Page 6 of A Treacherous Treasure

The poor thing was malnourished and a bloody wound close to his ear had crusted over.

“Did you lose a fight, little one?” He stroked the dog’s head and the poor thing crumpled, as if he didn’t have the strength to stand any longer. “You stay here. Don’t move, now.”

Thomas started back toward the stable, calling “Telfer!”

“Yes, sir?”

“Fetch me a blanket.”

“Yes, sir.” The servant returned with one of the rough woolen blankets they used for the dogs and horses.

Thomas laid the blanket on the ground beside the dog, then carefully gathered the dog in his arms and placed him on the blanket. Then he scooped him up in the blanket and carried him into the stable to the area where his trained hunting dogs slept.

“Easy now, there you go.” Thomas placed the dog on the hay and knelt beside him. He looked up at Telfer. “Fetch him some food, will you? I think he’s lost.”

“Of course, sir.”

Thomas stayed beside the dog, talking quietly to him, surveying the injury, until Telfer returned and gave the dog some food and water.

“I can wash him, sir. Your horse is ready.”

“That horse doesn’t like to wait once he’s saddled, does he?” Thomas smiled at how impatient his horse could be.

“No, sir.”

Thomas stayed with the stray dog a bit longer, petting him and talking softly to him. Had he been mistreated and cast out? Or was he simply lost? He would ask around and see if his tenants had lost a dog.

“Don’t worry, boy,” Thomas said softly. “We’ll take care of you.”

Thomas gave instructions not to let the other dogs mistreat the newcomer. “I think he just needs food and perhaps a good bath,” Thomas said.

“Yes, sir. We’ll do our best for him, and I believe he’ll be good as new in a few days.”

“Thank you, Telfer.”

Thomas went on his ride, anxious to clear his head of the unwelcome thoughts about Arthur Heywood, the ones that had kept him from sleeping the night before. He wanted to clear his conscience about his unforgiveness toward his childhood friend, to finally feel as if he had forgiven the betrayals.

A country ride, alone on his favorite horse, nearly always helped him figure things out.

~ ~ ~

Rebecca kept walking, admiring the hardiness of the trees and bushes to survive winter’s cold, trying to think of anything besides the pain and horror of the last twenty-four hours—and indeed, the last two years of betrayal and crushing disappointment. But gradually her mind wandered, like a stream meandering down to a larger river, back to her life since she married Arthur Heywood.

Her mother-in-law had never allowed her sisters or her mother to visit for any length of time without making snide remarks about not having one’s house to one’s self, even when they only stayed for a few days. But now the house was Rebecca’s and she could do as she liked. And she wanted her sisters and her mother. She wanted their comfort, their compassionate voices, their embraces.

Certainly she would never receive those things from her mother-in-law, just as she’d never received them from her husband. When he was alive.

She still could hardly believe he was dead.

She’d loved him so very much. But married life had never been as she’d imagined it. And in the last year or so, she’d come to associate his very face and voice with pain, rejection, and an ache in her chest.

“You can’t hurt me anymore,” she whispered, imagining she was speaking directly to her husband, even as the tears began to fall. She sat down on a fallen tree trunk and let the sad thoughts and tears flow.

Why was she crying? For all the bitter disappointments the last two years had delivered, the discoveries of her husband’s unfaithfulness, his cold looks and cold words to her. For these she cried, as well as for a man’s life, wasted and cut short, her own husband, to whom she was pledged and bonded.

She had grieved that she would never feel loved by him, but now, gaining his love wasn’t even possible.

After what seemed like half an hour, Rebecca stopped crying and dried her face with her handkerchief. A bird sang nearby, completely oblivious to her sadness. And why should anyone care? Most people would probably, silently anyway, congratulate her on being rid of a philandering husband, the same ones who felt only scorn for her before he was dead.