by Lucy Ashford
He was all outward calmness now, but she could not forget that earlier look of bitter cunning.
The Earl sat close by the fireplace. She seated herself reluctantly in a worn armchair opposite to him.
‘Now, Miss Sheldon,’ went on the Earl softly, ‘you know and I know what your father found, don’t we? And other people want to find it, but we have to stop them. They are all around us. They come quite openly now’.
Verena’s heart was beating hard. Was he mad? She answered as steadily as she could, ‘If my father discovered anything at all of value, my lord, then I do not know of it’.
My father must have talked to the Earl, as he did to me, about some rumour of treasure that came to nothing.
The Earl stood up. Banged his stick on the floor. ‘You must know where it is! I want the gold! Half of it should be mine!’
She stood up also, clenching her hands. ‘I’ve told you! I don’t know what gold you’re talking about!’
He stared at her. Then he shook his head, as if confused. ‘They call it the hill of lost treasure,’ he muttered. ‘Where the gold from the Americas was hidden centuries ago, in the mines up there, high in a lost valley. He wanted my money to fund his search. I gave it to him. Then he told me that there is no gold, the liar, the thief!’
He was limping now, with the aid of his stick, over to the window where the storm could be seen in full play, with lightning forking across the thunderous grey sky and the rain sheeting down. He swung round to face her, jabbing his finger. ‘He lied to me! But I have his diary!’
Her heart stopped.
Was this the diary that Lucas had wanted? Not at Wycherley, not taken by her poor father on his last-ever journey, but—here?
‘His diary holds the secret!’ the Earl rambled on. He looked carefully over his shoulder. ‘There have been strange people round, asking for it. Even Lucas was asking. I know what he is up to. I know he wants the gold, too! But it’s mine!’
Somehow Verena kept her voice steady. ‘Where is this diary, my lord?’
‘So many ask me that! So many!’ He shook his head, clearly agitated. ‘And I cannot make sense of his writing, you understand? But they killed your father for what he knew! Yes, killed him, do you hear?’
Verena stood there, stunned.
‘Come!’ the Earl instructed. He was hobbling towards the door that led out into the rain-drenched garden. ‘Come, I will show you where it is!’ He flung the door open. The cold air rushed in. ‘And you will read it to me and tell me where Jack has hidden the gold!’
And he was gone, limping as fast as he could through the pouring rain across the lawns, his old coat flying out behind him.
* * *
Verena gasped as the rain blew into the room and the sound of thunder reverberated round outside. She went to tug desperately at the bell-pull. ‘Rickmanby! Rickmanby!’
No answer. She ran out into the hallway, and called again, for anyone; still no one came. The big house seemed to moan and creak in the darkness of the storm.
They killed your father for what he knew.…
The Earl had almost disappeared, running towards the woods as the rain lashed down. Wrapping her cloak around her, gasping at the cold and the rain, she ran after him, across the sodden lawns to the shrubbery, beyond which lay the lake, with its wooded islets, the largest of them with its little Gothic pavilion, where her father and the Earl used to sit talking for hour after hour.
She got to the first of the bridges and hesitated. The lake had risen yet further, brown and turbulent, swirling round the bridge’s fragile stanchions. But she had to reach the Earl and guide him back to safety! She hurried across to the first islet. Then crossed another bridge, to the next, and the next.
The last one was the weakest. She took every step carefully, feeling the whole frail construction shudder beneath her as the flood waters continued to rise; but at last she was there, at the pavilion. She pushed open the door with its peeling blue paint. And he was inside, in the darkness, crouching in a corner, huddled over a slim leather case the size of a book, his hand over his eyes as lightning illuminated the interior.
‘Jack!’ he cried out. ‘Is it you?’
Verena walked steadily towards him. ‘Not Jack, my lord. It’s me. Verena, Jack’s daughter’.
‘Ah, Verena!’ He was weeping now. ‘Jack betrayed me, so I stole it and hid it here. But I cannot read it. Please, will you tell me where the gold is?’
From the case he drew out a book bound in faded red leather. She knew it, of course. Lucas had wanted this so badly he’d offered her money. Some people would pay.…
Bentinck, nosing around. The ransacked boxes of papers.
This was her father’s diary.
Thunder rumbled ominously outside. ‘Soon,’ Verena soothed, ‘soon we will talk about the gold! But my lord, first you must come back to the house’. She held out her hand. ‘Give me my father’s diary. I will keep it safe for you’.
‘No!’
‘Then leave it here. We can come back for it when the storm has gone’.
‘Only if you tell me about the gold!’
She hesitated. She hated lying, but— ‘I will,’ she said softly. ‘I will, once we are safely back at the house’.
He let the book slip to the floor, then came slowly, suspiciously towards her, his eyes darting from side to side. She led him out through the door.
And saw, with a sick lurch of her heart, that the footbridge to the next islet was already under water. The handrails were still visible, but they were old and half-rotted. The wind and the floods were turning the lake into a raging seascape, with waves snarling and battering.
Suddenly the Earl staggered forwards, his white hair wild, his black clothes drenched, towards the half-submerged bridge. Verena flew after him.
‘My lord! It’s not safe—please wait—someone will come for us!’ But he was already stepping onto the bridge, grasping the handrails.
Verena suppressed a cry and forced herself to stay where she was, for her added weight would be too much for that ancient structure. She watched in anguish, seeing that the Earl had just reached the next islet when a great surge of water swept over the narrow bridge and took away the last support. Pieces of old timber toppled into the stormy grey lake and rode away on the foam like driftwood.
She was alone on the island. The Earl’s black-coated, white-haired figure had disappeared between the trees. She prayed that an instinctive sense of direction would somehow carry him back to the house. But would the Earl remember that she was stranded here? Would he tell the servants?
He would be rambling about Jack and the pavilion, perhaps even herself, but they would put his words down to an old, sick man’s fevered imagination. Rickmanby would assume that Verena had left long ago for Wycherley.
No one would dream that she was marooned here, in this desolate place.
Stranded, on this shrine to adventurers.
They killed your father, for what he knew.
* * *
From Framlington harbour, Lucas had ridden like the wind to Stancliffe, knowing he should not have left her, not for an instant. Leaping from his horse, he’d marched to the door and pulled it open, to be met by Rickmanby.
‘Where is she?’ Lucas had rapped out. ‘Where the hell is the girl?’
Rickmanby backed away. ‘Dunno, my lord’.
‘What about my grandfather? Do you at least know where he is, you fool?’
‘Upstairs, my lord’. And Rickmanby had led the way up to the Earl’s bedchamber, where a fire had been lit, and his grandfather, shaking with cold and soaked to the skin, was wrapped in a blanket. When he saw Lucas he cried out, again and again,
‘It’s there! You must save it for me!’
‘What is there?’ Lucas almost wanted to shake him.
‘The secret of the gold! That swindler Jack Sheldon’s gold!’
‘What in hell…?’
‘I couldn’t read it,’ the Earl quavered. ‘I stole
it from him, Lucas, but I couldn’t read it, then the waters came…’
And Lucas Conistone realised, at last, what had happened to Jack Sheldon’s diary.
* * *
As the lightning flashed across the sky, Verena could see that on the far side of the pavilion was a small wood-burning brazier, set beneath a chimney pipe. Beside it was a box of firewood. She had no way of lighting it. But she had—this. She swiftly picked up the leather-bound book and, sweeping her wet hair back from her face, she leafed carefully through the damp pages of her father’s diary, almost holding her breath.
Each sheet was covered with not only words, but also sketches and maps. She read, in Portuguese, Today, I held my first meeting with the one they call O Estrangeiro. He, too, wanted my maps—treasure indeed.
O estrangeiro. Portuguese for foreigner. Treasure.
She frowned, then stiffened, her eyes flying to the door. For a moment she’d thought she heard someone calling her name. Then the sound was lost, muffled by the rain pounding on the roof, and a fresh peal of thunder. She went back to the book. Then O Estrangeiro paid me the agreed sum, with a promise of more next time.
There it was again. A man’s voice, coming closer. ‘Verena! Verena! Answer me, for God’s sake!’ She quickly jammed the diary back into its leather case and hid it under the mouldering cushions of the window seat. Then she hurried over to the door, her heart pounding.
Lucas. It was Lucas. Her breathing was quite ragged. Do not trust him.
Chapter Seventeen
As the moon pierced the scudding clouds, Verena had a clear view of Lucas Conistone’s lithe, muscular figure. He wore no coat. His soaked white shirt was hanging open and loose, as he strode towards the pavilion with some sort of pack slung over his shoulder, and his long water-streaked hair clinging starkly to his cheekbones. The heavy rain was sluicing off his tight breeches and wet leather boots, and he looked more dangerously masculine than ever. She caught her breath at the sight of his wide shoulders, his long powerful thighs as he prowled towards the pavilion door, his jaw clenched, his grey eyes narrowed to iron slits. ‘Verena!’ he called again, in his deep, compelling voice. ‘I know you’re here!’
She opened the door wide, tilting her chin in defiance, determined to hide the fact that she was trembling with cold—yes, and fear. ‘I’m here, Lucas,’ she answered, attempting calm. ‘I thought you were on your way back to London’.
The way he looked at her. She felt dreadfully vulnerable, dreadfully conscious of the way her own wet clothes clung to her. This man had gone to incredible lengths to find her father’s diary. Had even tried to seduce her for it.
She must not let him know it was here.
He said curtly, ‘Unfinished business called me back. I arrived at Stancliffe Manor to find my grandfather soaking wet and talking wildly about you, and the island. What in God’s name were you thinking of, stranding yourself here in this wild weather?’
She went white. ‘Do you think I actually intended all this?’
He said grimly, ‘I can’t imagine what the hell you were thinking, to be honest’.
And he clearly didn’t want to give her a chance to explain.
Already he was ushering her back into the pavilion, swinging the oilskin bundle down from his shoulder. He looked swiftly around. ‘I’d better see if I can get a fire going. It could be hours before the flood water subsides’.
She backed away in fresh panic. ‘I will not stay here!’ With you. Alone.
He gazed at her, rubbing his hand through his soaking hair. ‘Really? What else do you intend? The main bridge is broken. I’m not a miracle worker. There’s no way you can leave until the floods go down and help arrives. I sent a message to Wycherley to let your staff know that you were caught in the storm and are staying safe at Stancliffe’.
Safe? He towered above her, the epitome of masculinity in this confined space. All alone with him. All night. Safe? Dear Lord, anything but. Her throat was dry. She said defiantly, ‘You managed to get here! ‘
‘I swam,’ he rapped out.
‘With that…?’ She was looking at the heavy oilskin pack he was carrying.
‘I brought a few necessities. I guessed we’d have to stay for the night’.
Guessed—or intended? Her heart hammered.
He’d slammed the door shut and lit a candle with tinder and flint he’d retrieved from his watertight pack. He was pulling other things out: a stoppered flask, candles and a bundle of clothes that he passed to her. There were also dry clothes for himself. Stripping off his wet shirt, affording her a breathtaking view of his broad back, he pulled on a fresh clean white shirt. She stood riveted, clutching the garments he’d handed her. The way he moved. The way the candlelight flickered on the play of sinew and muscle as he eased the garment on.
He turned round, catching her gaze. His shirt was still open, giving her this time a glimpse of rippling chest and ridged abdomen, where a sprinkling of dusky hairs arrowed down to the waistband of his tight-fitting wet breeches. That terrible, all-too-recent sabre scar on his ribs.…
His brow lifted sardonically as he fastened a button and pointed to the garments meant for her. ‘Something wrong with the clothes I brought you? Not the right colour?’
She realised she had been staring. She swallowed. ‘This is intolerable! I don’t— There’s nowhere to get changed’.
‘Well, you have a choice’. He was still buttoning his own shirt. ‘Sit and shiver in your old clothes, or take a deep, deep breath and get changed in here. I promise on my honour—yes, I do still have some remnants of it—that I’ll turn my back. I’ll even shut my eyes if you want to be quite sure. And you’d better turn your back, too, because I’m about to remove my breeches’.
She gasped and whirled away from him, squeezing her own eyes tightly shut. Imagining—oh, Lord, imagining him peeling those soaked breeches from—from.
‘All done,’ he said cheerfully after a few moments. ‘Now it’s your turn. I’m going to build up this fire; I’ll whistle loudly, so I won’t even hear you getting changed. When you’ve finished, you can clap your hands or mutter curses at me’.
He reached for the firewood, whistling a lively tune that she had a horrible feeling was a rather rude soldiers’ ditty. Biting her lip, she got changed into a warm woollen gown of faded red, some stockings and a thick India shawl. Where had he got them? Better not to ask.
Just pretend this is normal, Verena. To be stranded for the night with the last person on earth you wanted to see.
Suddenly Lucas broke off his whistling to say, ‘The Earl often used to come here with your father, I know. Deuce take it, this wood is damp. But why did my grandfather bring you here, Verena? What exactly were you doing here with him in the first place?’
She pulled the shawl tightly around her. ‘Do you think I intended all this?’ she asked fiercely. ‘He asked me to come to Stancliffe Manor, then he ran out of the house and through the garden! I hurried after him and found him here, in the storm. He managed to return across the bridge, but it started to give way as he was crossing it. Does that answer your question? ‘
He stood, after throwing one last log on the fire. ‘I suppose you realise you were mad to come out here after him, without letting anyone know?’
Resentment burned. ‘I did call, for Rickmanby! And then I realised there wasn’t time’.
He frowned down at her. ‘You had no business coming here in the first place. I told you never to go anywhere without Bentinck’.
Her indignation overflowed. ‘I detest that man!’
‘Then you’re a fool,’ he said quietly, ‘for I would trust him with my life’.
She closed her eyes briefly, saying nothing. He turned his attention back to spreading out to dry the wet clothes he’d peeled off.
The fire was starting at last to give out some warmth, but she sat as far as she could from it, huddled on a window seat in the big shawl. Her glance slid towards the cushions under which her father’s diary
lay, then away again. O Estrangeiro. Maps. Treasure. She didn’t understand.
But she certainly understood that she was trapped on this island for the night, with an incredibly dangerous man. You must forget his kisses. You must forget about his lovemaking. Your father would warn you he is playing some deep, dark game, and you must not be drawn in.
Lucas said curtly, ‘If you’re worrying about your reputation, then there’s no need. Bentinck knows I’ve come here for you, but he’s telling them all at the house that I’m asleep in my old room’.
Her breath hitched in her throat. ‘Is there anything you don’t tell Bentinck, pray?’
‘Very little,’ he said flatly. ‘And if you’d trusted him a fraction more, you wouldn’t have ended up stranded here. He said you’d given him his notice today, back at Wycherley, but he followed you nevertheless. And aren’t you glad he did? He lost you, of course, once you’d gone into the house. But he was able to alert me that you were somewhere in Stancliffe’s grounds’.
She felt bewildered and rather sick. So Lucas had not been far away. She said, striving to keep her voice steady, ‘Since you’re here, you can perhaps explain something to me. I mentioned the compensation, for the stream, to your grandfather, Lucas. And he seemed to know nothing at all about it’.
He was stooping to attend to the fire again, still whistling softly. ‘He has a poor memory,’ he said. ‘Everything was legal and above board, I assure you. The Wycherley estate was fully entitled to that compensation’.
She watched him from her window seat, the shawl around her shoulders. ‘But who paid it? You, or him?’
He turned to her and spread out his hands. ‘Does it exactly matter?’
‘It matters to my family. You paid it. Didn’t you?’ Her voice shook with emotion now. ‘You paid it all, your grandfather knew nothing. Why, Lucas? Why this constant, relentless interference? Why don’t you just—leave us alone?’
He looked down at her in silence, his hands on his hips. After a moment he said politely, ‘Should I go away again, Verena? I could always swim, you know, back across the lake, and leave you alone here—’