It was then that the Duchess told her about the Wyndham treasure. “King Henry the Eighth,” Caroline said. “That’s amazing, more amazing I think than finding proof that poor old King Mark is here.”
“I don’t know about that,” the Duchess said. “Henry the Eighth is only three hundred years old, whereas King Mark is more than a thousand years old. That’s impressive, Caroline, very impressive.”
“I personally think it’s all fancy woven from the tortured minds of North’s male ancestors, misogynists, all of them, beginning with his great-grandfather.”
“Tell me more,” the Duchess said, and Caroline did.
“Hmmm,” the Duchess said after an hour of talk and questions. “Let’s put our heads together, Caroline. Two ladies, I believe, have a much better chance of figuring things out than two passionate gentlemen who would rather bust heads together than just think.”
“That,” the earl said from the doorway, “sounds very much like an insult to me.”
“I agree,” North said, coming into the bedchamber. “At least my wife still looks bright enough to give me a smile. That miserable potion is still working?”
Caroline was getting muzzy in her thinking, but North looked so very splendid, all windblown and tousled from riding in the chilly afternoon, as vibrant and as alive as a man could get, that she felt a leap of energy and smiled at him, she couldn’t help it. “I feel wonderful.”
“That look on your wife’s face is all female besottedness, North. If you believe it, then you’re more conceited than I had imagined.”
The Duchess said, “We’ve been discussing King Mark and his treasure being here on Nightingale land. What do you think, North?”
“Hmmm? Oh, I’m sorry, Duchess. What did you say?”
Marcus poked him in the belly with his fist. “He’s thinking about announcing to the world that he is a god above men, just ask his wife. So he pleases you, does he, Caroline?”
“Yes,” she said simply, still smiling at her husband.
The Duchess rose and shook out her wool skirts. “I think it’s time that Caroline had a nap. She looks like she’s on the verge of a minor wilt. Marcus, I would like to speak to you now. Alone.”
“Ah,” the earl said, giving his wife his arm. “I fear she will order up our carriage and force me to—”
She punched him in the belly.
“I have found,” Caroline said, “that North’s cravats are very useful in gaining control. At least they were that one time he let me use them.”
“How?” the Duchess said, an elegant black eyebrow arched upward.
Caroline turned crimson, her eyes nearly crossing with what had come unexpectedly out of her mouth. North laughed and said, “You see, there’s no such thing as a private jest, sweetheart. Won’t you tell the Duchess what you did with those cravats?”
“Yes, I will, when we’re alone,” Caroline said, then sneezed, a fake sneeze, North saw, but he let it alone. Her color was high. Damn and blast the miserable cold.
It was the Duchess who said to everyone the next afternoon at luncheon, “I read the entire journal last night.”
“She told me to be quiet and repose myself,” the earl said, and forked down a bit of Polgrain’s delicious roasted wild duck garnished with watercress and small oranges.
“What truly surprised me,” the Duchess said, “was that he did. He slept like a glutton who’d just eaten Christmas dinner. In any case, the journal was illuminating, Caroline.”
Caroline, who was feeling much more the thing than the day before, said, “What did you find? I’ve skipped about in the journal and haven’t read it all the way through. Have you, North?”
He shook his head. “What do you think, Duchess?”
“I think we should go to that spot where your great-grandfather said one of his men found that armlet. So strange that it just disappeared. Too, I’m afraid his directions aren’t too specific.”
“No, they’re not,” Caroline said. “I’ve been so frustrated trying to find something.”
The earl looked at his wife with mild disbelief. “Surely you don’t believe that pap? I’ll wager my best Hessians that there never was an armlet save in your great-grandfather’s head, North.”
“I agree, unfortunately,” North said. “I think he was already well over the edge when he began the journal. You read, certainly, Duchess, all the rantings and ravings of his about his miserable harlot of a wife. I think the selection of King Mark as his hero of choice is because King Mark was also betrayed by his wife, Isolde, with Tristan. I believe it pleased my great-grandfather to compare himself to the poor tortured king and transplant his remains and a boundless treasure closer, namely here on Nightingale land, thus aggrandizing himself in the process.”
“I went there, Duchess,” Caroline said. “There’s a thick copse of oak trees, a long stone fence, and so many of those rolling hillocks. I looked and looked, but alas, I didn’t find a thing, even a scrap of a pottery piece, nothing at all. I went there three or four times.”