A Heart's Treasure (21 page)

Michael handed his long gun, equipment, stick, and hat to Xavier. “Would you be so good, Warfield?” The words were hardly out before he stretched out on the ground, laying his head in Summer’s lap. Her hands went at once to his hair, running her fingers through the damp sandy-brown hair at his temples.

“I’ll walk down the road a bit, see if we might pass soon,” Haddy said, and Xavier gave in to his role as collector, gathering Haddy’s accoutrements as well.

When Xavier returned from stashing the firearms, he put his hands on his hips and glanced around. Genevieve observed his grace of movement, the way he cocked his head the better to see, how the light breeze caught the edges of his coat and his hair—and a part of her was pleased that at this moment he didn’t look to Summer.

“Where are Kenneth and Penelope?” he asked.

“They’ve taken a stroll,” Laura answered, doing a poor job of stifling a yawn.

He glanced around again at the gently rolling hills and the clusters of trees toward the horizon, and reached up to rub his jaw. “Which direction?”

With nods of their heads, Laura and Summer pointed the way the two had gone.

“I suppose we ought to see if we can locate them, as I expect Haddy to come back with favorable news. That rise there is a likely place to begin,” Xavier said, volunteering himself to go and look.

“I’ll go with you,” Genevieve declared suddenly, rising to her feet before anyone—meaning Summer—could.
Although, to be fair, she seems most content to have my brother’s head in her lap.

“Hmmm,” Laura said dampeningly at her side, causing Genevieve to glance down at her.

“Really, Laura, you do have a difficulty with being informal,” she sniffed, moving at once to take Xavier’s arm.

They didn’t walk particularly briskly, in part because Genevieve put a bit of effort into imitating Summer’s sedate and lady-like stroll.

“If they went this way, at least Manning didn’t drag my sister toward the fires. How long have they been gone?” Xavier asked at her side.

“About an hour. Kenneth said they would be returned by now, but I suppose one loses track of time in the country.” They fell silent for a moment. “Did you enjoy the shooting?” Genevieve tried to extend the conversation.

“Oh, yes. It’s a boast to say it, but I’ve learned how to compensate.” He lightly tapped his eye patch. “You squint to use only one eye anyway, you understand, and then it’s just adjusting for depth.” For once, he not only didn’t stiffen at mention of his injury, but seemed a bit off-hand over it.

“It doesn’t stop you from doing much though, does it?” she encouraged him.

“No,” he answered. He paused, but chose to add, “There are only a few things that are beyond me. I mostly avoid Town driving. Some dances. That manner of thing.” Some of his usual reserve had come creeping back into his voice.

“Do you think we’ll travel on to Lichfield tonight?” she asked.

She felt the arm under her hand relax; he hadn’t liked the direction of their exchange and was glad she’d changed it. His eye! Wasn’t it curious that none of them truly knew how he’d taken the injury to it? Genevieve didn’t remember him without the patch. Curious, too, how it loomed so little in her viewpoint, yet so large in his. She wished she could point out how many men were even more grievously wounded—like Horatio Nelson, with his blinded right eye and war-taken arm—but his closest friends knew Xavier would tolerate no comparisons to the sacrifices of military men, or those who’d lost a part of themselves through service or hard labor. He’d been too young for the injury to have come during a duel of honor…

There was no point in pondering its origin, though, because Xavier had long since made it clear he kept his own counsel in the matter. And now, when Genevieve wanted Summer and Michael’s bond to stay strong, was not the time to give Xavier a distaste for her own company.

They reached the top of the hillock. Genevieve made a pleased sound at the sight that spread around them. Straight ahead, a large field slanted away, covered with a fuzzy green carpet of grain. The burning of the adjacent fields had left an uneven veil of smoke hanging in the air through which sunbeams poked, striving to reach the ground. It created a crazy quilt of light and shade, making the new crops glow bright green, in contrast with the gray-green areas where the sun’s rays didn’t strike. Leafy birches stood in a long row that bordered the right side of the field, sentinels against the wind that surely blew here some seasons, now like silent guardians awaiting the time of their duty.

“Beautiful,” she breathed, her face aglow as she stood washed in one of the afternoon’s sunbeams. Her lips were parted in appreciation of the sight before her, and she leaned forward as though to soak in the sights before her.

Xavier responded, his voice equally a sigh, “Yes, beautiful.”

She turned to him, pulled by the tenor of his voice, and thrilled to find his eyes were upon her, so soon after murmuring those words.
Why do I fret about Summer? Oh, surely I don’t completely misunderstand the way he looks at me?

“I’m so glad we came on this journey,” she said in a rush.

Just as she saw him nod and one of his hands began to rise toward her, there came a call of “Halloo!”

They turned, almost guiltily, as one.

“There they are,” she cried, raising her arm and waving with unnecessary enthusiasm at Kenneth and Penelope, who had just emerged from between two of the birches.

Penelope’s hand was on Kenneth’s arm and she walked close to his side, so perhaps their stroll had done its task and a new harmony had been achieved there.

* * *

Xavier used the moments of the approaching pair’s return to stand still and silent, carefully tucking all his responses behind a calm façade.

Genevieve had walked with him—dare he even say flirted with him, just a little? She’d smiled, and even leaned into him once, laughing at some small witticism he’d made. Too, despite the opening he’d given her, she’d turned the conversation before it had ever gotten to the “what did happen to your eye?” moment.

She’d never asked that vital question, not since he’d rebuffed her as a very young girl, and even though he’d read the curiosity in her eyes today, she’d turned away from opening that creaky old door. It didn’t really mean anything, of course—she could alter that grace in a moment, but part of him seized on today’s circumspection with both hands.

Too, he was relieved at the chance to force aside the image of a sun-touched Genevieve, lips parted, face aglow, to gather his wits, to be reform his usual bearings. He knew how to tell his tall tales, how to deflect. He just had to remember to keep on doing it.

What he didn’t want to do was look at the lock on his heart, afraid the new pain in his chest meant the hasp had been broken. He could only be grateful Kenneth and Penelope had saved him from revealing that fact to Genevieve.

Chapter 15

Love is blind, and lovers cannot see

The pretty follies that themselves commit.

—Shakespeare,

The Merchant of Venice

“Why do they burn the fields?” Summer asked, swaying against the side panel of the carriage as it took another dip through a rut in the road. Genevieve peered out the window as night settled around them, but could see virtually nothing of the blackened fields, for the lanterns on the exterior of the carriage obscured her vision as much as did the night itself. She turned her attention again to the carriage’s interior, dimly lit by the lanterns without, to see Summer’s dainty nose wrinkled in distaste at the caustic smell still hanging in the air.

“The ash is good for the soil. And besides, it clears the field of weeds,” Laura explained. She frowned, not at Summer, but at Penelope. “You’re terribly quiet since you and Kenneth came back from your walk,” she said, brows lowered.

Penelope just shrugged one shoulder, scarcely bothering to lift her eyes.

“What were you and Kenneth doing?” Laura demanded.

“Walking.”

“And?”

Penelope began to frown, too. “Other things.”

“What manner of other things?”

“Perhaps this is not the topic for the moment,” Genevieve interjected. They were all tired, and a little concerned that they had not found an inn for the night. Everyone was growing testy.

“I say it is,” Laura countered. She leaned toward Penelope. “I hope you settled your differences.”

“What differences?”

Laura pursed her lips, but sisterly protectiveness overrode discretion. “I think Kenneth offered for you. Some weeks past. I think you refused him.”

Summer gasped. “Kenneth made you an offer?”

Laura waved her to silence. “I think you’ve been unkind to him since,” she said to Penelope. “And he wishes to, I don’t know,” Laura suddenly looked unsure of herself, “make amends, but you won’t let him.”

“Ridiculous,” Penelope muttered, and now she really wouldn’t meet any of their gazes.

“It’s not ridiculous. Everyone has been talking about the tension between you two.”

At last Penelope looked up, shooting a question at Genevieve.

“Well, not
talking
so much as, um, noticing,” Genevieve said weakly.

Penelope looked stricken and a tad offended.

“Well, I for one wish the two of you would settle your differences—”

“How can we settle ‘our differences?’” Penelope suddenly cried. “Either we may marry or we may not. And Papa has said we may not. There is nothing left to settle.” She looked out the window, crossing her arms over her breasts to signal that was an end to it.

Genevieve bit her lip, Summer covered her mouth with her fingertips, and Laura sat back hard. She had to reach up and adjust her bonnet, which she’d knocked against the squabs, making it tilt down onto her forehead. “Ah. Well, I am sorry if I implied it was…ah, your fault. But,” she seemed taken aback for a long moment, but then she rallied. “I mean to say, I see you mean to be sensible about…all this. I for one cannot bear to have people mooning about. Get on with the business of finding suitable partners, I say.”

Genevieve might have given the elder girl a glare of reproach, but after all Laura did know what it was to almost be a pair and then lose that connection—but one would think her loss through death might have softened her words a trifle.

She seemed to realize that very point, for she flushed pink. “I’m only thinking of them both,” she explained. “I admit my brother is the sort to…well, to have hopes, even when they are plainly idle hopes. I hope this ‘talk’ of theirs today set him quite straight on the matter. I have every reason to think you, Penelope, are not the sort to…well, to lead a fellow along the primrose path.”

“Laura,” Genevieve hissed. This was speaking too plain.

But Penelope nodded her head. “Yes. You may rest easy on that account, Laura. I’m not the sort to lead a fellow along.”

Laura sat up straighter. “Then all is well. It is settled. You two had a little chat, and you are both clear that affection, in this case, is to give way to duty to one’s family. I cannot fault your father’s logic,” she said, even if her expression said she had a different opinion as to her brother’s suitability as a groom. “And you may all cease looking daggers at me. It’s that much more pleasant once the air has been well and truly cleared. Do you not find that to be true?”

No one answered her, not even Summer, who had taken to fanning the air with her handkerchief.

Completely devoid of conversation, the carriage slowed to a halt at the next village, and then again the next, but both times they were told there was no room to be had. It seemed there was a local fair set to occur the next day, and all the rooms for hire had long been taken.

“What do we do?” Summer asked of Haddy out the carriage window, which they had finally opened with relief once they were clear of the smell of smoke.

“We drive until we find a place,” he answered gruffly. “Lichfield is only another four miles or so, and there is bound to be room there, if not along the way.”

They purchased some more lantern oil, replenished the level in the lanterns—while Haddy made terrible growling sounds when some of it spilled onto his boots—and set out on their way once again. Summer fell asleep in the corner against the squabs, and Penelope nodded off as well, having not spoken another single word. Laura, too, kept her own counsel, except for the occasional sigh.

For herself, Genevieve worried her lower lip, wondering why the world sometimes seemed so very unfair. Michael’s betrothal to Summer was on shaky ground; Xavier had become disturbingly unfamiliar in his behavior; and Kenneth and Penelope struggled to become friends anew after what must be the most supreme awkwardness of rejection.

And she, Genevieve, was infatuated with the man who sometimes seemed to threaten her brother’s future happiness. If she was honest and didn’t wrap up the truth in clean linen, she had to admit she was drawn to Xavier. It wasn’t all about guarding Michael’s interests. She found herself watching Xavier all the time. There was a certain timbre to his voice sometimes that made the hairs on the back of her arms stand up, that made her want to lean toward him, to believe the warm voice was intended just for her ears alone. There was a light in the back of his one good eye that held her in place, did not let her breathe easily, that confused her more than she cared to admit. She was drawn to him, yes, despite the evidence of her eyes, those eyes that saw how he solicited Summer’s attention, how he placed himself in situations where he could aid her, how he attempted over and again to win the fair girl’s approval or appreciation.

It was beyond exasperating. It was past worrisome. It was a kind of tingly hurt that went too deep for clear-eyed examination.

The carriage clock’s chimes told her it was half an hour later when they drove into Lichfield. The main street was dark and unwelcoming. Summer and Penelope stirred when the carriage halted, and they all waited together in a dejected silence as Haddy went within to attempt to find rooms.

They startled when the carriage door was yanked open, and Haddy loomed into the darkness of the interior. “We have rooms!” he declared, the relief obvious in his voice, echoed by Summer’s audible sigh. “We’ll be crowded, but at least we’ve beds for the night.”