Impetuous

He shrugged. “I am not saying that I believe there is a treasure waiting for us, or that we can find these maps that will lead us to it. Let us simply say that for the moment I am willing to withhold my judgment.

The fact was—though he would not have dreamed of telling Miss Verrere this—that Sir Philip still found the idea of a hidden treasure and a secret map or two the stuff of gothic novels. He had merely found himself excessively bored at Lady Arrabeck’s house party after Cassandra left. He had kept thinking about her and the offer she had made to him. Absurd as it was, it somehow intrigued him. But more than that, Cassandra herself intrigued him. He recalled the intelligence and clarity of her large gray eyes, the humor of her wide mouth and the slender femininity of her form. He had never gotten a good look at her pale hair in the daylight, he reminded himself; he would still like to see it. And their conversation, though bizarre, had made what everyone else said to him seem insipid. Most of all, he remembered the way Cassandra had felt in his arms, the taste of her mouth beneath his, and the memories made him feel most unsettled.

He was, he told himself, too old for treasure hunts, and, of course, he did not believe for a minute that Cassandra was going to find the clues she needed in some old letter to her ancestor. Still, he had begun wondering what it would hurt to go to visit her and see those precious diaries of hers. It would do nothing worse than waste his time, and, frankly, the idea of wasting a few hours’ time in Cassandra Verrere’s company had grown more and more appealing. Even the thought of having to spend time in the company of her aunt and cousin had not been enough to put him off.

“I am sure you will be convinced soon,” Cassandra assured him, her eyes shining in a way that made his loins tighten. “Once you have read Margaret’s diaries, I know you will realize that they are real. You can see how close we are growing in our search. We are already only fifty years or so away from Margaret’s time, and we have all the way to the wall left to look.” She waved her arm toward the end of the attic. “I am sure there are things left from her father.”

“If he saved those letters.”

Cassandra frowned. The possibility that Margaret’s angry father had thrown away the letters from his wayward daughter was not something she liked to think about. She shook her head. “We will find them. We must.”

They continued to unpack the trunks, searching through the stored articles for a packet of letters. Boxes were opened and clothes unwrapped to make sure that no letters were folded inside. Sir Philip was soon distracted by an intricately carved snuffbox so small that it fit into the palm of his hand, then again by a quaint old book on manners that made him chuckle and read choice excerpts aloud.

“Whatever are you doing?” Joanna asked snappishly. She did not understand Sir Philip at all. Her hopes had soared when the footman had announced him. She was certain that he had traveled to Dunsleigh because his desire for her had overcome his brief bitterness at the trick she had tried on him.

But then he had kept on asking about Cassandra and had actually insisted on riding over to Chesilworth to find her. Of course, he had expressed great consideration for Joanna and assured her that she needn’t accompany him, but she had not been about to let such an opportunity to be alone with him get away from her. However, she could not understand why he refused to leave now, or why he was pawing through old trunks and chuckling with Cassandra over things in which Joanna could see no humor. She narrowed her eyes at Cassandra, who was smiling at Neville in a way that made her eyes positively luminous. She was almost pretty, Joanna thought in amazement, even with her hair covered in a powder of dust and a great streak of dirt across one cheek. Joanna found the revelation distinctly annoying. Did Cassandra actually think that Sir Philip Neville would have any interest in her?

“What are you doing, Cassandra?” she repeated when her cousin continued to ignore her. “Why are you looking through all these old trunks?”

“I thought there might be something of interest here,” Cassandra replied vaguely.

Joanna quirked an eyebrow, but her cousin’s interests were always so peculiar to her that Cassandra’s answer did not seem out of the ordinary. “But you are making Sir Philip all dusty.”

“I don’t mind, Miss Moulton,” Sir Philip replied cheerfully. “I am having a perfectly fine time.”

A little to his amazement, he realized that he actually was enjoying himself. It was dusty and hot in the attic, but he was doing something that he had never done before, and it was rather fun exploring the old things in the trunk and sharing his amusement at the antiquated book with Cassandra. He could think of no other woman who would care as little about the fact that he had come upon her when she was dirty and disheveled, clothed in an obviously old, ill-fitting dress. Within minutes she was talking unselfconsciously with him and chuckling over the excerpts he read from the book.

He glanced over at Joanna, whose perfect looks were beginning to melt a little in the airless attic. She was dressed like a lady and acting as one should act; moreover, her coloring and features were such as any woman would envy. But, after ten minutes in Cassandra’s company, Joanna struck him only as dull as ditch water, whereas he felt his eyes drawn over and over again to Cassandra’s animated face.

Joanna frowned at him, annoyed at his cheerfulness. The man was acting like a boor, she thought; any gentleman should have taken the hint and escorted her back to her home long ago. It was obvious to her that stronger action needed to be taken.

She rose to her feet. “I fear that the heat is too much for me. I must go back downstairs.”

“Of course, Joanna,” Cassandra replied in a pleasant voice. “Whatever you think best.”

“Good day, Miss Moulton,” Sir Philip said absently, distracted by a small stack of letters, yellowed with age and tied with a pink ribbon, that were fitted into the corner of the trunk.

He snatched them up and turned them over, aware of a surprising stab of excitement in his stomach. He did not even glance up to see the dagger look that Joanna directed toward him before she clattered down the stairs in a demonstration of ladylike rage.

“Cassandra—” he said in a low voice, not noticing that he called her by her first name, an unwarranted familiarity given the short time they had known each other.

Cassandra turned, as oblivious as he to his use of her given name. Her heart speeded up as she saw the pile of letters, even as she reminded herself that she had found dozens of other packets of letters already, and none of them had been the ones she was looking for.

She reached out for them, saying pragmatically, “I am sure these are too recent,” even as her fingers closed around them with trembling eagerness.

Cassandra brought them closer, but as soon as she saw the spidery writing, she sighed. “Oh, no! This is Edna Verrere’s writing. I would have thought I had discovered everything she ever wrote by now. She was a most faithful daughter, and she wrote her mother regularly after she married. Her mother was equally faithful about keeping her letters.”

She pulled the top letter from the pile and quickly skimmed it, just to make sure that it was indeed Edna Verrere who had written. “Yes, she’s talking about her son Reginald again—a most priggish-sounding fellow.”

“Oh, him!”

Both Cassandra and Philip looked up at the sound of one of the twins’ voices. Both the boys had made their way over to them when they saw the packet of letters, but now Hart threw himself down in disgust atop one of the trunks.