Not Wicked Enough (26 page)

“See there?” She pointed for Lord Nigel’s benefit as he had not been present when she and Ginny first examined the site. “Those impressions in the ground along there and there? They are too straight to be natural and surely mark the location of an ancient structure. Ginny and I noticed that the first time we came here.”

“You think it might be Roman?” Lord Nigel said, a bit too jovially.

She gave him a sideways look. “Perhaps.”

“Or Viking,” Ginny said. “Or Norman. Or whoever was here before that.”

Lord Nigel suppressed a grin. “Or after.”

“Given the Roman artifacts so often found around here,” Lily said, “I have high hopes this was the site of a garrison.” She squinted to narrow her field of focus to the outline of the foundation. On which side should they begin?

“Cromwell might have done that,” Lord Nigel said. “Leveled a building. He was mucking about here with his
cannons. Or it might have been our great-great-granduncle—or was he a cousin several times removed?—the first duke. Any one of the ancestors who preceded Mountjoy, actually.”

Lily, who didn’t want to dampen anyone’s spirits, continued her study of the foundation lines. She pointed at another series of furrows barely visible in the grass. “Could there have been two buildings here?”

The footmen with their shovels, picks, and spades had reached them and were now awaiting instructions. “Do you mean for us to dig here, miss?” the eldest of them asked. He wasn’t more than twenty-five and looked a strapping man. He nodded at Lord Nigel. “Perhaps we ought to dig by the river. That’s a likelier spot than this one, I say.”

Lord Nigel, it seemed to her, made a particular point of looking away from the fellow. And now she rather thought Lord Nigel and the footman were both trying to hide a smirk.

“Is it?” she said. The ground by the river hadn’t even the faintest sign of human habitation. Flooding over the years would have washed away any structure built so foolishly near the water.

“Yes, Miss Wellstone. It is.”

She didn’t like the way the eldest servant looked at Lord Nigel, nor Lord Nigel’s overly hearty tone of voice.

Something was afoot, and she meant to discover what it was.

L
ILY THOROUGHLY STUDIED THE THREE FOOTMEN
Mountjoy had been kind enough to allow on this adventure. The eldest was Walter, she learned. A smile continued to twitch at the corners of Walter’s mouth. Lord Nigel had interfered in some way. She was sure the two of them were partners in some plot.

“You recommend we start near the river?” she asked the young man. She smiled at him quite deliberately. He goggled, but only for a moment because another of the footmen poked him in the back.

“Aye.”

“May I ask why?”

“Heard tales about it when I was a lad.” Walter nodded as if that were of vital importance. As if, perhaps, he’d rehearsed the words. “Romansford, it was called. Isn’t that so, boys?”

Romansford.
Oh, for pity’s sake. The two hadn’t even bothered to come up with a believable name. “Is that so?” Lily asked dryly.

“It was?” Ginny asked. “How odd. I don’t think I ever—”

“Eugenia.” Lord Nigel, standing a bit behind his sister, grabbed her by the shoulders and leaned on her in a hearty manner. “Romansford. Everybody calls it that. How could you fail to remember that? Mountjoy and I were out here the Easter after we moved to Bitterward, and we found an entire cache of coins along the banks. I remember it as if it were yesterday.”

Ginny shook her head, craning her neck to look at him. “I don’t recall that.”

“Aye, milady.” Walter nodded with enthusiasm. “I found a wee coin there once.” He nudged one of his companions. “Didn’t I?”

“You did, Walter,” the young man said.

“Mountjoy still has them, Eugenia. Ask him if you don’t believe me.”

“I don’t think you found any coins at all,” Ginny said, one hand on her hip.

“Did too.”

“In fact, I’ll wager anything you like that you can’t produce a single one of them,” Ginny said.

Lily slowly turned her parasol in a circle over her head. She was highly tempted to close it and give Lord Nigel a sharp rap over his head. “Can you, Lord Nigel?”

“I don’t know precisely where they are. Somewhere in the house.”

“Nigel.” Ginny shook her head.

Lord Nigel put his hands in his coat pockets and looked sheepish. He cleared his throat. “Just because I don’t know where they are now doesn’t mean we didn’t find them.”

Ginny rolled her eyes.

“Do you remember the winter I built a model trebuchet? The year before you were married.” He held his hands about two feet apart. “About that big.”

“Yes,” Ginny said, looking at him with her arms crossed over her chest.

“I tested it.”

“Mountjoy told you not to. He said you’d break a window if you did.”

Lord Nigel drew himself up. “That’s why I used the coins instead of pebbles. I shot most of them off the west tower roof.”

“What about the rest?”

“Into the lake.”

“Does Mountjoy know?”

“Good God, no, Eugenia. He’d have skinned me alive if he’d found out.”

“Allow me to understand,” Ginny said. “By your own admission, my dear little brother, the coins you claim you found, if ever they existed, are stuck in the gutters at Bitterward or sunk to the bottom of the lake.”

“Yes.”

“Do you really expect us to believe any of that?”

“Yes.”

“Rubbish, Nigel.”

“It’s not.”

Ginny snorted. “If you’ve interfered with our adventure, Nigel, Lily and I are going to be peeved with you. Very peeved.”

He lifted his hands in protest. “This is the thanks I get for trying to help?”

“Thank you, Lord Nigel,” Lily said in a firm voice. “That is indeed helpful information. Very kind of you to share, and so important to the cause.” She rested the handle of her parasol on her shoulder and braced it underneath her forearm so as to have both hands free to hold her map and consult the sketches and notes she’d made. “That clump of rocks is intriguing, don’t you think?” She pointed away from the river. “Perhaps the threshold of the garrison building.”

“The riverside, miss,” Walter said. Again, too heartily. “You’ll want the river. It’s the best spot.”

“Shall we toss a coin?” Lord Nigel reached into a pocket and came out with a coin, which he flipped into the air and
caught on the back of his hand. “Heads it’s the river, tails, your meadow of rocks there.”

Ginny scanned the meadow as Lily had done. “I think Lily’s medallion ought to determine where we start.”

“Brilliant idea,” Lily said. One never did want to accuse one’s host of cheating, but she was convinced, among other things, that Lord Nigel Hampton had rigged his toss of the coin. Or else so thoroughly seeded the area with “treasure” that her project was hopelessly compromised. “You are clever beyond words, my dear Ginny.”

Lord Nigel lifted his hand, but tilted it so she couldn’t see the coin. “Heads.” He glanced at her. “Right then. The river it is.”

While Lord Nigel was still looking at her, she clapped a hand to her chest and stared to her right. “Good Lord!” She added a hint of alarm to her words. “What on earth is that?”

Lord Nigel looked.

She snatched the coin off his hand, placing a finger over the side that had been facing up. “Just as I thought.” She sniffed and handed back the coin. “Tails, sir. Not heads.”

Lord Nigel had the grace to look abashed, but in the end, he shrugged. “Does it matter?” He pointed. “The ground is softer by the river. Why make these poor fellows dig among the rocks when the day promises to be so warm?”

“Do you find it warm?” she asked. “I do not. It’s rather cool out in my opinion.”

“Romansford it is,” Walter said. He pushed off on his shovel, ready to go. The other two propped their shovels and picks on their shoulders and prepared to follow him to the river.

“I do not care for luck that is no luck at all,” Lily said with a meaningful look at Lord Nigel. “Ginny’s idea appeals to me.” She smiled. “Let’s have my medallion choose.”

“Give it a spin,” Ginny said, “and whichever part of the face is nearest the two locations, the river or the foundation, why, we’ll start there.”

Lily met Lord Nigel’s eye. There was not the slightest hint of flirtation in his gaze. There never was unless Mountjoy was around. Which she found interesting. “Gypsy magic is useful for any endeavor involving a search for treasure.” She patted Ginny’s shoulder. “I ought to have thought of it myself.”

Lord Nigel snorted. “Toss a coin, spin your medallion, what difference does it make? It’s only chance.”

“I agree with the principle, but only when others are not actively attempting to influence the outcome. Or when magic is involved.”

“Magic?” Lord Nigel said, hands on his hips.

“Magic,” she said. She pulled the ribbon over her head. “I can think of no better cause in which to call upon Gypsy magic than this. Can you?”

“Several, but go on.” Lord Nigel gestured for her to continue.

She spun the medallion and they watched the ribbon twist, reach a point at which it could turn no more, and then spin again in the opposite direction, untwisting the ribbon. She waved a hand around the spinning disc. “I call on your magic to help me find that which I most desire.”

Ginny giggled.

She cocked an eyebrow at her friend. “Do not mock the mysterious forces at work here. It’s unbecoming of you and disruptive to the power of the medallion.”

“Oh, I should never mock.” But Ginny couldn’t stop grinning. Lord Nigel was doing the same.

The medallion slowed.

Lord Nigel looked past them. “Blast.”

Lily sniffed. “You won’t fool me with that trick. Honestly. Do you take me for a fool?”

“No. But I mean it. Blast.”

“Oh, dear,” Ginny said in a way that reminded her of how Mountjoy had surprised them all during their experiment with the phosphorus pencil. The man was stealthy when he wanted to be.

Lily gazed at the slowly turning medallion, willing it to stop before it made her too dizzy to stand. “Is there an apparition?” Wouldn’t that be rousing, to think the medallion had called up a specter to point them in the direction of treasure? “The ghost of a Legionnaire, perhaps?”

“No,” Lord Nigel said. “Something much more terrifying than that.”

“What could be more terrifying than the ghost of an ancient warrior?” Her stomach was feeling a bit tender, what with watching the spinning medallion.

“Mountjoy.”

Lily’s stomach somersaulted, but this time the sensation had nothing to do with the spinning medallion. She turned in the direction Lord Nigel meant, clutching the ribbon of the medallion in one hand and her parasol in the other. It was indeed Mountjoy. Her heart thumped.

He rode his chestnut gelding and, truly, was there ever a man to sit a horse the way he did? She didn’t move because the sight of the Duke of Mountjoy had frozen her in place. An invisible line connected them and pulled on her heart.
Yanked
might be a more apt description of the sensation. She forgot, utterly, the business with the medallion.

When he reached them, he pushed back the brim of his hat. “Nigel.” He nodded at his brother. “Eugenia.” There was nothing untoward about his greeting. He sounded bored, as he so often did. “Miss Wellstone.”

Ginny curtseyed. “Mountjoy.”

Lily did the same. She was never nervous around others, but she was now. How did one behave with a man with whom one had been illicitly intimate? Her time with Greer had been so short and private. Those final days and hours had been spent alone, exactly as if they’d been husband and wife just married, and then he’d gone off to war and she’d never seen him again.