Page 72 of The Heir's Fortune
“Very well,” Devon said with a grin. “It is hard to believe that we are standing here together, celebrating the end of this treasure hunt. Not only did we find a fortune – one that we are, quite sadly, returning from where it came – but we grew friendships and romances, each of us finding the person with whom we will spend the rest of our lives. I do not believe that any of this would ever have come about had we not encountered these circumstances with one another. We faced danger, peril, and what seemed to be, at times, impossible clues and situations, but here we are at the end of it all. Gideon?”
“I could not ask for better friends,” he said, looking around at them all, needing each of them to understand just how true his words were. “Not many people would take such a leap and believe in what I presented to you, let alone put such effort into doing this simply for the sake of helping me. I appreciate it more than you will ever know.” He had to pause for a moment to prevent the emotion from spilling over. “Little could I imagine what true fortune was awaiting me.” He squeezed Madeline’s hip. “To friends, and to the family that we have all become.”
He lifted his drink, as did the rest of them, a tear or two present on the faces of each of them.
“That was beautiful,” Ferrington said with a sniff after they had set their glasses down.
“The speeches or the drink?” Whitehall asked.
“Both,” Ferrington said with a sigh. “That is some damn fine brandy.”
“Courtesy of Covington here,” Gideon said, hoping that someday Castleton would be able to supply something similar.
“It’s very good,” Percy said with a smile. She would know – she considered herself a connoisseur of such spirits.
After a time, the women came to settle around the table in the middle of the room, sitting back with another brandy, this one from Castleton’s stores and one that was better to drink after the first had warmed the body.
Cassandra looked around at all of them with wonder in her eyes. “When I found that riddle, I was certainly not expecting that we would all be sitting here, married – or almost married – women,” she said with a laugh. “Do you think my great-grandparents had any idea at the time of what a nuisance this treasure hunting would be?”
Madeline knew that Cassandra was joking, but still, she considered the question seriously.
“I think they did, actually,” she said. “They likely wanted the person to find the treasure to be someone who would go to the effort required to return it. The only way to ensure they found the right people was to put them through such a rigorous treasure hunt that they would have to be the determined sort to finish it.”
“Or the sort with good friends,” Faith said wryly, to which they laughed.
“Or both,” Hope added.
“It gives me an idea,” Cassandra said, a twist to her smile that told Madeline she was thinking of something rather wicked.
“What is it?” she couldn’t help but ask.
“We should create a treasure hunt of our own,” Cassandra said. “One for our descendants to discover.”
“I love it,” Percy said excitedly, sitting up straighter. “We could each take some of the clues, and they would be connected. Then maybe someday, our descendants could find one another, if, for whatever reason, they had come to be separated.”
“Shall we tell the men?” Madeline asked, but Cassandra was already shaking her head, a wicked smile gracing her lips.
“Not yet,” she said. “Just like this riddle, let us see what we can do with it first before we bring them into it.”
“Do you think they have thought of the same idea already?” Hope asked.
“No,” Cassandra said. “I think they are still trying to overcome all that we have gone through. Men can’t seem to handle it quite the way that we can, can they?”
They laughed at that before Cassandra looked back at all of them. “So, now that the adventure is over, shall we return to the adventures of our books?”
“How will we continue our book club if we are all days away from one another at our respective estates?” Faith asked.
“I figured that we can read while we are in the country, and then meet when we are in London. We could also, perhaps, send one another our thoughts through letters. It will help us feel connected when we are apart.”
“I like that,” Madeline said before she grinned. “I believe it is my turn to pick the next book.”
“Absolutely not,” Cassandra said, shaking her head. “You choose theworststories. All emotional and they never end up together. That is not the type of romance that we agreed to read.”
“You never know,” Madeline said impishly, “perhaps I have changed and will choose something different this time.”
“Gideon has changed you?”
“It’s not that,” she said, looking at all of them before her gaze caught on the man across the room, who had changed her perspective on so much of life. “It’s that I now believe in happy endings.”
