“So Aveline thought you were a traitor, too,” Liliana concluded.
Geoffrey nodded. “Yes, and he was sent to arrest me. Quietly. Wellington and Liverpool insisted upon accompanying him, however, determined to hear the explanation for themselves. Wellington, in particular, didn’t believe it.”
“But he does now?”
“No. Thanks to our fathers’ letters, they have all the evidence they need to prove the true nature of the endeavor, and while what I did could technically be considered treason, none of the men wished to pursue it further.”
“Oh God.” Liliana closed her eyes, her charcoal lashes fanning against the faint purple circles below. She looked exhausted as well as embarrassed. “I just made a fool of myself, then.”
Tears pricked the back of Geoffrey’s eyes as he considered what Liliana had thought she was giving up for him. “No, love. Never a fool.” Indeed, he’d been the fool, and he’d do everything he could for the next fifty years to make it up to her. However, first he needed to ask, “Were you bluffing about the treasure?”
Liliana slowly shook her head. “No. At least not intentionally. I’m pretty certain I know where it is.”
“Where?” Geoffrey couldn’t help the tightness in his voice. Until this moment, the treasure had been an afterthought, a chimera—not a tangible thing that at least three men had been killed for, including his father.
“I’d wager it is in the old well behind the folly,” Liliana said.
“The well?” He searched his memory. “The one my father had closed?”
“Yes,” Liliana said. “This morning, your uncle mentioned as we passed it that a ‘man from Town’ had advised your father that it was dangerous.”
What was it Liliana had said that day at the mine? My father spent his life studying the effects of contaminated air and water on the human body. And at once, it clicked. It must have been Charles Claremont who had advised his father to close the well. That was how the two men had become acquainted.
“I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before,” Liliana said. “All of the notes between our fathers had been coded, except the last one your uncle forged. Father must have been suspicious when he received it. It only makes sense that he would suspect something was not right, and hide the treasure.”
“So you think he might have brought the treasure here and lowered it into the dead well he’d sealed off two years earlier?”
“Yes. Then, if the meeting was legitimate, he could tell your father its location, and if not, the treasure would remain safe.”
“Undisturbed all of these years…And right under my uncle’s nose the entire time,” Geoffrey murmured. Indeed, if Liliana were correct, it had been here even before his own father had been killed for it. A long-familiar ache squeezed his chest…Senseless death, all of it.
A discreet tapping interrupted his thoughts. Barnes’ balding pate appeared in the doorway. “My lord, Lords Liverpool, Wellington and Aveline await you in the entry.”
“Of course.” Geoffrey turned back to Liliana and offered her his arm, as much to draw from her strength in this surreal moment as it was an offer of his own. “Come, let us finish this. We must lay our past to rest before we can look to our future.”
Our future.
Twenty minutes later, Liliana dismounted, tying Amira next to the other four horses at the post near the folly.
She glanced at Geoffrey, so achingly handsome in the waning afternoon sun as he hefted the hastily assembled bag of supplies they’d brought with them—a length of rope, mallets, strips of clean cloth, an old spyglass.
Our future.
What had he meant? This moment was their future, and once it was over, so were they. She’d be forever grateful to Geoffrey for bringing her heart back to life, but she still had no intention of dooming them both to a marriage without love on both sides.
Liverpool and Wellington carried lanterns. Though light still cascaded through the treetops, it would fade quickly. And the interior of the well would be dark, at best.
“It’s not far,” Liliana said, leading the group to the overgrown footpath through the woods. “Only a dozen yards or so.” Several feet in, a bramble caught at her skirt, and Liliana bent to tug it free.
“May I help?” Geoffrey’s low voice caused a shiver as he knelt beside her.
“No, thank you,” she said, giving her skirt a yank. She winced as a thorn bit at the back of her ankle.
“Do your burns pain you?” Geoffrey asked, his features colored with concern.
Liliana glanced up to tell him she felt fine but was quickly drawn into his intense cobalt gaze. How nice it would be to simply stay there for an eternity, lost in his eyes. She blinked, breaking the spell. Concern is not love, she reminded herself. Both of them had been through a horrible scare today. Geoffrey was too honorable and decent a man not to be concerned about her well-being, just as he would any person’s. But she mustn’t forget that he was able to rescue her at the folly today only because he’d gone there thinking she’d betrayed him. How long before his natural concern faded and the cold, distrustful Geoffrey returned? No matter how much she longed to seek shelter in his arms now, she couldn’t marry him. It would be unfair to them both. “No. I am fine.”
Geoffrey rose as she did and they continued their trek into the forest.
Moments later, the well came into view. The small structure was crafted from ancient stone, its mortar crumbling in places but still strong. Nails had been driven through weathered boards, barring the well from use.
Liliana stepped up to the stones, reaching her hand out and running it across the boards. The rough, striated wood was hard beneath her fingertips, the iron nail heads cold. Had her father driven these nails himself? When he’d said to find them at summer, had he meant the jewels rather than the letters?
“Step back, Miss Claremont,” Aveline instructed.
Harsh strikes of mallet on wood and the wrenching crack of old boards giving way filled the forest as Geoffrey and Aveline set to breaking them free. Liverpool and Wellington held the lanterns, letting the younger men do the physical work.
As a gaping black circle appeared, the musty aroma of damp moss permeated the air—neither pleasant nor unpleasant, simply overwhelming.
As the last of the boards were cleared, Geoffrey ran a hand along the inside rim. “I feel nothing, not even a rope from which anything could dangle.”
Liliana peered over the side but saw only blackness. She bent to gather a small stone, then tossed it over the side and waited…and waited…splash. The distant echo of stone hitting water drifted back up. Newton’s apple, it was a long way to the bottom—too far for them to search tonight, certainly.
Still, she didn’t think her father would just toss the treasure into an open hole without giving himself a way to retrieve it. She supposed if he had dangled it from a rope, fourteen years of musty air might have weakened it enough to snap, but likely not.
“Tie a rope to one of the lanterns,” she suggested. “Let us lower it in and see if we spot anything.”
Geoffrey complied, and Liliana bounced on her toes, anticipation racing through her as a glowing ring of light slowly spread the darkness. Though finding the treasure had no bearing on Geoffrey’s freedom, as she’d first thought, she realized she wanted desperately to discover it. Geoffrey was right about one thing…she needed to lay the past to rest, so she could look to her future. She scanned the stone walls as the lantern dipped lower, and lower still.