Title: Treasures, Part 2

Author: Sherry Thornburg

Author's Email: Thornburgs77 at gmail

Feedback: Yes, please

Permission to Archive: Privately only, with notice to me and where it is.

Category: Romance

Rating/Warning: T

Main Characters: Phileas and Rebecca Fogg, Passepartout, and Jules Verne. Introducing Melody Anderson.

Disclaimer: SAJV and original characters copywrite Tailsman/Promark/etc., no infringement is intended.

Summary: Rebecca gets stunned speechless and Passepartout and Jules are floored by the surprise Phileas brings back with him from his holiday at sea. Then they all have an adventure in treasure hunting, while Phileas works through his missteps with his new wife.

Chapter 1

Melody and Rebecca took to each other quickly. Much too quickly for Phileas's comfort, but he could also be grateful for it. Her regular visits kept Melody busy and entertained, which allowed him to keep up his correspondences with fellow and former agents and other informants without Melody accidentally happening on to it. He didn't see any real reason to keep it from her, except for not wanting to alarm her. All agreed that he would search her baggage for anything overly valuable or out of place. To that end, he and Jules headed for the carriage house to have a look at Melody's boxes.

First, they had separated the boxes by their labels. In this, Melody had been her usual meticulous self. All boxes had been clearly labeled as to the rooms they had come out of and their main contents. In boxes labeled master's suite would be her father's belongings. There had been five boxes in all; roughly two-foot square, plus two barrels. The rest of her household goods, Fogg left stacked across the sidewall to be gone through as they had time to do so.

The first box held mementos and trophies. The next had more of the same. Major Anderson appeared to have had a passion for horses. The trophies were all for cross country racing.

"You and your father-in-law seem to have something in common," Jules commented. "Didn't Rebecca tell me once that you were into racing horses once?"

"Did she?" Fogg answered. "That would have been many years ago. I was once gripped by a boyish competitive phase. One of our neighbors, who had been an insufferable boor, fancied himself a top rate rider. I couldn't stand the fellow and made a point of taking every race I could from him, just for spite."

"I can see you doing that," Jules grinned. "And what competition did you have for Melody's hand?"

"As you know, I don't remember the full facts," Phileas said. "If you are implying I won her from some other fellow aboard ship, you are wrong. She and I were the only unmarried passengers aboard. Who she might have been seeing in Alexandria, you would have to get from her. She has mentioned no prior suitors to me. Don't try to make a melodrama of it, Verne. This mess is more a comedy of errors."

The third box held the Major's desk papers. In it, Phileas found a jumble of papers stuffed into several smaller boxes. They included receipts for purchases; bills Fogg hoped had been paid before Melody left Alexandria, and a host of other things he would have to go through page by page. Melody told him an officer from her father's command had gone through it to remove official regimental documents and settle her father's affairs.

"The corporal may have gone through this, but he didn't put any of it in proper order," Phileas said.

"No," Jules said. "This is over two months old. It doesn't have any sort of marking to say it has been paid."

The fourth box contained Major Anderson's library. Besides the standby classics on warfare and tactics every army officer held in his possession, Fogg had found a large cache of material on horse breeding. Most of it was written in Arabic, others something he didn't recognize.

"Planning to retire to the equestrian business?" Phileas said.

"So it seems," Jules said, thinking that had been addressed to him. "I find it interesting we have both fallen for the daughters of army officers. Captain Deviane has some of these same books in his study." He set a cavalry manual on a stack of other books at his side. "What is it about such circumstances that bring up such interesting women? Your Melody is every bit as sweet as Honorine, and practical. Honorine understands my need to build a future for us. I miss seeing her. But father–"

Jules realized he had been thinking aloud and stopped. He had not spoken to Phileas of his headlong rush into the study of the stock market and how he had been attempting to gain seed money from his father to set up a brokerage in Paris. Such things he didn't want to discuss with his friend.

Phileas had no such financial worries about gaining a wife. The temptation to ask Phileas for the loan had entered his mind and swept out quickly. As desperate as Jules was to prove financial stability to his future in-laws, the compromise he had set with his future brother-in-law would have to suffice.

Since arriving in London, Jules had only spoken of the plays and magazine articles he had been completing or contemplating. Here, with his English friends, Jules was his purest self, a writer. They accepted him as he was. The realities of compromise and worldly expectations were things he left in Paris.

Phileas noted the sudden lapse into silence. He wondered what could cause it. Something to do with his father? Was Pierre Verne disapproving of Jules's Honorine? If that were the case, his friend needed to dismiss it. Jules was too old to allow such issues. He was fully independent, a grown man. He wasn't well set, and that would more likely be the problem, but a good dowry would help that. As the lady was said to be a widow, she may have funds from her first marriage.

Phileas looked at Jules's marriage from his own societal point of view. If one wasn't born with funds, one could build them, which Jules could do eventually with his writing, or he could marry into it. That was simply the way it had always been, and there was nothing wrong with it.

Thinking that, Phileas uncomfortably wondered if such thoughts had run through Melody's mind when she had been confronted with marriage to him or an uncertain life as a spinster under her brother's guardianship. Could he hold it against her for making the more comfortable choice? He didn't know the truth of it yet, but if it were…

The two men's thoughts scattered when the fifth box was opened. It contained treasure. Sculptures of horses; each had been carefully wrapped in rags and packed in straw to protect them from harm. One was of bronze with jewels in its bridle and studding its saddle. Another looked to be made of ebony wood, similarly, decked out. The third was silver. Another was plated in gold. Each equestrian masterpiece was more spectacular in its own way than the next. They found eighteen, ranging from six inches tall to a full twenty inches. Phileas was no art expert, but every one of these looked to be quite valuable, collected from over a dozen countries ranging from China to Spain.

Melody's voice came from behind them at the door of the carriage house. "Father loved those things."

Both men were kneeling over the box of horses, admiring them. They turned to her, found her haloed in mid-morning sunlight as she walked toward them. The sunlight added red fire to her hair and an otherworldly feel to the sight of her, as if she had just stepped out of a dream.

Jules had been as affected by the sight as any red-blooded Frenchman, but Phileas… Jules looked at his friend and found Fogg transfixed. He was just staring as if an angel had entered their presence.

Jules grinned, stood, and gave his friend's wife a nod before returning to the house. Three was one too many at this moment.