Chapter Twenty-One
The Van Arsdales had paid for a room for Dom at The Metropole where they’d secured an entire top-floor suite. But after his
first meeting with a reporter from one of the London dailies, he left the hotel and made his way to his family town house
in Manchester Square.
Since their marriage, his youngest sister, Alexandra, and her husband, Detective Inspector Benedict Drake, had taken up residence.
It made the town house feel like the family home, and Eve and Dom were thrilled with their decision to make it their own.
Though he had no real sentimental attachment to the house, he yearned to see Allie, and as the hansom cab dropped him outside,
he hoped he’d find her at home.
Lottie, the maid who answered the door, looked shocked to see him, but she dutifully led him to one of the sitting rooms,
where Allie was settled behind a desk clacking away at her typewriter.
He spied a pile of her books on a side table too.
“I’d like one of those books of yours before I leave,” he told her by way of catching her attention.
“Dominic!” She flew from her seat to embrace him, and he swung her around as he used to when she was a girl. It made her giggle,
and that made him smile.
It was good to be with his sister. To be home, if only because she was here. And that was a sentiment he’d rarely let himself savor.
“What ever are you doing here? I thought you were in Norfolk.”
“I woke up there this morning, but our patrons wanted me to join them in London for a couple of days.”
He’d never told Tess that his youngest sister was also a historian like she was, having made a study of lady pirates. Now
he was looking forward to gifting her one of Allie’s books.
“Come sit. Tell me everything. How is the excavation progressing?”
Dom settled into one of the room’s delicate-looking damask-covered chairs and found it shockingly comfortable. He waited until
Allie had taken the matching one opposite him.
“You’ll no doubt read it in the papers soon, but we’ve found something extraordinary.”
She immediately leaned forward, her eyes blooming wide. “Tell me,” she breathed with the same eagerness he and all his siblings
had when it came to finding historical treasures.
“It’s a ship burial, Allie.”
“That’s marvelous.” She clapped a hand over her mouth. “Do you have any idea who it is? Have you found remains?”
“No, but we’ve found beautifully crafted metalwork that would likely only be reserved for the very wealthy or royalty.” He
swallowed as thoughts of Tess rushed in. God, how could he miss her so desperately after only a few hours apart? “The historian
who’s helping us on the dig . . .” Was helping, dammit. “She believes it may be King Redwald or one of his sons.”
“Oh, Dom . . .” She shot up from her chair and rushed to the bookshelf along the pastel-papered room’s back wall.
Running her finger along one row, she finally stopped and plucked out a volume.
“Bede the Venerable wrote about them, of course. Thank heavens for Bede. What would we do without him?” she said as she came back to her chair.
Dom chuckled at Allie’s references to an English monk who’d died over a thousand years ago as if he was a dear friend who’d
done them all a grand favor.
“What were his sons’ names?” she queried as she flipped pages.
Dom heard Tess’s voice in his head. “Eorpwald and . . . Sigeberht, I believe. Tess would be able to tell you all about them,
no doubt.”
Allie’s head snapped up. “Tess?”
“Tess Hawthorne.” Dom shifted in his seat. “She’s the historian I hired to assist in Eve’s absence. She’s lives in the village.”
He couldn’t help a chuckle. “She’s beloved there in Wiggenstow, though she thinks they see her as a scandal. She’s wrong,
of course. Beautiful, stubborn, wrongheaded woman.”
He realized all of a sudden that Allie had stopped sifting pages, stopped moving, held still and stared at him, slack jawed.
“It’s finally happened.”
Dom narrowed his gaze at his baby sister. “What’s finally happened?”
“You’ve found her.” She bit her lip and then beamed. “The woman who makes you ramble. Who makes you look”—she pointed at him—“like
that.”
“Like what?”
“Like you’re madly and wildly in love.”
“It’s terrifying.”
Allie put her book aside and leaned toward him again. “Tell me everything.”
He let out a belly-deep laugh at that. “Some things I’ll keep to myself.”
She blushed and fussed with the ribbon at the front of her gown. “Very well. But do tell me about her. Does she know you adore
her? Does she feel the same? Have you proposed?”
“Slow down.” He held up a hand but couldn’t keep the smile from his face.
“Then at least tell me why it’s terrifying.”
“She’s determined to run away from it, I think. What’s between us.”
Allie’s expression immediately crumpled, and she slumped against the back of her chair. “So she doesn’t feel the same? Heavens,
I never thought you’d meet a woman who could resist your charms.”
“Hey now, I didn’t say that. I believe she feels the same, but she’s been . . . burned, as her brother says.”
Allie let out a heartfelt sigh. “Of course. A man hurt her. Bastard,” she bit out.
Dom arched both brows. As far as he knew, Allie’d never had a blackguard break her heart, but she seemed to empathize with
Tess thoroughly.
“Tell me about marriage,” he said, trying for a light tone.
Allie started to speak and then chuckled. “I never thought I’d hear you say that word either.”
“Yes, all right. I’ve been a cad about town. But I’m not that man anymore.” He sat up straighter in the diminutive chair.
“At least I don’t want to be.”
“I recommend it wholeheartedly,” Allie said, her lips curving into the loveliest grin. “You take your vows, you pledge your
troth before others, and then it’s just the two of you, deciding on everything together. And with each other’s best interest
always at heart.”
Dom sat forward and reached for her hand. “It does my heart good to see you happy, little sister.”
“And it would make mine burst to see you happy.” A stark, pained look entered her eyes. “You haven’t been for a while, if
you don’t mind me saying so.”
“No,” he whispered. “I haven’t been.”
“But now there’s Tess.” She tipped her head and studied him. “And such a glint in your eyes.”
“How do I convince her that I’m the man I want to be and not the one I have been?”
“Marrying someone takes courage, Dom. In lots of ways, it’s an enormous act of hope and faith.”
Hope. Faith. They weren’t principles he’d had much interest in over the years. He believed in luck. In a treasure seeker’s
instincts. And in all the historical facts Eve dug up before an expedition.
“And trust.” His voice emerged rough, the feelings in it raw and deep. “How do I make her believe she can trust me?”
“Trust takes time.”
Time. He hated it. He was a man of action. Of impulse.
If he gave her time, what if she walked away again? What if she decided it was easier to live her life as she had before he’d
come along?
His gut clenched at the thought.
God, he’d wasted so many years chasing what didn’t ultimately mean a thing—adventure, the next thrill, the next distraction.
And yet now he knew what mattered, what he couldn’t live without—Tess—and he feared his impatience might make her too afraid
to trust him.
Dom settled back in his chair, stared at the pretty pastel wallpaper he’d never really noted before, the pile of books his sister had written, the steady ticking clock on the mantel. There was such comfort in this room, in the life she and Drake had made.
That’s what he wanted with Tess. Not a brief liaison. Not a fleeting affair. A life.
He met his sister’s perceptive gaze, and something must have given him away fully because she smiled softly.
“You’ve already decided, haven’t you?”
Dom nodded. “I’m going to ask her.”
Saying it aloud made something spiral high inside him. And then his thoughts brought the soaring sensation crashing down all
at once.
What if she said no?
“If she’s afraid to trust, you may have to prove yourself, Dom. You may have to fight for her.”
“Tess is worth any fight.”
Allie ducked her head and nodded. “Then you’ll know what to do. Think first of her best interest, and it will guide you.”
As Dom sat in that cozy room, bolstered by his sister’s faith and encouragement, an idea began to form in his mind. The rough
outlines of a plan took shape. And, shockingly, if his plan worked the way he hoped it would, his two days in London, away
from the woman he missed with a physical ache, would prove a godsend.
“Allie?”
“Hmm?”
“What’s the name of that chap you know at the British Museum?” He looked around the sitting room. “And where are the newspapers?
Does Eve still order the New York newspapers from America to keep tabs on the Van Arsdales?”
“I believe so. Lottie would know better.” She pursed her lips and looked at him mischievously. “What are you concocting?”
“A way to prove myself to Tess. A way to fight for her.”
On the second day without the dig to occupy her and Dominic gone, Tess settled into her father’s old chair in the cottage’s
study. The creak of the old leather and the scent of aged paper brought a wave of nostalgia.
For the first time in months, she pulled out her father’s manuscript pages. She decided to read through it from the start
and soon found several changes she could make to improve the early chapters. Facts she’d uncovered in her own studies, phrasing
that would make it more accessible. Her father, though a wonderful tutor, did tend to write in an opaque way.
He also tended to focus on the achievements of men. And though Tess was well aware that was the fashion of most histories,
she also knew better. Women had been key and influential in shaping the world too. She tended to focus on women’s actions
whenever she read historical texts, and over the course of the day she’d penciled many of those details into her father’s
manuscript.