“Yes.” Tess reached for his hand, and he immediately clasped hers. She bent forward, guiding him toward the tree’s hollow. He flattened his palm against the bark, and she held her hand over his.
“You must whisper it,” she told him, then stood and took a few steps back.
He looked at her over his shoulder, a little smile tipping the edge of his mouth. Then he bent toward the tree and murmured something low and deep against the hollow.
She was insatiably curious about his wish, of course, but she would keep to the tradition of secrecy.
Dominic stood and dusted off his hands, then he joined her to begin the walk back.
“Did your wishes come true?” he asked as they left the shelter of the yew tree’s sweeping branches.
Tess shook her head. “But you’ll have to tell me if yours does.” As she looked over at him, she stumbled the next step and he reached for her.
When they started off again, he shifted closer and offered his arm as a gentleman would when strolling through a London park. Tess only hesitated a moment before she took it, letting herself relish his nearness and the shift of hard muscles where she touched him.
He tipped his head toward hers and whispered in a low voice, “If my wish comes true, Tess, you’ll know it.”
Chapter Eleven
Six days later
After twelve days of work, from sunup to sunset, barring their one rained-out day, their rotating crew of men from the local village had made excellent progress.
Dom stood at the edge of the wide trench they’d dug and swiped sweat from his brow. He couldn’t keep his eyes off Tess, who’d crouched down at the lowest point amidst the grid they’d laid out. When she’d returned from her visit to Fenbridge this morning, she’d been anxious, almost vibrating with eagerness to get started again.
Over the course of the previous day, they’d found some bits of metal, what Dom suspected was part of a sword, and Tess had detected further changes in the soil. The object that had been sunk in the ground was sizable, based on the pattern of darker soil. Every sign indicated they were getting closer to something of significance.
Unfortunately, they’d also found evidence that they weren’t the first to dig into the mound in an attempt to extract treasure. They could see that the robbers’ trenches weren’t as deep as Dom, Tess, Tristan, and the crew they’d assembled were prepared to dig.
Tess glanced up and Dom flicked his gaze away, loath to be caught staring at her legs and backside—again. Even after nearly two weeks of working with her side by side for muchof the day, he found her presence, and her long legs in her very practical trousers, damnably distracting.
“Can you come down here?” she called.
He started off immediately, careful to tread on the boards of wood they’d laid out.
When he got closer, he could see the excited glint in her eyes and the little smile edging up the side of her mouth.
“There’s something here.”
He squatted down in front of the spot she indicated, noting the spot’s distance from the other objects they’d found. She’d carved around her discovery and a hint of metal could be seen through the hard-packed dirt around it.
“I...” She swiped her brush from the set he’d given her across the edge gently, then lifted her eyes, as green as the fields around them, up to him. “I think it’s gold, Dominic.”
His gut clenched. His mouth went dry. His heart began a wild thud in his chest.
It seemed too soon, and at too high a level in the soil, to be anything of significance, but one of the robbers’ trenches might have shifted something. They could have churned up items as they dug and yet not discovered them.
“Don’t stop,” he urged, for her movements had grown slow, almost reverent. He still wasn’t convinced. He needed to see it uncovered, cleaned off, and in the bright light of day.
She seemed to be holding her breath as she swept the brush over it again and a piece of crusted earth shifted, revealing a deep, rich red circle that glowed in the sunlight. Like a cabochon. Garnet, he guessed. Possibly a ruby or even a spinel like the one in the imperial crown.
“Breathe, Tess. You’ve found something for certain. Let’s see more of it.”
As more dirt fell away, it became clear that the object wasonly a broken piece. Perhaps it truly had been struck and damaged and then tossed to higher soil by a robber’s shovel decades or even centuries ago.
“Perhaps it’s nothing more than someone’s lost brooch,” she said, a hint of doubt creeping into her tone. “Medieval, do you think?”
She held the broken piece in her hand and offered it up to him.
