A Rumored Fortune Read online

  Then the aura of Trevelyan Castle swirled around me as it always did when I set foot inside its great doors, distilling my bubbling excitement to a sense of awe and pure inspiration for my artist’s heart. The very air seemed clouded with centuries of living, a sense of ancientness, and all the ghosts that went along with it. It was merely a house, yet I couldn’t escape the feeling that the emotions, triumphs, and stories of generations had seeped into the walls and remained trapped there, their essence floating about the rooms.

  With a deep sigh I spun in a slow circle, taking in the familiar portraits on the elaborate gold-and-blue backdrop of the walls, working hard to push aside the worry that insisted on settling around my heart. Margaret had looked tense, burdened. It was merely her shock at seeing me, wasn’t it?

  As I slipped down the stairs after a thorough cleansing and a relaxing toilette, a fresh life had returned to my spirit. I swept into the gold-domed drawing room with the familiar elegant furniture and hurried over to Mother, who had begun to recover from her ordeal. “Isn’t it grand to be home again, Mother? How well you look already.”

  A spark of amusement flickered in her weary eyes. “It seems the old place has restored my daughter to me. I was afraid our trip had ruined the very essence of my little companion. You’d become so glum in those last weeks.”

  “We simply spent too much time indoors.” Trapped in town as we had been, I’d begun to wilt as all the life inside me had been bottled far too long. The amusement and splendor of our social season abroad had excited Mother but utterly suffocated me.

  Now I was home. Soon I would see Father and know the reason he had summoned us. I spun the little opal ring on my finger as I’d done so often of late. It was the only gift Father had ever selected for me, and it served as a reminder of those brief glimpses of tenderness in him, leaving me hopeful for more of it. We were so alike, Father and I, for he’d chosen the gem that most spoke to my colorful artist’s heart, and one day he’d realize how much we could mean to one another.

  Curling the band against my palm, I set aside my wandering thoughts and knelt before Mother with a smile. “Would you like tea?”

  She touched her temples and closed her eyes. “Just my vials from the trunk before this headache swallows me. I sent Lucy to fetch them a quarter of an hour ago. Where could that girl—?”

  Crash.

  Metal banged and clinked on hall tile, echoing through the house, and Mother cast her eyes heavenward with a sigh of long-suffering. “Never mind.”

  My unfortunate lady’s maid, Lucy, peeked around the door, her frizzy hair framing the wide-eyed face with tiny heart lips pursed to hold back a flood of ready excuses and apologies.

  Mother waved her in with barely veiled impatience. Even though she never lowered herself to outright anger, no one failed to miss the disapproval of Trevelyan’s mistress. “Did you bring my vials?”

  “I have them here.” The girl hurried in and handed her the case with a quick curtsy. “Also, tea will be a bit delayed.” She lowered her blushing face.

  In a beat I stepped forward and inserted myself into the incident. “How wonderful of you to protect Mother’s vials in the collision with the tea cart. Not a one is broken, and that is admirable.” I caught the girl’s eyes and flashed an encouraging, conspiratorial smile upon her, for we were both victims of Mother’s veiled contempt at times. Another curtsy and the dear, pitiable Lucy hurried away, her head down to hide her tears.

  “I don’t know why you insist on keeping the girl, Tressa. There are so many accomplished young ladies you might have as your lady’s maid.”

  “But then who will have Lucy?”

  Wind pelted rain at the windows. Still restless and haunted by the pallor that had touched Margaret’s usually rosy face, I crossed the room to stand in the window bay that was now assaulted by the dying storm. “I wonder what drove Father to summon us home. I don’t believe that’s ever happened. Do you suppose he’s changed a great deal?”

  “In six and twenty years of marriage, he hasn’t had the good sense to change yet. Why ever would he start now?”

  The words pinched my heart. “Oh, Mother. Can’t you at least try to like him? He adores you so.” If only she knew how lucky she was.

  “It complicates marriage so greatly, to have your heart tangled up in it. Besides, he does not make himself easy to enjoy.”

  Her words held truth, for Josiah Harlowe had not been one to lavish affection upon anyone. He doled it out as sparingly as he did his legendary fortune.

  “Perhaps he misses you, and—”

  “Oh for heaven’s sake, child. He never sent for us, and I never should have let you believe it. The summons came from Amos. It was he who called us home.”

  The butler?

  Finally the door slid open and our housekeeper scurried in with a fresh tea cart. “There was a Mr. Donegan Vance here just before you reached the house, asking that he be notified when you all return. He left no card, but he’s staying in town.”

  She waved off the news. “Margaret, where is my husband?” Mother spoke from her graceful lounging position on the settee, her voice whisper-soft, as if even the effort of speaking drained her tired soul.

  Margaret turned up the teacups and poured, nervous eyes darting about, her pleasant face lined with worry. “Amos will have to tell you the news, my lady.”

  Mother straightened against the floral tapestry, her elegant head tipped with sudden concern. “What? What is it? Has he had business troubles?”

  “No, my lady, it isn’t that.” Margaret nudged the poor butler forward with her elbow. “Amos will tell it.”

  “I . . . I wouldn’t know how to say it.” Amos’s long fingers worked around the empty tray he carried as he faced us.

  “Come now, one of you tell me what it is or I’ll dismiss you both.”

  Margaret sighed, heaving her rounded shoulders forward. “He has died, my lady. Nearly a fortnight ago.”

  Disbelief tore through me as I struggled to grasp the truth. Died! The terrible word rolled around in my mind and settled like the steel of a knife, slicing the delicate thread of hope I’d held all this time. Stiff and regal, I held my composure like a calm pond on a summer’s day. But beneath the surface, a tempest of the fiercest proportions roiled around, the power of it swaying me on my feet, leaving me weak and unsteady in its wake. A few deep breaths and the initial shock receded, but the pain had sliced deep into my belly, where it continued to turn.

  Then I remembered Mother. I held my breath for a heartbeat as I awaited her reaction, one hand to my satin bodice.

  A look of guilt and angst settled on the smooth planes of her face. “So, Josiah has died.” She sank back into the settee. Her face had gone quite pale.

  Margaret’s lips pinched in her signature look of masked disapproval at the subdued manner of her mistress’s grief. The nature of their relationship could not have been a secret among our staff, for the two seldom saw one another, yet this blatant acknowledgment of their detachment seemed rather vulgar, especially now.

  “I’m so sorry, mistress. I offer the deepest sympathies of the entire staff.”

  When the housekeeper left the room, Mother turned to me with determination. “We must focus on the positives of this horrible situation. I refuse to be mired in grief.”

  “I’m afraid I cannot avoid it.” Truly, the ache cascaded over me in waves, drenching my heart in loss and pain.

  She reached out and grasped both my hands in hers. “I shall do all I can to make you feel better, as you always have for me.”

  I slipped my hands out of hers. “What good could possibly come out of Father’s death?” It was so final, so utterly wretched, with absolutely no silver lining.

  “Perhaps we should distract ourselves with pretty things to liven our hearts.”

  “You wish to shop?” The reality of our differences sliced cool and thin between us, intensifying my fresh grief. I ached even more for the father whose heart had been cut fro
m the same fabric as mine, wishing for another chance to break down whatever barrier had kept us disconnected, for it seemed there was no one else in my life like me in the least.

  “At last we can have all that fortune he’s held so tightly and spend it as our own, with no one to slap our hands away.”

  I curled my hand into itself. If anger could be a noise, it whirred painfully in my ears. In some moments I found it difficult to empathize with her, but in this moment disgust speared any tenderness I may have felt. Her callous delight shredded my aching heart, and I turned away, unable to bear the sight of her.

  “Oh come now, you can’t tell me we must keep up a pretense. It’s his own fault if he has no one to miss him, the way he lived like an angry hermit. Come, let’s have the fortune brought out now. Where has he gone and put it?”

  I turned back and looked about for whom she might be talking to, but she remained focused. “Why, I haven’t a clue where it is, Mother. I assumed you . . .”

  Her blue eyes froze into two orbs of ice and she dropped my hands. “He did not tell you?”

  I shook my head, gladness and fear swirling through me that the fortune should be out of her reach, at least for this moment. “He said he’d tell me just before he died.” I looked at Mother and the truth struck us both immediately. Here we were living in this immense castle with a lavish vineyard and a staff of nearly sixty-five . . . and barely a shilling between us. At Father’s death, we were suddenly the poorest wealthy family in all of England.

  Fear blanched Mother’s face. “How could he . . . Oh this is the worst . . .” Then she paused with her chin out, a picture of courage as she rose from the sofa with effort and wobbled on her feet. “I suppose we must bear it.”

  Springing up, I steadied her and implored her to rest. Performing my usual service to her urged me on when I wished desperately to crumple into a heap of ashes and blow away in the wind. “Something will turn up. There’s nothing we cannot better deal with after a good rest. I’ll help you to your chambers and send a maid with eau de cologne for your head.”

  She allowed herself to be led out of the drawing room and up the great staircase as I paused to lift a candle. Three steps up, she stopped me with a faint pressure on my arm. “You knew him best, Tressa dear.”

  I forced myself to swallow. If only appearances had translated into reality. No matter how often I followed him about the vineyard throughout the years, we’d shared no more than a handful of words. He’d addressed me in his gruffly tolerant way, occasionally sinking into true conversation for a fleeting moment, but otherwise he hastened me away.

  “Surely you can think of some place . . . you must know something. Something.”

  I nearly said that I did not, but that would be a lie. I lowered my gaze as one image flashed through my mind so plainly I could nearly touch it. His notebooks. In those pages of his notes and observations on the vineyard, he had tucked pieces of himself that could be found in no other place. If one were to understand where he’d hidden the fortune that had been his lifeblood, the answer would be buried somewhere in those volumes.

  Yet I held my tongue. The idea of Mother glimpsing the private words on those pages made me cringe.

  “We’ll think on it later, Mother. The only thing we’ll discuss tonight is getting you to bed.” Climbing alongside the leaping shadows of the candlelight, I glanced about the familiar house anew, seeing it as a cavern of mystery. For somewhere in these rooms lay the entirety of Father’s fortune, the great secret of the man I’d barely begun to know. And unless I wanted to give up everything precious to me that still remained, I simply had to find that fortune.

  “Here, miss, let me.” Mother’s lady’s maid hurried up behind me and accepted Mother’s weight, looping an arm around the woman’s slender frame. Surprisingly sturdy, the girl bore the weight of her mistress without trouble, so I nodded my thanks and retraced my steps down the stairs. More tea would do wonders for the chill that had gripped me from the inside out.

  In the drawing room, I paused as voices nearby arrested my attention. They wafted out from behind the service door.

  “Will you tell her about the master?” Amos’s voice warbled out in a fearful whisper.

  It was Margaret’s voice that snapped out a response. “You were there when I informed them of his death, weren’t you?”

  “That isn’t what I meant, and you know it.”

  3

  Each piece of fruit contains its own buried treasure that gives it limitless value—a seed.

  —Notebook of a viticulturist

  Squinting into the fog made orange by the rising sun, I strode through the sprawling vineyard in a nightdress and my tattered old garden cloak and pondered the odd whispers of my servant. What could she have meant? Shortly before breakfast and well before any sight of my mother, the early morning had wrapped itself around me in a cool, moist hush. The natural beauty around me dulled the edges of my pain, but the solid ache of it remained.

  My dear blonde fur ball of a Spaniel dog, who had appeared as I’d exited the kitchen, followed closely, bumping my heels when I paused. Daisy’s silent but eager company warmed my solemn heart as I strode among the vines ripe with poignant memories. Pausing amid the rows of spring leaves and gentle tendrils, I scooped up the little mutt and held her close. She nestled into me with jerky movements, as if nothing brought her close enough, and I hugged her gratefully. No one truly wished to be completely alone in such moments.

  A black horse pounded through the yard just beyond the vines, heavy hooves scattering the veil of mist that lay over the field. I stood among the curling vines and watched the puffing horse round the corner and gallop across the open expanse toward me, subconsciously thinking it would be Father before I remembered with a stab of pain and loss that it could not be.

  I twirled a fingertip idly through a cluster of hard little grape balls hanging from the wire beside me as Daisy wiggled down and scampered back toward the house. Finally the horseman rounded the stables and drew near. Only then did I recognize him as the man who had rescued me the night before.

  The horse slowed to a high step and the rider held up a hand in greeting. I pulled the old gardening cloak more tightly about my frame, suddenly very aware that only my nightclothes covered me beneath it. Oh why hadn’t I had the patience to dress? Here I stood before a man I didn’t know, oddly dressed and with an uncovered head. My dark hair hung about my shoulders in thick, full waves, half of it pulled back in a knot behind my head.

  “Hello there.” He urged his horse closer and reined him in, springing down to stand before me in tall leather boots, black pants, and a faded white tunic open at the neck. Its fabric flapped in the open sea air against his chest. “It’s you, is it? The little waif in the rain.”

  “I am eternally grateful for your help.” The horse snorted and jerked against the reins, bending close to rub his nose on my shoulder as if relieving an itch, and my free hand rose to caress his face. What an enchanting animal, like a horse from a fairy tale. Beautiful feathering fell around his massive hooves, but he also possessed the tall, sleek appearance of a show horse. I smoothed my hand along his well-oiled neck. “A remarkable creature you have.”

  “He’s a Shire I purchased from the Gypsies. I call him Gypsy.”

  “Fitting.” I turned my face away to hide the shock at his admission. Had he truly met Gypsies? “What brings you back to Trevelyan?”

  “A business matter to attend to.” He glanced behind me at the rising sun, squinting into its intense orangeness. “And why are you out this early? The men should be ashamed that you have risen before they have begun work.”

  I inhaled and closed my eyes. “I am merely here to admire the artwork of dawn. My favorite artist happens to be God, and in my opinion his finest work is the sunrise. I cannot stand to miss a single unveiling.”

  His gaze bore into me, studying me as if confused or surprised at my words. If only I could eavesdrop on his thoughts. He shifted his attention to
the thirteen acres of sloping vineyard beyond me before I could ponder any longer. “Perhaps you can tell me more about the master of this place.”

  I frowned. Just like the men in the pub, he believed me to be a maid. Before I could correct him, he spoke again.

  “Were you on good terms with the master?”

  His surprising question unsettled the delicate balance of my emotions. It felt invasive somehow, even though he could not know its true implications. I had been on painfully limited terms with Father, and I couldn’t admit that I, more distanced from him than a servant, was actually his daughter. As my toes curled into the tips of my shoes, I looked up at him. “Not so close as some, sir.” Like his vines. Throughout most of my life these plants had more right to call the man “father” than I’d had.

  “You look poorly kept. Even worse than yesterday. Do they not dress their staff appropriately?”

  Pinching my lips, I studied the hem of the cloak that had seen more years than I had. “These garments are of my own choosing. I’ve no one but myself to blame for their unsuitability.”

  Stepping closer with a squeak of his leather boots, he lowered his voice. “You can speak openly with me. I wish to know what sort of place this is.” He smelled of deep woods and nature, and one look up into his deeply intense eyes told me he was a man who did nothing by halves. Passion sparked in their dark brown depths, and they were bright and expressive, although what they expressed I couldn’t decide. “Tell me why they did not provide better for you.”

  “The house of Harlowe has blessed me with material goods beyond that of any maid. What reason have you to investigate this estate?”

  He pressed his lips together, forming two long hollows in his ruggedly stubbled cheeks. “I’ll be managing the vineyards.”

  I fisted my hands under my cloak and stared up at him. “I sincerely doubt that.” My father had adamantly refused to allow his own daughter to join him in caring for them. A newcomer had no business working in—no, leading—the sacred endeavor.