was my grandfather. It is obvious, after what has happened to the Verreres over the years. You are right. A love of beauty and scholarship do not bring in money. But still...” she squared her shoulders proudly “...I would never have wished for my father to be any other way. He was a fine man, and I loved him very much.”
“He was a fortunate man to have a daughter such as yourself.”
Cassandra smiled faintly. “I hope he thought so.”
“I am sure he did. Everyone knows that Chesilworth was a family man.”
“Yes. He did love us.” Cassandra swallowed, blinking away the sudden tears that threatened at the thought of her father. “I’m sorry. I am afraid that I still miss him very much.”
Sir Philip moved uncomfortably. “Forgive me. I—”
Cassandra shook her head, smiling. “No. It is I who must apologize, for straying from the subject. We were discussing the journals.”
“Ah, yes, the journals.” The faintly sardonic look returned to Sir Philip’s face, but he took his seat beside her on the bench again. “Of course.”
“They are the journals which Margaret Verrere kept all her life after she ran away to America. There were seven of them in all, and Mr. Simons sold them to my father not long before...before his death.” Cassandra did not see fit to add that her father had spent more money than they could afford in order to acquire the journals, leaving them in even worse financial shape when he died. Cassandra had perfectly understood his reasons for doing so. “Unfortunately, Papa did not get to read a great deal of the journals before he was taken ill. His lungs were always weak, I’m afraid. After—well, afterward, I read the journals.” She squared her shoulders, seeming to thrust sorrow behind her, and leaned forward eagerly. “In them, Margaret said that she left the dowry at the Neville estate. Not only that, she left instructions on how to get it. If we work together, you and I can find the Spanish dowry.”
Chapter Three
CASSANDRA GAVE A triumphant smile and leaned back, waiting expectantly.
Sir Philip gazed back at her shining eyes, and after a long moment, he said carefully, “Miss Verrere, don’t you find it a trifle...convenient, shall we say, that these lifelong journals of a woman who lived in the colonies should now turn up here in England?”
Cassandra sighed. “I was afraid that working with a Neville would be like this. Have you no adventurous spirit? No interest in a treasure hidden for generations?”
“I have no interest in fairy tales,” he retorted flatly. “Really, Miss Verrere...surely you can see that this is a hoax. The journals—after all these years—happen to turn up in England, even though they’ve been in the United States all this time. And they happen to fall into the hands of Mr. Simons, who happens to be your father’s favorite book dealer. I am sorry, but you are asking me to suspend disbelief a trifle too much.”
Cassandra took a firm grip on her temper, reminding herself that she had known what it would be like to try to convince a Neville of her plan. She had hoped that Sir Philip would be less stodgy than his father, Sir Thomas, had been reputed to be. Cassandra’s father had, by turn, characterized that man as a “dull dog” and a “cold fish.” Certainly Sir Philip’s entrance into her room last night had been anything but dull, and she had hoped that it had indicated a more adventurous character, but it was clear to her now that his was a typical Neville mind.
Pleasantly, she explained, “I don’t find it at all odd. Mr. Simons said that an American, a descendant of Margaret Verrere’s, had brought the journals to him. The man is a merchant who sometimes sails to England on business, and when he decided to sell the journals, which had been kept in his family all this time, he thought that since Margaret was from England, the books would fetch a better price here than in America. Americans, I believe, haven’t as much respect for old things.”
“Mmm. No doubt they haven’t the imagination or the adventurous spirit for treasure hunting, either.”
Cassandra frowned repressively and went on. “Mr. Simons was not the only book dealer this man went to. He tried several. But Simons, you see, was more interested than the others simply because he was Papa’s book dealer. He knew that Papa would want to buy the journals, given his interest in Margaret and the dowry. So Mr. Simons was willing to buy the journals when other dealers were not.”
“Miss Verrere, I think it is much more likely that this Simons fellow or some crony of his made the journals himself, knowing that he would be able to sell them to your father.”
“Sir Philip!” Cassandra looked shocked. “Perryman Simons is a reputable London book dealer. My father traded with him many times in the past. Mr. Simons would not have tried to sell him a forgery! And even if he had, why would he put in all those things about the dowry? That makes him no money.”
“No? Tales of a hidden treasure doubtless made the journals easier to sell. I’ll warrant that he charged your father a hefty sum.”
“It was rather large,” Cassandra admitted reluctantly. “But these are historical documents of great significance to my family. Papa would have bought the journals even if there had been no reference to the dowry.”
“The dealer could not be sure of that. Miss Verrere, I am afraid that your father and you were the victims of an unscrupulous hoax.”
Cassandra’s mouth twisted in exasperation. “I hate to think what must have happened in your life for you to have become such a cynic.”
“Think back to last night, and you will know one of those things.”
Cassandra thought about her aunt’s and cousin’s trick to force Neville into marrying Joanna. “Oh.”
“I have simply seen more of the world than you, Miss Verrere. I fear you are too trusting, and probably your father was, as well. Scholars often are, especially where their special fields of interest are concerned.”
“My father did not have such a highly developed mistrust of people as you,” Cassandra admitted. “But he knew Mr. Simons. He had dealt with him for years.”
“I am not wedded to the theory that Simons forged the journals. He could have been an unwitting victim, also. Perhaps the man who sold them to him was the real culprit.”
“That would mean that this forger was so good at his work that he was able to deceive both my father, a lover of antique books and Mr. Simons, one of the country’s best dealers. Neither of them voiced any suspicion that the journals were anything but genuinely old—the paper, the ink, the bindings. Unless, of course, you are suggesting that the journals were forged a hundred and fifty years ago or more, so that someday one of their descendants could palm off this forgery on my father?”
“No. Of course not.”
“My father knew a great deal about books. Perhaps he was naive, but he was not stupid. He would have known if the journals had been written in the last few months. He would have noticed if the paper was not old or the ink not faded. Whoever forged the diaries would have had to work very hard to make the books look authentically old enough to fool Papa. I cannot imagine that it would have been worthwhile to do all that for the price Papa paid—let alone all the hours it would have taken making up and writing all the things that were in the journals. It would have been a mammoth task and would have taken a great
