Impetuous

Cassandra sighed. “I was afraid that working with a Neville would be like this. Have you no adventurous spirit? No interest in a treasure hidden for generations?”

“I have no interest in fairy tales,” he retorted flatly. “Really, Miss Verrere...surely you can see that this is a hoax. The journals—after all these years—happen to turn up in England, even though they’ve been in the United States all this time. And they happen to fall into the hands of Mr. Simons, who happens to be your father’s favorite book dealer. I am sorry, but you are asking me to suspend disbelief a trifle too much.”

Cassandra took a firm grip on her temper, reminding herself that she had known what it would be like to try to convince a Neville of her plan. She had hoped that Sir Philip would be less stodgy than his father, Sir Thomas, had been reputed to be. Cassandra’s father had, by turn, characterized that man as a “dull dog” and a “cold fish.” Certainly Sir Philip’s entrance into her room last night had been anything but dull, and she had hoped that it had indicated a more adventurous character, but it was clear to her now that his was a typical Neville mind.

Pleasantly, she explained, “I don’t find it at all odd. Mr. Simons said that an American, a descendant of Margaret Verrere’s, had brought the journals to him. The man is a merchant who sometimes sails to England on business, and when he decided to sell the journals, which had been kept in his family all this time, he thought that since Margaret was from England, the books would fetch a better price here than in America. Americans, I believe, haven’t as much respect for old things.”

“Mmm. No doubt they haven’t the imagination or the adventurous spirit for treasure hunting, either.”

Cassandra frowned repressively and went on. “Mr. Simons was not the only book dealer this man went to. He tried several. But Simons, you see, was more interested than the others simply because he was Papa’s book dealer. He knew that Papa would want to buy the journals, given his interest in Margaret and the dowry. So Mr. Simons was willing to buy the journals when other dealers were not.”

“Miss Verrere, I think it is much more likely that this Simons fellow or some crony of his made the journals himself, knowing that he would be able to sell them to your father.”

“Sir Philip!” Cassandra looked shocked. “Perryman Simons is a reputable London book dealer. My father traded with him many times in the past. Mr. Simons would not have tried to sell him a forgery! And even if he had, why would he put in all those things about the dowry? That makes him no money.”

“No? Tales of a hidden treasure doubtless made the journals easier to sell. I’ll warrant that he charged your father a hefty sum.”

“It was rather large,” Cassandra admitted reluctantly. “But these are historical documents of great significance to my family. Papa would have bought the journals even if there had been no reference to the dowry.”

“The dealer could not be sure of that. Miss Verrere, I am afraid that your father and you were the victims of an unscrupulous hoax.”

Cassandra’s mouth twisted in exasperation. “I hate to think what must have happened in your life for you to have become such a cynic.”

“Think back to last night, and you will know one of those things.”

Cassandra thought about her aunt’s and cousin’s trick to force Neville into marrying Joanna. “Oh.”

“I have simply seen more of the world than you, Miss Verrere. I fear you are too trusting, and probably your father was, as well. Scholars often are, especially where their special fields of interest are concerned.”

“My father did not have such a highly developed mistrust of people as you,” Cassandra admitted. “But he knew Mr. Simons. He had dealt with him for years.”

“I am not wedded to the theory that Simons forged the journals. He could have been an unwitting victim, also. Perhaps the man who sold them to him was the real culprit.”

“That would mean that this forger was so good at his work that he was able to deceive both my father, a lover of antique books and Mr. Simons, one of the country’s best dealers. Neither of them voiced any suspicion that the journals were anything but genuinely old—the paper, the ink, the bindings. Unless, of course, you are suggesting that the journals were forged a hundred and fifty years ago or more, so that someday one of their descendants could palm off this forgery on my father?”

“No. Of course not.”

“My father knew a great deal about books. Perhaps he was naive, but he was not stupid. He would have known if the journals had been written in the last few months. He would have noticed if the paper was not old or the ink not faded. Whoever forged the diaries would have had to work very hard to make the books look authentically old enough to fool Papa. I cannot imagine that it would have been worthwhile to do all that for the price Papa paid—let alone all the hours it would have taken making up and writing all the things that were in the journals. It would have been a mammoth task and would have taken a great deal of time. It is much more likely that these really are Margaret Verrere’s diaries.”

“I find it hard to believe that a woman writing in her journals would have laid out instructions on how to find a treasure. A journal is something one writes to oneself, and she knew were the treasure was.”

“She did not write out instructions, as you say. Her remarks about the dowry were spread throughout the book, and they were small, often indirect, things. You see, in the first journal, which she started soon after they arrived in America, she now and again would mention how worried she was because she had heard nothing from her father. She had mailed him a letter, and she had not heard anything back from him to indicate that he had received it. At one point she says something about the letter having the secret to the dowry. That was why she had sent it to him.”

“Then I would think it obvious that Chesilworth got the letter, followed her instructions and found the dowry. He just never bothered to write and let her know he had it. Probably still miffed over the fact that she had made his name synonymous with treachery.”

“Sir Philip, I am afraid that we are going to find it very difficult to work together if you continue to refer to what happened in that way. I should think that a modern man would be able to admit that a woman has the right to marry whom she pleases.”

“I have no quarrel with that, only the manner in which it was handled. Becoming betrothed, then scampering off the night before the wedding, is not what I would consider correct behavior.”

“Yes,” Cassandra agreed drily, “’tis far worse than breaking into young ladies’ bedrooms at night and mauling them.”

“I did not maul you!” Neville looked aggrieved. “And you know that was a mistake.”

“Then give poor Margaret Verrere allowance for making a mistake, too. You don’t know what was involved or how afraid she was of her father and Sir Edric. I do. I read the remnants of that fear in her journal entries months later. She still was concerned that her father might track her down to the colonies and try to force her to go back. Perhaps it was not all neat and tidy and polite enough for you, but Margaret Verrere was only a seventeen-year-old girl at the time, desperate and alone. She did the only thing she could think of to do.”

Neville looked into Cassandra’s face, animated with emotion for the long-dead girl, and he had to smile. Argumentative and stubborn she might be, but when her face was alight with enthusiasm, her gray eyes luminous, she was almost beautiful. No, something more than beautiful, he thought; she was intriguing...quite out of the ordinary. He thought about the taste of her mouth last night, and a shaft of pure desire speared through him. He wanted to taste her again, he realized—and this time alone in some quiet spot, where he could kiss her at his leisure. It occurred to him that they were in that perfect place, that perfect moment—except that the lady in question was obsessed with discussing lost treasure.

“All right,” he agreed, tamping down his burgeoning desire. “I will grant you that Bla—Margaret Verrere was not an evil person, merely a confused and frightened young girl. And I will even, for the moment, accept her journals as genuine. How are we to find this dowry?”

“Well, from what I pieced together, apparently she hid the dowry somewhere on the Neville estate. Then she hid instructions on how to find it in the Neville house and also sent instructions to her father in a letter. Since she never heard from him, she sent him another letter with the same information, and finally, much later in her life, a third. She didn’t receive a reply from him, but she was sure that one, at least, of the letters was bound to have reached him. She feared that he had not opened the letters because he was such a stubborn man and that, therefore, he would not have found the treasure.”

“Perhaps my Neville ancestor found it,” Sir Philip suggested. “Sir Edric or one of his descendants. You said she left instructions at Haverly House, as well.”

“Wouldn’t you know about it, then?” Cassandra argued. “I would think it would be part of your family lore.”

“Probably.” He shrugged. “But I have no idea what the man was like. He could have been a sneaky chap who never wanted to admit that he had discovered the treasure—afraid he might have to give it back to the Verreres, you know. He might have quietly sold the gems and so forth and pocketed the money.”

“No doubt you know your relatives better than I,” Cassandra responded dryly. “However, I doubt that he would have been able to. Whatever Margaret left at Haverly House was apparently not enough to lead one to the treasure.”

“But I thought you said—”

“Yes, I know. She did leave instructions, and she did send them to her father, but she indicated quite clearly in her journals that neither of the men would be able to find the dowry alone. That was part of her purpose, you see, in hiding the treasure. She wanted the two families to have to work together to retrieve it. She felt very bad about the rift that she knew her departure would create between the Nevilles and the Verreres. She wanted to make it up to them, to force them to cooperate. That was the other thing that worried her, that even if her father opened her letter, he might not be willing to work with Sir Edric and so would never find the fortune.”

“So you need both what she left at Haverly House and what she sent to her father in order to find the dowry?” Neville couldn’t keep from feeling a prickle of interest at the mystery, even though he knew that the whole story was in all likelihood made up.

“Yes. I think perhaps they are two halves of a map or something. I’m not sure what. But she seemed certain that one could not find the dowry box without both.”

“Intriguing.” Neville rubbed his forefinger thoughtfully against his lip. Cassandra watched, hiding the little smile of triumph that threatened to break out. He turned to Cassandra. “Where in Haverly House is it located?”

“I’m not sure.”

His eyebrows soared. “I thought you said the journals told you.”

“Only in a vague way. Apparently the instructions are hidden in a book.”

“A book!” he groaned. “Isn’t that a trifle vague? There must be thousands of books in the library. What if it’s been thrown away over the years?”

Cassandra frowned. The thought had occurred to her, also. “I think she would have tried to put it in a valuable book, one that would not be thrown away.”

“During the course of two hundred years?” he asked skeptically.

“Well, of course, she would not have expected it to take that long for someone to try to find it.”

“And that’s all you know? That it is hidden in some book?”

“She did not give a title,” Cassandra answered carefully. Her ancestor had been more specific about the book, but she was not sure that she was ready to tell Sir Philip exactly what Margaret had written. He was, after all, a Neville, and she was not entirely sure that she could trust him not to go off hunting on his own.

“Aha.” Neville apparently saw the flicker of distrust in her eyes, for he gave her a sardonic look as he crossed his arms. “So you know more than you are telling.”