“We will find your wig, Mr. Snelling.” Maggie cut off her sister-in-law. As much as she disagreed with Snelling’s methods, provoking the village’s one and only schoolmaster would do Glory no good. “It will be returned to you first thing in the morning and with Glory’s apologies.”
“It had better. Or your daughter will have to find herself a new school.” He stormed off, the door slamming behind him.
Maggie rubbed her hands over her face. “Don’t say it, Hypatia. It doesn’t matter if he’s an idiot, and Glory’s right. She still can’t go insulting people and stealing their wigs.”
“I was going to offer to look for her,” Patty said somberly. “I doubt she’s coming here after that incident.”
“I know where she’s gone,” Maggie said.
It was where Glory always went.
“The cliffs,” Patty agreed. “I’ll come with you.”
“Someone has to stay and mind the shop.”
“To keep out the hordes?” Patty gestured to the empty room. “Thus far, the only visitors we’ve had are your sister and Snelling. One shudders to think who might show up next.”
Patty had a point. Moreover, Maggie knew that reining her daughter in would be no easy task. For Glory was as headstrong as she was clever, and since Paul’s death, she’d been running amok.
Onto the next crisis.
“I could use the reinforcements,” Maggie said gratefully. “Let’s go.”
3
“Damn and blast,Horatio. Is this really necessary?”
Rhys’s words echoed off the rocky walls. His lantern flickered, the darkness of the cavern closing in even more. At high tide, the place would be flooded with seawater, and he hastened his steps.
Briny, humid air plugged his nostrils as he made his way through the winding passage. Unbidden memories swamped him: the water closet in Eton, the suffocating panic of being locked in the stinking blackness by laughing bullies. The concealing darkness of the wardrobe, the frozen panic of witnessing his sire’s rage and his mama’s sobbing despair…
To this day, he did not like enclosed spaces. He wondered if his uncle was aware of that fact. If this was yet another test to see if he was worthy of the supposed fortune Horatio had left him.
Could have spared you the trouble, old boy, he thought grimly.I already know I’m a failure through and through.
Nonetheless, he forged on. It had taken him two days—and a goodly amount of brandy—to crack open the Japanese puzzle box. Inside, he’d found a piece of paper-thin porcelain that would have indeed been smashed to smithereens had he chosen to break open the box with a hammer.
The next clue had been painted upon the fragment:
At the heart of Journey’s End.
Recalling that Horatio had called these seaside cliffs the “heart” of his estate, Rhys had made his way down to the pebble-strewn shore. He’d spent yesterday exploring the golden sandstone structures until he’d found the hidden cavern he was presently sweating in.
“Some heart. More like the damned bowels, I’d say,” Rhys muttered.
The darkness grew more smothering. Even with the lamp, he couldn’t see more than a yard ahead of him. The passage narrowed with each step forward; his brow misted as his shoulders brushed the rock on each side. A draft came out of nowhere, a ghostly hand pinching out the lantern’s flame.
Holy hell.He fumbled in his pocket for the tinderbox. As he did so, his shoulders lodged against the rocky walls. He cursed again, struggling to get free, finding himself wedged in the stony vice. He forced himself to calm. To think over the thudding panic. Twisting his torso clockwise, he felt a little give. He continued turning, little by little…until he could wrench himself free.
Jewels or no jewels, he wasn’t perishing in this rocky grave.
He stumbled back the way he’d come. It seemed to take a lifetime until the sunlight hit his face. He staggered onto the beach, bracing his hands on his thighs, gulping in the fresh sea air.
“You look like you’ve seen a ghost!”
The child-like accents stirred the hairs on his nape. Turning, he saw a girl standing several feet away, staring at him with undisguised curiosity. Skinny and freckled, she looked about eight or nine. She wore no bonnet, her auburn plaits swinging as she skipped toward him, a basket in one hand. The hem of her serviceable frock was splattered with dirt and sand.
“Were you in the cave?” she asked.
