Chapter Fourteen
When Tess went to visit Lord Fenbridge the next day, she took her tiny yet auspicious find with her. She didn’t know if Dominic
would like her toting it across the Wiggenstow countryside, but if anyone deserved to see what she’d found, it was Reginald
Fenbridge.
As demanded by the curmudgeon himself, she arrived early.
What she found most amusing was that he did not seem to like rising early. Often when she stepped into his study, he was still
in his dressing gown or his hair was awry as if he’d only just tumbled from bed.
But he did seem to enjoy the morning breeze and looking out on the clumps of daffodils beginning to show themselves in his
garden.
Today, he was fully clothed, his hair looked as if his valet had been at it, and he had silver tea and coffee urns set up
on a sideboard in his study.
“Avail yourself, Miss Hawthorne. There are crumpets and scones too, if they strike your fancy.”
This wasn’t the first time he’d pleasantly stunned her by having a sideboard of breakfast treats at the ready, but it had
been a rarity. She suspected his lordship struggled with dark moods. Her father had been much the same, especially after her
mother’s death.
“Thank you, my lord.” Tess selected a strawberry scone and poured herself a cup of tea, then added a dash of cream.
Fenbridge lifted his own cup as he sat behind his mammoth desk and observed her.
“What’s happened, Miss Hawthorne?”
Tess swallowed a sip of tea and smiled, which only caused Fenbridge’s bushy brows to wing up on his forehead. “We’ve found
something.”
Silver brows dropping, he crossed his arms. “Have you indeed?”
Tess had expected a bit more. She’d never seen the nobleman anything near gleeful, but she’d imagined the discovery would
intrigue him. Perhaps even please him.
Yet as he sat watching her, he looked anything but pleased.
“Aren’t you curious, my lord? Isn’t that why I’m to report to you each morning?”
“Get on with it, Miss Hawthorne. Tell me what you’ve found.”
Tess had secured the artifact in a box lined with a bit of cloth, and she extracted it carefully from the pocket of her skirt.
It felt like such a precious treasure that she couldn’t bear to break it further.
She gently eased the lid off the tiny box and set it atop Fenbridge’s desk.
He eyed her a moment longer and then leaned in to inspect the box’s contents. His brow furrowed. “What in the world is it?”
“We’re not certain, but we can reasonably date it to the Anglo-Saxon period based on the designs on the metal.”
“Your father would have been very intrigued by this little scrap of metal, wouldn’t he?”
“Yes.” Tess could well imagine her father’s excitement. He’d be breathless, as she was, for whatever they might find next.
Fenbridge didn’t seem to share her enthusiasm. “I suppose the American was right after all.”
“You didn’t want the dig to be successful?”
Fenbridge settled back in his chair and lifted his shoulders in a shrug. “Whatever’s under those mounds has been in the earth
for centuries. I know others have been keen to have it all up.” He stared at her meaningfully. “But, as you well know, I’ve
staunchly refused.”
“Until Mr. Van Arsdale paid you generously.”
“He did indeed and then sent his famous treasure seeker to do the deed.” Fenbridge pointed at the box. “Did Prince dig that
scrap up?”
“No,” Tess said, suddenly feeling defensive, “I did.”
That raised a smile on the man’s wizened face. “Now that I quite like.”
“Why?” The man was maddening. “I might have dug it up years ago if you’d allowed me to, and then we could keep what we find
here in England.”
“That worries you, doesn’t it?”
“Doesn’t it trouble you?” Tess retrieved the box and stared down at the burnished gold. “It’s not about treasure. Not in the sense of a trove. This
is our history.”
“Van Arsdale sees it as his own history too.”
Tess gritted her teeth. “But it’s here now. Has rested here for centuries, as you so rightly pointed out. It should stay here.”
At last, the nobleman’s eyes lit with interest. “If you’re so damned set against the American, why participate in his venture?”
The urge to say something snappish warred inside Tess, battling her understanding of how important it was to maintain Fenbridge’s goodwill until the dig was complete. But the man had thwarted her own ambitions for years, only to yield to Van Arsdale. Could he not understand why she capitulated?
“It was the only way. You refused us and gave way to the American. If I was going to find what was buried in those mounds,
this was my only choice.”
“And Prince is letting you dig on your own? Does he not fear you might steal the lot of it out from under him?”
“I’m not a thief, Lord Fenbridge.” Tess bristled.
He narrowed his eyes at her. “That’s not entirely true, is it, Miss Hawthorne?”
Tess barely resisted the urge to roll her eyes. “We were ten, my lord, and it amounted to two oranges.”
She and Tristan had found the Fenbridge orangery utterly fascinating and had dared each other to sneak in one evening. They’d
both snatched an orange and been so racked with guilt that they’d confessed all of it to their mother the next day.
She’d brought them before Lady Fenbridge, who’d found it more amusing than anything. Apparently, Lord Fenbridge hadn’t shared
her sense of forgiveness.
“Were they tasty?”
“They were bitter, if you must know.”
Fenbridge nodded thoughtfully. “So often, the things we yearn for turn out to be bitter in the end.”
If he hadn’t seemed lost in thought after that dour declaration, Tess might have thought it some roundabout reference to her
personal history.
“But you and Prince are rubbing along well?”
Tess immediately ducked her head and took another sip of tea. She willed her cheeks not to burst into flames, but she wasn’t
certain she could talk about Dominic without revealing any of her feelings where he was concerned.
“That well, eh?”
“We work together well. Amicably.”
A blessed breeze wafted in through the half-open window of the study. The sky had been thick with darkening clouds on her
walk over, and she suspected rain was on the way.
“Amicable, are you?”
Tess managed to hold Lord Fenbridge’s gaze with what she hoped was a look that gave nothing away.
“Word is that the two of you get on so well that he escorted you to the village fair.”
“Gossip, you mean. I didn’t think you’d engage with such nonsense, my lord.”
“One hears maids whispering whether one wishes to or not.”
The few bites she’d taken of the scone turned to stone in her middle. Had someone seen them in the orchard?
A cold chill chased down her back. She did not regret a single moment with Dominic, but she had no wish to be fodder for chinwags
again.
“Forgive me, Miss Hawthorne.”
Tess snapped her head up and stared at Fenbridge. In all her life, she’d never heard the nobleman apologize to anyone.
“I do not wish to make you fret.” He pursed his lips and laid his clasped hands atop his desk, leaning toward her. “I merely
urge caution.”
“Thank you for the apology, my lord. I’m well aware that I’ve been the subject of gossip in the past, and I have been cautious.
For years.”
“You think I judge you, but I do not. I understand better than you know.”
“Understand what?”
“That even a very clever young lass can give her heart to a scoundrel.” At his pronouncement, thunder rolled in the distance and raindrops began to patter softly against the windowpanes.
Tess saw more sympathy reflected in Fenbridge’s expression than she’d ever expected to see from the irascible man.
After a long moment, he looked away, glancing out into the garden. The rain was coming faster and harder. Tess considered
taking her leave early in order to help the others at the dig site secure it. The tarpaulins they’d used the last time they
were rained out were large and unwieldy.
“Your mother did once,” Fenbridge murmured.
Tess almost dropped the teacup she held. “My mother?”
Fenbridge turned back to face her, settling back in his chair and lacing his hands over his middle. “I take it she never told
you.”
Tess’s mind spun. Her mother had made the same mistake?
As far as Tess and her brother knew, their parents had met in their youth and loved each other steadfastly from that moment
until the day each of them departed the earth. And there’d certainly never been a whisper of scandal related to her mother.
“I think you’re mistaken, Lord Fenbridge. My mother wouldn’t do such a thing. And if she had, how are you the only one who
makes such a claim?”
Fenbridge scrutinized Tess a moment and then leaned forward. “Because I was the scoundrel, Miss Hawthorne.”
Tess stared back at the old nobleman, but she didn’t see him.
Her thoughts wheeled like the pieces in a kaleidoscope.
Moments flashing in her mind—her mother glancing wistfully at Fenbridge Hall as she’d take them on walks through the countryside, the rows between her father and Fenbridge, the fact that the amity between the two men only took root after her mother’s passing.
“My father knew?”
At that question, Fenbridge winced as if pained. “Of course. He was a good man. Told me your mother forgave me.” He blinked
as his eyes turned glassy. “Hope he told me true.”
“He was too honest for anything else.”
Fenbridge nodded at that and then cleared his throat.
“You weren’t honest?” Tess asked into the taut silence that had settled over his study.
He narrowed one eye at her and his mouth twisted into a grimace. “I lied to myself as much as to your mother. I thought I
could ignore duty, my father’s wishes, and a marriage contract signed when I was but a boy.”
“What happened?” Part of Tess didn’t truly want to know. It felt as if she was digging into her mother’s secrets, but her
curious nature and the likeness to her own mistake made her desperate to know.
“I broke a young lady’s heart, and she married a much better man in the end.”