“It is my Felton’s family history as well,” she snapped. “That arrogant steward will not give us access.” She paused, then added with a haughty lift of her chin, “I know it is hidden in the stillroom; my late husband told me as much.”
“I fear the papers from that the distant past are fragile,” Gideon said, sipping his coffee.
“I’m sure Mr. Marshall has his orders,” Mia added cheerfully. “From His Grace, no doubt.”
“You continue to speak as if the duke is alive and hiding somewhere. Dukes do not simply disappear. He’s dead. I can feel it in my bones. You of all people ought to know that.” Lady Tavernash glared at Gideon.
The old troll might as well accuse me outright. “Your bones notwithstanding, I know my brother is doing precisely what he wants,” Gideon said.Whatever the hell that is.
“I should think the legitimate descendants would have first claim on the archives,” she muttered.
Gideon didn’t rise to that bait. To his relief, neither did Mia. In fact, if the twitching in the corner of her mouth was any indication, she struggled not to laugh.
They left the breakfast room with the intention of returning the box and dipping into one or two others. However, Gideon led Mia into his darkened office rather than passing it. He put a finger to his mouth and waited.
Minutes later Lady Tavernash sailed by on her way toward the stillroom. He could hear knocking and banging.
“Kendrick, I know you’re in there!” she called, still storming about the stillroom. He pulled Mia deeper into the shadows to the side of the door.
Soon enough she stomped back past his door. They heard her call to a worker piling sacks of grain in the storage room. “Where is Kendrick? Where did he go?”
“I’m sure I don’t know, my lady. He ain’t here,” the man said.
Gideon waited until he was certain the coast was clear and left the office, peering both ways. Mia followed him to the stillroom, where Lady Tavernash had left a candle burning. He closed the door to the hall and handed Mia the box.
She studied every corner of the room, wide-eyed. “I wondered where the herbs were kept,” she murmured.
“Watch carefully,” Gideon said. He lifted the candle from the wall sconce and twisted the empty sconce. The stone wall popped open. It moved more easily this time, and Mia gaped at the ancient door behind it. Gideon took the key from his coat and opened it.
Using the candle in his hand, he lit ones inside the vault before placing it in a glass jar set up on a table for that purpose. He returned the key to his coat and gazed at Mia, who appeared stupefied by the treasures that surrounded her.
“We could spend weeks in here,” she said.
“I think we’d suffocate,” he replied.
She poked him with her elbow. “You know what I mean. Where does this box go?”
He showed her, and she replaced it, but she removed the one next to it.
“What are you doing?”
“I just want to take a quick peek,” she said. “This one says 1770–1780; it overlaps the time you were born.” She put it near the glass-encased candle and lifted the lid.
“Don’t remind me how old I am. I already fear I’ve robbed the cradle,” he said.
Her head jerked up. “The age difference bothers you?”
“Doesn’t it bother you to be married to an old man?” he asked.
She snorted and sent him a look that said she viewed the question as beneath her and sorted through the papers. The first letter she found was dated 1777. She tossed it back. Another from Manchester in 1772 and a third posted from Windsor in 1773 also merited barely a glance. “Someday it might be fun to read these,” she murmured.
“So nothing?” he asked.
“I see one more.” She frowned. “Also too early. It is from Sedgewood Hall, however. Isn’t that Felton Tavernash’s home? Interesting. Perhaps she has cause to be interested in the archives.”
“One shudders,” he said.
She grinned and opened the letter, which proved to be a florid mess addressed to “my most honorable cousin.” Full of flattery, whining, and wheedling, it sought both money and an appointment for a son, Ronald.
