Kathleen Y'Barbo (24 page)

Millie accepted the chain and slipped it over her head. The cool metal chilled her skin, but she didn’t care. “Thank you,” she said as she met the girl’s eyes.

“Cook instructed me to keep it safe until you came home because there was treasure inside it.” She covered her hand with her mouth. “Oh, I was not supposed to tell that part.”

Millie’s handbag tumbled to the floor as she jumped to her feet. As the maid hurried to pick it up, Millie stopped her.

All her life she had heard Mama infer that treasure was to be had. Mama said Millie was the only one who could know. So how was it that there were others in the house who had also heard of it?

The chimneys have ears.
Hadn’t the valet said something of the sort? If the third-floor fireplace offered a listening post for the kitchen, why not other fireplaces in other locations in the house?

“Tell me what you know about the treasure,” Millie demanded.

“Who, me?” Maeve shook her head. “I don’t know anything, Miss Millie. Really, I don’t. Cook, now she’s the one who—”

“Tell me, please,” Millie repeated.

The girl’s shoulders sagged but she stubbornly kept her silence.

“All right, then. I will find that out for myself.” Millie left the maid cleaning up the broken glass and headed downstairs.

The delicious smells of garlic and roasting meat swirled around Millie as she crossed the kitchen to the stool where Cook sat stirring a pot. As long as Millie could remember, Cook had been old, but only in the past year had she required a stool to complete her daily duties.

“I wondered when you would come see me. If you are curious as to how your bedchamber’s got all which-way, you will have to look elsewhere for an answer. I will not be carrying tales”

“Not how,” Millie corrected, “but why.”

Cook swiveled to face her. “Well, that is a whole other question, is it not? And I believe you have an idea about that too.”

“The necklace.” Millie paused to pull it from her bodice. “Mama told me never to lose it. That might be what has Father’s friend wanting it. Or was it something else?”

Cook went back to stirring the pot. Silence fell between them until Millie decided to press on. She touched the older woman’s sleeve, causing her to look up from her work. “What did she tell you?”

Watery eyes the shade of a morning sky blinked twice as if calling Millie into focus. “By
she
, do you mean the missus your father took up with? Because
she
did not tell me nothing. Does not talk to the help, that one.”

“I meant my mother,” Millie said gently. “What did she tell you about my necklace?”

“What she told me is between me and her. She is gone, and I have said what I can. Looks like you have got all the answers you will get on
the subject.”

“The maids know.”

“They know nothing but what they are told. They know they are to be careful that your father is not allowed near the charms your mama gave you. Even if that means they must be hidden from time to time when he is in one of those moods of his.”

By moods, Cook meant those times when Father needed more funds than his business offered. Then he came raiding jewelry to pawn. That Cook knew this should not have surprised Millie.

Cook paused to reach for a tasting spoon. When she had seasoned the broth to her satisfaction, she set the spoon aside and returned her attention to Millie.

“Your mama made me promise I would train up anyone working in this house to keep your necklace with you.” She shrugged. “I have kept that promise to her, and long as I can I will keep at it.”

“Thank you, but I believe there is more to it than that. Tell me the rest. Please give me something of my mother back.”

The elderly woman stepped away from the bubbling pot, her expression unreadable. “All right, child. Open that locket and show me what is inside.”

Millie did as she asked and then offered it to the cook.

Wiping her hands on her apron, Cook cradled the open heart, gently touching the portrait it held. “She did wear this proudly long as she could.”

Memories of her young mother with the heart clasped around her neck on a dark velvet ribbon tumbled forth. Though as a child Millie never questioned why Mama stopped wearing the locket, as an adult she now understood why. What could not be found could not be lost. Or sold.

“When the cypher was opened, there was a key and a slip of paper inside.”

Cook lifted one gray brow. “And what did that mean to you?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know. It was just a torn scrap of paper, and if it had any writing on it, it was erased by time.”

“That is too bad. I never heard anything about a key from your mama. That might not have anything to do with anything. The puzzle, it was a game to her. But the locket? That was special.”

Fingers bent by age and yet still strong traced the miniature portrait.
“Oh, yes. I remember you,” Cook said to the dark-haired man in the portrait.

“Who is he?”

A wistful smile touched Cook’s lips. She handed the locket back to Millie and resumed her stirring. “Maybe he was your grandmother’s idea of treasure and that is how the stories were twisted up.”

Millie snapped the locket shut and returned the chain to its place around her neck. “I don’t understand.”

Cook gave Millie a thoughtful look. “No, I do not suspect you would.” She paused to swipe at her brow with the corner of her apron, and then her attention returned to the stove. Just when Millie thought the woman might be finished talking, she slid her a sideways glance. “A woman, if she lives right, has only two great loves in her life.”

“Two?”

“Yes, indeed. Her first love, that will always be our Lord Jesus Christ. If He is not first, then a woman, she is sunk. You believe that, don’t you, child?”

In theory, she did. In practice, she was still working on it.

“And then there is the other one. That one man the Lord made for her. Some say there is more than one, and I suppose there could be situations where that is the truth. Me? I do not know.” She smiled. “But that one man, if we wait, he finds us.”

“How do you know?”

Cook stood very still, her eyes looking past Millie. “Oh, sweet girl, if you have to ask, the fellow is not the one. Because when he comes along, you will know.”

Millie smiled at the idea of the elderly woman as a girl young enough to have suitors. She watched as Cook stepped away from the stove to disappear into the larder. “Did you know?”

The old cook’s giggle made her sound more like a young girl than a woman of many years. “Of course I did. Now get along with yourself.”

Millie offered a quick embrace before hurrying away. Would she ever have faith like that? She couldn’t imagine it. And yet, that sort of faith was what she wanted desperately. What she craved.

Back in the privacy of her bedchamber, she pulled the necklace from her bodice and held the charms up to the light from her bedside lamp. Again she opened the locket. “Who are you?” she asked the tiny painting of the handsome dark-haired man. “And what do you know about the treasure?”

For there
was
a treasure. Mama told her there was, Cook believed it, and Millie had staked her whole life’s plans on seeking that treasure and finding her freedom. Until Kyle managed to open the cypher, she thought the solution to finding the treasure rested in whatever was inside that. To see it was a simple key and a torn and faded piece of blank foolscap had been a disappointment, but she had not discounted the fact the key might have some significance. What did a tiny key and a miniature oil painting of a stranger have to do with a treasure that Mama insisted would secure her future?

She sighed. For all that she did not know, there was one thing she did know for certain. Her future did not include Sir William Trueck.

Fourteen

W
hile she decided the best way to end her ruse of an engagement, Millie slipped up the back stairs to the attic room to fetch the sharpener for her pencils. To her surprise, she found the door unlocked. A look around proved the room was unoccupied and presumably had been, leaving her to assume things had not been disturbed. She would have to remember to ask the maids to be more careful when they were in there.

Millie went directly to the worktable to find her sharpener. As she reached for it, her sleeve caught on a jar of linseed oil and sent it tumbling. With nothing within reach to stop the liquid as it poured across the table, Millie swept away the sketchbooks and Mama’s Bible off of the table with her free hand just before the oil ruined them.

“Now I’ve made a mess,” she said under her breath as she hurried to find the cheesecloth she kept for such instances. The spill was soon soaked up and the rags piled safely away from the books she now reached for.

The room was so cold she could see her breath, and her toes were beginning to feel numb, so returning the sketchbooks to their neat and orderly state would have to wait for another day. Millie retrieved the Bible, though, hoping she had done no permanent damage to the precious book by tossing it onto the floor.

The leather was old and cracked in some places, well worn in others. Millie lifted the cover and the book fell open to Mama’s favorite verses in the second chapter of Proverbs.

“Searchest for her as hid treasures,” Millie whispered.

Flipping back to the front of the book, she found the page where family history had been written in line after line of almost indecipherable script. There was Father’s name and birthdate and then his marriage to Mama with the date, May 8, 1862. Below had been recorded the births of the Cope daughters along with the dates of their deaths—except for Millie’s, of course.

Older entries had been faded by time, blurred to something akin to unreadable. Here and there she could make out a date—1837 for a marriage; 1812, 1815, and 1820 for births. Nothing that she could really read or understand, however, and nowhere did she find anything that might indicate the association to the pirate Lafitte.

She closed the Bible and returned it to the worktable, being careful to avoid the wood still glistening with the remains of the oil spill. Still, she could not yet let go of the one solid link that tied her to her mother.

Her eyes glistened with tears.
I need your wisdom, Mama. I miss you.

“Miss Millie.”

Millie nearly jumped out of her skin as once again the Bible tumbled. Lunging forward to try and catch the precious book before it landed on the floor, Millie’s foot got caught in her petticoats and she fell.

The maid hurried to assist her and then snatched up the Bible. “I am fearful sorry, ma’am, but your father is home unexpected, and he is asking for your presence in the dining room. He wishes you to join him
and Mrs. Ward-Wiggins for the evening meal.” She paused. “Are you hurt?”

“No, I’m fine, Bridget.” Her heart still racing, Millie leaned against the worktable to steady herself. “Please tell my father I will be down as soon as I have dressed properly.”

“Yes’m.” She held out the Bible toward Millie. “Here you are, Miss Millie. It’s torn, though.”

True enough, several pages were now sticking out in a ragged manner where once the gold-tipped edges had all been orderly and straight. She accepted the Bible and then cradled it to her chest.

“Just go tell Father, please. We don’t want him coming up here to see what the delay is.”

“No, ma’am,” the maid replied as she scurried off.

This time Millie carefully placed the Bible on the table and then opened it to repair the damage as best she could. When the pages were straight again, she closed the cover. The crack on the spine was larger now, revealing far too much of the book beneath. Millie sighed as she pressed ancient leather back into place.