“I don’t think your Alanzan friends will like that.” It was strange. There’d been so many complications in our relationship. The scandal of it even existing. Our money troubles. The danger surrounding him. But never had I imagined that I’d be the complication in his life. “I haven’t gone through all this—given up so much—just for you to get out of bed one morning and realize you made a mistake.”
“In that scenario, the only mistake would’ve been leaving your bed in the first place.” He took my hands and pulled me to him. “In all seriousness, this issue—our difference of belief—isn’t one that’s taken me by surprise. I knew from the instant I fell for you that we’d have this looming beside us. Beside us. Not between us. We will deal with it, and we will overcome it just like we have everything else.”
I closed my eyes briefly and then sighed. “I just wish . . . I just wish there wasn’t so much we had to keep overcoming. Probably when it’s all over, we’ll just be bored.”
“The two of us? Never.”
We kissed, and he pressed me up against the side of the shanty. Somehow, the argument had made me want him even more, and heat shot through me at the feel of his body on mine. One of his hands tangled in my hair, and the other played dangerously with the edge of my skirt, pushing it up my leg.
“Be careful,” I said, unable to resist. “I don’t think this shanty wall can withstand very much.”
He pulled back, his breathing rapid and eyes hungry as they looked me over. Not hungry. Ravenous. “Now who doesn’t take things seriously?”
“Hey, it’s a credit to your prowess that I’d even think—”
I lost track of what I was saying as a flash of sunlight caught my eye. I pushed Cedric aside, confusing him even more, and knelt down to where I’d seen the sparkle. It was in Glen’s rock pile. Sifting through them, I found one that glittered golden in the sunlight. I held up for Cedric to see.
“Is it real?” I asked.
We’d heard plenty of stories in White Rock about prospectors being deceived by look-alikes. Cedric got down beside me and held the rock up. It was only a pebble, but it was solid gold.
“It’s real,” he confirmed. “Where did this come from?”
“The future royal geologist found it over by the outcroppings, heading toward the foothills. I saw it shining but thought it was some kind of crystal.”
We walked to the far side of the claim, opposite the river. The sparse vegetation thinned out even more here as the rocky land took hold. I pointed to the base of the outcropping in question. It was no mountain, but the large formation was still high enough to make me uneasy when I thought of how high Glen had gotten. And that wasn’t even near the top.
Cedric stared up at it for a long moment. “You need to meet my neighbor. Sully. Nice old guy. He’s helped me figure a few things out. His claim has some rock formations like this, and he said he nearly ground them to dust looking for gold. Apparently, there was some early Hadisen explorer who found big deposits of gold in things like these—massive deposits. Larger than anything gleaned from the river.”
I followed his gaze, and let those words sink in. “How would you be able to find out? Just start chipping through?”
“Kind of. Look, there’s a crevasse at the top. Digging into it might show something. If I can get up there—”
“Get up there?” I stared at the tallest cliff. “That’s pretty high.”
“I’ll need some equipment to climb up and check. Come on, Adelaide,” he added, seeing my face. “It’s safe with the right gear. And if there is a deposit in there, we’re set.”
“Where are you going to get that equipment?”
He held up the pebble. “This’ll buy what I need for the initial inspection. If there is gold in there, that’s going to be a much more serious excavation. One we’ll need to talk to Warren and Elias about. We might need to talk to them anyway. The sooner we can move on this, the better.”
The smile on his face was radiant as he looked back at me. The sunlight lit up his tanned features, turning his auburn hair molten. He looked like some sort of ardent young god. A dirty one. But despite all the doubts I had in the world, I believed in him.
“Adelaide,” he told me. “You might just be married in silk after all.”
Chapter 25
I stayed back with the Marshalls the next day while Cedric went to buy the climbing gear. It was hard to hide my excitement as I helped with the chores, but I couldn’t risk tipping my hand yet.
“Well, you’re in a good mood,” Mistress Marshall remarked. “Haven’t complained once about the lye.”
“Just have other things on my mind, that’s all.”
“Getting use out of the cinnamon thorn, eh? That’s the only thing that could give you a smile that big.”
“Haven’t even touched it,” I said. She obviously didn’t believe me.
When Cedric took me out on the claim the next day, I barely waited until we’d cleared the Marshall property. “Did you get the gear?”
“Yes and no. The supply store had only some of the things I needed. And then I ran into Elias Carter.”
“Wonderful. Is he smiling yet?”
“No. Especially when he found out what I was there for. He’s skeptical about a deposit in the cliffs and says I’m just stirring up trouble. If there really is a substantial amount there, we’d have to bring in more laborers, and there are a lot of men in town jumping at the chance for extra work.”