“What next?” Vi wondered as she leaned back and yawned deeply. “Shall we hunt this treasure?”
“What?”
The door to the breakfast room swung open and Ham and Rita stepped in.
“Oh good,” Ham said. “Food.”
“We had food,” Rita replied.
He ignored her to make a plate while Vi turned and asked, “Well, shall we do it?”
“Do what?” Rita asked, seeing the dirty look that Edward Hollands was sending her way. She knew her trick had been discovered, but she didn’t care in the least.
“Find the treasure,” Vi answered as she turned to her tomatoes.
“You don’t believe in it, Vi,” Denny said.
“But that doesn’t mean chasing the tale wouldn’t be fun.”
“Exactly,” Dr. Hollands inserted. “The search itself is the joy.”
Vi rolled her eyes at the man who had aimed his comment at his brother, who was still looking betrayed. Vi met Rita’s gaze as Rita shot Ham a dark look that didn’t match how they usually carried themselves. Rita then slid into the chair next to Vi, frowning as darkly at Jack.
“We’ll find the treasure,” Rita announced.
“Rita, you put that goblet in your dressing room.” Ham’s tone was furious and his expression said he was questioning Rita’s sanity.
“You did?” Vi asked and then laughed. “Good thing. They were looking for it.”
“The goblet means nothing,” Ham growled. “That fool Hollands was wounded when someone tried to find it. What would they have done to Rita? Or you? Or the baby?”
“The baby?” Denny asked. Rita smiled coyly, but it was no use keeping the secret any longer. Congratulations filled the air.
“Rita and I could find the treasure,” Vi stated once they had settled again.
“Vi!” Jack snapped. “We aren’t…aren’t teams.”
“Oh ho,” Denny giggled. “Brilliant idea! Can I join the girls’ team?”
“There isn’t a girls’ team,” Jack snapped. “That isn’t a thing between us. We’re all a family.”
“Great,” Edward Hollands replied with relief, “wonderful.”
“Not you,” Denny and Smith said in unison.
“It is a thing,” Rita replied, but her gaze was fixed on Ham, whose fury had turned his cheeks ruddy. He was so irritated, it radiated from him like the heat over the last fortnight.
“It’s a thing,” Vi agreed, sipping her coffee happily.
“It’s on,” Gerald told her as if he were involved. They all stared at the earl-to-be and then Rita’s dark laughter turned their gaze back to her.
“It’s on,” Ham told his wife furiously, and Vi winced for him.
“Oh Ham,” Beatrice muttered. When Smith glanced at her, she told him, “We’re neutral.”
“My bet is on Vi and Rita.” Smith wrapped his arm around Beatrice and she scowled at him.
“Jack and Ham are trained investigators.” Beatrice was trying and failing to keep the two of them neutral.
“Rita and Vi are criminals at heart. I think we know that criminals win in the end,” Smith replied easily, uncaring of frustrating Jack and Ham.
Vi and Rita tapped their cups together, and then Rita rose. “Vi,” Rita said, eyeing Ham meanly, “I have an idea of where to start.”
“Leave the goblet,” Ham snapped.
Rita’s reply was cold laughter and the slam of the breakfast room door.
Chapter 11
The drive to Philip Russell’s home was utterly silent except for the murmuring of Rita. She had taken the auto that her father bought Ham around the wedding, and her fingers moved over the steering wheel as though she were choking her husband.
“You and Ham must have had a rough night?” Vi ventured to ask.
Rita snarled and admitted, “Not really. But then Ham was furious this morning because someone tried to rob us as well. He took it out on me.”
“Did he?” Vi asked, betting that he hadn’t.
“Well—”
Vi lifted a brow and Rita snarled again.
“Headache?”
Rita’s reply was a sniff.
“Did Ham cater to you? Bring you aspirin, let you linger in bed, and worry over the goblet and the house breaker?”
Rita’s meek expression was answer enough.
Vi laughed.
“Shut up.”
“You know you’re going to have to apologize.”
“I’m a horrible brat, and I don’t want to.”
Vi laughed harder, then stopped suddenly. She rubbed her brow and muttered low, “Also, my head still hurts. The aspirin only took the edge off of my headache.”
“How did you know that Ham was all…caring and kind this morning?”
Vi’s mocking glance was a sufficient reply.
“So Jack looked after you?”
“He often does.”
“It doesn’t feel smothering?”
“No,” Vi said, “but I was rather used to having a kind and loving man look after me before this. I look after him as well.”
“It is suffocating.”
“Perhaps you’re a little—”
“Wrong?” Rita snapped. “I know I am.”
Vi’s laugh was not the reply that Rita wanted. The drive descended into silence with occasional chuckles from Vi that only escalated Rita’s frustration. By the time they arrived at Philip Russell’s home, Rita’s cheeks were flushed and she had moved to muttering low and viciously, mostly in self-recriminations.
Her father’s butler, Baldwin, answered the door and smiled with delight, only to see her expression and then smooth his face into careful evenness.
“I’m sure Mr. Russell will be delighted you’ve come so quickly.”
Rita stepped into the house and then frowned, turning back to the butler. “So quickly?”
“Mr. Russell sent a message to ask you and Mr. Barnes to come. There was a bit of a ruckus last night.”
“A break-in?” Vi guessed.
“Indeed,” Baldwin said, looking shocked. “How did you know?”
“We both experienced the same,” Rita said, moving deeper into the house. She opened the door to her father’s office and greeted him.
“Coffee, please,” Vi told Baldwin. “She’s feeling a bit under the weather and I think coffee might prevent her from murdering us outright.”
Baldwin nodded without expression and Vi winked at him, trying for a reaction. Nothing.
“You win this time,” Vi told Baldwin. “But I’m making it my goal to get a reaction out of you.”
“Of course, ma’am,” he told her as though she’d commented on the weather.
Vi followed Rita into Mr. Russell’s office and smiled winningly at him. He was in nearly as foul a mood as his daughter. She entered just in time to hear, “—you done? You’re playing games with a criminal and here
