Blood Ties Read Online Free Page B

carefully on the seat beside him. Alec glanced at the scatter of papers. ‘Interested in history?’ he asked.
    â€˜History is where we come from.’
    â€˜Um, yes. I suppose it is.’
    Eddy jabbed at the map. Alec looked more closely. It appeared to show some sort of battle plan. Cavalry and cannons were marked in ranks and arrows showed the direction of attack. Sedgemore, he read. ‘Oh, James the second? Monmouth’s lot? Wasn’t that—’
    â€˜The last pitched battle fought on English soil. It surely was.’
    â€˜Right,’ Alec said. That wasn’t going to have been his next comment, but it sounded more intelligent than what he’d had in mind so he accepted it gratefully. ‘We’re, er, thinking of walking the battlefield sometime while we’re here,’ he said. ‘There’s this leaflet I found at the B&B, tells you all about the trail.’ He broke off. Eddy had fixed him with a stern gaze and Alec suddenly felt oddly inadequate.
    â€˜Set up for the tourists,’ Eddy said. ‘You’ll learn nothing about anything that way.’
    â€˜Right,’ Alec muttered again, feeling thoroughly inadequate. ‘Well, have a good evening, won’t you?’ He went back to the bar to collect their drinks, feeling like a child who’d just been chastised for infringing some mysterious adult rule.
    â€˜Oh, don’t mind Eddy,’ Susan said fondly. ‘Not quite right in the head, some ways, though in others he’s sharp as a tack.’
    â€˜What’s with all the maps and the history books?’
    â€˜Them’s his treasure maps,’ one of the locals laughed. ‘Goes out with his metal detector and his papers. Looking, always looking. Got this idea in his head he’ll strike it rich.’ He turned away with a shrug. ‘Good luck to the old nutcase, I say.’
    â€˜Treasure?’
    Susan shrugged. ‘Supposed to have been what some landowner buried to keep it from the crown,’ she said. ‘He backed the wrong side in the rebellion, knew he’d lose the lot, so, the story goes, he sent his daughter off with a servant and told them to get as far away as they possibly could, to avoid the repercussions, you know. The king sent that Judge Jeffries down here and he hanged folk just for talking to the rebels.’
    â€˜And did the daughter escape?’
    Susan shrugged. ‘Depends who tells the story. One tale is the servant killed her and ran away with the lot; another says they had to hide it to keep it from the army and that they never did get back to collect it. That’s what Eddy believes. Been looking for it all the time I’ve known him and I’ve known him since I was a teenager. He used to come to the farm with his metal detector and such. Dad always gave him a meal and—’
    â€˜And so now you do,’ Alec said.
    â€˜And why not? He’s got no one to look after him, poor old bugger.’
    â€˜I think it’s nice,’ Alec said. ‘I think Eddy is very lucky.’
    â€˜Not lucky enough to find what he’s looking for,’ Susan said ruefully. ‘You ask me, the whole thing’s just a story.’
    Alec went thoughtfully back to their table and their meal arrived shortly after.
    â€˜We should do the battlefield walk,’ Naomi said.
    â€˜Not tomorrow, though. Rain is forecast for the entire day, so I suggest we do something inside. I’d like to go back to Wells, if that’s all right, and take some more pictures.’
    â€˜Fine by me. Then we can look round all those little shops that we didn’t get time for last time.’
    Alec laughed. ‘More silver?’ he asked. Lately, Naomi had started a collection of little silver boxes, loving the way the repoussé work felt beneath her fingers. That, and a collection of strange cutlery; it seemed to Alec that the Victorians had invented a spoon or a knife for every