Page 74 of An Unexpected Pleasure

Theo nodded. “We agreed not to tell anyone, even Barchester, about what we found. We made up the story about the accident, and that is what we told Andrew. We used my illness as an excuse for packing up our camp and leaving immediately. And we returned to civilization.”

He stopped and turned to look at her. “You cannot know how much I have regretted what I did. I wished I had never taken that trip. I failed Dennis. I could not save him, and then I left him there. I should have brought his body back. I could never forgive Coffey for making me leave. I couldn’t forgive myself either. And now, I see how much I failed you and your family, too.”

Megan ignored the comment. “But I don’t understand. Why did you lie to Mr. Barchester about what happened? Why didn’t you just tell the truth?”

He sighed. “Looking back on it, maybe we shouldn’t have made up that story. I wasn’t thinking very clearly. My fever was still high, and even when it subsided, I was weak as a cat. It was all I could do to stay on my mount. Julian and I talked about it as we rode back to the base camp. The thing was, we didn’t want to reveal anything about the village. If you could have seen it—it was so pure and untouched by the modern world. We did not want it to be destroyed, as it surely would have been if word had gotten out about the fabulous treasure they had concealed in their cave.”

Theo came back to sit down beside her and took her hand in his. “Dennis was dead, and whatever we did could not bring him back.”

Megan curled her fingers around his. “You did your best, Theo. You were ill and weak. What else could you have done?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know. But it seems as though I should have done something.” He sighed. “That is why I had so much trouble writing to your father about it. Just to think of it was like a knife in my gut. It pained me to even see Andrew or Julian. We had been friends, but…” He shrugged. “It was never the same after that. I resented Coffey for making me leave. I could barely stand to talk to him after that. Unfair, I know, but…” He shrugged. “Every time I saw one of them, I thought of Dennis and his death. And how I had let him down.”

“No one could have expected any more from you,” Megan told him firmly. “It was not your fault.”

“Perhaps not. But it always felt as if it was.”

They were silent for a moment, each thinking their own thoughts. Finally Megan said, “Why did the villager turn on Dennis and kill him?”

“I don’t know. He was a priest, Julian thought—what I had seen on him was a golden mask and a cloak made of linked pieces of gold. Julian said that he and Dennis had seen it before in the storage room. Julian thought perhaps the man had found Dennis taking something from the storage area.”

“Stealing?” Megan asked indignantly. “Dennis would not have stolen anything!”

Theo gave her a rueful smile. “Most people, my dear Megan, scarcely regard it as stealing if they take some of a treasure hidden in a cave, especially when it is ancient artifacts that belong to what we Europeans consider a primitive society. Just look at the way we have looted Egyptian tombs. Or the ruins of Troy.”

“Yes, but those are just sitting there, buried by people long past. These things obviously were the property of that village.”

“I know. And I am certain that Dennis would not have taken anything that belonged to the village. When he was sitting, watching over me while I was ill, he had talked about the villagers. He had great liking for them and their way of life. I think, perhaps, he was even a little in love with the girl who gave me the medicine and chanted over me.”

“Really?” Emotion clogged Megan’s throat even as she smiled. “So then Dennis was happy those last few days of his life?”

“Lord, yes. The only dark cloud on his horizon was my illness. He was worried about me, I think, and whether I would make it out of there. But he was delighted, fascinated, by the village and its people, the way they had survived and prospered there, passing down a way of life unchanged from three hundred years ago. He talked to me about the need to conceal their presence from the outside world. It was of great concern to him. That was one of the reasons Coffey and I wanted to keep the place hidden and unknown—it had been so important to Dennis.”

A reminiscent smile curved Theo’s mouth. “And he told me quite a bit about my healer’s beautiful dark eyes and lustrous hair.” He paused for a moment, thinking about his friend, then went on, “So I do not think that Dennis had taken anything from the storage area. I suppose the villager could have thought that Dennis had stolen something or was about to. I thought about it quite a bit, as you might imagine, on that long trip back home. I decided that the most likely thing was that Dennis inadvertently stumbled upon the villagers in some sort of ceremony. Why else would the villager have been wearing that mask and cloak? They were engaged in a secret ritual, and if Dennis intruded, they might have been so angered that the priest killed him—felt that his gods demanded it or something.”

“I suppose.” It seemed a flimsy reason to kill someone, Megan thought, but she knew that many people had killed in the name of religion, even one like her own, which espoused peace and love for one’s fellow man. How much more likely would it be if one worshipped a bloodthirsty god who demanded the sacrifice of children? “It just seems so terrible that Dennis should have died because of a simple mistake.”

“There is no good reason for him to have been killed,” Theo pointed out.

“That’s true.”

“I cannot understand why Barchester lied to us. I have to find out.”

“Did he tell you this recently?” Theo asked. “Perhaps it was some wild idea he had years ago, just because he was so upset over Dennis’s death, and over the years he has realized that it wasn’t true.”

“No. He told Deirdre and me just a few weeks ago—right before I came to work here.”

“Deirdre?” Theo looked at her questioningly.

“My sister.”

“Your sister is here? Oh…and the Irishman? Is that your father?”

Megan nodded. “Yes. The three of us came over to…” she met his gaze squarely “…to find proof that you killed my brother. To bring you to justice for it.”

To her surprise, he smiled a little. “And exactly what did you hope to find in my bedroom?”

Megan blushed, but tilted her chin and said, “Something that you and Dennis might have quarreled over. Something precious to him that you might have taken from him. A pendant, perhaps.”