A Duke for Christmas (21 page)

“Look at this,” he said, reaching into his pocket. He brought out a piece of paper, much folded and creased. While he hurriedly ate his soup, in order to catch up with the ladies, Sophie shook open the page.

“It’s just the titles,” she said.

Her mother and sister were craning their necks. Sophie passed the buff-colored page to them and they read it, heads together.

“Yes, but in order now.”

“In order?”

“Look.” As she reached to take back the page, he laughed. “Philip gave me three kinds of... trouble because I hadn’t spotted it myself. I felt no end of a fool when he pointed it out to me.”

“I still don’t see ...”

“He thinks it’s a map in words. And he thinks he knows what it leads to. I told you—or did I? Anyway, he’s the sort of a fellow who has traveled to all sorts of out-of-the-way places and picks up all sorts of queer stories. Then he writes them down and sells the books. Well, he used to. Now he’s writing fiction.”

Sophie met his eyes and shook her head, still at a loss.

He took the page from her fingers. “Each title has a certain number of words. See, ‘Bronte,’ ‘Friar Hadrian,’ ‘Walk Sunset Down.’ One, two, three.”

“Oh, yes. ‘Where White Lillies Grow’ is four. ‘Heavenward Eyes Reveal Unseen Wonders’ is five. Yes.” She looked at him with a surmise growing in her mind.

“But they’re still meaningless,” Maris said. “What does ‘Heart of Darkness, Heart of Stone’ mean?”

“Though ‘Gold of Kings, Gold of God, Hosanna’ does sound promising,” Mrs. Lindel commented.

“You’re quite right, ma’am.” Dominic looked at Sophie. “Philip says he thinks these are directions. If you go to Bronte in Sicily and follow these steps, allowing for the poetic point of view, you’ll find something. Something Broderick found.”

“Bronte is near where he died,” Sophie said. “I remember Mr. Knox saying something about it. They’d been staying in the wilds of Sicily for a few weeks, tramping about from town to town.”

“What could it be?” Maris asked.

“Well, as I said, Philip is a collector of strange tales. He says that there is a story in those hills about a murdered priest and a missing church treasure during one of the many sackings of that island. There’s a thousand such stories anywhere you go in the world, of course.”

“Gold of God,” Mrs. Lindel said.

“Gold of Kings,” Maris said, half to herself. “I wish Kenton were here. He’d find this thrilling.”

“Shh,” Mrs. Lindel warned, raising a finger to indicate the servants entering.

Dominic’s news had sent the mystery of the missing manuscript right out of her head. When she did think of it again, the others were deep in a discussion of what they should do with Philip LaCorte’s surmises.

“The only thing to do is go to Sicily and look,” Marts
said. “Find where this ‘Friar Hadrian’ is and walk off toward the west.”

“I agree,” Dominic said, “though it’s rather long odds that anything will still be there. Someone else may have discovered it by now.”

“Why would Broderick go to so much trouble to conceal his discovery in this way unless he was afraid someone would find it?”

“Truthfully,” Sophie said, “he would have done it for his own amusement. He enjoyed games, anagrams, puzzles. I should have remembered.”

“What do you want to do?” Dominic asked, his eyes warming when he looked at her.

“I think we should follow your friend’s advice and write to the consulate in Rome. We need to understand the Italian laws regarding the finding of such things. However, they should know that we only have suspicions, not proof.”

“I’ll write at once,” Dominic said, half rising from his chair.

“After dinner is soon enough,” she reminded him gently.

“I suppose. Unless you want to be the one to write?”

“No, thank you,” Sophie said hastily. “I’ve written enough letters for a while. Which reminds me... Maris, I left a parcel on the hall table but Miss Menthrip says it never reached Mr. Harley’s shop.”

“How would she know that?” Dominic asked.

The lifelong residents of Finchley only smiled at him. “She does.”

“I shall ask Tremlow what he knows about it. Don’t worry. I’m sure there is a simple answer,” Maris said.

Dinner passed in a whirlwind of speculation as to what Broderick had found and where it might be hidden. Sophie suggested that it must be up high, or else why look heavenward? Maris put forth the idea that it must be in the dark, which lead Dominic to the conclusion that there would be a cave. “Are there caves in Sicily?”

After dinner, they went in search of books to describe the countryside of that much-contested island. Maris shook her head. “It’s time this library had some new books. What use is a library without so much as an atlas? My son will grow up entirely ignorant of geography.”

“Here’s something,” Dominic said, bringing down a large and dusty folio from a high shelf. The spine crackled when he opened it. On the frontispiece was inscribed in two inch letters,
Histoire de L’Abbaye Royale de Saint-Denys en France.
The meticulous sketches, though black on white, gave form to the dreams of avarice. It took no imagination to invest these drawings with the glitter of precious metals and jewels. Busts of saints encrusted with cabochon or crudely cut gems, damasked in gold, sat in quiet dignity next to crosses of every description, from the simple Latin cross, though glorified by gold and gems, to the elaborate fleury cross, which is four crosses joined together at the feet. The one pictured in the book was created by a master artisan out of the most delicate gold wirework, twisted and turned into twining vines. The very picture seemed to live. They could only imagine what the actual object must be like.

“That would certainly qualify as Gold of God,” Sophie said, brushing her fingers over the picture of a casket which allegedly held one of the arm bones of St. Peter. It was in the form of a cathedral, the rose window over the miniature front doors created entirely out of jewels. “One could only make so magnificent an object for religious purposes. Anything else would be a defilement of art.”

“I don’t know about that,” Maris said. She turned the book on the desk toward herself, it being too large to hold comfortably. “Look at some of these pictures. The Crown of Louis XIII, the crown of Anne of Austria, the crown of Jeanne D’Evreux, whoever she was, decorated with rubies, sapphires, and pearls. This diadem here is neat without being gaudy. I could see myself in that.”

“What year was this book written?” Dominic wondered, turning to the front again. “Seventeen-aught-six.” He shook his head, his ready smile fading. “Most of these things are gone.”

“Gone?” Maris said wonderingly. “Gone where?”

“God knows. Gold and jewels are portable banks and when a nation suffers a revolution, such things vanish and do not always reappear—and rarely in the hands of their original owners. Most of the gold will have been melted down, many other things broken for the sheer joy of destruction.”

“Oh, dear.” Mrs. Lindel looked distressed. “So much beauty wantonly destroyed. It makes me feel quite sick.”

“Not all, ma’am. Some of the rarer objects were removed to the Louvre, where they still are, unless Napoleon did something with them. But I doubt he did them any harm. He was something of a connoisseur when it came to rarities, especially those of conquered nations.”

“You relieve my mind. One day, I should like to go to France,” Mrs. Lindel said. She stood up, dusting her fingers. “I had better go to bed. If I am to dance tomorrow night, I must have extra sleep tonight, or I shall never be able to do it. Mr. Lively’s parties never break up early.”

“I think I’ll come up too, Mother,” Maris said, yawning in a way that wouldn’t have fooled her own infant. “I can’t think when I’ve been so tired.”

“I suppose you are right. It’s been a long time since I danced. I should keep up my strength.” Sophie started toward the doorway but, as she half expected, her mother stopped her with a word and a gesture.

“You should stay and help Dominic write his letter. He
was
your husband, you know.”

“I remember. If Dominic ...”

“I could use your help. Please stay.”

While they left, Dominic put the large book back on the shelf, a reach even for him. “I always believed your mother to be a subtle woman.”

“Not today. Give them a few moments to retire, then I’ll go up, too.”

He sat down in an armchair, his legs crossed at the ankles. “What have you been doing while I’ve been away?”

“Friends and fittings, mostly. This is most surprising news you’ve brought back with you. How certain is your friend that his interpretation is the correct one?”

“Philip isn’t the sort to admit lack of certainty. He did say that if he turns out to be wrong, he’ll buy me a good dinner in Town, but that won’t be any good for you.”

“What would be good for me?” Sophie went over to the fire, though it meant stepping within touching distance of him. She could have easily trailed her fingertips over the back of his hand with hardly any effort.

“If there isn’t anything waiting for us in Sicily ...”

“I’m not expecting anything. I told you, I think, that Broderick liked playing games. Sometimes they were games without a purpose. I can just see him going to all the trouble of creating a set of secret instructions in order to lead people toward a broken jug that once held beer and a wobbling sign on a spring that jumps out with
Sic Transit Gloria Mundi
written on it. He was fond of adolescent jokes like that.”

“So you don’t believe we should write a letter to the consul asking him to send someone to look?” In order to see her, he had to tilt his head back. The firelight gilded him until he looked like one of those saints’ reliquaries, some handsome, laughing saint like ... she couldn’t think of one offhand. Had a saint ever been martyred for laughter?

“I’m not certain,” Sophie said. “In one case, they take us seriously and send someone. On the other hand, they may assume we are a pair of asylum inmates and ignore the letter.”

“Augustine Baird won’t ignore it. He’s the one who always wound up in trouble at school for reading too long, too late, and always the wrong kind of books. He’d leap at the chance to hunt for a genuine buried treasure.”

“He’s a friend of yours? At the consulate?”

“And one who cannot resist an adventure. This is just his meat. We’ll address it to the consul but send it in a cover to Augustine.”

“I wish ...”

“What?” He reached out casually and took her hand. “What do you wish?”

“I wish I could go myself. Imagine entering a tunnel and seeing the long-hidden gold glittering in your torchlight. The jewels winking red or blue or green fire. The shadows moving...”

“The dust. The cobwebs. The bats.”

She snatched her hand from his and feigned hitting him. Dominic rose from his chair, all long and lean, a sense of purpose radiating from him. He put one hand on the mantelpiece behind her, leaning in, looking with deep attention into her eyes. She couldn’t retreat because of the fire behind her and knew, deep within herself, she wouldn’t have retreated if she had a hundred miles of space in which to ran.

Sophie started to reach up for his face, wanting to touch the smooth, taut skin over his cheekbones, when the front door slammed with a report like a cannon and Kenton called out a greeting. Nearly as loud was Dominic’s clearly enunciated, “Damnation!”

* * * *

Dominic awoke and threw off the coverlet, reveling in the best of good moods. True, he suffered a little from frustration, but he had high hopes that ere long his hopes would be satisfied. The look in Sophie’s eyes last night had been unmistakable. She would have kissed him if Kenton hadn’t chosen that moment of all moments to come clattering in. Though Kenton was his best friend, Dominic could have wished him to the devil in that instant.

But here was another day, the sun melting the snow, in which kisses might be had. There was to be a dance as well, with attendant possibilities for romance. Dominic only wished that Fissing were here to turn him out to his best appearance. Tremlow was an excellent
valet in a pinch, but he did not have the dedication to one ideal that Fissing possessed.

Knotting his cravat carelessly, though he had painstakingly shaved, Dominic left his room to eat breakfast. Kenton sat there, turning over the pages of a large book that Dominic thought he recognized.

“Maris bring you up to the moment on what we discovered?” he asked, taking coffee.

“She did. It sounds like something out of a fairy tale. I find it hard to believe that Broderick Banner, of all men, found Aladdin’s Cave.”

“Strange things happen to poets. His death, for instance.”

Kenton closed the old book upon memories of kings and churchmen. “I wondered about that myself. It seems very coincidental that a man should die immediately following such a discovery.”

“We don’t know it was immediate.”

“Let us say within a very brief span. Does Sophie know when her husband went to Sicily and when he was to return?”

“She said he died a few weeks after he went there. And look here, old man, I’d appreciate it if you’d refer to Broderick Banner as her
first
husband.”

A slow grin spread over the other man’s countenance. “Sits the wind in that quarter?”

“It does.” Dominic buttered toast with a confident air.

“Does she know it?”

“I think she has a fair grasp of the situation. I’ve asked her twice now.”

“She’s turned you down, I take it.” Kenton leaned forward, both elbows on the table. “Well, they’re a strange family. So natural, levelheaded, even nonchalant about the little irritations of life. I’ve seen them take in stride things that would send any other woman shrieking about the room. It’s an excellent quality in a wife. And yet...”

“At bedrock, they’re sheer stubbornness.”

“No,” Kenton said thoughtfully. “Not stubborn. It’s just on some points they feel it’s wrong to yield. They’d never compromise a deeply held principle, not even for the men they love. If she loved you, she’d fight for you like twenty tigers, but if you acted in a way that she found unprincipled, she’d run away. She’d still love you, but she’d turn away and you’d never get her back.”