Cassolette Read online

  "And how do you explain away the pieces of wood from deep inside the treasure pit that were carbon dated back to the sixteenth century?" he demanded nastily.

  "When decayed trees fall to the ground they are eventually absorbed by it," she replied just as testily. "There is not a shred of evidence to suggest that the wood samples taken from the main shaft were brought there by the depositors."

  "Okay, so I can see the lay of the land right enough. You've bought into the British gold theory and won't be swayed."

  "I try to deal in logic, Angus. You yourself found the gold coin that ties in precisely with that period. And the connection with the Percy family cannot be dismissed as mere coincidence."

  "So you believe that the Percys took the gold out of Bell Island a long time ago?"

  "Well, if Richard Percy did steal the treasury that he was entrusted to save and buried it on the island for safekeeping until things cooled down, who would know better than he how to bypass the flood trap and retrieve it when that time came? And the Percys were very wealthy, which further supports this theory."

  "You sound just like your aunt now," Angus accused. "Up until the part where the Percys dig up the gold, that is. And that's where you and she part company."

  "So Adelaide believed the treasury was still there?" Jaye said doubtfully. "Do you happen to know why?"

  Angus shook his head as he rose slowly to his feet. "She was a good woman—for a Sassenach that is—but she played her cards very close to her chest." * * * "There must have been something that totally convinced her," Jaye said to Chris as they met later at the Smugglers' Inn. "And that means a document of some sort, with concrete evidence that the treasure was not removed by the Percys. But what? And where is it now?"

  "Well, I agree that Adelaide was nobody's fool, and she would hardly have been intending to spend millions of dollars on a cofferdam to retrieve something that might no longer be there."

  "And yet, from where we're sitting now, all the facts point to the Percys having removed it."

  "Keep digging through these papers," Chris advised, stirring his martini with the olive. "I'll keep my eyes fixed for anything interesting on my end."

  Afterwards, they went for a walk along the beach under a moonless sky ablaze with stars.

  "I can still get your scent," Chris murmured, covering his nose and mouth with the handkerchief that had collected her secretions almost a week before.

  "Perhaps it's just the memory?" Jaye suggested. "Which becomes stronger rather than weaker as it dilutes, just like in homeopathic remedies."

  "Either way I'm not complaining," he murmured. "But I intend to collect more tonight."

  Chris lived in a turreted Victorian mini mansion that had been in his family for generations. Impossibly expensive to maintain, he had closed off most of it, confining his living quarters to the bright west wing on the main floor.

  His mother was in a nursing home, but still alert enough to visit on occasions. "Once she's gone, I'm going to sell," he told Jaye. "Although, heaven knows it'll be hard to do. This is the only home I've ever known."

  She thought how young and innocent he looked, childlike really, as he showed her his old nursery with its battalion of toy soldiers and moth-eaten teddy bears. She sensed that only when he moved away from this ancient, memoryladen place, would he be able to fully mature. Chris' sanctuary was actually a prepubescent prison.

  His bedroom had been the former pantry, and some of the cupboards from that era, with mullioned glass doors, still lined one wall.

  He took her quickly, as was his custom, his excitement having built to such a point that he could not contain himself. The Edwardian cast iron bed where he had been conceived rocked with the intensity of their coupling. It was over in a matter of minutes.

  Jaye clutched him to her, holding his bottom firmly with both hands and keeping his deflating cock captive with her love muscles. He had been too fast for her that time, his hot semen shooting over her cervix before she had a chance to climax.

  "Stay with Mama," she whispered lustfully, and moved herself against him until she achieved the eye-rolling release that left her limp.

  Now that the urgency was over, there was time for mutual massage, licking, caressing and other erotic foreplay. Jaye took the dominant role and, after teasing Chris with her tongue and fingertips, crouched astride him with her back towards him. She eased his cock into her flooding pussy and worked her buttocks into a satisfying tempo.

  Chris was aflame with desire, Jaye noticed as she bounced up and down, taking the full length of his cock on every second stroke. He teased her clit and anus with one hand, while stroking his penis with the other one. He watched in a fever of passion as it disappeared inside her. Jaye felt the slippery walls of her cunt envelop it all in its primordial hunger. The division between his hands and cock and Jaye's genitals became blurry as they merged in swollen surrender, adding new excitement and meaning to the expression as one flesh.

  Jay prolonged the ecstasy for as long as she could, stopping all movement when she felt Chris getting close to orgasm, and only resuming it once he had quieted down. When she finally let the inevitable happen, the contractions throbbed on with an intensity that was almost unbearable.

  It was while they were thus engaged that the door chimes rattled through the old house with an insistence that could not be ignored.

  "Good God, who could it be at this hour?" Chris complained. He reluctantly pulled on his jeans and stumbled over to the window. Then he smacked himself on the forehead and spun around. "Of course, I'd forgotten about the fishing trip tomorrow. It's Brad."

  Five

  It was a strange feeling, lying in bed in a state of dishabille, listening to the two men she had recently been intimate with chatting in the living room. She could feel the touch of Chris' hands on her breasts and buttocks, while his semen trickled down her inner thighs from a swollen and still receptive pussy. She couldn't help but wonder what Guy would think of her, if he could see her now? It was a disturbing thought, unbidden, which left her feeling tawdry and cheap.

  Jaye experienced a moment of panic when she learned that Brad was at the door. "Don't let him know that I'm here," she had told Chris, who appeared to think this a quite natural reaction, considering that Brad was the solicitor handling Adelaide's estate. Little suspecting that they had become lovers on Jaye's last trip to Vancouver. She thought of that erotic encounter now, and how Brad's penetrating blue eyes seemed to bore into her very spirit as he fucked her with a rhythm that never quit.

  "He's gone to bed," Chris whispered, slipping in beside her and snuggling into her back. His skin felt cool and she could smell peppermint on his breath. "He has an early start in the morning."

  They made love again, the excitement heightened by the knowledge of another so close by. Even the restrictions that this placed on them in terms of noise failed to whet their appetites. Quite to the contrary, the hushed clandestine nature of their coupling served to inflame them even further. Jaye felt incredibly turned on, remembering her night with Brad and wondering how he would react if he knew that she was under the same roof right at that moment, having the living daylights bonked out of her by his oldest friend. * * * She anticipated a visit from Brad sometime during the weekend, and towards this end got busy with the vacuum cleaner and broom. She was conscious of how immaculate Brad's apartment had been, high above the city on the eighteenth floor of the Q.

  "It's so quiet here," he said, as they relaxed on the porch watching the sunset. "Only the crickets to break the peace."

  Jaye stirred the jug of lemonade before topping up their glasses. "But you would miss all the noise and bustle if you were here for too long."

  Brad looked deliciously tanned and toned. Like Apollo courting Daphne, she thought lasciviously. His slate colored shirt brought out the gray undertones in his extraordinary eyes.

  "You're looking extra sexy today," he told her in a copulatory tone, noting with approval the brief silk shorts and match
ing top. He caressed her thigh while kissing her lightly on the lips. Memories of how she had sat astride him, and taken the lead in their lovemaking, turning her to fire.

  "I've missed you," he whispered seductively, "and I want to show you how much." "Ahem." The loud throat clearing from the bottom of the sun porch steps caught them both by surprise. They looked up, startled, to find a very disapproving looking Angus with Ben close by his side. "Sorry if I've interrupted anything," he said, although his tone and demeanor indicated otherwise. "I didn't know you had company."

  "No, not at all," Jaye assured him, annoyed with herself for feeling like a guilty schoolgirl. "We were just having a glass of lemonade, won't you join us?"

  The two men eyed each other warily. There was bad feeling between them on account of Brad having served Angus with an eviction notice, Jaye knew. "I had no choice. It was part of settling up Adelaide's affairs," he had explained to Jaye. But just try to convince a crusty old Scot like Angus of that.

  "No thank you, lassie," Angus replied, his protruding eyes fixed on Brad, who was concealing his erection with a newspaper with undisguised dislike. "I'll stop by another time."

  "Well, at least have some lemonade. It's a hot day and you have a long walk back to your cabin." Then, on seeing that he had no intention of coming onto the porch with Brad there, she descended the stairs and handed him a glass. "Was there anything in particular that you wanted to see me about?"

  "Aye, there was, but it can wait," he replied testily. He accepted the lemonade with an ill grace, downing it in a couple of noisy gulps.

  "I don't know how you put up with him," Brad remarked, as Angus' stout back disappeared behind the laurel trees. "Allowing him to live on here rent free. And far from being grateful, he's downright rude."

  "Oh, it's just his way. He has a good heart. And besides, it's what Adelaide would have wanted."

  Jaye could feel the power between Brad's legs surge to greater proportions as she slipped onto his lap and kissed him deeply on the mouth. "Now where were we…before we were interrupted?" she asked with a wink.

  He was a confident and relaxed lover, unlike Chris, who was always so desperate to have her and to try new things. Seldom did Chris seem content with the action of the moment. And although she realized why this was, a natural attempt to make up for lost time, she often found it difficult to cope with. It was as if he were attempting to cram all the sex that he should have had over the years, into the nights that he spent with her. Exciting, yes. But a trifle wearing at times as well.

  Brad slipped his hands under the thin cotton blouse and fondled her breasts. He took his time with the nipple play and delighting in watching her squirm.

  Ah, yes…" Jaye moaned, shifting her position to give him greater access to her body. But when he made to lift her and carry her inside to bed, she demurred, "I want it here," she murmured. "I'm going to do you right here."

  Brad was simmering with desire as she quickly unbuckled his belt and unzipped his pants. She could feel the gentle breeze of early evening brush against her face as his steely cock sprang out of its cloth prison. "Do I have a treat in store for you," Jaye promised lasciviously.

  Her mouth drooled and licked the entire length of his shaft, and he thrilled to the answering pulse of his arousal. The wicker armchair he was seated in was wide and deep, accommodating his thrusting buttocks with ease. Jaye continued the mouth fucking while her hands made free with his balls and backside.

  "Oh, lord…I won't last long like this," he panted, and grabbed her cropped blonde head. She never missed a beat in the tempo.

  With her pinky tucked well into his anus, she escalated the speed of the mouth music until he gushed forth like an overheated geyser. Then she held his semen in her mouth and gave it back to him in a prolonged and sensuous kiss on the lips. "You've just been snowballed," she whispered hotly.

  Then she stripped off her shorts and sat astride him. She fit his still hard cock into her swollen pussy and rode him like a Valkyrie. "I'm going to fuck the living bejesus right out of you," Brad threatened. Jaye recalled how she had taken the dominant role the last time they had fucked as well. And now, with this erotic coupling reaching its fiery conclusion on a dusk filled porch, he seemed determined to give her the shagging of her life, on his own terms.

  And fuck her he did. He carried her to the bed and dumped her down without finesse. Then he held her arms above her head and entered her immediately. She knew that he must be experiencing a terrific sense of power as his cock pummeled away at her without mercy.

  It was payback time for what she had done to him. Snowballing was at once so erotic and taboo that it had caught him by surprise. It would thrill him to the very core of his being, while shocking him at the same time. Jaye felt sure that he would always remember the electrifying feel of her tongue on his glans and the taste of his own semen, nutty and slightly bitter, as she spat it into his mouth from her own.

  "You're a very bad girl," he whispered, quite beside himself with passion as he reached an orgasm, but did not stop the fucking. Instead, he held his cock inside her until it quickened again, then began the onslaught anew.

  Jaye writhed beneath him in a frenzy of lust, making primitive little mewling noises like a cat in heat. Their bodies gleamed with sweat as the primordial coupling continued unabated. She had never before been subjected to such a pounding from a virile male, and it catapulted her to new and uncharted heights of raw desire. It almost, but not quite, exorcised the handsome Guy from her sexual repertoire once and for all. * * * In the morning Jaye walked over to see Angus. She picked her way carefully

  through the bracken and fallen twigs, casualties of a sudden storm at midnight. "You cater to the old rascal too much," Brad insisted, when she told him of her intention. "I swear he's more obnoxious now than when Adelaide was around."

  "Perhaps so, but I appreciate his presence on the island. It would feel very lonely here without him."

  Ben was lounging under a sprawling apple tree, its fruit left to rot on the ground. From the look of the yard, Angus did no gardening whatever. The dog howled a greeting and came forward to greet her, his plumy tail swishing with excitement. "Hi there, Ben. My, what a lovely welcome," she cooed, accepting a paw and

  offering the biscuits she had brought for him. "Well, hello there, lassie, this is an unexpected pleasure," Angus remarked from the doorway. Although, by his expression he was not surprised at all by her presence.

  Not unexpected at all, you old rogue, Jaye thought in tempered amusement. You were jolly well waiting for me to come over here and extend the olive branch. Although heaven knew she had no need to. Angus had dropped by unexpectedly, and the fact that she had a visitor, whom he did not like, was nothing to apologize over. But she held her tongue and accepted the cup of scalding tea that he poured for her out of a blue enamel pot.

  "Have you thought any more about getting that portable cofferdam installed?" he asked almost at once. "You know that Adelaide was dead keen on the idea."

  "Perhaps so," Jaye replied, fixing him with a direct gaze, which he held unflinchingly. "But she must have been privy to information about the Percys and the lost British treasury that we're not." She bit down on the shortbread finger that had been added to her saucer, wiping the crumbs off her gray pants before continuing. "Because, with what we have to go on now, it seems highly likely that the Percys removed the gold a very long time ago."

  "Och, I don't believe for a minute that it's a British treasury buried here at all," Angus retorted petulantly. "I'm absolutely convinced that it's Inca gold, brought here by a Spanish galleon."

  "But you don't have a shred of evidence to back that up," Jaye protested, growing weary from the same old arguments that she'd heard before. "Is that why you wanted to see me last night? To just rehash all this yet again?"

  "We're talking here of the greatest treasure find of the twentieth century," he argued, ignoring her question. "Perhaps of any century. Can you wonder that I'm mad keen to be a pa
rt of it? And it's what Adelaide wanted. It would be a fitting tribute to her memory."

  "Proof, Angus. I need proof, before I invest millions of dollars in a cofferdam."

  "And you have the proof, for god sakes. My intuition tells me there's a vast fortune buried here, and it's never lied to me before. I'm a Celt and my ancestors were Druids."

  "That's all very well, but just try telling a bank manager that you want to secure a loan using your sixth sense as collateral."

  "Och, I can see that I'm wasting my time with you," Angus fumed in disgust. "You have the soul of a Sassenach and no mistake about it." * * * "The fact remains," Jaye said to Chris, as they took in a blazing sunset over the water, "Adelaide was going ahead with her plans for a cofferdam. I found the written details under a pile of old supermarket receipts today."

  "It's too bad that she wasn't better organized," Chris replied. "If she had kept proper records, then surely there would have been some sort of documentation as to why she thought the treasure was still there."

  Jaye nodded and ran a hand over her hair. "Adelaide was nobody's fool, and she would never have even contemplated the cofferdam idea if she didn't have some sort of proof that the Percys had not removed it." "But where is it? And are you going to go ahead with the plans without it?" "I don't know," Jaye admitted with a sigh. They watched the flight of a raven against the backdrop of a scarlet horizon. "I need a little time to think things out. Although heaven knows they've been spinning around in my head for ages and I'm still none the wiser." * * * "We've landed a couple of big contracts," Joanna said, "with Corbett Systems and Frobishers." It was early on a Monday morning and Jaye had still been asleep when the call came in.

  "That's great news," she enthused, struggling up in bed and blinking at the alarm clock on the dresser. It was barely six. Of course, with the time difference, Toronto was three hours ahead.

  "It means that we're going to be rushed off our feet," Joanna continued. Jaye could detect a faint note of impatience in her voice. "We really need you back here, Jaye."