Page 118 of A Rare Find

“Our plunder.” They grinned. A good thing they’d dressed in a gown styled like a riding habit, with buttoned pockets. They slipped the gold inside.

“And the rest of it?” Peach seemed dazed.

“By law, all of it belongs to the king,” said Elf. “Once we report it to the coroner, he’ll take possession and hold an inquest. But first I’ll catalog and describe and draw every piece.” Her face was lighting up at the thought.

Peach’s face had darkened. “The Crown owns what’s buried?”

“Only if it’s gold or silver, and deliberately hidden,” replied Elf, almost absently. She was somewhere else, winging away in her mind, toward the Peak was Georgie’s guess.

“So not something as was dropped?” persisted Peach. “Or made of bronze or iron?”

Georgie was about to ask him why he wondered, but Elf was rising, and they forgot Peach as they sprang to their feet.

“I must go to the Peak at once,” she said. “I must tell Papa, and the Barrow Prince.”

“I’ll drive you,” offered Georgie, but she was staring at them like a woman newly woken from a dream.

“What time is it?” she gasped. “After ten? The theater company! If I’ve spoiled your chance, I won’t forgive myself. Perhaps it’s not too late. Hurry.”

She made a frantic, flapping gesture with her hands.

She wouldn’t believe them if they told her now that they’d already chosen to stay, so they didn’t bother.

They shook their head. “You need me to drive you. How else will you get there?”

“Mrs. Alderwalsey. She’ll let me take her carriage, I know it. Papa last wrote from Incledon Hall, in a village near Youlgreave. It’s not so far.” Her flapping hands pressed their arm in an urgent little shove. “Hurry.”

They let her move them away a step. And because a plan had been forming in their mind all morning, and they did have cause to chase down the strollers, they took another step away.

“All right,” they said. “I’ll hurry.” They glanced at Peach. The farmer cut his eyes at Elf, then cocked a brow at them.

“Don’t mind me,” he murmured. The dimple was back in his cheek.

Georgie didn’t mind him. They didn’t mind anything. They bounded the two steps back to Elf, and before they hurried off, they gave her a thorough kiss goodbye.

31

Mrs. Alderwalsey did not let Elfreda take her carriage, not exactly. She insisted on accompanying her.

“Treasure!” She cackled gleefully. “This news will certainly overshadow Mrs. Roberts’s theatrical evening. I have never been so eager to send my excuses.”

The carriage rolled up into the Peak, through steep-sided dales, and finally, just beyond a pretty village of limestone cottages, it rolled to a stop in front of Incledon Hall. The hour was half past four. Teatime. And Papa was, in fact, sipping tea in the drawing room.

“Elfreda!” He choked at the sight of her, and then he choked again. “Mrs. Alderwalsey!”

“Harold,” replied Mrs. Alderwalsey. “There is only one thing I will permit you to say to me.”

“What are you doing here?” asked Papa.

Mrs. Alderwalsey sniffed. “That is not the thing.”

“Madam.” Frederic Incledon nodded, with severe courtesy. “Miss Marsden.” He was a severe man, whose published papers focused on trial by ordeal, particularly the medieval Frankish practice of trial by cauldron. He was once among Papa’s most regular correspondents and most frequent visitors. Then he became the Albion Society secretary, under Mr. Clutterbuck, and the letters and visits fell off.

“What of the little ones?” Nicholas Fluff spoke much more warmly. “Have they come too?”

“Egad.” Papa’s face was turning red. “They had better not have come. What is the meaning of this? I trust no one is ill.”

“No one is ill,” said Mrs. Alderwalsey, gleefully. “But you might require my smelling salts.” She fixed her sharp eyes on Elfreda. “Well? We rushed all this way. Will you make them wait?”