Marguerite Kaye - Regency Surrender - Scandal And Deception

‘Adam and I played here, as children.’ Will smiled at the memory. ‘We were looking for Arthur, under his mountain. We were sure he must be here.’

‘The raven,’ she said, remembering the story he had told in the woods.

He nodded. ‘It was a fever dream. But I was so very hot. I heard the maids crying over how I must surely die. I did not want to. I wanted to be cool again and I wanted Merlin’s magic, so that I might live.’

‘It is cool here,’ she admitted, ‘Even in the heat of the day, I’m sure.’

‘And magical,’ he insisted. They had come to the end of the tunnel, to another wooden door as large and heavy as the first one. He pushed it open and she saw starlight through tree branches, smelled the mossy scent of pine and loam and heard the low slap of water on rock.

‘Be careful,’ he said. ‘Go left and there is a steep path, down to the pond. But right and up the hill...’

‘The path through the trees,’ she said.

‘I opened the door and looked up. And I saw a man, tall and gaunt, with a black coat.’

‘Your raven,’ she said.

‘Montague,’ he answered. ‘I must have surprised him, for he dropped this.’ He reached into his pocket and pressed a scrap of velvet and silk into her hand.

She did not need light to know it for what it was. She’d handled hundreds of them, over the course of her time in the shop, bagging up loose stones in the little sacks, pulling the gold drawstrings tight so that all stayed clean and safe. She ran her fingers over the stitching, not needing the candlelight to see the ornate M and B intertwined and the tiny gold crown embroidered above it.

‘I did not understand what it meant. I did not even find it in my pocket for another year. When I did, I told no one, because it was too late to do anything. They burned most of my playthings at the end of the summer, fearing that they were contaminated by my illness. I did not want to tell anyone of this for fear it would be taken from me and thrown into the fire. So I hid it in the nursery. And then I forgot.’

‘I did not look in the nursery,’ she said, surprised by her careless assumptions.

‘Why would you? I had not been there in years and I live in the house. But I was searching for a christening gift for Bill. And there it was.’

‘And Montague dropped it,’ she said, imagining the scene.

‘He threw it, more like. As if he was angry. And then he saw me and was gone.’ Will gave a low laugh. ‘He must have thought he’d escaped unnoticed. Then, twenty years later, the little boy from Wales appears in his shop, holding the very same bag. No wonder he split my skull. He must have been very near to panic.’

‘If he was angry because the bag was empty...’ Justine said, trying not to be excited by the story.

‘Then what happened to the diamonds?’ Will was smiling broadly now, pleased that she was following his reasoning. ‘If your father stumbled off the path and came upon this door, he might have gone inside.’ Then he turned back into the tunnel, shining his candle along the wall to reveal another door, this one of metal. ‘And he’d have found this.’

When he opened it, a blast of cold air struck her, causing her to pull the shawl tighter around her shoulders. ‘The ice house?’

Will held his candle high, until he spotted a lantern set into a niche in the wall. He lit it, setting his candle beside it, to make as much light as he could. ‘What better place to hide diamonds? It is so dark here that a robber would not find them unless he was led to the spot.’

‘He hid them in the ice,’ she said, wondering how they were to find them if that was true. The room was still a quarter full of huge blocks, layered with sawdust and hay. The flickering lantern light on the smooth wet surfaces cast weird blue shadows around the room. They seemed to dance in time to the soft, musical drip and trickle of melting ice.

‘Most likely he tucked them into a crack in the wall, or dropped them on the floor. If he had put them in the ice, I suspect we’d have found a loose stone in the bottom of the ice-cream bucket by now.’ He pulled a penknife from his pocket and searched through the ice-working tools on the hooks and shelves by the door to find something for her. He pressed an ice pick into her cold fingers. ‘I could not look in spring, when I first had the idea. Winter had just passed and the room was full to the doorway. But it is very near to the time of year when your father died. The same spaces are exposed.’ Then he turned her gently to face into the room. ‘Now, you must imagine that you are your own father. You have only a few moments to conceal something of value. Where would you put it?’

He lifted the lantern high over his head, so she could see the details of the room. While the tunnel leading to it was mortared stone, this space had been carved directly into the rock under the hillock. The walls were marked with the fissures and cracks of the excavation, any one of which could hide the jewels. Under her feet, the layer of damp sawdust that had frozen to the ground was thick enough to conceal any manner of things. If they had not been discovered for all this time, then what chance had she?

Then she remembered Will’s words. She must think like her father. She had no trouble picturing him walking the path above. She had done it before. But now she imagined it not bright with morning sunshine, but gathering gloom. She was being stalked. She could feel the eyes on the back of her neck. But the silence of the approach told her the identity of the assailant. Montague meant to betray her. She felt her quickening pulse and the overwhelming desire to run.

If she did, he would catch her easily and take what he wanted, just as he always did. She must not give way to panic. Her father had kept a cool head, even when death was imminent. He might have lost his life, but he had denied Montague what he’d most wanted. The thought made her smile. It gave her strength.

She looked around the room again. ‘It would have been dark. There was no time to light a candle. And he did not want to be discovered.’ She closed her eyes tight, to shut out the lantern light, and reached out a hand. Ice in front of her. It was shockingly cold and she drew back quickly, until her shoulders were against the wall behind her. Her hand bumped against a shelf.

That would be far too obvious.

She worked her way along the wall, trailing hands against it, following it around the corner until she had worked herself into what little space there was between the stacked ice blocks and the wall. Then she felt for a likely hiding place. There was nothing here. She could not find a notch to hide a single stone, much less a handful.

And then she remembered her father. When she had last seen him, he’d seemed huge to her, like a great blond bear. She had been but five. But it had been more than imagination. He had been a large man who could not have wedged himself so deeply into this space. She moved back towards the door again, until there was barely enough space for a large man. Then she ran her hands over the bumps and crevices in the wall. That was when she found the crack. It was large at the top and even larger near the floor. But in the middle, at a place about equal with the height of her shoulders, it narrowed. While much of the wall was rimed with frost, the ice in this particular place was hard and smooth. She opened her eyes, but it was too dark to see much more than what she had discovered with her touch. ‘Here,’ she said, tapping the ice with the pick in her hand. ‘Bring the lantern.’

Will crowded close behind her, holding the light so it shone over her shoulder.

Without thinking, she leaned back into him, trying to steal some warmth from his body to fight the growing chill of being so close to the ice.