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His niece rushed from the kitchen and called for her sister in the corridor.
As Gabe started after her, Sophie stood in his path. “What’s this about?”
If he didn’t want to get his hopes up, he certainly didn’t want to get hers up. Dealing with his own crushing disappointment would be difficult enough. “Just a suspicion I have,” he said.
“Be careful with her,” Sophie whispered. “She is quite fragile.”
“As careful as I’ll be with our own someday.”
“Why did you come to Fairhaven, Uncle Gabriel?” Aurelie asked, keeping her step even with Gabe’s while they trailed after her younger sister who raced through the woodlands as though she was born to it.
He certainly wasn’t about to admit it was to sell the place, especially as he’d decided he couldn’t do any such thing with his newfound relations inhabiting the cottage. “I’m looking in on all of the Northwold holdings. The best way to do that is see everything with my own eyes.”
“Because Uncle Clayton is dying?” she cast him a sidelong glance.
“I’m afraid he is.”
“He saved us, you know?” she said quietly. “Mama cried nearly half the journey to England, so relieved that Uncle Clayton sent someone to free us.”
“I will try my best to take care of you in his absence,” Gabe promised, meaning every word. Had things been different, had his father been a decent man, Augusta would have been raised in England, the daughter of an earl and her life would have been so different. She wouldn’t know her way around a kitchen. She and her children wouldn’t have been marched from Frenchtown to Fort Macon with only the clothes on their backs. And he’d have bet his last farthing, she would still be in the possession of two good eyes and perfect legs.
“I’m gathering from your names and your papa’s,” he began, changing the subject, “that he was French.”
“Oui,” Aurelie smiled up at him. “Papa came to America as a boy from Marseille.”
Gabe nodded as he listened. “Was he a tradesman or…?”
“Papa and Uncle Charles were both fur traders. We all left the Hudson Bay for the Michigan territory when I was one.”
“When you were one?” Gabe laughed as he shook his head. “Certainly you don’t remember that trip.”
“Certainly not,” she agreed. “But my sister Eloise said I cried the entire journey and drove her half-mad.”
“Here!” Ismérie called to them, leaving the path and pushing her way through an opening in the forest.
“What are you looking for, Uncle Gabriel?” Aurelie asked as they increased their pace through the foliage.
“Salvation, Aurelie,” he replied, worried that his hopes were already too high. “Salvation.”
They followed Ismérie a little ways toward a rambling brook and then she stopped by a large oak tree. “I think it was right around here,” she said, bending over to look at the ground.
Gabe stopped beside her and sunk down to his haunches, he ran his fingers over the moss and stones, turning them over and rubbing his thumbs across their faces looking for any sort of trace of silver.
“Any luck?” Aurelie asked, standing behind them.
“Not yet.” Gabe glanced over his shoulder at the girl. “See if you can find any stones that look silvery.”
“Silvery?”
“Or streaked with silver.”
“All right.” His older niece nodded, bent at the waist, and began rummaging through the mossy and muddy ground.
Aurelie had the devil’s own luck. “Like this?” she asked, lifting up the very first stone she touched.
A smoky quartz with a definite streak of silver running through it. Gabe’s pulse began to race as he leaned closer to Aurelie. “That’s it! Thatisit! Let’s see if we can find some more.”
CHAPTER 20
