Ah, so it hadn’t been his imagination. “Much better, thank you. Father Miguel has the cure for insomnia in that tisane.”
Senhor Perez pulled a pennywhistle from his inner coat pocket and began to play a lively tune. Harriet clapped in time, and with Zach still astride, Tesoro began to … dance?
The stallion stepped to his left, then his right, then turned a tight circle to the right. Made a quarter turn, stepped to the right, to the left, then turned a tight circle to the left. He shook his head as he moved, rattling his bridle as a counterpoint to the clapping from Harriet. He repeated the moves until he’d made a full circle, back to facing his audience on the fence, and as the song ended, stretched one front leg out and bent the other in a bow.
Harriet and Zach applauded enthusiastically. Nick shrugged and applauded, too.
Perez put away his pennywhistle, and Harriet tapped Nick’s knee. “Watch this,” she said. She cupped her hands to her mouth, and in a tone deeper than her usual speaking voice, called out, “The army is coming!”
Tesoro let out what Nick could only describe as a groan and dropped to his knees. Zach swore and kicked out of the stirrups and jumped clear just before the horse dramatically groaned again and fell all the way to the ground and rolled to his side, his legs and neck stretched out, and went still.
Father Miguel stepped from the shadows of the stable. “He likes to nap in the sun this way.” He gestured at the horse, who reminded Nick of a dog playing dead. “More than once a parishioner has come to tell me the sad news that he has passed away in the pasture.”
“All clear,” Harriet called.
Tesoro climbed to his feet, shook himself, and pranced—really, there was no other way to describe his gait but prancing—over to nuzzle Harriet. She laughed and fed him a carrot from her pocket. While the stallion munched, she petted and praised him and Nick refused to feel jealous of a horse. “He’s showing off!” Nick exclaimed.
“He does appreciate having an audience,” Senhor Perez said with a chuckle.
Father Miguel pointed over his shoulder at the stable. “Would now be a suitable time to discuss business matters?”
He had been addressing Nick and Harriet, but Zach handed Tesoro’s reins to Perez and followed them into a small office off the tack room. Father Miguel withdrew a ledger book from a locked bottom drawer and opened it on the desk. Nick, Zach, and Harriet crowded around the desk to peer over his shoulder, trying not to bump into a bookshelf behind filled with ledgers, the labels on the spines written in Portuguese.
Nick braced himself to find out how much they owed for five years of the horse’s upkeep. Given the profit he stood to make on the wine he was taking back to England, he was fairly confident he could absorb his half of the expense, though it would mean putting off buying new sails again and probably a delay in replacing the starboard gun. But the cost would be devastating for Harriet’s finances.
Father Miguel flipped to the first page. “Before they returned to their ship after the game, your fathers gave me the money they had with them to pay for feeding and boarding Tesoro,” he said. “A few weeks later they sent a bank draft after they’d received their share of prize money.”
As he turned the pages of the ledger, two folded pieces of parchment fell out and fluttered to the floor. Zach picked them up, unfolded one, and went perfectly still as he stared at it.
Nick tugged the paper out of his unresisting grip and read the agreement that stipulated Father Miguel would hold the treasure and how it would be claimed. Nick’s heart faltered a beat at the familiar no-nonsense handwriting of the man who’d raised him. Giles Chase had signed it, in addition to Adam and the priest.
Nick met Zach’s gaze and held it as he rested one hand on Zach’s shoulder, exchanging silent words of comfort. Nick still felt ambivalent about Adam’s death, but Zach had lost his big brother. Now Zach’s only living relatives, other than his by-blows, were Adam’s progeny.
“What is it?”
Nick handed the document to Harriet, and stood shoulder to shoulder with Zach to read the second letter. Fighting was going in Wellesley’s favor on the Continent, Giles wrote. The Navy was conquering the French at sea, and they were confident they would soon be able to return to claim their property. Until then, the enclosed bank draft should cover the cost of caring for their property. How fortuitous they’d finally been paid prize money owed them for over a year. They’d sent half to their families, and here was half for Tesoro.
The letter was dated just weeks before their ship sank in battle with all hands, the victim of an explosion in the powder room.
“I recognize this figure Adam contributed,” Zach said. “He added exactly that amount to Evelyn’s dowry so she could snag that hoity-toity earl of hers.”
Nick thought his youngest brother-in-law was a bit pretentious, too, but said, “Just because he disapproves of you doesn’t make him hoity-toity.” Nick handed the letter to Harriet as Zach gave him a little shove with his elbow.
Harriet covered her mouth with her hand while she read one of the last documents penned by her father’s hand. She blinked back tears as she folded the two letters and gently set them on the desk, trying not to shake. “Father didn’t send any more money home after this. We spent the final bit of it to help pay last quarter’s mortgage.”
Zach blinked in surprise. “You made the funds last a long time.”
She gave a negligent shrug. “Since losing my position when the Academy closed, Gabriel and I have been tending fishing nets, and Mama gives music lessons.” She glanced down at the ledger. “Surely the prize money wasn’t enough to take care of Tesoro all this time?”
Father Miguel shook his head. “Like you, I made the funds stretch as far as I could.” He ran his fingers down the column of figures with entries for the cost of feed, farrier services, and other upkeep. The money had almost run out but then there were more entries in the credit column.
Nick had been silently translating the Spanish notations. “You rented him out?”
“Si. In the spring many farmers welcome a horse to plow their fields. The armies confiscated or commandeered most of the horses when they marched through, in Spain as well as here in Portugal.”
Zach snorted in disgust. “He’s not a damned plow horse.”
“True, but no more money came from the senhors. I had not heard from them in so long, I feared the worst. I have made a promise of simplicity for myself, and it is expensive to feed a horse. But I honored my oath to protect their property and keep Tesoro safe.”
