Page 55 of Stolen By the Rogue
She hurried back into the house, returning a short time later with the lamp. While Jane held up a section of the calico curtain, effectively blocking George from the view of anyone who happened to be in the lane, he lit the flame of the lantern.
While George dug, Jane watched the laneway.
A rustle at the fence-line had her peering feverishly into the dark. “Go away, puss,” she hissed.
George stopped and glanced up at her.
“It’s just one of the local stray cats,” she said from over her shoulder.
He went back to digging. “There,” he whispered.
George set the lamp on the ground, then blew out the light. Jane blinked for a moment, impatient for her eyes to become accustomed to the sudden darkness. All the while, she listened as George, unable to make use of the pickaxe, dug around in the dirt with his bare hands.
“It’s the top of something. It feels like a metal box,” he whispered.
Please let it be Jane Whorwood’s hidden treasure.
“Jane, come and give me a hand. I need you to work at the other edge,” he said.
She dropped beside him, and taking her hand in his, George placed Jane’s fingers on a piece of smooth metal. If she had thought her heart rate had been running at a fast clip, it now kicked into a gallop.
They worked feverishly to free the chest. When her fingertips touched the edge of the bottom, Jane gasped.
As George wriggled the sides of the box, trying to free it from its burial site, she got to her feet. “You might want me to hold up the curtain again,” she offered.
“Too late.” He lifted the chest out of the ground and set it on the calico, then quickly rose. In a matter of seconds, George had the chest tucked under his arm and was making his way toward the back door. Jane grabbed the lamp and scrambled after him. It was a struggle to keep up.
Inside the house, he moved into cool, professional mode. “Lock the door, then go and check that the front is secure. Meet me in the parlor,” he ordered.
She did as she was told, double checking both locks before joining George on the floor of the parlor next to their mattress. In the short time that she had been gone, George had closed the wooden shutters that covered the street-facing windows and relit the lamp.
For the first time since she had returned with their supper, George appeared to relax. Her own bubbling nerves informed her that she was nowhere near being in the same frame of mind.
They sat in silence staring at the rounded lid of the small iron chest. Jane guessed it to be a good fifteen inches in width by another ten inches deep. Large enough to hold a substantial amount of treasure.
Hopefully, their lives were about to change forever.
In what she prayed was a sign of things to come, it only took one hard strike of George’s pickaxe for the lock on the chest to break. It clattered onto the wooden floor. Jane looked at it, then shifted her gaze to George.
“I think you should open it,” he said.
“But you found it. Isn’t there some code about the finder being the one to claim the hidden treasure?” she replied.
“Which is why I want you to open it. This has been your quest all along, Jane, and that of your father. I wouldn’t do either of you the disservice by claiming that right.”
She toyed with the ring on her finger. It had been a gift from her parents the year before the Scott family had set sail on their ill-fated voyage home to England. A voyage that now finally seemed to be coming to an end.
With George, there was the chance of a new life.
But will he still want it? Want me? If there is a priceless hoard in the chest, he may have second thoughts.
He moved the chest closer. “Go on. I want you to be the first to look inside.”
She let out a slow breath, then with her hands resting on either side of the box, Jane gave him a hopeful smile. “I want you to know that if it’s just full of old papers and the odd worthless coin, this search has not been in vain. It brought you into my life, and with that has come a grand adventure. Thank you, George.”
“Treasure or no, nothing will change the way I feel about you, Jane. I love you.”
Jane shifted her fingers to the top of the chest. She held her breath.
