A Heart's Treasure Read online

  A Heart’s Treasure

  Teresa DesJardien

  Copyright © 2016 by Teresa DesJardien.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.

  A Heart’s Treasure/ Teresa DesJardien. — 1st ed.

  ISBN 978-0-9862126-8-0

  Dedication

  To: LaJuan Donaldson — For the decades of fun: multiple bike rides to find the best meal between households, heartfelt talks, many late night hokey monster movies, hysterical airport laughter, and haunted hotel elevators that persisted in sending us to different floors. Thanks for always being there for me. Love you, girl.

  Table of Contents

  The Treasure Hunters (brother and sister):

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  The Treasure Hunters (brother and sister):

  XAVIER AND PENELOPE:

  Family surname: Grenwaite

  Title names: Warfield (courtesy title for Xavier.) The Earl of Fenworth (his father.)

  Xavier, Lord Warfield – Son and heir of the Earl and Countess of Fenworth. Has worn a patch on his blinded left eye since the age of seven, a perceived flaw of which he is too acutely aware. His good eye is gray. His hair is dark with a bit of wave to it when it grows out. He has only one sibling, a sister.

  Hunt partner: Summer

  Penelope, Lady – Xavier’s sister, daughter of Lord and Lady Fenworth. Her father turned down Mr. Kenneth Manning when the latter asked for Penelope’s hand, as not being worthy of her in terms of marriage/rank. Her eyes are gray-green, depending on the light. Her hair is light brown, with gold accents when sun-struck.

  Hunt partner: Kenneth

  MICHAEL AND GENEVIEVE:

  Family surname: Burnham.

  Title names: Earl Yardley (courtesy title for Michael), and the Marquess of Galton (his father.)

  Michael, Lord Yardley – Son and heir of the Marquess of Galton; his mother is ten years deceased. He is betrothed for over a year to Summer, and in no hurry to marry. Often affects an attitude of ennui. He and Genevieve have one younger brother. Michael has brown eyes. His hair is darker brown, but a bit lighter than his sister’s, and is worn down to his collar.

  Hunt partner (and sister): Genevieve

  Genevieve, Lady – Michael’s sister, daughter of Lord Galton. Has brown eyes. Has deeply brunette hair; peachy skin; is curvaceous. Her father has not remarried, perhaps in part because Genevieve never took to any of his lady friends. Has nursed a secret attraction to Xavier for years.

  Hunt partner (and brother): Michael

  KENNETH AND LAURA:

  Family surname: Manning

  Title names: Kenneth has no title. His father is: Sir Roger Manning, a knight. Sir Roger’s wife is called: Lady Manning.

  Kenneth Manning, Mr. – Eldest son and heir of Sir Roger Manning, the latter of which who, although he is extremely wealthy, often disapproves of Kenneth and therefore keeps a short rein on him by often cutting his quarterly allowance. Kenneth has sandy hair. Has brown eyes. He is bookish, and the originator of the treasure hunt on which they venture forth. He once asked for Penelope’s hand, but was esteemed by her father as being unworthy of a viscount’s daughter.

  Hunt partner: Penelope

  Laura Manning, Miss – Eldest daughter of Sir Roger, Laura is two years older than Kenneth. There are six siblings in their family, with Kenneth and Laura having four younger siblings, two boys, two girls. Laura has light brown hair, tending toward red. She has brown eyes. She is sometimes too observant for her companions’ comfort.

  Hunt partner: Hadrian

  HADDY AND SUMMER:

  Family surname: Dillonsby

  Title names: Earl of Moreland.

  Hadrian, Lord Moreland – His father is deceased; Hadrian is the head of the family. His hair is dusty-blonde and thinning. His eyes are blue. Shortest man of the group, with a bull-like build. Is a bachelor, but knows as the earl he must marry one day. He and Summer have an older, married sister.

  Hunt partner: Laura

  Summer, Lady (Lady Rose) – Betrothed to Michael for over a year; she is madly in love with her fiancé, and quietly pines for the day they’ll marry. She has white-blonde hair, and sky-blue eyes. She has a delicate build and nature, and is always soft-spoken yet somehow commands everyone’s attention and concern.

  Her given name is Rose, but the pet name “Summer Rose” has long since been shortened to Summer. Her intimates have called her Summer for so long, the name has spilled over to a more common usage, wherein those who claim a longer acquaintance with her oft call her (incorrectly, but affectionately): Lady Summer.

  Hunt partner: Xavier

  Chapter 1

  Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

  —Matthew 6:21

  The summer heat was oppressive, causing the five occupants of the room to languish less for effect and far more from cause. Only Penelope moved at all, plying her needle, without however any real enthusiasm. Her brother, Xavier, looked upon her with his one good eye, the other covered by a black eye patch. He didn’t stare from interest, but languor. The day’s great heat had killed any keenness and dulled everyone’s brains.

  Still, listlessly leaning his six-foot frame against the mantelpiece, Xavier was content. Despite the heat, his world was just as he would have it be: he was at home, with his few friends gathered to him, and no strangers to try his patience by staring at him.

  The four others in the room were persons who’d long since forgotten to note Xavier’s eye patch; to them he was no curiosity. His compatriots surely gave little thought to his one blinded eyed; due to that and many other attributes, Xavier cherished their company above all things. With precious few additional exceptions—two of whom were out in the garden—he’d allowed these four inside his small and carefully guarded circle of intimates. They saw the man, not the injury, and not a one of them pandered to or even thought to pity him. With these few he felt very nearly whole.

  In a world replete with injured sailors and broken soldiers, Xavier knew he’d no right to host a dire sensitivity to the stares of others, especially for so small a thing as an eye patch—but it was one thing to know a thing, another to live it.

  Michael, Kenneth, and Haddy endured the heat with him, and his sister, Penelope—with whom Xavier was never uncomfortable. When at age seven he’d taken the dire injury to his left eye, her five-year-old self had tried to kiss it better. She’d then promptly treated him as she ever had, never thinking to let him make an excuse nor use his maiming to avoid some dut
y or blame—and he’d been devoted to her ever since.

  Xavier slumped into a seat next to Michael, who was Lord Yardley, the Marquess of Galton’s eldest son. As had the rest of the gentlemen in the room, Michael had doffed his coat against the day’s warmth, but he’d also gone so far as to remove his cravat. Granted, Penelope didn’t seem to take such casual disrobing amiss, so Xavier said nothing against the shocking informality, even toying with the idea of taking off his own.

  Michael’s brown hair came down to his collar, but not from lack of the ready to keep a valet to trim it. His pockets were lined with a generous quarterly sum, certainly greater than Xavier’s own, which was no pittance. Alas, Michael’s purse and position too oft bought him the liberty of a barbed tongue and too frequently a cavalier air. If Xavier were to be candid, he would say Michael was more than a bit indulged, and the worse for it. A case in point: Michael was promised to the sister of one of their friends: Haddy’s youngest sister. Which was all well and good, except Michael’s wooing of Lady Summer was glacial in its pace. Well over a year had passed between their betrothal and this day, and there was still no wedding date set. His advance toward matrimony moved just like the window breezes: scarce to be noted. Lady Summer clearly pined for her wedding day…and yet Michael’s widowed parent said not one word to hurry him along.

  Equally without a coat, but his drooping cravat in place, Kenneth sat upright directly across from Xavier and Michael. He was the eldest son of a knight—his social status steeply reduced compared with the other friends, a fact perhaps noted by others but scarce at all by his three long-claimed associates. Kenneth had brown eyes, and sandy hair that often seemed wind-raked as he was wont to pull his hands through it in distraction. He was a little shorter than Xavier, and narrower through the shoulders. Kenneth was bookish in look and inclination, but he was also clever and keen—attributes that seldom shone when he was in the company of his bluff father. Sir Roger, a man bursting with energy and short of temper, little understood his scholarly heir, often finding fault with small offences Kenneth had made or Sir Roger had considered he’d done. Kenneth’s parent regularly showed his displeasure by restricting his heir’s quarterly allowance. The family was in possession of an astonishing fortune (which had financed more than one Royal speculation and thereby earned Sir Roger his knighthood, and possibly future honors to come) but, alas, Kenneth was seldom in funds, his purse too often a strangled, gasping thing.

  Of the men present this day, Kenneth alone seemed mentally engaged; he stared at the empty fireplace grate, his brows drawn together as he pondered some private thought. Xavier was relieved the man didn’t look to Penelope, as Kenneth so often surreptitiously did. The sadly lovelorn gentleman was probably unaware how regularly Xavier caught him at it. Xavier sighed to himself. Theirs was an attraction that had been crushed before it could even flower on the vine.

  Last of the men, and nearly prone on the divan, was Haddy. He insisted on the nickname, detesting as he did his given name of Hadrian. He was the Earl of Moreland, head of his family these two years since his father passed. He was the shortest of the four men, with the solid build of a bull, powerful and intimidating despite his lesser inches, and despite what was an otherwise generally genial temper. His hair was a darker blond than Summer’s and was thinning at the crown. He liked to watch his expenses, not that he needed to, and he openly enjoyed being a bachelor even while he wistfully confessed he knew he must one day marry for the sake of the earldom.

  The four men had found one another in their youths. First Xavier and Haddy, and then the latter had drawn in Kenneth and Michael. It had taken but a few rounds of sport, a flurry of fisticuffs, a half dozen punishments shared—and the four lads had fixed a bond. So constant was their camaraderie, that at age thirteen they’d contrived to all attend Harrow, with even poor beleaguered Kenneth managing to secure his father’s approval. Then it had been on to Oxford.

  Without his three stalwart friends at his side, Xavier had no doubt he’d have been permanently sent down from one school or the other, those battlegrounds where an eye patch had been so obvious a target, goad, and training ground for ill wits and ready fists.

  Besides schooling and fisticuffs, the four had more in common. All of an age, they were also their father’s eldest sons, although Moreland had two year since lost his papa and himself been raised to the title. So here sat a penny pincher bachelor earl, the cosseted and carefree heir of a marquess, an earl’s wounded and patched son—and then there was Kenneth, admittedly the odd one of their foursome, in that his father was a recently made and mere knight. There would be no title for Kenneth, unless he somehow earned that royal favor himself or his father unexpectedly rose in rank. Still, even though the Manning fortune was newly made and scented by clothmaking and shipping successes, its sheer volume of funds made up ground, which in its turn was supplemented by the younger Mannings’ manners and wit. If Sir Roger were out of the room, it was an easier thing to forget the family fortune was nouveau.

  Titles and inheritances aside, there was another commonality of age: their circle of four had long expanded to include their nearest-in-age sisters. While Laura was two years older than the lads and had once looked down her nose at the “dirty little boys”, the younger Penelope had run, climbed trees, and chased chickens as much as any of them, at least until “her boys” had gone off to school together. Of the four sisters, she was their keenest companion, even to this day.

  And here she was again, the lone female in the room as one was missing and two other sisters sought garden shade. The gentlemen were so used to the presence of Penelope’s proportioned face and sensible nature, no one thought to banish her to join the ladies outside.

  Kenneth left off staring at the grate, sitting up straight and clearing his throat. Xavier looked his way, increasingly aware Kenneth had been thinking while the rest of them had been half-drowsing.

  “I believe the weather means to go on this way,” Kenneth pronounced.

  Listless eyes were lifted, and there were murmurs of discouraged agreement.

  “But I’ve had a thought,” Kenneth went on, sliding one of his unwitting glances Penelope’s way. Xavier followed the look. When his sister’s stitching hitched but she didn’t look up, he returned his attention to the scorned Kenneth.

  “Go on, Manning,” Michael said, lifting a languid hand. The hair resting on his collar was visibly damp.

  “You all must agree, surely, there cannot be a more miserable place than a hot and close London.” There were a couple of apathetic nods. “So I thought, why not leave here? I mean to say, travel north. To cooler climes.”

  “You mean to abandon us?” Michael said, his eyebrows lifting.

  “I mean to take you gentlemen with me.”

  At this, even the slouching Haddy looked up with something bordering on interest.

  “I propose a treasure hunt, a series of clues to be followed and solved, culminating at my family’s estate, Brockmore, in Cumberland,” Kenneth went on.

  “The devil!” Michael cried with what looked like a mix of horror and amusement. Penelope gave him a scolding glance for his language. “Cumberland? You can’t be serious?”

  Xavier raised an eyebrow, the motion causing his eye patch to rub lightly over the puckered skin of the scar showing both above and below the black fabric.

  Haddy rubbed his chin. “A treasure hunt, you say?”

  “Manning,” Xavier put in as Kenneth nodded, “I can’t help but wonder at your proposal. I’m trying to imagine a more uncomfortable experience than tearing north over dusty roads to the middle of nowhere, to have nothing but sheep for company.”

  “Come now, Warfield, Brockmore is not the middle of nowhere,” Kenneth protested.

  “Perhaps not, but nowhere may be seen from there,” Haddy muttered.

  Michael looked between the three other gentlemen, speculation growing in his gaze.

  “We’d be gone for weeks,” Xavier added.

  “Weeks
out of London’s heat,” Penelope pointed out.

  No one said it, but surely everyone was thinking such a trip would also take them free of London’s overheated seasonal stink as well, perhaps the most tempting argument for the scheme yet.

  Kenneth nodded at Penelope, even if his eyes avoided hers. “As my lady says. Surely that’s to be desired? And why not make some sport upon the road, when here we are all so miserable? It’s been near a nine-month since we went afield in pursuit of sport. It’s time to journey again, surely?”

  Michael stood abruptly, a hand going to his heart. “You’ve persuaded me, my good man. My mind is changed.” He turned to the stolid Haddy—yet all but supine—and stretched out a palm-up hand as though making an appeal to the gentleman. “Who knew the summer’s heat would arrive so unfashionably early this year, and be so cruel? And surely Manning is right to think it will be cooler in our northern counties. Let us remove ourselves to some relief. What say you, Moreland?”

  Haddy considered a long moment, then half-sat up. “There’s bound to be some shooting up north,” he allowed. His gaze strayed to Xavier; they’d hunted together for years, with Xavier having trained himself into a decent shot despite his handicap.

  “True, at Brockmore at least, if we cannot gain some landowner’s permission to take some birds before then,” Xavier agreed.

  His sister’s head, with her light brown hair pulled up in a knot that vainly sought to outwit the heat, rose up, needlework neglected in her hands. Penelope sighed aloud, with relief and determination mixed in the sound. “You must bring me and the other ladies along, of course,” she stated. At the sudden silence, she looked with a gimlet eye from face to face.

  Xavier stood, taking up his old position leaning against the mantelpiece. He knew better than to argue with that tone and look—but he tried anyway, for the other men had managed nothing beyond stares or sputters where they sat. “What makes you think the other sisters will wish to go? Or that any of their parents would allow such a journey? Or Mama allow you to go, for that matter?”