Page 50 of Stolen By the Rogue
Two.
She was three steps closer to the door when she suddenly stopped, whirled around, and stared up at the oak tree.
The oak tree.
She dashed inside and into the parlor. She dropped onto the mattress and shook George roughly by the shoulder. “George! Wake up!”
He rolled over and cracked open an eyelid. “What? I was having a wonderful dream about baked salmon and roast potatoes. Why would you wake me?”
She shook him again, not convinced that he was yet fully awake enough to register her words. “Quick. Get dressed,” she ordered.
Jane didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
He batted her hand away and sat up, blinking into the semi-darkness. The blanket fell as he rummaged around on the mattress, finally picking up his shirt. “This had better be good,” he grumbled, slipping it over his head.
“An oak tree. The heir tarried in an oak tree. That’s where the treasure is,” she babbled.
The scowl on George’s face was evident even in the poor light. Placing his hands either side of her face, he looked into her eyes. “Jane, are you sleepwalking? Is it you who needs to be woken?”
She pulled back, flapping her arms about excitedly. “I couldn’t be more awake if I tried. I assumed the oak tree wasthetree at Boscobel House, the one in which Charles the Second hid from the parliamentarian forces.”
He sighed. “But you went to Shropshire. The treasure wasn’t there!”
She leaned in close, so that their faces were a mere inch apart, and grinned at him. “George, there is an oak tree in the garden ofthishouse.”
He seized Jane’s arm. “Get dressed. Get the lantern. I’ll find the pickaxe. Jane, we need to dig around the base of the tree!”
She leaned in and kissed him sweetly on the lips. “Indeed, we do, my love.”
George clambered to his feet. He put on his trousers and picked up his boots. At the same time, Jane hurriedly dressed.
As she stepped past him, headed for the door, George took Jane by the hand and pulled her back. She spun into his embrace. “Oh, what?”
“You just called me my love,” he said.
“Did I?”
He bent his head and kissed her long and deeply. They really should have been out in the dark digging for the treasure, but Jane couldn’t muster the will to protest. She pressed herself flush against his hard, manly body.
When George finally released her, they were both panting heavily. “You know you did, which leaves only one question. And that’s when are you going to say it again?”
Jane was relieved that in the dim light George couldn’t see the heat that burned her cheeks.
He kissed her one last time before leading her toward the door.
I will say it when you do.
Chapter Thirty-Two
The soil at the base of the oak tree was harder than George had anticipated. The second the pickaxe struck the ground it made a loudwhompnoise. In the still night air, the sound created a loud and worrying echo. Anyone who was awake in the dozen or so closely clustered houses of Coal Yard Lane would surely have heard it.
“Bloody hell. We will have half the neighborhood knocking on our door if we try and dig,” Jane muttered.
George nodded. “You had better kill that light just to be safe. The last thing we need is prying eyes.”
Jane lifted the glass of the lamp she was holding and immediately blew out the candle. “Come back inside, and let’s decide on what’s to be done,” she whispered.
He had undertaken enough dirty jobs in the dark to know that one didn’t risk waking the local inhabitants. People who’d been stirred from sleep tended to be both grumpy and nosey.
