Page 19 of A Treacherous Treasure

Smokeless tobacco. Rebecca never understood why anyone would use it. Her brother told her it would give him a calm feeling when he used it, which wore off fairly quickly, forcing him to snuff more of it.

“Why do you do it, then, if you just have to do more?”

He just grinned and said, “It’s the fashion, that’s why.”

She thought it quite foolish to do something simply because it was the fashion, but she said nothing.

She continued to look through the drawers and found some keys. She tucked them into the pocket on her dressing gown. Why not? After all, if she never needed them for anything, she could always put them back.

Another drawer looked like a letter from his wife, in which she asked him to speak to their son about his behavior, the son being Arthur’s father. The writer never specified what kind of behavior he was to speak to him about, but apparently it was well-known, as she said, “No one will ever invite us to another dinner party or ball again if you do not at least urge him to be more discreet.”

As the father, so the son?

Rebecca had never met Arthur’s father, and Arthur rarely spoke of him, and she did not trust anything Mrs. Heywood said about him, which was only glowing praise.

She put the letter back, feeling the weight of sadness its contents had brought on. What caused a man like Arthur to ignore his wife? Even after she’d been told by multiple people that she was not to blame, she could never cast off the fear that it was her own fault, that she had done something wrong or was somehow inadequate.

It was a pain so deep and so strong, she wondered if she’d ever get over it.

A baby would have soothed that pain, she was convinced. If she could be a good mother, loving her child but not spoiling him, teaching him right from wrong, and always encouraging him in his positive endeavors, she could have felt as if she wasn’t useless. And unloved.

The betrayed, unloved wife. That’s what she wanted to expunge from her mind and her heart.God, help me expunge it.A child would have removed the curse of being unloved and unwanted, but God had not seen fit to give her a child. And now she had a lingering, very uncomfortable feeling of suspicion toward God.Why, God? Why did you not allow my baby to live?She had no answers, and it did not make sense to her why God would withhold a good thing such as a baby from her.

She continued to look for something of interest, something concerning the treasure. If she didn’t find that information, she might have someone digging up her property for some time, shooting at anyone who saw them, and over a treasure that didn’t exist.

At least she had not heard any gunshots tonight. Hopefully Thomas Westbrook was still alive.

As she continued to search through the large desk, memories of the man who had saved her life flitted through her mind.

She’d always thought Arthur was a very handsome man, with his ready smile and his reddish-blond hair and his squared-off jawline and chin. He looked very much like his grandfather, he claimed, who had been a sea captain in the navy and a close friend of the famous Admiral Horatio Nelson.

“Perhaps I should have made the navy my career,” Arthur said once before they were married. Instead, he’d waited for his father to die so that he would be a landed gentleman in his own right.

By the time Rebecca had looked through the entire desk, her eyes were burning from the candle’s smoke, and her candle was nearly spent. She should probably stop for the night and come back to it another time.

She opened the first cupboard door she’d looked into, just to make sure she hadn’t missed anything. There was the snuffbox, alone inside.

She picked it up and examined it. It was not made of gold or even silver. It appeared to be made of tin, so it was not very valuable. She opened it, leaning away, as she hated the smell of the powdery tobacco. But when she looked inside, there was no snuff, but there was something.

She turned the snuffbox upside down in her hand. There on her palm was a shiny gold coin and a tiny, folder piece of paper no bigger than her thumbnail.

She held the coin closer to the light. Her heart started to beat double time. She turned the coin over and was soon convinced it was a gold doubloon.

She unfolded the tiny piece of paper, and inside was writtenRomans 8.

Was that referring to the Bible book of Romans, chapter eight? Or something else?

Rebecca put the tiny piece of paper and the gold doubloon back into the snuffbox and then placed it in her pocket with the keys she’d pilfered earlier. Next, she opened the drawer with the unsent, sealed letter to M. Pipken. She also put it in her pocket, then shut the drawer.

Her candle had dripped on the top of the desk in a few places. She found a letter opener and used it to carefully scrape the wax off the desk, trying not to scratch the wood. When she’d put everything back the way she had found them, except for the items she’d stowed in her pocket, she hurried out and shut the door, creeping back up to her room.

Once inside, she felt strangely excited, as if she had fooled her mother-in-law, although that was a childish sentiment. She hadn’t fooled anyone. She’d only explored a room in the house she’d never explored before and had taken items belonging to a man who had been dead for twenty years.

She took the items out of her pocket, her excitement waning as a bit of guilt assailed her at how she had taken things that didn’t belong to her. But it wasn’t as if the owner would be angry or miss the items, she argued with herself. M. Pipken, whoever he was, was probably dead as well. And if that were so, there was no one to mind if she opened his letter.

She went and found her own letter opener. She used it to carefully pry the wax seal up from the paper. It was easier than she’d thought it would be.

With the seal removed, she opened the letter and began to read: