room.
Sophia looked inside a ramshackle cabinet. “Like that one?” She pointed far in the back.
“Yes.” He crouched and hoisted the pot out. “Let’s go outside and have a look.”
An old stump served as a table. Vane tugged at the handle. “The lid is stuck.”
“No, sealed with wax, I believe.” She pointed out the darkened edge.
When their eyes met, she flushed, as she had done repeatedly that morning, no doubt because she revisited, as did he, the sensual pleasures they’d enjoyed the night before. In the shadowy privacy of their room, they’d lost all pretenses of propriety and inhibition and exhausted their mutual lust only sometime near dawn. While her insatiability had put to bed his concern that she did not feel desire for him, he suspected he had not yet won her love.
Vane ran the blade of his penknife around the circumference of the lid and pulled until the top popped off. Inside lay a small linen parcel bound tight with string. Vane cut it open.
“Hmm,” he said.
“What is it?”
“A book of poems, it appears.”
He offered the small leather volume for Sophia to see. Something fell out, falling like a dark moth to the snow below. She bent to retrieve it.
“It is a rose.” Wide-eyed, she held the flower to the light. Pressed flat, mottled with age, and faded, its petals retained the barest vestiges of color. Yellow rimmed in pink.
“I’ve seen this rose, Claxton,” she whispered urgently. “Do you remember? Yesterday on your mother’s grave. I saw the same uncommon variety yesterday in the church.”
Bewildered, Claxton shrugged. “I’m not sure what it all means. A book of poems. A pressed rose. There is no message, no instruction. Perhaps the book is the prize? She usually included a little note of congratulation.”
“What was the name on that placard?” Sophia pressed the gloved knuckles of one hand to her forehead. “I’m certain the name I saw started with a G. Graham. Garnett. Garner.”
Claxton looked up from the book. Holding it open to the front inside cover, he displayed to her a name, scrawled in faded ink.
“That’s it.”
“Again, what does it mean? Who is Robert Garswood?”
“There’s no question,” said Sophia. “You must go see him and find out.”
Confusion dampened Claxton’s response. The game of lookabout had taken a surprising turn, the most recent discovery not the sort of “clue” his mother would have left for Vane the boy. He had the strangest feeling she’d intended it for Claxton the man to find.
“Who is this man and what would he have to say to me, if anything at all? It’s been years since these clues were left behind. Robert Garswood may not even be alive.”
But Robert Garswood was, indeed, very much alive.
The rector, still aglow over the Duke of Claxton’s promised gift of a church bell, provided the necessary information. A member of the local gentry, Robert Garswood resided on a small estate not far from the village.
Already midday, the snow had begun to melt, making for slower travel in the sledge. But at last they came to a gentle valley and an expansive country house fashioned in the Jacobean style.
“This is all very unsettling.” Vane scowled.
“What’s unsettling is that we’ve remained in this very same spot staring down the hill for at least a quarter hour. It’s cold, Vane. Let us go to the front door and introduce ourselves.” His manner perplexed her. Why did he exhibit such reluctance? Clearly his mother had wanted him to meet and speak with Mr. Garswood.
“Perhaps we should just go,” he suggested darkly. “Perhaps I don’t want to know who Robert Garswood is or what he might have to say.”
“Why would you even suppose that? I don’t understand.”
And yet he provided no explanation.
At last, at her gentle urging, Claxton agreed. After only a short wait, a footman led them down a brief corridor past a cloisonne vase full of familiar yellow-and-pink roses. A tall, dark-haired man with silver dusting his temples stood near the fire, dressed in a blue greatcoat, buff breeches, and tall boots, waiting to receive them. Sophia estimated him to be somewhere around the age of sixty. A dashing athletic figure and the epitome of a country gentleman, Mr. Garswood leaned heavily on a cane and peered at them with unconcealed surprise and delight.
“Your Graces.” A warm smile spread across his face, and he bowed his head to each of them. Approaching, his gaze remained fixed on Vane. “Yes, the likeness is certainly there. Please, come inside.”
Framed in rich burgundy draperies, large windows afforded them a view of the valley below and a large greenhouse on the distant corner of the snow-covered lawn. Numerous books lay around the room and lined the bookshelves, most sharing the theme of English flora and botany.
“You knew my mother?” asked Claxton in a solemn tone, one that contained, Sophia believed, a bit of dread.
“I did. And your father as well.”
From the pocket of his greatcoat, Vane produced the book of poems. “She left this for me. Do you know what it means?”
“I do, indeed. When you were ten years old, my wife and I placed that book of poems in an old black pot, just as your dear mother instructed us to do.” Again he smiled. “But I must say I’m still very shocked to see you. After her death, when we received her letter, I’ll admit to being doubtful you would ever cross our threshold. But those quests and you completing them—once you were grown, mind you—seemed very important to her.”
Vane looked at Sophia. “After we discovered the first quest, my wife rather insisted we complete the rest. I wouldn’t have otherwise.”
Though his jaw remained tense and his shoulders, rigid, the look he directed to her conveyed gratitude.
“Then well done, your Grace,” Mr. Garswood said warmly, nodding to her. His eyes sparkled with good humor. “Elizabeth would be very happy to know you are both here. I think somehow, even now, she does know.”
“Why
Mr. Garswood’s chin went down, toward his chest, and he stared for a long moment at the carpet before returning his gaze to Vane’s. He said in a voice softened by emotion, “Because your mother believed it important for you to know the truth. All of it. Once you were a man.”
The truth? A sudden, fierce protectiveness came over Sophia. What would this man tell Vane, and how would it affect him from this day forward? She didn’t want him to be hurt any more.
“The truth,” Vane repeated, closing his eyes. “Yes, whatever that means, I would like to hear it.”
“You may wish for your wife to leave the room. Some details may be difficult to hear.”
Again, Sophia tensed. Leave the room? Why? But of course, she ought to if Vane wanted her to—
“I want her to stay,” Vane answered with firm conviction, though Sophia believed his color had paled a shade or perhaps two.
The words pleased her, in that they offered proof that the time they’d spent together here in Lacenfleet, and the intimacies they’d shared, had brought them closer together. Vane did not reach for her. He did not so much as glance at her. Still, Sophia felt compelled to move closer to him. To stand beside him while he heard whatever this kind-eyed stranger had to reveal.
“Very well.” Mr. Garswood nodded in assent and circled round to walk the length of the windows. “Your mother grew up not far from here. Very close, in fact, on her uncle’s property, which bordered this one.”
“I did not know that,” Vane answered, leading Sophia to the window where they joined their host in looking out over the winter landscape. “There is not much I do know about my mother’s bloodline. She did not often talk of her girlhood.”
Vane couldn’t explain it. Despite a certain trepidation over hearing what Mr. Garswood would say, he felt
