The tour of Lady Celeste’s gallery was far less exciting that Gemma had imagined it would be.
First of all, she got the feeling that Sir Everard was looking for some item in particular. Over and over again he asked her whether these were all of Lady Celeste’s most important finds. And if perhaps they shouldn’t go up to the attics to retrieve the boxes she’d mentioned so that they might see if there might be some hidden treasures among them.
Then, Lord Paley had been so overly solicitous that she’d got the impression he didn’t take her seriously as a scientist, or even a collector. And more than once she caught him speaking to her bosom. She had to admit that the blue velvet gown did show it to advantage, but perhaps it had been a mistake to believe Serena and Sophia’s insistence that looking her best was the way to have these gentlemen give her the respect that was her due as a fossil-hunter.
And finally, Cam, who had been so heated in his defense when they’d been alone in the hallway earlier, spoke very little as she removed item after item from the stands upon which Lady Celeste had placed them. He’d asked questions, of course. He’d wondered aloud if a femur, which Celeste had noted to be that of a large mammal found close to Lyme, might be similar to one Cuvier had described. His questions and remarks were always insightful and despite her earlier pique, she found herself grateful for his presence. If she’d had only Sir Everard and Lord Paley to show round it might have felt like an entirely wasted morning.
Thus it was with some relief when Lady Serena announced that it was time for luncheon.
“I owe you an apology, Miss Hastings,” Cam said as they followed the others downstairs toward the dining room. “Though I’d read your work and knew you were not unintelligent, I must admit I thought you were not quite equipped to understand the collection you’d inherited.”
Before she could complain, he held up a staying hand. “I was wrong, Miss Hastings,” he said, his voice tinged with the ring of sincerity. “I should have known better.”
Gemma blinked. Of all the things she might have expected of this day, an apology from Cam was not one of them.
She paused in her descent of the stairs and faced him. “I must admit it gives me some sense of validation to hear you admit to your earlier prejudice,” she said with a nod. “I only wish we could have had this conversation earlier so that for our siblings’ sake we could have got on better.”
He nodded in agreement, a single dark curl glancing over his brow. To her surprise, she had to fight the urge to brush it back.
What on earth was the matter with her?
“The blame for that can fall on me,” Cam said, obviously unaware of Gemma’s tender impulse. “But I hope that we can now be friends.”
“I would like that,” Gemma said and was surprised to find she meant it. Would wonders never cease?
Their newfound amity was something she was eager to explore, but to her disappointment, however, she was seated beside Sir Everard for the meal, and as he wished to discuss the boxes yet again it was not the most scintillating of conversations.
“You must tell us what you intend to do once your year of residence at Beauchamp House is at an end,” Lord Paley, who was seated on her right, said. “I cannot think a young lady as lively as you will be content to remain buried in the country, no matter how its proximity to the shore might tempt you to dig for fossils. I hope you will come to town for the season.”
If he had asked her to save the first waltz at Daphne’s ball, Gemma thought wryly, Lord Paley could not have announced his interest more plainly. He was not an unattractive man. He was perhaps a bit older than she would have considered in a husband. But with his tall athletic frame, and silvering dark hair, he was handsome in his way. But she felt not an ounce of attraction to him, though his interest in the collection had been genuine. And he clearly knew nothing of her at all if he thought she’d dislike being here in Sussex for any duration.
She contemplated for a moment how best to respond.
But Cam spoke before she could.
“I do not believe Miss Hastings considers an extended stay in a house with a fine library, and proximity to the shore to be as much of a hardship as most ladies of your acquaintance, Paley,” Cam said with a raised brow. “Lively though she may be.”
This last made Gemma’s eyes widen. Perhaps he did understand her better now.
Realizing his mistake, Lord Paley backtracked a little.
“I didn’t mean to imply that Miss Hastings was anything but an original,” Lord Paley said hastily, his concern evident in his drawn brows. “And she’s not like any other young lady I’ve met. But that is why I believe London would benefit from your presence, Miss Hastings. A lady with your gift for conversation and intellect must need stimulation.” He laughed wryly. “Even I am not content to spend all my days amongst my collection.”
It was prettily said, and Gemma unbent a little. He was a well-meaning man. Just not the one who could make her give up her vow to remain unwed.
“I am often in my sister’s company,” she said aloud. “And I find that she and her husband, Reverend Lord Benedick, are quite intelligent enough to keep me from withering into a husk from boredom. Not to mention Lady Serena,” she gestured to their hostess, who had watched the interplay avidly but didn’t intervene, perhaps knowing Gemma could take care of herself.
Lord Paley turned to Lady Serena with an abashed look. “Lady Serena, pray forgive me. I didn’t mean to give offense. Of course Miss Hastings has you to keep her in good conversation.”
If Gemma didn’t know her chaperone could fend for herself, she might have leapt to her rescue. But it was entirely unnecessary. Serena could very likely conduct witty repartee in her sleep.
“Think nothing of it,” the widow said, her blue-gray eyes lit with laughter. “I will readily admit I am the last person Gemma would come to for conversation about her work. I know nothing of fossils and what’s more, I have little interest in them. It’s not that I don’t appreciate them and what they tell us of the past, but I do not enjoy interacting with the small lizards my son likes to smuggle into the nursery when his nanny isn’t looking. I most certainly do not wish to entertain the notion of an enormous one with large teeth.”
Everyone laughed, as she’d intended, and the brief tension was broken.
This allowed Serena to steer the conversation toward less uncomfortable topics and when the meal was at an end, the gentlemen declined to take tea and were soon in the entrance hall preparing to leave.
Only when the door had closed behind them and the ladies were safely back in Serena’s sitting room did Gemma let out the breath she’d been holding in.
“If I ever agree to welcoming more than one unwed gentleman to luncheon again,” she told her sister and chaperone, “I pray you will dose me with laudanum and send me to bed for a week.”
* * *
The drive back to Pearson Close was far less congenial than the drive there had been. For one thing, Sir Everard was fuming at the fact there had been no sign of the Beauchamp Lizard in the collection, and Gemma, perhaps guessing that he had been the one out on the shore the other night, had been less than encouraging at the idea of opening the attics of the house to the man.
Cam had been relieved, of course, because as he’d suspected, the Lizard was just a myth. He had no need of lying to Gemma because of his promise to Sir Everard. For some reason that mattered more to him now than it had when he’d actually made the promise.
It had nothing, he assured himself, to do with the way she’d looked in the blue velvet gown she’d worn for their tour. He was just feeling companionable because of the time they’d spent in conversation that morning.
Thus it was that they arrived at Pearson Close far less convivial than they’d been when they set out and the three men split up to find their own entertainment as soon as they stepped inside.
Curious about the typography of the land hereabouts, Cam retired to the library, where he searched out whatever he could find about this part of the Sussex coast, and the geographical composition of the area.
He was poring over a study of the local soil composition in a large chair near the fire, when he heard a door behind him open with a thud.
“I’ve several studies and essays on all sorts of important finds that would be perfect for The Natural Scientist,” he heard Sir Everard say in that boastful way he had of making his every accomplishment sound like the most consequential thing anyone had done in the history of the planet.
The other man, who was no doubt Roderick Templeton, the editor of the aforementioned journal, made an interested but noncommittal sound before he undoubtedly made his escape.
Unable to do the same, Cam prepared himself for conversation as Sir Everard approached the fire and lowered himself into the chair beside his.
“Lord Cameron,” said the baronet with a nod before leaning over to see what Cam was reading. “I see you’re investigating the local soil. I piqued your interest in the Beauchamp Lizard, didn’t I?”
Rather than respond to the question, Cam asked instead, “You really thought it would be in the collection, didn’t you?”
“I hoped,” said Sir Everard. “But I won’t give up. I am confident it’s there somewhere. Though I have another notion of where I might find it.”
“And where is that?” Cam asked, curious despite himself.
Sir Everard leaned forward, as if fearful of being overheard. “I think it’s on the shore.”
Cam frowned. “What do you mean?”
“I think she reburied it.”
So that’s why he’d attempted to go down to the bottom of the cliff the other night. He thought Lady Celeste had put the skull back into the ground where she’d found it.
“What makes you think that?” he asked, careful not to show his interest. The least hint of competition from him and Sir Everard would stop talking altogether. He was that sort of man.
“It’s just a theory,” Sir Everard said, “but what better place to hide it but in plain sight? There were the rumors that it was just a horse skull. Well, what if Celeste really believed that? I think her reputation was probably exaggerated and she really did think she’d made a mistake. And what better way to hide a mistake than to put it right back where you found it?”
“So you think that she found an important lizard skull, then convinced herself it was a horse skull and hid it to save herself from embarrassment?” Cam wasn’t sure if he thought the notion was more condescending or fantastical.
“Ladies are very proud when it comes to their intellectual prowess,” Sir Everard assured him with the air of a man who had encountered legions of bluestockings in his time. Cam was far more convinced he’d had several discussions about bluestockings that he’d mistaken for actual social intercourse with the species.
“They can’t bear the slightest bit of scrutiny, y’see,” Sir Everard continued. “It turns their minds when they’re questioned. So, of course if someone suggested what Lady Celeste found was a horse skull, she’d turn right around and put it back. Stands to reason. Much better to hide it than to expose herself to the examinations of actual geologists and collectors, who have educated themselves about the subject for decades. I think she got scared and hid it away.”
It was amazing to Cam that this man could walk about with the weight of the self-importance he bore on his shoulders.
From everything he’d heard about Lady Celeste, she was not only Sir Everard’s intellectual superior, she was the last person in the world who would fear public scrutiny of her work or her finds. She’d made a point of building her home and its collections into a one-of-a-kind place where her hand-chosen heiresses could make names for themselves in the intellectual world.
That woman would not, at least not in Cam’s estimation, mistake a horse skull for a lizard skull, or the other way round.
“I mean to visit the shore below the Beauchamp House cliffs,” Sir Everard continued.
Cam was about to protest, but realized that it would be better to be with him when he made his trip than not.
“I might have a way for you to get there without going onto Beauchamp House land,” he said aloud. He knew there was access to the little beach from a path leading from the vicarage. They could pay a call on Benedick and go down to the shore afterwards. It wouldn’t hurt to have Ben along with them just in case Sir Everard did find something.
Cam wasn’t sure of many things, but he knew he’d be damned before he let this buffoon steal a fossil that was meant to belong to Gemma.
Or, he reminded himself, Beauchamp House.
Sir Everard’s round face split into a grin. “I knew making your acquaintance would come in handy, old man.”
* * *
The next morning, after a good night’s sleep, Gemma viewed the visit from the gentlemen the day before in a somewhat more philosophical way than she had last night. At the very least, she reasoned, she’d come to a sort of cessation of conflict with Cam. And if she’d not received the sort of acceptance of her place in the community of fossil-hunters from Sir Everard and Lord Paley, at least she had been able to hold her own in conversation with them. Which was no small thing.
After a quick breakfast, she went back upstairs and donned one of the gowns Sophia had been so disparaging of before. Because honestly, digging in the earth was not the time to worry about fashion, Gemma thought as she tied her thick boots. Adding a wide-brimmed bonnet, to shelter her from the wind, she retrieved her bag of hand trowels and other tools for unearthing stones and bones and the like, and made her way downstairs.
Despite the bonnet, she found the wind was strong enough to need the added protection of her cloak hood. And as she neared the sea stairs, she wondered if she shouldn’t tear a page out of Mary Anning’s book and lash herself to the railing of the stone steps.
But now that she was out here in the brisk air, the salt and spray foam in her nostrils, she couldn’t bear to go back now.
Carefully, she made her way down the stairs in the cliffside and saw at once that, as she’d hoped, the storm had brought forth debris from the sea, but had also eaten away some of the chalk from the cliff. She’d need to get closer, of course, but there were some promising protrusions from the sloping of the chalk into the sea.
Using her broad walking stick to steady her against the wind, and as a means of propelling her forward, she made her way across the narrow strip of pebbled beach toward the far edge of the crescent-shaped piece of land. There, the pebbles jutted against the chalk where the cliff came out to meet the sea.
She saw her target as soon as she got a closer look up at the upper slope. There, emerging from the chalk in a manner eerily like a headstone from this angle, she saw what was likely just a stone. But something in her gut told her that it needed to be looked at more closely.
Though she had felt eerily as if she were being observed in the past week or so, today there was no sense of it. So without a backward glance, she began the slow, steady climb up to where the jagged object—stone or bone—awaited her.
By the time she reached it, she was breathing heavily from the exertion of moving against the wind against the steep incline. But finally, she was there, and ignoring the hazards of dirt to her cloak, she stabbed her walking stick into the chalk like a spear and collapsed onto the ground beside her find.
Despite the cold, she had to remove her gloves to touch it with her bare hands. And the more she felt, the more she saw, the more she knew in her heart that this was a truly important find.
It was a fossil, not a bone. And she wouldn’t be able to tell for sure until it was unearthed completely, but it was a skull. If she didn’t miss her guess, a rather large one.
Pulling her gloves back on, she retrieved a hand trowel from her tool bag and carefully removed as much chalk from around the base as she could. But she’d worked for no more than ten minutes or so before she knew she’d need help with it. It would take a great deal of time to dig it out. And it would be too large for her to carry up the sea stairs.
It went against her every instinct to leave it here, but given that this bit of shore was on Beauchamp House property, it would be all right for the time it took her to fetch Stephens and Edward from the house.
She rested her hand atop the fossil, which had likely been here for hundreds of thousands of years, bid it a silent adieu and made her careful way back down the cliff.
As soon as she stepped through the French doors on the terrace, she sensed the change in the house. A laugh from the drawing room—definitely male, and belonging to the Duke of Maitland if she weren’t mistaken—had her discarding her cloak, bag and stick and setting off at a pace far too unladylike for someone of her age.
When she burst into the drawing room she found that—as she’d hoped—the Marquess of Kerr and his Marchioness, the former Ivy Wareham, and the Duke of Maitland and his Duchess, the former Lady Daphne Forsyth, were seated around the tea tray with Lady Serena—who was the duke’s sister—and her seven-year-old son Jeremy, making up the rest of the party.
“Gemma!” cried Ivy from the table before rising to greet her with a hug. “It’s so good to see you. I take it you were out digging, you madwoman. Are you aware of what the temperature is?”
Daphne had risen and Gemma was astonished when the normally standoffish mathematician hugged her as well. “It’s been too long. You have no idea what sort of nonsense the people in town talk about. I’d forgotten during my time here with you all. But it’s nothing but rot and gammon all the day long.”
Gemma grinned at her use of slang. At her look, Daphne raised her brows. “Maitland has been teaching me cant. I find it allows one to speak with the necessary vehemence some situations call for.”
“Hullo, Gemma,” the duke said, waving from his seat at the tea table. “You must wait until she’s really in a temper. The slang becomes almost as incomprehensible as in the crowd outside a Bermondsey boxing match. It’s truly impressive.”
“I acquired the most fascinating dictionary by Francis Grose,” Daphne said with enthusiasm. “Were you aware that boxing the Jesuit is way to describe male—”
“I’m sure you can educate your friends on that very colorful definition when poor Kerr isn’t here to expire from embarrassment, my dear,” the duke said with a glance at the marquess, his cousin and Ivy’s husband, who did indeed appear as if his neckcloth had suddenly shrunk three sizes.
“I’m sure he knows what it is,” Daphne said patiently. “It’s something all men do, you told me yourself that—”
And now it was the duke’s turn to redden. “Perhaps, Kerr we’d best take young Jeremy to the nursery to see if he can beat us at soldiers.”
Jeremy frowned, certain he was being removed from the most interesting conversation. But the prospect of soldiers with his favorite uncle and cousin was distraction enough.
“It’s good to see you, Gemma,” said Lord Kerr, clasping her shoulder as he passed on his way out the door.
Maitland, Jeremy on his shoulders, leaned in to kiss the top of Daphne’s head. “I’d say be good, but I know what kind of mischief you get up to away from one another. Together, you’re a menace.”
When they were gone, Serena rose as well. “I’ll go send a note round to Sophia. She’ll be furious if I don’t let her know you’re here.”
Alone, the three ladies moved to the tea table. Fortunately, there was still some in the pot, so Gemma found an empty cup and poured.
“It’s good to be back,” Ivy said, sitting back in her chair with satisfaction. “I’d used different words but Daphne is right about the level of discourse in town. And everyone is so bent on showing up everyone else. It’s competition, but for silly things like who has the most invitations, or who throws the most lavish party. None of it is at all meaningful. And it’s all so—”
“False,” Daphne finished for her. “I disliked it before I came to Beauchamp House, of course. When I was gambling for my father, to keep him in waistcoats and brandy, I was able to ignore it, but now that I’ve known friendship, the interactions with people in town seem that much more tiresome. Especially since I had the great misfortune to marry one of the most eligible peers in the country. I ask Maitland every day why he couldn’t have been a common laborer, but he hasn’t given me a satisfactory answer yet. It’s all very trying.”
Gemma bit back a grin. It was such a relief to see them. She still had Sophia and Serena here, of course, but Ivy and Daphne were the only ones who had no guardianship role over her. Sophia would always feel like her elder because she was, well, her elder sister. And Serena was her chaperone. But these two had never been anything but her friends. And something in her relaxed at knowing they were here.
“So, you were out digging,” Ivy asked before biting into one of cook’s lemon cakes. “Did you find anything?”
At her word’s Gemma’s eyes widened. “Oh my goodness, I almost forgot!”
Quickly she told them about the fossil she’d found in the chalk. She didn’t mention her hope that it was important. She didn’t want to bring bad luck on herself before she had more information about it. It never did one any good to count one’s chickens, after all.
“Well, what are you here with us for?” Daphne asked her with a frown. “We will be here for the foreseeable future. Go gather the footmen and collect your fish head, or whatever it is.”
Laughing, Gemma left them to do just that. Perhaps by the time she finished, Sophia would be there too and they could have a proper heiress reunion.
* * *
Since Paley was the only other member of the Pearson Close guests who knew about the Beauchamp Lizard, and Cam didn’t relish spending more time than he had to with Sir Everard, Cam invited the viscount to join them on their ostensible visit to the vicarage.
He’d been afraid Lord Paley would have found something else to do but to his relief, the viscount agreed to the jaunt with some alacrity.
“I should like to see the cliffs from another angle,” he said with a smile. “Topography, you know, the second favorite interest of the fossil hunter.”
The three men set off in the late morning in the hopes that the sun might have warmed things up, but to no avail.
Benedick’s welcome was warm, however, and he ushered the three men into his study with the promise of brandy, which he dispensed with the efficiency of a churchman used to handing out beverages, albeit tamer ones.
“I hope you found the ladies at Beauchamp House well yesterday,” Ben said once the visitors had settled into his study. “I don’t mind telling you—though my wife would not like it—she was quite happy to know that a few of the collectors and scholars from the Pearson Close party had come to call on Gemma. The sisters are quite close, and Sophia felt the slight of her sister’s lack of invitation as sharply as Gemma did.”
Sir Everard looked nonplussed. “I cannot imagine it was ever a possibility. Especially given Pearson’s abhorrence for female company.”
Before Cam could step into the breach, Lord Paley spoke up. “I found Miss Hastings to be quite knowledgeable about natural science and especially the history of the soil and fossils recovered from this area. Your wife must be very proud of her.”
He then went on to extol the virtues of Gemma’s beauty and fashion sense, the latter description causing a line to appear between Ben’s brow.
“I believe she had a new gown for the occasion,” Cam responded to his brother’s questioning look. He didn’t add that the way she’d dressed her hair had drawn every male eye to the soft skin at the nape of her neck, or that despite its modest long sleeves and high neck, the gown had shown her bosom to advantage.
“Ah, that must be it,” Ben said, ever the diplomat. “Well, I am pleased you were able to tour Lady Celeste’s collection in any event.”
“Speaking of Lady Celeste,” said Sir Everard, “I wonder if you can recall her ever mentioning a particularly fine fossil she found on the beach below Beauchamp House?”
Cam fought the urge to roll his eyes. This fellow had a one-track mind.
Ben shook his head. “I’m afraid I didn’t come to Little Seaford until after her death. And the vicar who was here before me left rather hastily after some bad business earlier in the year.
“Speaking of the shore,” he continued, “As part of that investigation into Lady Celeste’s death, a door was discovered in the cellar of this house leading out to the shore. I’ve not had much call to use it, certainly not at this time of year, but it’s a unique feature for a vicarage, don’t you think?”
“You’ve never told me about a secret door,” Cam complained.
“This is the most I’ve seen you since I came to this village,” Ben responded with a raised brow. “And that includes the month you spent in Lyme this summer.”
But Sir Everard wasn’t interested in the brothers’ conflict. “Is the door still accessible, Lord Benedick?”
Cam and Ben both glanced at the window, which showed the skies were darker and the wind was whipping the boughs of the bare elm on the other side.
“It is,” Benedick said with a nod, “though I don’t know that I would recommend a walk on the shore at the moment. There was a storm last evening too so there may be obstructions to an easy jaunt. Perhaps you can come back next summer when…”
“What is a bit of weather when there may be fossils dredged up from the storm there on the shore as we speak?” Sir Everard said, getting to his feet. “I will go even if you three will not. A true collector does not allow a triviality like that stand between him and the possibility of the perfect specimen,”
“These are new boots,” Paley said with a sigh even as he too rose from his chair.
Clearly fashionable garments should be added to the list of items that would not hold back a true collector, Cam thought wryly.
And since there was no way he would allow the other two men to comb the shore for finds while he lingered behind, he too got to his feet.
Ben looked at the trio with a sigh of resignation. “Let me get my coat. And I’ll have my man make sure there is hot tea and coffee waiting for us when we return. One moment.”
He hurried downstairs, leaving the three collectors alone.
“You know where the cellar is, do you not?” Sir Everard’s tone indicated that he expected to be led there. Immediately.
It would be rude for them to set off without Ben, but on the other hand, the sooner Sir Everard saw the shore, the sooner he could be rid of the fellow.
“Follow me.”
By the time they stepped through the cellar door leading into a short stone passageway, Ben had joined them, as had his butler and footman, who carried hot bricks and a flask of brandy. It was an odd parade, but Cam supposed they’d all seen odder ones. Collectors often found themselves going out in inclement weather and strange circumstances. The hope of a rare find was greater than self-preservation at times.
As soon as the men emerged from the door onto the shore, which was bordered on one side by an angry-looking sea and on the other by steep chalk cliffs, it was evident that last night’s storm had done more than simply dredge things up.
The far end of the cliffs, where the beach first began to bow inward from the water’s edge, had begun to erode away from the overhang above. And in one spot in particular there appeared to be a large stone sticking out of the chalk, like a hand waving for help.
“There,” shouted Sir Everard before he all but sprinted over the pebble beach toward the mudslide.
It was a good way to twist an ankle, but even so, Cam jogged after him, followed by Lord Paley and Benedick.
By the time Cam reached the base of the cliff from which the stone protruded, Sir Everard had already begun to climb against the wind and through the sucking mud toward what would likely turn out to be a piece of wood. Not willing to risk his own safety by stepping into what might be unstable ground, Cam examined the trail that the other man’s boots had left as he’d climbed.
Was that the mark of a walking stick, he wondered, leaning down to take a closer look at what looked to be a hole in the mud.
“He is particularly eager,” Ben said as he and Paley reached Cam’s side. “I should think he’d wait until better weather if he wanted to search this bit of cliff.”
This would be the time to tell his brother about the Beauchamp Lizard, but with Lord Paley there to listen in, and perhaps tell what he’d overheard to Sir Everard, he dared not. And there was the added issue that anything he told Ben would most assuredly make it back to Sophia and therefore Gemma.
“It is a skull, I believe,” shouted Sir Everard from his higher vantage point. “I do not have my tools. We’ll need to dig with our hands.”
It was clear from his “we” that he meant the three other men should come up and assist him. An idea which Cam didn’t think particularly sound given the fact that the mud might give out from beneath them without warning. But Lord Paley and even Ben began to make the careful climb upwards, so not wishing to be the odd man out, he went after them.
Soon they were all sunk boot-deep into the mud around the piece and having decided to ruin their gloves rather than lose fingers in the cold, began to dig.
They were almost to the point where they might be able to shift the piece to loosen the mud’s hold on it, when a shout came floating on the wind.
Cam thought he might have imagined it, but then he heard it again, this time more incensed and sounding very much like Miss Gemma Hastings.
“What are you doing?” she shouted. And when he dared to look over his shoulder, he saw her, bundled up in a large coat, her scarf wound tightly round her neck, and a walking stick in one hand, a case of tools in the other. “Step away from there at once!”
Whether she shouted from anger or because they would not have been able to hear her otherwise, he didn’t know. But from her expression, he suspected it was the former.
Behind her, he saw George, the footman-turned-butler, with a pry bar in his hand.
And suddenly he realized that the mark he’d seen in the mud had been from a walking stick.
Gemma’s walking stick.
“This is Miss Hastings’ find,” he told Sir Everard. “I saw the mark of her walking stick but didn’t make the connection until now.”
Sir Everard, who was elbow deep in mud and struggling to loosen the earth around the fossil, grunted. Then, as if realizing what Cam had said, he shook his head. “That’s impossible. There’s no way a lady can have got this far up the slope. I found this myself. You saw me do it.”
“I demand you come down here at once.” Her voice was closer now, and yes, it was definitely anger he’d first heard there. She was livid if he didn’t miss his guess.
And at the moment he couldn’t blame her.
“Sir Everard,” he said, trying to sound reasonable, though he was feeling anything but. “This is Beauchamp House land. Surely you can recognize that even if you were the first to discover this piece, by rights it should go to the owner of the house.”
“You know that won’t hold up in court, Lord Cameron,” the big man said with a huff of exertion. “Besides, I came here to find the Beauchamp Lizard. If this is something similar I won’t let it out of my grasp. You know how important something like this can be for a collector’s reputation.”
He did know, which was why he wanted Gemma to have it. She’d obviously been here while they were at the vicarage.
“This is wrong,” he said firmly. “I beg you will reconsider.”
“Sir Everard,” said Lord Paley, who had risen from his crouch beside the hole the men had managed to dig around the fossil. “If Lord Cameron is right, then the fossil belongs to the lady. I cannot think you would abandon your honor simply to enrich your own collection.”
But Sir Everard’s expression was mulish. “I mean to have it. And none of you will stop me from getting it.”