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

  Chapter Four

  Amanda Stanton

  The second I awoke, I had a feeling I couldn’t remember something, something important. For a few blissful moments, I lay there, warm in bed as I tried to remember what it was I’d forgotten. Was I meant to call my great-aunt today? Was there a fair in the local village? Had I organized to meet a friend in town?

  Then in a snap, I remembered everything. I had no idea how I could have forgotten; it was the only night of my life that had involved so much action, so many guns, and so many people out to capture me.

  I lay in bed, flashes of last night chasing through my mind as I curled up, clutched the cushions beside me, and I tried not to fall apart.

  It wasn’t too long until Elizabeth called me down to breakfast. The smell of freshly cooked pancakes with apple and blueberry sauce wafted up the stairs, and it was enough to see me lift my face from the warm press of my pillow. If there was one thing that could distract me from my paranoid thoughts, it was food.

  Elizabeth called me down stairs again, her sophisticated accent tinkling like a bell, worlds apart from the guttural screams and shouts of last night. From her tone to the pleasant aroma in the air, I was starting to believe that last night had been nothing more than a nightmare.

  As I padded out of bed, hair a mess at the top of my head, I caught a glance of my wrists and my feet: they were covered in scratches, bruises, and gouge marks. Nightmares, no matter how harsh and frightening, stayed in your mind.

  I winced as I walked down the long stairs that led to the bottom floor and the kitchen below. Only the smell of freshly cooked pancakes kept me going.

  If you’d asked me several weeks ago, before heavily-armed men had kicked down my door and chased me through the woods, I would have told you I was an independent, emotionally stable, tough woman. I was used to mucking out the horse stables, I was used to changing the tires on my car when I got a flat, I was even used to fixing appliances when they broke. My great-uncle, for all his mad eccentricities, had taught me a lot. Still, no matter how much he’d taught me, last night had taught me something new: all it took was a couple of pairs of scuffed army boots, a couple of uncocked machine guns, and a smattering of balaclava-wearing bad guys, and I could and would be reduced to tears.

  The thought of my old great-uncle, and the stories he’d told me as I sat by his knee in his library bolstered me, and I didn’t fall down the stairs in a sobbing mess. Instead I heaved my way to the kitchen, nose still sniffing the air appreciatively, stomach gently rumbling, heart calming for the first time since I’d woken.

  Elizabeth nodded at me as I walked into the kitchen, a weird apron tied loosely over her even weirder pajamas. “I have made pancakes,” she announced as she shepherded me to the kitchen bench and placed a titanic stack of pancakes before me, a dark purple sauce oozing over them. One whiff of it was enough to give me cavities, but I helped myself to a stack of four nonetheless.

  “I called my lawyer, dear,” she nodded earnestly, “He’s going to be here any moment. We’re going to get this sorted; we’re going to get this sorted today,” she said with an almost military nod. Despite Elizabeth’s colorful, erratic personality, when she wanted something done she would jolly well do it.

  Now I had something to smile about: I had someone by my side, somebody formidable, and somebody endearingly floral.

  “I’m in my pajamas,” I said through a massive bite, sauce dripping down my chin, “Shouldn’t I change?”

  Elizabeth shook her head vehemently. “You have been attacked in your house by bad men carrying guns; you can jolly well stay in your pajamas as long as you like. Plus, my lawyer is a good chap.”

  I nodded. I couldn’t be bothered changing, plus, I didn’t have anything to change into; all my clothes, though ostensibly not that far away, were still in a house full of criminals. In a situation like this, god dammit, anyone could understand that a girl had to stay in her pajamas.

  Shortly after, as I sucked down a glass of freshly-squeezed orange juice, Elizabeth disappeared from the room as the doorbell rang.

  A kick of fear and uncertainty muddled around my stomach as I sat waiting for the lawyer to arrive. This was getting real again. As I’d downed my mountain of pancakes, I’d managed to gain distance from the situation. That distance rapidly reduced as I heard even but strong footfall coming down the corridor.

  I turned to the kitchen door.