A Heart's Treasure (7 page)

One fellow—Xavier judged him a farmer—knew no such restraint when it came to drink, laughing frequently between deep draws from his mug. Late into the evening, the clearly drunk man leaned forward on his three-legged stool, surprising Xavier when the man managed to retain his seat. “M’lord,” he slurred, “how comes it yer wears that patch on yer eye?”

Xavier sat up stiffly, and slowly the conversation around him died as all became aware that an offense had been offered. Michael and Kenneth exchanged concerned glances.

“No, sirs, we’ll have none of that,” Haddy interrupted. He just kept from scowling by looking down and sweeping up the dice once more. “Now, as to this wager, I will—”

“No, Moreland,” Xavier said in a cool and quiet voice. “This fellow asked me a question. And not rudely. He shall have his answer.”

Haddy lowered his chin, scowl deepening, but he put the dice aside and sat down as if Xavier had chastised him.

Kenneth and Michael gave each other another glance, uneasiness mixed with curiosity. Xavier had never told them the tale of his eye’s injury, and after a dozen silently frozen glares, they’d ceased asking years ago.

He sat back in his chair now, knitting his hands together over his stomach. The look on his face steady, but not the icy mask the question usually brought forth. After a sizable pause, he began to speak slowly, in a storyteller’s voice. At his tone, Haddy continued to stare down at the table top, but Michael and Kenneth both tilted back their heads in expectation of what was coming.

“My loss took place during a terrible storm at sea, gentlemen.” Xavier slowly began to lean forward. “My father had thought I ought to gain a little knowledge of the world, and the lessons to be had from hard labor.” Several men nodded. “So he sent me on a one-time trip sailing for the Far East. I was tolerated as mate to the ship’s bosun, to learn how to load and unload cargo. I dressed the part, and we were a ragged crew. Not least the captain, who had a wooden leg and, due to a terrible accident with the anchor rope, a hook in place of his right hand.” Xavier held up his own right hand and wiggled his fingers.

Michael’s eyes narrowed and he slid a glance at Haddy, who didn’t deign to return it, but instead only crossed his arms and shifted his eyes from the table top to Xavier where he spoke.

“You should have seen it, men.” Xavier had leaned enough that now his elbow was on his knee, his weight shifted forward as though to be sure he could leap up from his chair at a moment’s notice. “A creature, the like of which I’ve never seen, nor even heard of before. An octopus, they called it, with tentacles twenty feet long, covered in terrible suckers, and a great bulbous head the size of a bull.”

Some began to realize they might be having a rum tale told to them, stirring on their seats with either scowls or grins, but one wide-eyed man called out, “Aye, Oi’ve heard of them, what-yer-say, them occupuses.”

Xavier pointed at him, going on gravely. “Then you’ll have heard it said the giant ones—like this vile monster—can reach right up out of the merciless sea to the deck of a great ship. It can snatch a man down to his watery death, in a moment, as it wraps its mighty tentacles about the man, squeezing the life from him, making him gasp for breath even as its awful jaws come down and tear his head from right off his body.”

“Is that right, Harve? Them occupuses got great, big jaws, do they?” Harve’s neighbor asked anxiously.

Harve looked uncertain, but then he nodded. “Right then, that’s what Oi’ve heard.”

“So an octopus attempted to tear off your head?” Michael, gamely repressing a smile, supplied the question for Xavier, who acknowledged the favor with an inclination of his head.

“Oh no, not I. ‘Twas the captain who had his head torn off. But before, as he was being dragged across the deck, screaming and thrashing as a man would, that’s when his hook raked across my face,” he cried with a gesture to accent the story, then pointed to his patch. “The captain took my eye to the briny depths and left me with this appalling reminder of that poor soul’s final moments.”

At last Haddy responded, with a tiny shake of his head and an even tinier smile.

A silence filled the room for a moment, broken only by the ticking of a clock above the room’s empty grate.

“Go on wit’ yer!” a voice suddenly called from the back of the crowd.

Someone tittered, and then there was a general, appreciative laugh.

Xavier smiled broadly. “But ’tis true. Every word.” He tilted his head to one side in a quick bob. “Or, well, some of them could be true.”

“Such as ‘the’ and ‘heard it said’,” Haddy put in.

Harve looked about, realizing the truth a little too far behind his mates. The severely drunken man who’d first asked the question of Xavier turned to Harve and bawled, “You booby!”

“Booby, am I?
Yer
the drunken sot—”

“Gentlemen, gentlemen,” Xavier spoke. “My tale is told, and the hour is late. May I suggest you assist one another in returning home?” His lips remained upturned, but something steely had crept into the gray of his good eye.

Harve and the drunken man fell still, until someone thumped them both in the back and  the group around him laughed anew. Joshed and harried to his feet, Harve belatedly mumbled a sheepish “Right-o, m’lord” to Xavier, and his mates good-naturedly ushered him and themselves out into the night.

* * *

Kenneth took advantage during the commotion to lean toward Michael. He whispered, “How
did
he lose that eye? I’ve never known.”

Michael spread his hands. “Nor I. For my cheek in asking once, he gave me a punch that gave me a week-long bruise on my arm. I never asked again.”

Kenneth nodded in empathy. “Me, too.” He considered a moment. “Haddy knows, I think.”

“He denied it to me once.” Michael rubbed his chin. “But I didn’t quite believe him. I think he knows at least something about it.”

Kenneth nodded again.

“I tell you this, I think Haddy’s determined to keep Xavier’s secret.” Kenneth’s nod came a third time. “What might it be?” Michael pressed. “Surely nothing that requires such perpetual concealment?”

“Unless his father…?”

Both men strained to imagine Lord Fenworth somehow causing the injury and Xavier forever after hiding his parent’s blame through silence—but in the end they both shook their heads. “Fenworth and Warfield get on. There’s no…,” Michael searched for the word, “no strangeness between them.” He pointed his finger at Kenneth and twisted his hand in a gesture that said he had another point to make. “And accident or no, Fenworth would accept the responsibility. We’d surely have heard the tale by now it he’d caused the injury, don’t you think?”

“Yes. Even if a punishment had somehow gone awry…or…”

Both men reconsidered, but finally Kenneth shrugged. “Well, one of the ladies will know how it happened. Penelope, if no one else.”

“I leave it to you to ask her,” Haddy said, tone heavy with an unspoken “good luck with that.” He did add, “I wonder if the ladies will speak with us at all tomorrow, for I suspect we’ve disturbed their rest this evening.” He checked his watch and clucked his tongue as he moved toward the stairs. “Make that, this morning.”

Chapter 4

Even if strength fail, boldness at least will deserve praise:

in great endeavours even to have had the will is enough.

—Propertius,

Elegies

“There are a great many trees growing very near this inn,” Genevieve said the next morning, following Summer’s lead by sitting up in bed and leaning back against the wooden headboard. “And they house a great many birds.” Her brows lowered. “Singing, chirping, twittering birds.”

“They
are
extraordinarily noisy.” Summer rubbed the sleep from her eyes, the morning light that streamed through the gauzy curtain at the open window gilding her long almost white plait with golden streaks.

“I have listened to them since five o’clock this morning,” Genevieve replied, pointing at the clock on the bedside table that showed the hour as a quarter past eight. “I never knew I could detest birds, but now I find I really most particularly do.” She gave a lopsided grin to show she was not deadly serious. “Of course, this was after being kept awake until two in the morning by the raucous noises from the common room.”

“You’ve been awake all that time? Oh, my dear, you’ve scarcely had a bit of sleep. I finally managed to fall asleep beneath my pillow, despite the sounds from below stairs. But did you hear the host knocking on all the other doors at six?”

“Indeed. I wanted to go to the door and tell him it was not necessary to bellow, but apparently it was. Our immediate neighbor needed to be summoned three times before she finally made her departure. I heard him tell her she’d missed any chance at a breakfast and was only five minutes away from missing the morning post coach.”

“I hope they allow a later breakfast for those traveling by private coach,” Summer said as she pushed aside the single linen sheet they’d shared against the summer night. She swung her feet over the side of the bed.

“They will. Remember, Haddy bespoke a morning meal.”

“Oh, yes.” Summer stretched, her complexion complemented by the pink ribbons of her nightrail’s bodice, its white length hugging her lean form. She sat atop the high mattress, her feet dangling above the floor. Genevieve smiled ruefully to herself, as usual aware how delicately feminine and fetching her friend was, even upon rising of a morning.

“It’s already scarcely even cool,” Summer noted with a sigh. “I fear it’ll be another terribly warm day.”

“Thank goodness Oxford is not so very far from here. With any luck it’ll not be more than a two or three hour carriage ride.”

“Do you think we’ll go on from there, or remain in Oxford for the rest of the day then?” Summer asked, her slender hands hugging her own elbows.

Genevieve shook her head reassuringly at her. “We shall stop in Oxford for our luncheon, if nothing else, and go no farther if we don’t care to, so long as there is an inn to be had. I declare it.”

“Haddy would wish to travel on, if that is Kenneth’s design. I’m convinced Haddy agreed to come just so he could have the opportunity to do some hunting up north. The sooner we get there, the better, that’s what Haddy will think.”

“Then Haddy will just have to be disappointed, will he not?” Genevieve’s smile broadened. “Leave it to me. I would have no trouble persuading Haddy to any plan we care to make. Or our Michael for that matter.”

“No,” Summer said as she stared toward the curtain that barely fluttered in the light morning breeze. “You would have no trouble with that.” She darted a quick glance Genevieve’s way, expression sober. “Michael is…he doesn’t always comport himself as I would have him do… I think he tries to overset me, at times.”

“What? Why would he?” Genevieve was honestly perplexed.

“I think I am too timid for him.” This time Summer’s gaze clung to Genevieve’s. “I’m too…unlike you.”

“Unlike
me
?” Genevieve cried, coming off the bed to cross around to Summer’s side. She took up the other girl’s hands to peer down at her. “What a mad thing to say. I can’t tell you how many times Michael has called me a hoyden. He’s told me to my face that I ought conduct myself more like
you
.”

“Oh, Michael.” Summer lifted her chin a little, gently chiding the missing fellow. “Well then, not exactly like you, I suppose,” she amended. “A man doesn’t wish his intended to be too very like his sister, of course. But I can only think he wants someone who is more bold and clever and decisive like you.”

Genevieve plopped onto the bed beside the fair-haired lady, twisting in place to be able to still hold her hands. “Oh, but surely not, Summer. My brother and father despair of me. Papa is forever bemoaning I make it difficult for men to see my appeal. He says I’m opinionated, forever pronouncing my likes and dislikes. He says since I don’t have a mother to guide me, I’ve scarcely any notion of manners. I cannot confine my table conversation to the weather or my latest frock, but must discuss the issues before the House of Lords, or the last battle our army has fought. He doesn’t say it, but I know I’m the reason he never remarried.” Her voice caught on these words, which held a little too much truth.

By and large, she’d been rather unkind to the ladies of his preference and quite shooed them all away. She saw it now that she was older. She’d denied her papa a bit of future happiness because she’d been too long lost and hurting at her mother’s passing.

What if some gentleman such as, for instance, Xavier had come to Papa and asked for Genevieve’s hand? How terrible if her wishes hadn’t been considered, if Papa had decided for her and denied her, in such an example, a connection she’d hoped for?

The thought made her uncomfortable…w
hy had Xavier been the first man to come to mind?
...and, to think, she’d been just as preemptory of her own loving parent’s possible choices.

“Pish,” Summer said at her side.

Genevieve tilted her head. “What?”

“I said ‘pish.’ Michael and Lord Galton adore you. They act exasperated with you at times, but they wouldn’t have you any other way.”

“They would,” Genevieve tried to protest.

Summer shook her head. “It’s not the point anyway, dearest Genevieve. The point is, what have I not shown Michael that he waits to see in me?”

Genevieve sat a bit stunned by this unexpected view through her friend’s eyes. “I don’t know,” she murmured, meaning the words.

Summer pulled her hands free, made a little tsking noise, and dismissed the question with a graceful little wave. “Do not fret yourself. I shall puzzle it out. I always do. And sooner than Michael thinks. He’ll see.”

The fairer girl rose and set about her
toilette
, sponging at the ewer, then pulling on a fresh shift from one of her valises. As Genevieve joined her, and they helped each other with the buttons and tapes of their dresses, Genevieve was left to mull over the fact Summer seemingly had more active plans to get Michael to the altar than she’d realized.