He pointed with his pinky finger at the edge, still obscured with crusted soil. “Can you clear this bit away?”
When she did, excitement welled inside him like a basin overflowing, and he beamed at her, only barely resisting the urge to sweep her up into his arms.
“That’s not medieval. The knotwork, the setting of the gem. This is what we’re looking for.” He pointed at the edge, which was entirely filled by engraved spirals and interweaving knots. “This style... There’s an Anglo-Saxon cross in a churchyard in Cumbria with almost the exact same style.”
“The Bewcastle Cross. I’ve never been as far north as Cumbria, but my father had been. He made sketches of it.”
“I wish I could take you.” The words were out before Dom could think better of it. “You’d find it fascinating,” he added, to temper the idea that he wanted to travel with her.
Never mind that he had such thoughts more and more as he lay in his bed at the inn and pondered the days spent with her. He wasn’t certain where his next expedition would take him, but whenever he mused on it, Tess would be there with him. Tempting him. Distracting him. Letting him taste her and pleasure her and lose himself inside her.
“Dominic? Where did you go?” she asked in a bemused tone.
He closed his eyes a moment to shake the erotic thoughtsaway and then opened his eyes to find her watching him with naked curiosity.
“Woolgathering.” He gestured toward the piece of gold in her hand. “Now that we know we’re on the right track, we will only find more the farther we go, don’t you think?”
Rather than answer him, she got lost studying the object she’d found. She cradled it in the palm of her hand, no bigger than a postage stamp, and used the brush to dust away a bit more soil.
“What do you think it could be?” She looked up at him, flashing a grin.
That simple blink of a smile made his mouth water. That one kiss they’d shared haunted his nights, but it wasn’t nearly enough.
He forced himself to focus on their find. Good grief, it was why he was here, and yet the thrill of what it portended didn’t feel nearly as powerful as whatever was between him and Tess Hawthorne. Or could be, if she’d let herself have it.
“It’s hard to say.” The piece was small enough that it could have formed part of a decorative element on any number of objects. “Perhaps a bracelet, or part of a buckle or breastplate. This is a burial trove, presumably, and there might be many decorated elements.”
“I wish we could find the rest,” she said longingly. “I wonder how much of what’s below has been damaged by robber trenches.”
“There’s only one way to find out.” Dom suspected this find was a false lead in terms of its depth, but it was also an indicator that they were digging into a hoard that would ensure his reputation and become the highlight of Van Arsdale’s museum.
That treasure-hunting intuition he’d had about this place,and that he and Eve got a hint of the previous autumn, was proving true.
“We keep digging,” Tess said as she looked down the length of the long trench they’d already carved out of Fenbridge’s land.
One of the village men seemed to catch her eye and stood to wave his arm and draw them both over.
“Found something,” he shouted.
“What is it, Bromley?” The man was one of their most determined workers, though Tess had stressed the importance of keeping him and Tristan a healthy distance apart when they were at the dig site together.
“Found more than one,” another village man named Townsend put in.
Bill Bromley deposited an object encrusted in compacted soil that had the shape of a very large pin, almost like a nail. It reminded Dom of spikes he’d seen used on the construction of a railroad line.
“Where?” Dom asked him.
Tristan approached with a clipboard and the drawings with measurements that he’d made and updated each day of the dig.
He eyed Bromley warily and then focused on Dom. “Here, here, and two others approximately equidistant on either side.”
“Equidistant,” Tess repeated.
Dom’s hand shook a bit as he reached for Tristan’s drawing, then mentally sketched out what he imagined they might have stumbled upon. “We need to widen the trench,” he told them. “Tess, where did you find the soil changes?”
She stepped forward, running her finger along the same line where they’d found the spike-like objects.
“Rivets,” Dom breathed, then looked at each of them inturn. “I think... we may have found rivets. And if we did, there will be more to find.”
