Born of Treasure (Treasure Chronicles Book 2) (3 page)

“You… you,” the clock smith sputtered. “Hey, you were in my office. You wanted my watches.”

Clark lowered his eyelids to appear bored. “I have a watch. I don’t need one of yours.” He pulled the tiny brass pocket watch from his vest pocket and held it up. “You can see my name on the back. This is clearly mine, a gift from my wife.” He kissed the top of her head. Amethyst had insisted on the inscription when she surprised him with it.

“Every gentleman has an engraved pocket watch,” she’d said as she fastened it to him. “Be happy I didn’t order something gaudy.”

“Not everyone is obsessed with clocks,” Clark added. “You may want to return to your shop. If there was a criminal in there, you need a detailed report of what was stolen to give to the sheriff.”

“I’m sure he’ll help you track the thief and return your clock.” Amethyst tapped the floor with the tip of her parasol. “Come along, darling. Grandfather will grow impatient and make the ride terribly unpleasant.”

“Good day, folks.” Clark held out his arm and she rested her hand in the crook of his elbow.

“You really need a hat, darling,” she said as they glided through the café’s entrance. “What will grandfather say when he sees you acting like a hooligan?”

Clark chuckled when they reached the street. In case anyone from the café watched, he steered her to the left where the buggies for rent waited. “Grandfather will love to hear about how only you can make yourself sound incredible by being your own best friend.”

She spun in front of him to kiss his chest. “This is so much fun. Where is your father sending us next?”

he stationmaster wiped his nose on his monogrammed handkerchief, images of gears woven in the lace along the edge, a product of his wife’s handiwork. The ballroom had never seemed so dusty until the clocks took over. When the stationmaster had been a child, the room had still been used for dances and guest speakers, despite the white paint peeling on the walls and the dying curtains.

“I swear it.” The clock smith’s face streaked red from his chin to his ears. “I went through everything, checked stuff with my inventory. The boy took off with the swan watch.”

The stationmaster flared his nostrils as he studied the cluttered ballroom. “You know, Dan, I’m negotiating with a very powerful man on your behalf in regards to that pocket watch.”

Dan turned redder, somehow. The stationmaster had never before seen anyone that purplish shade. “I know full well you’re getting half the commission.”

“We’ll both make a goodly amount.” He should get more than half. Dan wouldn’t have known the prize he had if the stationmaster hadn’t mentioned seeing the advertisement for its return. He’d happened to mention it when Dan paid his rent for the ballroom office. Fate had worked in their favor. “You must’ve mentioned it to someone. How else would anyone know it was here?”

Dan backpedaled, blinking. “I didn’t blab, not even to my sweetheart. I only told you I had it. Who’d you tell?”

The flier had been sent with the wanted posters that the station master hung around the terminal each month. Each year, the flier passed around, and had been for at least twenty years.

“I grabbed it up cheap,” Dan had said. “The pawn shop guy said it won’t open. I’ve been working on it. I love a challenge with my watches.”

The stationmaster doubted Dan made much profit on his clock refurbishing, but the man loved his work and took in projects people paid him for to get by. “I only wrote to Senator Horan in answer to his flier.”

“Who knows what secretary pawed through the letters.”

Dirt ground beneath his shoes as the stationmaster crossed to the stage. He’d forgotten about the abandoned props.

“I never let anyone in here,” Dan continued. “I meet with my clients out by the benches. Nobody but me comes in. I like to keep organized for myself, you see.”

The grime made it obvious the station cleaners never got to delve into the space. “What about the trap door?” The stationmaster pointed up. “You said the villain escaped that way. It wasn’t locked?”

“No lock on a trap door.”

“We can fix that.” The stationmaster rubbed the bridge of his nose. “So the supposed thief went with that girl everyone was talking about. Amethyst Grisham.”

“I know it was him. Had to be him.”

“It looked like him?” Who could say clockwork hadn’t dimmed Dan’s eyesight?

Dan coughed. “More or less.”

“I’ll mention it in my letter.” The stationmaster sighed. Senator Horan had been willing to pay two thousand dollars for the broken watch. “I should’ve sent it instead of negotiating for more. I’d been certain it had to have sentimental value. Why else would he want it? The diamond couldn’t be worth much, if it was real.”

“It had to be them. It was a Grisham watch.”

“What?” The stationmaster whirled around. “I thought we were talking about Senator Horan’s pocket watch.” They could still get the money. He pulled off his top hat and shook it at Dan. “Don’t fool with me like that.”

Dan backed into a table. The clock parts scattered across it rattled. “N-no, it is that watch, the one Senator Horan wants. I looked up the swan symbol on the front. It’s the Grisham family crest.”

“Bloody gears.” The stationmaster jerked his hat back on. Dan had claimed to have owned the pocket watch for ten years, and that flier of Senator Horan’s had gone around long before that. “Did the Grisham family hunt it down then? Why didn’t they just ask you for it back?”

Dan gulped. “The girl called the thief Clark, said he was her husband. Clark Grisham, then.”

Jeremiah Treasure wondered when he’d become an alcoholic. Up until his twentieth birthday, he’d never touched a drop of the stuff except for some wine at the holidays. That was when his father had handed over the running of the ranch so he could concentrate on the other businesses. Let Garth have his mines and railroads. Jeremiah yearned for the feel of hot wind stroking his face as he galloped his roan through a field after a wayward calf.

In the evenings, he and his father would sit in the office, sharing some rum, and discuss how the ranch got on. Jeremiah wondered if he should resent his father’s prying, but Garth had built the family name up since his boyhood when he’d trained to be a lawyer. After university, he’d joined the army, raised to the title of major captain, and fell in love with the land out west. He could teach a lot.

Jeremiah glared into his shot glass of vodka. He should’ve never started those nightly glasses of rum. They led to drinking whenever his nerves became agitated.

“Jere?” Alyssa Ottman’s gentle voice jerked him from his thoughts. “You’ve already had two of those. I think three should be your limit.”

He glanced at his girlfriend in the wicker porch chair beside him. If she’d told Clark that, his half-brother would’ve laughed and made a joke.
Thanks for keeping an eye on me, Mother.

Jeremiah winced. Where had the Clark reference come from? That bastard, taking the word literally, had crawled into him. In less than a season, had Clark really made that much of an impact on the family?

“He’s here!” Zachariah leapt off his chair to dart toward the road to meet the steamcoach Garth had sent to the train station.

Jeremiah lifted the shot glass to his lips, but paused. Alyssa hated alcohol. Scowling, he set it back down on the porch table. He could have been entertaining her in the garden or checking on the ranch hands, rather than awaiting Captain Greenwood. Why would the head of the army for Hedlund want to see his little brother, anyway? Zachariah didn’t scream specialness.

The government took anyone into the army, and Zachariah had never seen action because he was Garth’s son. The wealthy held titles in the army out of prestige, not because they deserved them. That had to be why Clark always fidgeted whenever someone mentioned the soldiers.

The Bromi driver hopped down from his seat to open the steamcoach door. A rotund man in his blue army uniform stepped down, straightening the visor on his cap. Gold tassels hung off his broad shoulders and metals glistened on his jacket.

Jeremiah rose from his seat as the others on the porch followed suit. Zachariah shook the captain’s hand, his face glowing in the afternoon sunlight. Captain Greenwood continued up the path to the ranch house without looking at Zachariah, who tagged at his heels: a puppy yipping for attention from its master. Zachariah weakened the Treasure name. Maybe Clark should join the army, to prove what kind of a man a Treasure could be.

Jeremiah scowled. Clark was on his mind again.

Garth shook the captain’s hand. “Welcome, sir. We’re pleased to have you at the Treasure Ranch.”

“Captain Treasure.”

Garth laughed. “People don’t call me that anymore. I haven’t been an active member since Jeremiah was born. It’s ‘Master Treasure’ around here, but please, call me Garth.”

“
Mister
Treasure, then. We believe in formality in the army.”

“As long as you make the title of Captain, you keep it your entire life,” Zachariah recited. “It’s an honor. Even if you raise up in the ranks, ‘Captain’ you remain in public.”

His little brother could’ve been in a schoolroom practicing his times tables for a tutor. Thinking back, that was how he’d acted for the professor their father had hired: studious, solemn, and perfect. Jeremiah’s Professor Esselte had cared more about shooting apples off trees than quoting classics.

Every Friday, the professors had lined their pupils in Garth’s office for them to recite a weekly essay for him and Georgette. Professor Esselte had helped Jeremiah write about the land and ranches, about new irrigation methods and farming inventions. He’d loved the discussions with his father that followed.

Zachariah had talked about ancient civilizations and bowed while their parents clapped. No one applauded him now. He shrank against the railing while his widened eyes tried to consume Captain Greenwood.

Jeremiah scratched his chin. If he’d been promoted to Colonel, he would’ve preferred that title to Captain. The army had to do things differently.

Garth rested his hand on Georgette’s back. “I would like to introduce you to my wife, Georgette.”

Captain Greenwood kissed her gloved knuckles. “A pleasure, my lady.”

“Welcome.” Georgette smiled.