Trouble and Treasure (#1, Trouble and Treasure Series) (27 page)

For my part, I sat there, back pressed
against the wall, legs splayed, a confused look on my face. Several
soldiers asked me if I was okay, and I nodded. Sebastian, on the
other hand, kept looking at me and shaking his head. It wasn't
until Mark himself appeared to take Maratova and his men
away, that Sebastian walked
over and sat next to me, his back against the same wall as mine,
and his legs splayed in the same fashion.

It was over. It was bloody well over.

“
You,” Sebastian spoke to me, “Are
nuts.”

“
You,” I said with a light swallow, “Are a
jerk.”

He took a deep breath.
“I am sorry.”

It wasn't what I was expecting. Sebastian
Shaw didn’t seem to be the kind of guy who ever apologized, let
alone accepted responsibility for a mistake. Yet here he was, doing
both.

“
This is mostly my fault,” he added in a
low but still clear tone, “And I'm sorry.”

I turned to him
. I considered him for some time, lips pressed
together. “You should be,” I said after a while. “But thank you for
saving me.”

He nodded with a jerky movement. “Thank
you for saving me too.”

Silence spread between us again,
punctuated by the dying rain outside.

“
Are we going to sit here all night?”
Sebastian asked.

“
Well, that all depends on if this is all
over or not,” I said through a sigh, bringing my legs up and
hugging them. “You said before that every man, his dog, and his
team of mercenaries are after my globes – does that mean there’s
more to come?”

He didn't answer right away, but then he
shook his head. “I doubt it, what happened here tonight will soon
spread.”

“
That doesn't mean they won't stop trying,
right? As long as those criminals and whatnot think I still have
those globes, they’re still going to come after me, aren't they?”
My head was still turned his way. I was keen to pick up his
expression not just his words.

He shrugged. “You don't have the other
globes, Amanda. And that news will spread.”

“
Are you sure they’ll give up? You said
they would do anything to get their hands on them. Look what it did
to Maratova,” I said, voice scratchy.

“
And look what it did to me,” Sebastian
added in a dull voice.

“
What?” I craned my neck as I stared at him
in interest.

“
I… I’m a fucking bastard. I got you into
this mess. The army were never after you, Amanda. They only ever
wanted to find the globes and protect you. I lied to you… I kept
you away from them because I wanted those globes to myself.” He
stared at his hands, never glancing at me once. “I’ve been looking
for them my whole life. They’re everything to me. And I thought if
I handed you over to the army, I’d never get a chance to find them.
So, Amanda,” he finally turned to me, gaze blazing with honesty,
“I’m a lying bastard, and I am so goddamn sorry for putting you
through this.”

I didn’t react.

I might have been justified in slapping
him or grabbing a weapon and clocking him over the head. But I
couldn’t. Because despite his lies, he’d still saved me from
Maratova. He’d still manned up and called the army.

Sebastian Shaw was no hero. Maybe he wasn’t
a total jerk either. He was somewhere in the middle, which made him
just an ordinary man.

“
Sorry, Amanda,” he offered in a quiet
tone.

I let out an enormous sigh, chest punching
out.

Yes, he was sorry – anyone would be able to
tell that.

As I let go of any residual hatred towards
him, I remembered something. “Hey, the pendant from the lighthouse,
do you still have it?”

He leaned forward and grabbed his jacket,
pulling it open and patting the internal pocket. He drew it out.
Rather than hold it up to the light and look at the inscription on
the back, he handed it over to me. “This belongs to you, Amanda,”
he said through a thin smile.

I accepted it with a soft “thank you,” and
with a small kick of excitement rippling through my
stomach.

I read the inscription on the back. “The
beginning brings 12, the end brings 12.” That was it. I read it out
to Sebastian in shaky voice.

Sebastian pushed up and stood beside me.
He repeated the passage and shrugged. “You’re Arthur Stanton’s
great-niece, the only reason I brought you along in the first
place—”

“
Is that you're a jerk,” I replied
quickly.

“
Is that I'm a jerk,” he agreed, “But it’s
also that you think like him. You think crazy.”

I put my hands on my hips and shook my
head at him. “And you think mean; I will stick with my
way.”

Sebastian chuckled.

Then I got drawn into the clue. The
beginning brings 12, the end brings 12. What could it
mean?

B
oth of us turned to each other, both saying the same word
at once “12!”

The 12, the perfect 12 painted on the back
of the chest of drawers. The chest of drawers I had destroyed
earlier in my attempt to defeat Maratova and his men.

I
t hit me. The two windows in the attic: one of them would
let in the morning sun, and one of them would let in the setting
sun. This chest of drawers, if I wasn’t much mistaken, would have
sat roughly in the middle of the attic before all the furniture had
been moved around to collect all that lovely treasure. If that
chest of drawers had sat in the middle of the room, then in the
morning the 12 on the back would have been illuminated by the
sunshine, and in the evening the 12 at the front would have been
illuminated by the setting sun. In other words, the beginning of
the day would bring 12 and the end of the day would bring
12.

Both of us turned to stare at the shambles
of the broken chest of drawers to our side. Soon I realized that
engraved on the front of one of the drawers, probably the one that
had sat in the center, was a beautiful gold-leaf 12.

Sebastian dropped to his knees and began
searching through the broken wood and drawers at our feet. I joined
him, though I didn't know what I was looking for. I assumed we
would find another clue, and I thought it would be cleverly written
on the back of one of the drawers.

I heard Sebastian's breath stick in his
throat, and I saw him lift up the back of the chest of drawers. On
the inside of the wood, directly opposite the perfectly painted 12,
was a small box. It wasn't that much bigger than two fists put
together, and considering its size could have remained within the
body of the chest of drawers forever without somebody noticing.

Though I still thought we were going to
find another clue inside, I realized Sebastian was starting to
shake. His shoulders were shivering, and I reasoned he might be
cold from the drafty attic considering it had two gaping
windows.

I moved over to his side.

Whatever it was, Sebastian didn’t thankfully
smash it on the ground and start stamping on it to open it. Nor did
he dash down to the garden shed and find a spade to whack it with.
No, he opened it, finding a latch somewhere and lifting the small
lid.

I leaned over his shoulder in time to see
him pull out a small object. It took me a while to realize it was a
small spotting globe.

“
Jesus Christ, we found it,” Sebastian
said, voice shaking.

“
What—” I began.

“
It's one of the Stargazers,” Sebastian
said, voice reverent.

“
But it’s so small.” I
protested.

“
They don't all look the same,” Sebastian
said, voice shaking into a laugh.

“
But…” I trailed off. Had we honestly found
another Stargazer? Sebastian wasn't lying to me, was he? He wasn't
joking, was he? Considering my day and night, I wasn't in a joking
mood. Yet as I watched Sebastian cradle the small spotting globe,
saw the slack-jawed look of wonder on his face, I realized he was
serious.

He began to laugh harder, a gargantuan
grin spreading across his face. “I thought it would take my whole
life to find one of these,” he said, “And all it took was a day
with you.”

I blushed
, thankful the light was too dim to make out the
exact hue of my cheeks. “What does this mean? It doesn't belong to
me, or us even. The only reason I sold the other one was Imelda
wasn’t interested in it, and told me to put it up for auction. But
all that money goes back into the residuary of the estate. And
Imelda’s the principal beneficiary.”

Well that put a dampener on Sebastian's
mood. Though he still held the globe reverently, he let it drop to
his side.

He took a moment, and I was aware of his
breathing. “It's okay, Amanda.”

“
It is?” I questioned automatically. Though
I hadn’t known him long, I’d known him long enough to know these
Stargazer things were important to him. And I was starting to
appreciate that if something was important to Sebastian, he didn’t
let it slip.

“
It's okay,” he said again, “It's a
treasure map. Plus,” I could see him smile in the dark, “I know
about Imelda Stanton – and the old girl wouldn’t sell something
like this. Plus, you know where she lives.”

I gave a stuttering cough. “Are you
suggesting trying to steal it from my great-aunt?”

He put his hands up. “I’m a lawyer,” he
said in a quick, sarcastic voice. “I’m suggesting that, if ever we
feel the need, we can always borrow it from her. Plus,” his voice
grew more serious, “The Stargazers only work once you’ve got the
whole set. So we can let Imelda hold onto it for now.”

I gave a soft laugh, which ended in a sigh
and somehow transformed into an enormous yawn.

“
I think you've had enough for today. Time
to go to bed, Amanda Stanton.” He reached a hand over and patted my
head distractedly.

I flushed, heart giving a pleasant
shudder.
“But there are
still criminals in my library.”

“
They are all being taken away by the
army,” he assured me.

“
There are soldiers on my lawn,” I pointed
out through another yawn.

“
I'm sure they are packing up as we
speak.”

I closed my eyes. I couldn't believe it
was all over. Despite Sebastian's assurances that every crooked
crook in the neighborhood would soon get the picture I didn’t have
the Stargazer Globes and leave me alone, I still couldn't shake the
feeling that all of this wasn’t over.

But
Sebastian was right, it was over for tonight.

Amanda Stanton

One week later, after the police and army
had moved on, my safety apparently assured, I had a visit from my
lawyer, which was a funny thing considering I’d never had a lawyer.
But that’s what Sebastian was calling himself, and who was I to
disagree.

With the morning sunshine filtering in
through the shambles of my kitchen door, Sebastian and I sat on the
stoop and watched the sunshine warm up the countryside. He’d
brought a box full of pastries and cakes from the village, and I
was enjoying a chocolaty one as I stared at a bird washing itself
in the birdbath.

Sebastian, as he was my self-appointed
lawyer, had demanded I show him all legal documents regarding my
great-uncle's last will and testament, and he was pouring over
them, a pastry in one hand that he kept going to bite, but pulling
away from every time he flicked to a new page. Sebastian the lawyer
was a different creature to Sebastian the treasure hunter, though
they both wore the same suit and were both equally
handsome.

Sebastian kept shaking his head, and I
reached for another pastry.

“
That's four of those you have had,”
Sebastian noted as he licked his finger and turned another page,
never looking up at me, apparently absorbed by the boring documents
instead.

“
I think you will find I have earned
these,” I said after I took another enormous bite at a pastry, “I
did a lot of running last week.”

“
Good point, finish them all off,” he said
with a nod of agreement, still staring at the documents on his
lap.

He honestly did look absorbed by them. I
couldn't guess at why he found them so damn interesting, but soon a
wry smile curled his lips.

“
Did your great-uncle leave you anything in
the will?” He looked up at me, taking a small bite from his
pastry.

“
He left me some money. I haven't received
it yet; he didn't have any cash flow when he died, but I think it's
meant to be taken out of the estate once this place is sold,” I
said and I couldn't stop my voice from dropping, as I was fond of
this place. Yes, it held some pretty uncomfortable memories for me,
but even the knowledge that every criminal in Christendom had
traipsed through it still didn’t ruin the appeal. It was the kind
of place that, if looked after properly, would be a beautiful home
for the rest of your life.

“
Nothing else?” Sebastian asked, voice
professional.

I couldn't help but smile at the change in
him. I still remembered the man who’d teased me and strung me
along. “There was a gift, but it didn't go to probate, because no
one could find it. It doesn’t exist anymore.” I
shrugged.