Page 20 of A Treacherous Treasure

Dear Pipken,

Though I am still in good health, I thought I would send you these instructions in the event I might die unexpectedly.

I once told you the story of my sea-faring days, how I captured a few ships, which as everyone knows is how I made my fortune. Many of the ships I captured were pirate ships with crews who spent their days scuttling ships of every nation. There was one ship of Barbary corsairs that we raided, then we sank it to the bottom of the ocean, but not before we lifted four treasure chests full of gold doubloons.

Four chests of gold was more money than any of us could fathom. I gave three of the chests to my men to divide, and I kept the fourth for myself.

You might wonder why I shared so much with my men, when it was customary for the captain to keep whatever treasure was taken. But I wanted them to have a good share to ensure their silence, for I swore them all to secrecy.

I buried my chest of gold on my land. I told no one except my son, Geoffrey. But Geoffrey now says he doesn’t believe the tale, that I would never have buried a treasure but would have spent it instead. Because of his disbelief, he probably told some people about the treasure that he shouldn’t have.

When I die, I want to show Geoffrey that he was wrong, and I don’t want the treasure to stay buried, where it cannot do anyone any good. That is why I’m writing to you. I don’t want to write down the instructions of how to find the gold in a letter, lest the wrong person see it. I need you to come to my home at your earliest convenience so I can impart this to you, and you in turn can tell Geoffrey.

You might wonder why I don’t simply tell Geoffrey myself. But at the moment, he is sowing his wild oats, as people say, and if he were to find the gold now, he’d only ruin himself in revelry and dissipation. It is my hope that he will be of a more sober and mature mind when I do pass from this life.

Remember, at your earliest convenience, come for as long as you’d like to stay, and bring this letter with you. You are the only person I trust in this matter. The boy’s mother cannot keep a secret.

Yours, R. Heywood

Rebecca’s heart began to beat faster as she read the letter. Therewasa treasure! And since Arthur’s grandfather had never sent the letter, then it was possible he never told anyone how to find it before he died.

But someone knew something about it, or else they would not be digging on the estate.

She could hardly wait to see the look on Thomas Westbrook’s face when she showed him what she’d found.

She hid the items in a cloth purse, which she stowed in a drawer in her wardrobe. Then she hurried back downstairs to finish out the night’s vigil with her husband’s body.

Chapter Seven

Thomas went out, not long after he left Rebecca Heywood at her home, with a pistol and a rifle. He hid himself in the trees where he had a clear view of the place where the man had been digging when Rebecca Heywood happened upon him.

He propped himself up against a tree and memories started to flood his mind, of other times when he’d been propped against a tree with a rifle in his hand, waiting and watching for the enemy.

Those were days he wondered why he thought being an army officer was a good idea. Why would he ever want to shoot another human being? He’d been glad to sell his commission, and he would have done so even if his father hadn’t died when he did.

He missed his father, even though they didn’t see things the same way and often argued. His father had been the rock of the family, steady and unwavering in any situation. He’d wondered how his mother would endure life without him, but she had proven stronger than he imagined. She had become the steady one, no doubt for the sake of Benjamin and Caroline, who were both grief-stricken at the sudden loss of their father.

But Thomas was here, waiting for the digger, in order to prevent anyone else from getting killed by this person who thought they could steal a treasure that was hidden somewhere on the Heywood estate.

Never could he have thought he would be trying to defend the Heywood estate.

He was only doing what was right, and Arthur was no longer alive. Besides that, the estate was being inherited by Arthur’s widow, and she was not to blame for her husband’s betrayal. He had betrayed her more than anyone, and of this she seemed well aware.

It was true that society accepted adultery as almost a certainty, and definitely commonplace. Hardly a married man could be named who had never had a dalliance with another woman. Even his father had alluded to an affair with a woman, saying he had done something very foolish in the first few years of his marriage to Thomas’s mother and had regretted it every day since.

“Learn a lesson from me,” he said, “and watch yourself. Never stray. It’s not worth your soul or the remorse you will feel later.”

The confession had shaken Thomas, but he supposed it was a good reminder that no one was without sin, and no one was above being tempted. At least his father wasn’t too proud to admit that, and it was indeed a good lesson for a young man like him who wanted for nothing and had a tendency toward pride.

He’d observed that same fault in many a young man of similar status, who had all the wealth—and the doting parents—to make an idol out of pleasing themselves.

Arthur Heywood, for example.

Arthur had been a good-natured boy, but he’d succumbed to the idleness and lack of discipline of the young English gentleman, and he’d squandered his money and time on women. Thomas was of the opinion that Arthur had become addicted to the feeling of conquest that drove him to chase, and conquer, one woman after another. It was a game, and he was addicted to it just as other men were addicted to the gaming tables and often lost everything to this vice.

And his innocent wife was just one of his victims.

He must have sensed that he could never have her unless he married her, and so he did, knowing he’d need to have a child in order to keep Heywood House and estate in the Heywood family. Then he quickly tired of her and moved on to the next woman.