Chapter Seventeen
Tess opted for her best day dress for the visit to Fenbridge Hall. She’d run out of clean trousers, though she’d borrow some
of Tristan’s, if need be, before they reopened the dig site.
After washing and dressing, she fussed with her hair, rather than being content with the usual practical knot she drew it
into most days. Then she dabbed perfume on her skin from a bottle she hadn’t touched in years.
Only when she opened the etched wooden box where she kept her rarely worn jewelry did she admit to herself that all of this
effort was because of Dominic. Which was ironic, considering that he’d made love to her when she was at her most disheveled—hair
mussed and curling from the rain, clothes rumpled and still damp.
And it wasn’t so much that she was trying to be beautiful for him—though she did relish the way he looked at her as if he
thought her a beauty—it was that her boldness and the way he had relished it made her feel confident in a way she hadn’t in
a very long while.
She glanced out the window to check for his arrival and caught him just as he made his way up the walk to the cottage’s front
door.
Stepping outside to meet him, she found herself as tongue-tied this morning as when he’d approached across the field.
“You look beautiful, though you always do,” he said easily, as if it wasn’t the grandest of compliments and was the simplest truth. “Ready to visit Fenbridge?”
“Thank you, and yes, I am.”
He offered her his arm, though they’d taken walks together at the dig site or into the village throughout his time in Wiggenstow
and had never walked so close.
Still, she took his arm. She found she couldn’t resist.
“Any idea why he’d want me to come too?”
Tess had been wondering the same. “Yesterday was the first time I showed him something we’d found. The bit of metal and garnet.
Perhaps he wants a better sense of what we’ve done and what we hope to find next.”
“Did you tell him we have reason to believe it’s a ship burial?”
“I didn’t.” She looked up at him. “Do you think we can confirm that now?”
“I do. There can be very little doubt.”
Tess smiled. “Perhaps that will please him then.”
“Your find didn’t?” He frowned down at her, seemingly as confused as she’d been by Fenbridge’s lack of interest in the dig’s
finds.
“Not a bit.” She considered telling him what the nobleman had shared about her own personal history, but she hadn’t even told
Tristan yet. Indeed, she wondered if she should share it with anyone at all.
The whole tale cast her mother in a different light, whereas she and Tristan had idolized her. That was perhaps because they’d
lost her when they were just on the cusp of ten.
“You’re woolgathering,” he said softly, laying a hand over hers where she held his arm. “About last night?”
Tess licked her lips. Even mention of the hours they’d shared sparked something deep in her middle. A flare of remembered pleasure and eagerness to experience it all again.
“No,” she said with a smile, “though I have thought of it once or twice.”
Dominic laughed. “Only once or twice. I find myself unable to think of anything else.”
Tess tucked closer to him and whispered, “Then I’ll admit it’s been more than once or twice.”
As they came into view of Fenbridge Hall, Tess slipped her arm from his. “His lordship already suspects there’s something
between us.”
She sensed Dominic’s displeasure when she stepped away, but he nodded. “Then we’ll take care not to stoke his suspicions.”
Tess stepped forward to knock on the hall’s front door, and when the butler appeared, she immediately sensed that something
was amiss. The usually stolid gray-haired gentleman looked harried today, his spectacles slightly askew, his upper lip dotted
with perspiration.
“Hello, Teague, we’re here to see his lordship.”
“Of course, Miss Hawthorne.” He focused on Dominic. “And Mr. Prince. You’re both expected.”
The man opened the door wide for them to enter, and Tess heard voices echoing in the house. That was unusual. Usually, the
hall was quiet, even as the servants went about their work.
“Is his lordship entertaining visitors?” Dominic asked the butler.
The man took in a shaky breath and returned a tight grimace that may have been an attempt at a half-smile. “His lordship will
wish to explain, Mr. Prince. Shall I escort you back?”
“He’s in his study?” Tess confirmed.
“He is.”
“Then we know the way. Thank you, Teague.”
Tess made her way down one corridor and then another while Dominic followed, and they were soon outside the nobleman’s study.
As usual, the door stood cracked open a bit and Tess rapped once and pushed her way inside.
Fenbridge was on the far side of the room and turned as they entered the room. Only once they were inside did Tess note that
the elderly nobleman was at the drinks cart. At shortly after eight in the morning.
“A cordial for my health, Miss Hawthorne, so you may remove that pinched look of concern from your pretty face.” He sipped
at a tiny glass as he faced them. “And good morning to you too, Mr. Prince.”
Tess couldn’t deny that whatever he was sipping put some color in the nobleman’s cheeks.
“We’ve had a bit of a surprise at the hall.”
“Visitors?” Tess asked.
Fenbridge grimaced. “Indeed. Uninvited. Unexpected. But they’re here all the same, and I wanted you both here. To prepare
you.”
“Prepare us?” Dominic asked. “For your visitors?”
Fenbridge nodded with a strange solemnity. “The American and his heir.” Fenbridge locked eyes with Tess. “I suppose he wants
to see what he’s purchased.”
Tess’s belly dropped into her boots, and she cast a look at Dominic, who looked as shocked and dismayed as she felt.
“We’re only at the beginning. There’s not much to show him,” Dominic said, then cast a quick glance at Tess.
She wondered if he was thinking what she was. If their deductions were correct about what they’d found, there would likely be a great deal for him to see in the coming days, provided previous treasure hunters hadn’t beaten them to it.
Tess’s heart raced. She thought of what Dominic had told her before they’d begun the dig, that he’d ask Van Arsdale if some
items could be kept in England. She looked up at him, wondering if he’d follow through now that the man was here in the flesh.
Dominic looked irritated, if not outright angry.
“Have you ever met him before?” she asked him quietly.
“Yes, once, on his first visit to London.” He looked at her, his expression softening. “It was brief.”
Fenbridge made his way back to his desk without the aid of the cane he usually used to assist him. He settled heavily into
his worn leather chair.
“This visit won’t be brief, I fear,” Fenbridge told them before sipping again from his cut crystal glass. “The brazen man
arrived last night, banging on my door, startling the staff. Apparently, the man and his heir had tried the local inn and
found it wanting. Decided a suite at the hall would suit the two of them better.”
“That seems rather presumptuous.”
Fenbridge lifted his glass to her. “A far kinder description than I’d opt for, Miss Hawthorne.”
“Should we speak to him now?” Dominic asked, his back straighter, shoulders squared.
Fenbridge exhaled a long sigh. “I would say yes, Mr. Prince, except that they’re still breaking their fast in my dining room.”
He flung his arm out. “They’ve all but taken up permanent residence.”
Tess’s father had always taught her and Tristan to face the difficult tasks first. “Shall we go and speak to him?” Tess directed
the question at Dominic.
He worked his jaw. “Perhaps we should discuss it first.” He stepped away from her and went over to close Fenbridge’s study door.
“What lies under that mound on your land, Lord Fenbridge, may be of greater historical value than we anticipated.”
Tess stared at him wide-eyed. When he’d come to Wiggenstow, she’d been certain all he cared about was treasure. Now, as she’d
confessed to him, she knew he was so much more than what the papers portrayed.
Fenbridge leaned forward, resting his hands on his desk. “Explain,” he said, finally revealing a bit of interest in what the
mound held.
Dominic fixed his gaze on Tess and arched one dark brow as if seeking her assent.
She nodded at him. If they could take anyone into their confidence, it was Fenbridge.
“This is likely a ship burial,” Dominic said with such a low voice that it sparked memories of the previous night, of him
whispering in her ear, against her skin. A little shiver ran down Tess’s spine.
Dom was almost painfully aware of Tess now. In order to think clearly, he first had to stop focusing on her sweet floral scent,
her nearness, the desire to touch her.
The news that Van Arsdale had descended on Wiggenstow with no forewarning set him on edge. He and Eve had patrons in the past
who’d attempted to keep them under thumb and manage every aspect of their efforts. It always hampered their progress, and
those were inevitably the least successful expeditions.
Though excavation was more a science than an art, the freedom to make decisions on the fly always improved their outcomes.
Thus, a large part of Van Arsdale’s appeal had been his distance.
Indeed, they had more correspondence with his men of business in New York and London than with the American steel magnate himself.
After staring at him a moment with a perplexed frown, Fenbridge glanced once at Tess and asked, “And what am I to make of
that?”
“That it’s a unique find,” Tess put in. “It means we’ve most likely found the resting place of a nobleman. Perhaps even a
king.”
Fenbridge’s eyes finally registered a bit of the excitement Dom had been feeling since they’d identified the ship’s rivets.
Until that excitement had been overtaken, of course, by his time spent with Tess.
“Van Arsdale will be ridiculously pleased with that,” Fenbridge surmised.
Dom heard Tess make a little sound of distress, and she shot him a worried look. They hadn’t talked much about the dig for