea attempted to raise the sash, but the wood would not budge.

  Carrying the Mandylion, Dorothea took a few steps toward the room in front. A short passage led to another room on the opposite side, and she decided to explore it.

  Moonlight shone in, better than in the other rooms, and Dorothea examined each of the windows. Only one was passable, but not without some danger of being cut. Dorothea returned to the other room and picked up the blanket she’d thrown around her shoulders. She wrapped one hand with the thick wool and took hold of the longest piece of glass. Closing her eyes, she held on tight.

  It seemed as if her heart stopped when the snap of the glass reached her ears. She did not know if the sound woke anyone but wasted no time in climbing out through the window. She landed heavily on the wet ground outside and did not stop. She gathered her skirts in one hand, the Mandylion in the other and ran.

  It occurred to Dorothea that she had the strength of a healthy woman as she ran. Her heart pumped, her lungs took in air. Nothing was amiss as she exerted herself far beyond anything she’d ever done.

  Yet just a few short hours ago, she had lain in the wagon bed under a filthy canvas tarpaulin in desperate distress. Her heart would not slow, and she had felt as if she were drowning. Now she felt renewed. Whole.

  She pressed the Mandylion to her breast and kept running. The steep hill she’d climbed earlier was difficult to descend, but with care, she made it to the bottom. She could hear the ocean next to her and knew she was on the right path. Following the sound of the surf, she continued running in a southerly direction and knew that she could keep on running as long as it took, to get back to Jack.

  If necessary, she would kneel and beg his forgiveness. She had been stupid to offer her loyalty so blindly to Alastair, especially when she knew how honorable and ethical Jack Temple was. He had taken special care of her, even though she’d insulted him and insinuated that he was no more than a scoundrel who wanted to cheat her father out of his rightful prize.

  Never again would she question his character, his honor. He had proven a hundred times over that he was a virtuous, reputable man, and Dorothea loved him. And if he would allow it, she would be honored to join Jack on his future expeditions.

  A loud crack behind Dorothea made her turn to see what had made the sound. It was Paco, and he was not far behind. The turn threw her off balance, and she fell to her knees.

  Quickly scrambling up, she started to run again, but he grabbed her. “You don’ take what’s Paco’s,” he said.

  He raised his hand to her and then everything went black.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Jack stood looking at the ruins of Clyfton Castle and wondered why Dorothea and her father weren’t here. With Jack in direct competition for the rights to excavate the site, he could not understand why Alastair was not here already, staking his claim.

  Gazing out at the sea in the distance, he had to admit that he had never given Dorrie any reason to believe he was a better man than her father. For all she knew, Jack was an adventurer just like Alastair, a man with no roots, no loyalties beyond his next acquisition and the money it would bring him. He should have told her the truth. His university credentials would have proved that he was a reputable man.

  Jack mounted his horse and rode back toward the hotel, then changed his mind and took the path that went into town. Dorrie knew that he had received exclusive permission from Marjorie Browning to excavate the castle site. Either Alastair planned to wait until Jack and his men unearthed the Mandylion so that he could steal it from him, or there was another site that Jack did not know about.

  It was much too early to visit the vicarage, but Jack didn’t see that he had any choice. He’d been up all night, worried about Dorrie. By her own admission, she did not know Alastair.

  But Jack did. And he didn’t trust the old scoundrel to take care of her.

  The front door of the vicarage opened and a matron, wearing a dark blue gown and a crisp white apron appeared. “Yes, sir?” she asked politely.

  “I know it’s early, but…would Reverend Browning or Mrs. Browning be available?”

  “Why, the Reverend has already left for church, sir,” the housekeeper said. “Mrs. Browning is taking her breakfast with the children.”

  The cumbersome etiquette required was frustrating, and Jack wanted to ignore it all and storm past the woman to find Marjorie. Instead, he said, “Would you ask if she will see me? I’m Jack Temple. It’s urgent.”

  “Please wait here,” the woman said, ushering Jack into the foyer of the house.

  A few minutes later, Jack was shown to the kitchen, where Marjorie sat with the three boys and their nurse, while the baby lay in her cradle nearby.

  “Why, Mr. Temple!” Marjorie said. “It’s so pleasant to see you. Mrs. Delwood said there was something urgent?”

  Jack remained standing, even though a chair was offered. “Mrs. Browning—Marjorie,” he said. “During our visit the other night, we discussed your property—”

  “To which do you refer, Mr. Temple,” she asked. “The manor house or Clyfton Castle?”

  Jack knew nothing of a manor house, but it was the most promising lead he had yet.

  “The manor house.”

  “Oh, well,” she said. “Can you not stop for a cup of tea, Mr. Temple? There’s—”

  “No, no thanks,” Jack said, placing all of his effort into being civil. “What about the manor house?”

  “Well, Miss Bright was fascinated by the story of my ancestors who settled there.”

  “She didn’t mention it to me.”

  “That’s strange,” Marjorie said. “She was quite taken by the song, and the story of the lay brother who returned from the Holy Land—”

  “What song?”

  “Just an old children’s song that’s been in my family for centuries. A few of us—cousins and such—still sing it to our children.”

  “How does it go?”

  Jack saw Marjorie’s cheeks color. “I’m not much of a singer, Mr. Temple. Freddie, sing the Rumble song for Mr. Temple.”

  Two of the boys began. “Rumble, roar and crash away….”

  Jack listened to the rest and made the same connection Dorrie must have done. The castle was not the place at all. It was the manor house.

  “Marjorie, where is the manor where this song originated?”

  “Oh, it’s just up the beach, a few miles north of the castle. It’s in ruins now…only a few walls standing. Mr. Temple, what’s this all about?”

  “The other night, we spoke of a valuable artifact that might be buried at the castle site,” he said. “I’m afraid a rather unscrupulous man will try to steal it if he finds it. If he gets to the manor first….”

  Marjorie frowned. “I would rather he didn’t,” she said. “Is there anything you can do—”

  “I don’t know, ma’am,” he said, “but I’ll try.”

  They hadn’t bothered to hide their tracks. Jack looked at what was left of the old manor house and saw mounds of dirt and sand that had been shoveled away from underground walls. He saw the long, narrow niche where the Mandylion must have been hidden.

  The bastard had it!

  And Jack had only himself to blame. If he hadn’t spent the week letting Dorrie go on believing he was nothing but a mercenary, out for revenge against her father, against her only living relative….

  He had to find her. Once she realized w
hat Alastair had in mind for the Mandylion, she would be indignant. And she wouldn’t keep quiet about it.

  Jack doubted that Bright would actually harm his daughter. But he didn’t know about Fleming, and he’d never trusted the old man’s other cohort, Neville Stockton, either. He had to find Dorrie and get her away from them before anything happened.

  With a quick glance around the perimeter of the site, Jack discovered the tracks of wagon wheels in the mud. A minute later, he was following the trail Alastair had left.

  The path led north and inland. Jack was certain the wagon had traveled this way, because clumps of mud that had fallen from the wheels were noticeable along the trail for the first hundred feet or so.

  He followed the path, but at the base of a large, steep hill, Jack was stymied. The trail disappeared. Since the only way to go was up, and he didn’t know what he would find when he got there, he tied his horse and started to ascend.

  He wondered if Dorrie had managed to climb this hill. She’d had difficulty handling minor exertions, and Jack didn’t think she was capable of getting to the top of this steep incline by herself. Paco Fleming might have carried her, but the thought of Fleming’s hands on her made Jack’s blood boil.

  Fleming was too ruthless a brute to handle a woman as delicate as Dorrie.

  Driven by his need to find Dorrie and get her away from her father, Jack quickly made it to the top and saw that there was an abandoned house nearby. He took cover behind what trees and shrubs there were and inched his way to the building.

  The windows and doors were all broken, and the place was uninhabitable. Still, he went inside.

  Most of the floor had rotted away, so he walked across the dirt, looking in each of the decaying rooms. It was clear that someone had been inside recently. The remains of a few meals and other refuse were here, as well as a blanket on the floor near one of the back windows.

  And a woman’s shoe.

  Jack bent and picked it up. It was Dorrie’s.

  “Two thousand pounds,” Bright said to the dark-skinned man in the turban.