Page 77 of To Treasure an Heiress
“Had to.”
“Did you?” She didn’t really mean to say it. It just slipped out. Probably the fault of the acrobats doing flips in her stomach. Obviously if this was really a courtship and it progressed, then she’d have to meet his sisters at some point. But did it have to be so soon?
And obviously Sheridan knew exactly what she feared. He took her hand, lifted it, and kissed her knuckles like he’d done the day of the accident, as she’d taken to calling it. “I did. For you. You’ll see.”
Would she? Because right now it didn’t seem like he’d given any thought at all to how she would feel about the invitation. Yet the way he was looking at her ... clearly he believed it was for her benefit. Somehow.
Telford sank into his usual armchair. “Well, if it puts your mind at ease any, Miss Tremayne, you can at least tell them that we’veall but proven you’re the descendant of a prince, which puts you in the heiress category, even if your inheritance has been lost over the centuries.” He offered a cheeky grin. “I intend to break out that argument if Mother gives me any guff for not objecting to Libby and your brother.”
Her gaze drifted back to the table, fully covered with papers and books and records. Other than on Sunday, she’d spent the last several days tracing out a family tree for both the Gibsons and the Dawes, and Saturday night she had found the linchpin to her theory—a single common ancestor, yes, two hundred years ago. The Gibson line traced back to a woman named Morgelyn, and the Dawes to her sister, Jenna. The two children of—she could still scarcely believe this—Ruperta, daughter of Briallen—who had no father listed.
ButRuperta. The very name that, more than a decade after their Ruperta’s birth, Prince Rupert’s mistress gave to their illegitimate daughter, who went on to marry a Howe, thereby guaranteeing Sheridan’s interest.Ruperta.Clearly a feminine form of Rupert. Which wasnota variation of Robert otherwise present in Cornwall or the Scillies.
“It doesn’t make me heiress to anything but a good story. And it isn’t proof that anyone’s likely to accept, besides.” It seemed the reasonable thing to tell herself, because really, who would honestly care that her many-times-great-grandmother had secretly married a prince?
“I don’t know why not. If one cares so much about bloodlines, I mean. Which I always thought was rot. For the record.” Sheridan winced. “I mean, not that I mean to insinuate that you ought to be defensive about bloodlines, because—ah, blast. You know what I mean, don’t you? I adore your family, prince in its line or not. And you’re an heiress of the only thing that matters—an amazing family. That’s worth treasuring.”
She squeezed his fingers. A month ago, she probably would have tried to turn it into an insult. But shedidknow what he meant.“I adore them too—both sides. And I’ve still been thinking about Senara’s key.” A far happier thing to contemplate than what witty insults Sheridan’s sisters were likely to devise for her. “I find it quite plausible that it dates back to Jenna. To Ruperta. To Briallen. It could have been something Rupert left with her. It could be a literal key to a chest of pirate treasure.”
“It could just as easily be the key to the loo.” Telford hooked his ankle onto his knee. And held up a hand just as Sheridan opened his mouth. “I know, sorry. Cynical of me. And unlikely to boot, as I daresay no one put a fancy lock on their outhouse. But seriously. Even if itisthe key to an actual treasure chest, I don’t see why it’s cause for excitement. If it’s a literal wooden chest that’s been literally buried as you two seem to think, then I daresay a key won’t be necessary. The thing would have rotted by now anyway, just like the crate of silverware you dragged up last month.”
He had a point. Which was another dash of cold water. She’d had quite a fun time dreaming about unearthing a pirate chest and brandishing Senara’s key to unlock it. She leaned close to Sheridan again and said in a stage whisper, “Is he always such a killjoy?”
“Yes,” Sheridan said without hesitation, even as Telford slammed his foot back to the floor and said, “I am not!” Then frowned at his friend. “Am I? I’m only trying to be reasonable.”
“Well, but that’s the thing, Telly. Reason is greatly overrated.” With a conciliatory look on his face, Sheridan snatched up a ball of discarded paper from the floor and lobbed it at Telford’s head.
Telford snatched it from the air. And smiled.
Men were such odd creatures sometimes. And it was going to take her a lot more than a month to learn the language these two spoke, if ever she had a hope of doing so.
She let herself sink against the back of the couch, ignoring the lingering twinge in her ribs at that move. “Regardless of whether we’ll need the physical key, it’s still too strange to be a coincidence, isn’t it? That in one branch of Briallen’s line a key has been passed down, in another a box that was unquestionably from Prince Rupert,and that his associate Mucknell kept using the phrase‘the key to your future’in letters to his wife?”
“But the key wasn’t left to Elizabeth Mucknell.” Telford held up both hands, this time, against their dual glares. “Well, it wasn’t!”
“Even so. Rupert could have known where Mucknell stashed some of his loot. He even could have slipped the key to a chest from him sometime and given it to his own bride. A sort of insurance policy, if you will, in case he never came back.”
“Or came back too late.” Sheridan ran his thumb over hers.
Another something those records had shown them. Briallen’s death, a mere week after the record of Ruperta’s birth. “Do you think he knew? About his daughter?”
Sheridan shook his head. “Not a chance. If he had, he would have come for her. Raised her as his own, as he did the other Ruperta. The stories, you know—about how he loved her. My Ruperta, I mean—well, you know. The one who married a Howe. He doted on her, boasted of her childhood accomplishments to all his friends. He was a good father, despite never marrying her mother. He’d have been the same withthisRuperta, if he knew of her.”
“Well, I don’t understand why no one would have told him, especially if they told him of Briallen’s death.” Telford tossed the paper straight up, caught it again. “One would think her remaining family would have wanted her to have what he could give her.”
“Don’t be so sure, my lord.” Beth stood when noise from outside worked its way into her hearing and moved over to the window. Sure enough, Mabena and Libby and Lady Emily were laughing their way up the walk. She turned back to face the gentlemen. “Island life may look dismal to incomers. Deprived. Harsh. But those who stay here do so because the islands are part of them. I can’t imagine my family or neighbors ever making a choice that they knew would send their children away from here forever. From their point of view, Ruperta wastheirs. A daughter of the Scillies, like Briallen was. They loved her, and so they kept her with them, probably knowing well that society would never have accepted her fully.”
Sheridan stood, too, and pulled the hidden record book out of the cushion, probably so he could return it with an apology to Ollie when he got home. “They could have given society a bit more credit. I mean, because they did. Accept his other daughter.”
Sometimes he was just adorably naïve. “Oh, Theo. Just because they let her into their balls and dinners and a decent man married her doesn’t mean she wasn’t parrying catty comments about her mother every day of her life. Not to mention that while actresses were scandalous, they were also the accepted mistresses of rich men, who frequently acknowledged those offspring. An island nobody would have been quite a different thing.”
“You can’t know that.”
And sometimes he was just frustrating. “I think you mean that I know it better than anyone! That year I was in London at finishing school—it was miserable. I was no worse off than plenty of other girls there, but you have no idea the things they said to me. Just because my mother wasn’t a gentleman’s daughter. Just because we live here instead of on the mainland.”
“Then why have you been so determined to go back?”
She jumped at Oliver’s voice from behind her. He stood outside in the front garden, on the other side of the window. When had he gotten back? She hadn’t seen him coming up the walk with the girls. And the girls weren’t there with him now, either, though she could hear them coming along the corridor.
