Suzanne Robinson (16 page)

“Coo!” Pilfer cried as he beheld the frieze of spirals. “Where’s the treasure?”

“I haven’t looked for it yet. Don’t be so impatient.” Emmie set another lamp on the floor and plucked a scrap of paper from her skirt pocket.

“We might need these.”

“Not them foreign words again,” Pilfer said.

“They’re important.” Emmie held the paper to the light. She had translated the four foreign phrases with the help of French and Latin dictionaries.

“Listen. The first phrase is
‘J’y suis, j’y reste,’
or ‘Here I am, here I remain.”

She glanced at the others. Turnip shook his head, and Emmie returned to the list. “The rest are in Latin.
‘Sic itur ad astra’
means ‘Thus one goes to the stars.’ Does anyone see any stars?”

“No stars,” Betsy said.

Emmie pointed to the next phrase. “ ‘Si
ste viator’
means ‘Stop, traveler.’ ” She exchanged blank looks with her companions and went on. “The fourth phrase is
‘Tria juncta in uno.’
That’s ‘Three joined in one.’ Do you see three of anything?” They looked around the room to no avail.

Emmie stuffed the paper back in her pocket. “At least we have the spirals. Perhaps that’s all we need. Let’s begin.”

“Finally,” grumbled Pilfer.

Ignoring him, Emmie dropped to her knees,
and Betsy began inspecting the mantel. Turnip started knocking gently on the paneling beside the fireplace. Pilfer squatted near Emmie while she ran her fingertips over the tiles beneath the spiral frieze. There was a loud clank, and they all froze. Turnip sheepishly lifted his foot away from his tool bag and stepped over it. After a few minutes, when it was clear no one was coming to investigate, they resumed their search.

An hour later Emmie stood and blew a tendril of hair off her forehead. “It’s not here.”

They looked at the chimneypiece.

“Let’s stick Pilfer inna chimney,” Turnip said.

“Ooo, yes, let me go up.”

Emmie shook her head. “It’s not in there. Beaufort’s paper definitely said the gold was in the chamber under the spiral.”

Pilfer kicked one of the empty bags while Betsy packed away the tools they’d used. Shoulders slumped, faces long, they trooped back the way they’d come.

“Coo, this here stair’s dark,” whispered Pilfer.

“We can’t have a light,” Emmie replied. “You know we can’t take a chance of someone seeing it. Just stay close to the wall so you don’t lose your balance.”

Turnip’s voice seemed loud in the blackness. “What are we going to do now that it’s not inna chimney?”

“I’ll have to study the clues again,” Emmie said. “Those dratted phrases must contain some meaning I haven’t discovered. Perhaps I’ve missed something.”

They reached the door to the main house and parted. Emmie went to her room while the others sneaked back into the servants’ quarters. Once in bed Emmie admitted to herself that her feelings were more confused than ever.

Part of her was glad she’d be staying awhile longer. If she’d found the gold, she would have absconded despite both Valin’s threats and her feelings for him. The money was too important to Flash and the others. But she was staying, and the longer she stayed, the more she risked. She risked being found out, and equally horrid, she risked falling more and more under Valin’s spell.

Trying to forget her predicament, Emmie got up and retrieved the original Beaufort letters from the pocket in her petticoat, lighting a candle to examine them again.

She scowled at the words. “Here I am, here I remain. Thus one goes to the stars. Stop traveler. Three joined in one. Drat.”

They had to mean something because the heading above them read “Monsieur d’Or’s Exercises.” Emmie kept staring at the words without much hope. They still seemed to refer to nothing she’d seen at Agincourt Hall, and it appeared she had
wasted all that time spent cultivating Courtland and listening to his ramblings about the medieval history of the estate.

He’d spent a good half hour describing an old tower keep not far from the house. The young man had been so grateful for her interest he’d even shown her a drawing of the place, with its two towers joined from top to bottom by a massive internal crosswalk. She’d become increasingly confused once Courtland started talking about crenellations, forebuildings, and bridge pits. Old Henry Beaufort had refurbished Hartwell Keep upon succeeding to his title.

But as Emmie pondered this bit of information, she sat up from her slumped position at the writing desk in her sitting room. She picked up the phrase list and ran a finger down it.

“
Tria juncta in uno
,” she whispered. “Three joined in one. That’s Hartwell Keep! Two towers and the cross wall joined into one keep.”

Bouncing out of her chair, Emmie strode up and down the sitting room while she thought. No wonder they’d been so unsuccessful. All the clues referred to the keep.

She’d go there tomorrow. Valin was taking the gentlemen to visit a neighbor’s racing stable, the perfect opportunity. Emmie got back in bed slowly, for her chief dilemma remained. How was she going to feel about pilfering Valin’s treasure?

She’d never stolen from someone for whom she cared. But Flash, Phoebe, and Sprout needed that gold more than Valin did.

She had to be strong. She had to resist the compulsion she felt in his presence. What did she think she could do, marry him? A marquess didn’t marry a common thief, even if her mother had been a lady. And most men wouldn’t want the illegitimate child of a governess, either. Except as a mistress, and Emmie had always resisted being made a pawn, a kept pet in the power of a man. She’d had enough being forced to endure a ruffian like Edmund Cheap; she wasn’t going to put herself in an even more dishonorable situation. This she’d sworn to herself long ago. But then she hadn’t imagined having to resist so beautiful a man as Valin North.

The next morning Lady Fitchett, Aunt Ottoline, and the other ladies embarked on a boating excursion on the ornamental lake in the park. After their visit to the racing stable the gentlemen were to join them for luncheon on the artificial island in the middle of the lake. Emmie pretended to have a headache until everyone was gone.

Obtaining a mare from the stables, she rode across the wood and out of the grounds maintained
by the Agincourt estate. Half an hour’s journey took her past the village that lay between the house and Hartwell Keep, which was situated on a hill that would have commanded a view of the countryside for the medieval lord of the tower.

She was still on North land, but the keep itself was uninhabited. Courtland was using most of his inherited money to restore it, but he’d run out at the moment and was waiting for the next payment from his trust. Thus there were no workers crawling on the scaffolding that had been erected against one of the towers.

Emmie rode up the hill and picked her way across the crumbling outer wall that surrounded Hartwell Keep. There was a makeshift wooden stair constructed against the base of the building. Emmie tethered her horse and climbed to the door, which was locked. This proved no barrier to Emmie’s experienced fingers and slim metal tools.

Once inside she left the door open to admit light. Light also shone in from arrow slits and windows and from the gap where the roof once soared. Nevertheless, the building was so tall that light filtered in only so far, and she could only see dimly. She stood inside a vast hall. Courtland had told her he’d been able to restore the west tower, and Emmie was about to search for it when a shadow fell across the swath of sunlight from the door.

“Good morning, Emmie,” said Valin.

Uttering a little gasp, she said, “Bloody damnation, you frightened me.”

“Sorry.” Valin came toward her, his boots sounding loud on the new floorboards, his features twisted into a thunderstorm expression.

Emmie watched him suspiciously. “What are you doing here? You went to the racing stable.”

“I left early, and before you ask, yes, I followed you,” he snapped.

Edging around him and heading for the door, Emmie shook her head. “I shan’t remain here with you.”

“Why not?”

“You know why.”

“Ah, yes. There is that.” His body tense with suppressed anger, Valin caught up with her and thrust out an arm to block her retreat. “You can go after you explain what you were doing prowling around my house in the middle of the night.”

Emmie held her breath. After a moment’s hesitation she turned slowly to face Valin, her mind racing. Had he seen her with the others in the Gallery Tower? Curse it. Now he knew she was looking for something.

Valin stood over her, his heavy-lidded eyes glittering even in the subdued light. “I saw you return to your room.”

“To my room,” Emmie parroted. Then he
hadn’t seen where she’d come from. “Um, I couldn’t sleep, so I took a walk.”

“A walk. Rubbish, Emmie dear,” Valin snarled, grabbing Emmie by the arms. “There are only a few reasons ladies go abroad so late—a fire, sickness, or to meet a lover. There was no fire, and you look damned healthy to me.” Valin dragged her so close she could feel the barely restrained tension in his body. “So, my dear,
whom did you meet?
”

Emmie twisted out of his grasp and lifted her chin. “Don’t be ridiculous, my lord.”

“Aha! You did meet someone.”

“Nonsense,” Emmie said. “I met no one.”

“Then what were you doing wandering around my house?” Valin snapped. “I know you met someone because you came from the direction of the Gallery Tower, and between your rooms and the tower lie those of the gentlemen and my apartments, so—” Valin stopped. His brows drew together as he glared at her. Then the turbulence of his expression vanished, and in its place came a look of astonishment.

“By God, you were looking for me.”

Emmie gawked at him while her cheeks turned pink as she realized what he meant. “Um.”

“Look at you. You’re as red as a camellia.” He paused, his brow furrowing. “Or am I imposing my own desires upon the case?”

“Well …” Stunned and trapped, Emmie took
refuge in attack. “Who are you to question me? What were you doing spying on me, lurking outside my bedroom?”

Valin pursed his lips and said nothing.

Emmie swallowed and whispered, “Oh. I didn’t—that is, I hadn’t realized …”

She jumped as Valin swore under his breath, took her hand, and kissed it. “Don’t say anything. Come with me.”

Astonished and confused, she allowed him to lead her up a tower stair to the third-floor landing. She balked when he opened a door and tried to usher her inside.

“No.”

Valin cocked his head to the side. “I only want to show you something. I call it Courtland’s folly.”

“You won’t try to—to—you’ll be a gentleman?”

“I’m always a gentleman, Emmie.”

“Humph.”

She walked into the room and stopped to stare at the largest bed she’d ever seen. “Gracious mercy.”

Valin joined her and together they contemplated the bed. The enormous four-poster loomed in the middle of the chamber, its columns more like architecture than furniture. They began as rectangular bases, surmounted by four small columns supporting a miniature roof. On the roof rested a
giant vase, the top of which merged into the larger column that supported the carved canopy.

The whole wooden structure was of rich dark oak with gilded decoration, and had a headboard so ornate that it could have served as a paneled wall in an Elizabethan nobleman’s house. A new brocade bedspread finished the impression of overdone luxury. Its decoration wasn’t what robbed Emmie of speech, however. What was most unusual about the bed was its size.

Still gawking at the four-poster, she asked, “How many do you think it would hold?”

“Courtland says ten or twelve.”

“Surely not twelve,” Emmie said.

“People were smaller back then.”

“Oh.”

“They slept together to keep warm.”

“Oh.”

They stared at the bed some more. Then they gave each other a sideways glance.

Feeling awkward, Emmie looked away. “I suppose it was cold, what with no coal to heat houses.” She was babbling and couldn’t stop herself. “Sleeping all bunched up together would have kept the chill away. A good idea, really, all those people keeping warm in there, but it’s terrible when families are too poor to afford more than one room and can’t get away from the cold, with
no big bed—” Valin’s fingers skittering up her arm robbed her of speech.

“Are you cold?”

“Me? Cold?” Her mind went blank as she felt Valin’s arm around her and she felt his lips on her cheek. Then he blew in her ear, causing a shiver.

“See,” he said. “You are cold.”

“I’m not, and you know it.”

She felt his lips at the corner of her mouth even as his hand traced down her ribcage. His lips fastened over hers, his tongue darting into her mouth. Emmie knew she should push him away, but she didn’t want to. She wanted to touch him, to know what his bare skin felt like. This urge won over all her mother’s warnings about ruthless gentlemen. Funny how she’d never been tempted before, but with Valin, her body overruled notions of virtue—or survival.

Thrusting her hands inside Valin’s waistcoat, Emmie kneaded his flesh, feeling the warmth of his body through the shirt. Suddenly that shirt was her enemy, a rude interference between her hands and what they wished to explore. She heard fabric tear, but dismissed the sound in her excitement. Acres of smooth flesh stretched tightly over lean muscle. Emmie pressed her cheek against Valin’s bare chest and allowed her hands to follow the curve of his back, then drift lower.