Impetuous

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When they reached Chesilworth, Mr. Miller exclaimed aloud, impressed by its size and age, “Why, it’s a castle!”

“Hardly.” Cassandra laughed. “The Verreres were not great land barons during the Middle Ages, but the Elizabethan who built this tried his best to make it look like one.”

“You won’t find anything like this in the United States,” he told her, still in awe. “It’s a grand place. You must have hated to leave it.”

Cassandra nodded, though it wasn’t its grandeur that made her miss Chesilworth. It was its dear familiarity and its memories, the sense of family history that lived throughout it. They showed Mr. Miller through Chesilworth, even the damp and deteriorating west wing, and the next afternoon he returned to help them search the attics. In the end, he wound up stretching his visit to yet a third day, and it was with visible reluctance that he left them then.

After his departure, the days at Moulton House settled into their usual routine. Cassandra oversaw most of her aunt’s housekeeping, and whenever she could, she sneaked away to Chesilworth, sometimes with her siblings and sometimes without.

One afternoon, about a week after Mr. Miller departed, all four of the Verreres were in the attic at Chesilworth, though only Cassandra was still looking through the trunks. The heat of the day and boredom had prompted the twins to engage in a pretend sword fight with two canes they had found against the attic wall, and Olivia stood by an open window, trying to find any stray bit of breeze.

Cassandra finished loading all the objects back into a trunk that she had just emptied and closed the lid, sending another shower of dust all over her. She coughed and sat back on her heels, drawing her hand across her forehead and sighing. Her back hurt, and she badly wanted a drink of water. She coughed again and thought about quitting the search for the day.

To her amazement, there was a sound in the hall below the attic stairs. Then her cousin’s voice rang out cheerily, “Cassandra! Oh, Cassandra!”

Joanna? Whatever had possessed Joanna to come all the way over to Chesilworth? It was not like her cousin to move an inch out of her way, let alone visit their dilapidated house. There were footsteps on the stairs, and a man’s head and shoulders appeared through the hole in the floor. Cassandra understood now why Joanna had gone to the trouble of coming to Chesilworth. She rose to her feet, staring in silence as the rest of the man came into view.

“Good day, Miss Verrere,” said Sir Philip Neville cheerfully.

Chapter Five

“SIR PHILIP!” CASSANDRA gaped at the man.

“Miss Verrere. It is a pleasure to see you again.” A twinkle danced in Neville’s brown eyes.

Cassandra was intensely, humiliatingly aware of the way she looked—sweating in a most unlady-like manner, covered with dust, wearing one of her oldest and most ragtag dresses, and her hair no doubt sticking out every which way. She looked past Sir Philip to the attic opening, where Joanna now stood, a smug smile playing on her lips. Cassandra felt as if she could cheerfully have murdered her. No wonder Joanna had gone to the trouble of coming over to Chesilworth. She had known the state in which she and Sir Philip would find Cassandra.

Cassandra rose to her feet with all the dignity she could muster, trying vainly to brush the dust off her hands onto her skirts. “I—this is indeed a surprise, Sir Philip. I had not expected to see you again, least of all here.”

“My visit to Lady Arrabeck’s was over, and I was returning home, when it occurred to me that Dunsleigh would be a pleasant place at which to make a stop.”

“How fortuitous that we lay on your way home,” Cassandra replied, bringing up a mental map in her head and placing Lady Arrabeck’s, Dunsleigh and Neville’s Haverly House on it. It seemed to her that no one in his right mind would go through Dunsleigh to travel from Arrabeck Hall to Haverly House.

“Yes, isn’t it?” Neville returned blandly.

He had to be here about the treasure. Cassandra was certain that his story about dropping in on his way home was utter folderol, even if Joanna was too poor at geography to realize it. She was grateful, though, that he had been smart enough not to tell her aunt or cousin the real reason for his visit.

He crossed the attic to where she stood, winding his way among the boxes and trunks, and bowed elegantly over her embarrassingly dusty hand.

“Please forgive my appearance,” Cassandra murmured. “’Tis dusty work in the attics.”

“I see.” A flash of amusement crossed his face. “But there is no need to apologize. You look, as always, enchanting.”

Cassandra felt a betraying heat rise in her cheeks and she glanced quickly away. “Uh—I—allow me to introduce you to my sister and brothers.”

The twins had stopped their mock battle as soon as Neville had arrived, and they edged closer now, staring at him in fascination.

“My brother Crispin, Lord Chesilworth, and his twin Hart. And this is my sister, Olivia Verrere. Children, this is Sir Philip Neville.”

Neville exchanged polite greetings with the other three, adding as he bowed over Olivia’s hand, “Ah, another beauty in the family, I see.”

Olivia’s eyes grew even wider, and Cassandra knew that he had won her sister over. Behind them, still standing beside the attic stairway, Joanna shifted and sighed noisily. She unfurled her fan and made a production of waving it in front of her.

“It is so dreadfully hot in here,” she opined. “Cassandra, I don’t see how you can stand it. I swear, I think I should faint.”

“Oh, you know I am never subject to the vapors,” Cassandra answered her pragmatically. “But perhaps you should go back downstairs, where it is less stifling.”

“Yes, of course.” Joanna gave her a cat-in-the-cream smile and went on in dulcet tones, “We ought to return to the house, Sir Philip. Cassandra and the other children could join us when they get through here.”

“Thank you for your concern, Miss Moulton.” Sir Philip sent her a brief, disinterested glance. “No doubt you should return to the house if you are feeling unwell. However, I shall remain here. Miss Verrere looks as if she could use some help.”

Joanna stared at him. “You are going to help them clean the attic?”

“If that is what they are doing, yes.” He gave her a perfunctory smile and turned back to Cassandra.

“But I—I can hardly go back to the house by myself,” Joanna protested.

“Your groom was with us.”

“Yes, of course, but that isn’t the same. I mean, he is not a gentleman.”

“You do not trust your servants to behave in a proper manner?” Neville asked, lifting his eyebrows in surprise.

“Of course—I didn’t mean—that is—”

“If you are scared to go back with Jessup,” Olivia suggested with great innocence, “then perhaps you had best wait downstairs. I am sure we will be through in a few hours. Won’t we, Cassie?”

Cassandra had to bite her lip to keep from giggling at Joanna’s outraged expression. “Yes. Joanna, that sounds like an excellent idea.”

Joanna cast a fulminating glance at Cassandra, then at the others, and finally stalked ungraciously to the nearest trunk, lifting her skirts from the dusty floor. She put on a show of dusting off the top of the trunk with her handkerchief, but it was lost on Sir Philip, who was once again looking down at Cassandra.

“Where shall I start, Miss Verrere?”

“Ah...” Cassandra glanced around vaguely, trying to pull her thoughts together. “Well, I had just finished this trunk, and I was going to move on to the one beside it. Perhaps you would like to go through that one.” She pointed to the flat-topped, brass-bound trunk on the other side.

“Of course.” He moved to the next trunk and opened it, sending dust cascading from its top.

Cassandra knelt in front of the trunk beside him and opened it. She glanced over at Sir Philip, still scarcely able to believe that he was there. Her initial embarassment over her appearance was subsiding. It didn’t really matter how she looked; what was important was that he had come.

Quietly she asked, “You have decided that you believe me, sir?”

“I never disbelieved you, Miss Verrere. I was simply of the opinion that you had been duped.”

“A vast improvement. You merely thought me a fool.”

He looked at her, his eyes dancing. “Never that, dear lady.”

“What made you change your mind?”

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.