Page 5 of A Treacherous Treasure

The next day Rebecca still did not feel hungry, but she knew her mother would tell her to eat something, even if it was only some dry bread.

Her eyes were still a bit puffy and red from crying, but she washed her face and went down to the breakfast room. And there sat Mrs. Heywood still in her dressing gown, her hair in disarray, in a way Rebecca had never seen before. She looked up at her and pressed her lips together, then looked away. Somehow Rebecca couldn’t bring herself to greet her mother-in-law with the usual “Good morning,” either.

Mrs. Heywood had treated Rebecca like an intruder ever since she married her precious only child. She’d seemed determined to let Rebecca know that she was not good enough for her son without ever saying so outright. But in a hundred little ways—her looks of contempt when Rebecca mentioned her family, her sneers and grunts whenever Rebecca said something about her own dress or hair or preferences of food—Rebecca’s mother-in-law let her know that Rebecca was inferior and she disapproved of her.

All Mrs. Heywood’s compliments were for her son and her dead husband. Although, one of the maidservants had let it slip once that Mrs. Heywood expressed nothing but contempt for her husband, until he died. After his death, her husband was suddenly a saint, the best man, the best husband and father, the best at shooting, the best at whatever was being talked of at the moment.

“Arthur was such a good son, so good to me,” Mrs. Heywood said in her tearful voice.

There was no one else in the room so Rebecca had to assume she was speaking to her. But she couldn’t truthfully agree, so she said nothing.

“When he was twelve years old and came home from school on holiday, he gave me a whole armful of flowers he picked.” She started sobbing again.

“That was thoughtful of him.”

He never gave Rebecca flowers, not once. Perhaps she should have married him when he was twelve.

“And I loved him so much and would have done anything for him.” Mrs. Heywood dramatically sobbed after every few words. “And he loved me. He was the best son, and I doted on him, and now he’s gone. Whatever shall I do?” The wailing started anew.

“And you.” She pointed her finger at Rebecca, her sobs suddenly ceasing. “You changed him. I know you must have coerced him into changing his will so that you would inherit everything if he died. And now I shall be forced from my home, this home, where I raised my child! This home that he loved!” She paused to wail and then blow her nose, loudly, into her handkerchief. “He never stayed away from home so much before you came here to live. I know you must have treated him poorly to make him stay away so much. I blame you for every night he spent away from me, every unkind word he spoke to me. You don’t know what you did to me.”

The sobbing began again.

Rebecca’s breaths were coming fast as she rose from her seat and hurried out of the room and out of the house, only pausing to grab a bonnet and a shawl.

She hurried across the yard toward the woods, not knowing, not caring where she went, as long as she escaped from that insufferable woman.

It was true that Mrs. Heywood doted on Arthur, and now that he was gone, she would have nothing to focus her energy on. Truly, Rebecca did feel pity for her. But the woman felt no pity for Rebecca, not when Rebecca cried for hours in her room because of Arthur’s newest tryst with his paramour; not when Rebecca cried for days after she lost her unborn baby; and not now, when Rebecca had lost her husband. All of Mrs. Heywood’s pity was for herself. And now her false accusations were like a knife into her heart, as she was actually blaming Rebecca for Arthur’s dalliances.

As she entered the woods, she had to pause to catch her breath, but not because of the exertion of walking. She focused on breathing in and out, on the trees around her, on the cool air that was unusually warm for January.

When her racing heart and breathlessness had eased, she began walking again, a new feeling seeping into her consciousness. Was the anger toward her mother-in-law, along with the shock of Arthur’s death, starting to fade? Although she was still horrified that Arthur had been murdered, and Mrs. Heywood’s cruelty still stabbed at her, she was beginning to feel something else. Dare she identify it as relief?

All but pushed out by sorrow and horror, the relief remained, a tiny niggling at the corner of her thoughts. Relief was the shy mouse in the vast room of grief and pain.

Her breathing back to normal, Rebecca should return to the house to retrieve her sturdier walking shoes, but she couldn’t bear the thought of going back. If she heard mother-in-law’s voice right now she might lose her sanity.

She kept walking through the woods, the bushes and low branches catching at her skirts and brushing against her shoulders. Perhaps the quiet trees and fields would calm her whirling thoughts and give her a bit of peace.

~ ~ ~

Thomas Westbrook strode toward the stables and encountered his head groom, Telfer.

“I’ll need my horse. Are all the animals well?”

“All’s well,” Telfer said, as he set to work saddling Thomas’s favorite horse.

“Even with the pointer, Sally? She hasn’t had her puppies?”

“Not yet, sir. She’s getting around, but slowly. All’s well.”

A high-pitched whimpering sound seemed to be coming from behind the stable. He left Telfer and went to find the source of the noise. When he reached the back of the building, he didn’t see anything. Then he heard it again, coming from a pile of brush.

As he neared the brush pile, he saw a dog, white with light brown spots. It raised big soulful eyes at him.

Thomas squatted to examine the dog more closely. He wasn’t one of Thomas’s hunting dogs. “What’s the matter, boy? Are you lost?” Slowly, Thomas reached out to the dog, let him smell his hand, then patted his head.

The dog struggled to his feet, wagging his long, slender tail. But the wagging seemed to put him off balance and he wobbled.