Wolf Creek Homecoming

by Penny Richards

  “I thought you would say that. You are fortunate to have a quiet courage, Miss Fenwick, that is admirable.”

  Even though she guessed he intended to warn her to be prepared for what awaited her, his words sent a surge of warmth through her to ease the cold surrounding her fearful heart.

  Lord Meriweather stepped out of the carriage and offered his hand to assist her. As she reached for his hand, the courage he had complimented deserted her. She still had not been able to look out the window toward what was left of the two buildings. The church and her home. Once she emerged from the carriage, she would come face-to-face with the disaster.

  “It can only get better from this point,” he said quietly, as if she had spoken her thoughts aloud.

  She clutched his hand as she climbed out of the carriage. When he winced, she realized she had a death grip on his fingers. She released his hand, but he took hers and placed it on his sleeve. Without saying a word, he led her around the carriage. The wind battered them. Ashes rose into the air in miniature cyclones before falling, turning the ground into a gray wasteland.

  Vera’s knees threatened to collapse beneath her when she saw nothing remained of the church. The stone walls had fallen to the ground, scorched by the power of the fire. Upon first glance, the vicarage appeared as if it had survived with less damage. Smoke stains, like dark gray fingers clawing out of the windows and the doorway, warned that the fire had reigned inside the cottage, gutting the interior. The roof was gone, and she wondered if it had burned or fallen into the flint cottage.

  “Say the word,” Lord Meriweather murmured, “and we can go back to Meriweather Hall at any time.”

  She looked past him. “Where is Gregory?”

  “Over by the church.” He continued to keep his hand over hers on the sleeve of his dark brown greatcoat as they walked to where her brother stared into the church’s cellar.

  The few men who had been gathering up debris and piling it near the edge of the cliff stopped working as they watched her and Lord Meriweather come toward the church.

  “Maybe you should wait here,” he said. “I don’t know how stable the foundation is.”

  She shook her head, and they walked to where her brother had not moved. His shadow dipped over the edge of the cellar, and he seemed unaware of anything or anyone else.

  “Gregory?” she called.

  He was silent.

  “Gregory?”

  When her brother gave her no answer, she glanced at Lord Meriweather. Again his mouth was taut, and furrows had dug back into his face.

  He drew his arm out from under her hand and strode to her brother. “Vicar!” His voice was as sharp as the crack of a whip.

  Gregory flinched, then turned to look at them. Tears filled his eyes when he saw Vera. She ran, wending her way past the gravestones in the churchyard, and flung her arms around him.

  “Do you know what happened?” she asked.

  “All I can figure,” her brother said, “is that another section of roof fell in and struck the wood stove. Embers must have fallen out. That set the church on fire.”

  Vera shook her head. “Gregory, that can’t be what happened. We didn’t use it anymore.”

  “It is the only explanation I have.” His shoulders sagged, and Vera embraced him again.

  * * *

  Edmund Herriott, Lord Meriweather, stepped away to let Miss Fenwick and her brother comfort each other. He spoke to the men cleaning the site and was glad to see many were his tenants. He thanked them. Was he expected to do more? He had no idea. Now that his cousins Sophia and Catherine were both married and gone, he would need to turn to Lady Meriweather to help him make proper decisions.

  Or any decisions at all.

  He refrained from grimacing as he walked around the ruined church. How was Meriweather Hall going to function if its baron could not even decide which cravat to wear each morning? Now there was the matter of rebuilding the church and the vicarage. He did not want to burden Lady Meriweather, but he was unsure where else to turn.

  His gaze settled on Miss Fenwick. He had suspected, since shortly after his first meeting with the vicar’s sister, that she handled many of the parish responsibilities. Mr. Fenwick was a learned man who made every effort to serve his congregation, but the vicar’s duties often kept him riding from one end of the parish to the other. Would Miss Fenwick help Edmund, too?

  Miss Fenwick went with the vicar to examine the damage, and Edmund looked away. He did not want her to discover him staring at her. She was his cousin Catherine’s best friend, but Edmund had to own that he scarcely knew the vicar’s sister. Any time they had spent together prior to the journey back to Sanctuary Bay had included her brother or his cousins, and there had been no time to learn more about her during the days in the carriage because Miss Kightly’s prattle had monopolized the conversation from morn until they stopped at another coaching inn each night.

  The sickening reek of wet ashes erupted with each step as Edmund walked around what was left of the church. The roof had burned. The joists supporting the floor had failed, and everything that had not been consumed by the flames had fallen into the cellar.

  But there was another odor. Fainter, yet there nonetheless. He sniffed and frowned. Brandy. There must have been a lot of brandy to leave the scent after a fire. That could mean one thing and one thing only.

  The rattle of carriage wheels resounded, startling him. He turned as a small carriage rolled to a stop beside his carriage, its wheels crunching on the filthy snow. Edmund recognized it, even before he saw the baronial crest on the door. It was from Meriweather Hall. Who had driven here after them?

  When the door opened and Miss Kightly stepped out of the carriage with the help of a footman, Edmund was not surprised that she had been unwilling to remain at Meriweather Hall as he had requested. An astounding beauty with golden hair and perfect features, she was, as always, a pattern-card of style. The crimson pelisse she now wore was the lone bright spot among the ruins. She held on to her ermine-lined bonnet to make sure it was not twisted off by the wind as she hurried to them.

  Tears blossomed in her eyes when she placed her fingers lightly on Miss Fenwick’s arm. “I had no idea there would be this much devastation. I know my great-uncle will be willing to help you rebuild.” She gave Edmund a swift smile because she must know that Edmund, like most of the people in North Yorkshire, considered her great-uncle, Sir Nigel Tresting, a very eccentric man. “He likes coming here for services.”

  “That is very kind of both of you,” Miss Fenwick said.

  “I am sorry this has happened to you.” The blonde flung her arms around Miss Fenwick, giving her and her brother a big hug.

  Edmund looked away, feeling as he had too often, like an outsider in this close-knit seaside community. Before the war, his only worries had been how to keep his import and construction businesses profitable. That had changed when he had inherited the title of Lord Meriweather. Now, he had three vital duties. He needed to keep the estate running and make sure its residents saw to their responsibilities. He must attend sessions of Parliament. Last and most important, he had to find a woman to wed and give the baronage an heir, as well as a spare or two.

  He had been somewhat successful with the first two, even though he still had much to learn. On the last, he had failed. Oh, he had thought he was on his way to success on the third when he had begun courting Lady Eloisa Parkington after the young woman had shown her interest in him. He had bought her items she admired, and he had escorted her to gatherings where the door might otherwise have been closed to her after her family’s reputation was sullied by her older siblings’ wild behavior. He even, to quiet her pleading, had introduced her to a man he had served with during the war, a man who had recently become a marquess. Edmund had regretted the decision when Lady Eloisa had quickly persuaded the marquess to prop
ose to her.

  Introducing them had been the last decision Edmund had made, and it had been as wrong as too many others had been when he had watched men die on the battlefield following his orders. The night he had heard of Lady Eloisa’s betrothal was the night he admitted that he would be a fool to attempt to decide anything else on his own.

  He was not going to think about that now. He went back to the hole that once had been the church’s cellar. Kneeling on its edge, he scanned the dusky shadows. Again he sniffed. Again he caught a hint of brandy.

  One of his tenants, a man who farmed land west of the manor house, came over. “Excuse me, m’lord, but could you use this?” He held out a lantern.

  “Thank you, Sims,” he said as he took it and held it over the side.

  A flash of white marked where the stone font had fallen. When he saw several reflections, he guessed the light might be hitting brass candlesticks or pieces of broken glass. Anything made of wood had been burned beyond recognition.

  Almost everything.

  Edmund held out the lantern at full arm’s length and squinted through the sunlight off the sea. He lowered the lantern into the cellar, hoping to get a better look at what was beneath the joists. He gasped when he saw a black area where the foundation’s stone wall had been broken. From what he could see, the opening looked big enough for a man to walk through. Someone had cut out a section of the wall and, with what he had smelled near the cellar, it was not hard to guess who or why.

  The bane of Sanctuary Bay was a gang of smugglers who practiced their illegal trade brazenly. His predecessor had tried to halt them, but had failed. Both of his cousins had been threatened by the smugglers who, he had recently learned, were led by someone they spoke of as his qualityship. That must mean that the leader was of wealth or of the peerage or both. It explained how they had eluded capture for so long and also why they grew bolder with each passing month.

  Getting to his feet, he brushed dirt off his buckskin breeches. He handed the lantern back to its owner, then shrugged off his greatcoat. “Sims, can you hold this up while I go down?”

  “Go down?” The thin man gulped, his Adam’s apple bouncing like a ball as Edmund took off his coat and tossed it on top of his greatcoat. “Go down there?”

  “Hold up the lantern so I can see when I get to the bottom.” He tugged the hem of his wrinkled waistcoat and looked into the cellar.

  Sims hesitated, then nodded, “Aye, m’lord, but let me see if I can find a ladder. Someone in the village must have one.”

  “No!” He held up his hand to halt Sims. His voice resonated, and everyone stared at him. He must look like a madman standing in the icy wind in his shirtsleeves. But if Sims alerted the villagers to what they were doing, the smugglers who lived among them would hear. He could not risk them coming to halt him now. “I don’t need a ladder. These beams offer me a good path to the bottom.”

  Miss Fenwick rushed around the church’s perimeter. Strands of her black hair flapped on her shoulders, and she pushed them impatiently back under her bonnet. Her bright blue eyes were wide. “My lord, what are you doing?”

  “I know why the church burned, and I think I know who burned it.” Maybe he should have phrased it differently, Edmund thought, as he saw the faces around him become as pale as milk.

  Miss Fenwick stared at him, her eyes widening as understanding dawned. She whispered, “What did you see?”

  “I don’t want to say until I am sure of my suspicions.”

  “Smugglers?” Her voice remained hushed.

  He nodded grimly. “Take a deep breath. What do you smell?”

  She did and shivered. “Some sort of distilled spirits.”

  “Brandy, I would guess. A lot of it if the odor lingers after the fire.” He let his breath sift past his clenched teeth. “Brandy burns fast and hot.”

  “You think someone used it to start a fire in the church?”

  “Possibly. I need to check the cellar to see if there is a clue there.” He put his foot on the closest beam. It cracked and tumbled into the cellar with a crash.

  Mr. Fenwick stormed toward them and pushed between Edmund and his sister. “My lord, it may not be my place to tell you what you should do, but we lost your predecessor barely a year ago. To have you risk your neck now would be foolhardy.”

  “Aye,” chimed the men who had gathered by the cellar.

  Miss Kightly, who had followed the vicar, grasped Edmund’s arm with both hands. “My dear Lord Meriweather, there are others who can go down into the cellar in accordance with your directions.”

  “You cannot believe,” Miss Fenwick said with a serenity that contrasted with the panic in the other voices, “that Lord Meriweather would ask someone else to do what he himself would not. He is not that sort of man.”

  “But, Vera,” began her brother.

  “Have you forgotten that Lord Meriweather fought heroically for our nation?” she fired back.

  “Of course not,” Miss Kightly said, “but—”

  “Then trust that he would not do something risky without having a good reason.” Miss Fenwick faced him. “But he also must see the good sense of taking one or two others with him in case the debris shifts.”

  Edmund was pleased by Miss Fenwick’s defense of his plan. Suddenly the wind seemed less cold and the sunlight brighter because he had an ally. Her eyes glinted like the sapphire sky above them. A man could lose himself in eyes like hers. Maybe he already had, because he had no idea how long he had gazed into her eyes or how long he would have continued if one of the men had not sneezed.

  Clearing his throat, he thanked her for her good idea. He asked for volunteers. Every man, except the vicar, raised his hand. In dismay, he wondered which one he should choose.

  “If I may make a couple of suggestions, my lord,” Miss Fenwick said.

  Grateful and hoping his face was not blazing with embarrassment, he said, “Most certainly.”

  “Mr. Sims is slender and able to squeeze into small places.” She smiled when she added, “Mr. Henderson may be the strongest man in Sanctuary Bay. If one of the timbers slips, he will be able to hold it while all of you escape.”

  Edmund did not doubt the man was the strongest in the parish. He was built with thick shoulders and looked as if he could lift one of the fishermen’s cobles—their small deep wooden boats—out of the sand and hold it over his head.

  “Thank you, Miss Fenwick.” He nodded toward her as if it were the most ordinary matter in the world that the vicar’s sister should make such a decision. “Men, come with me.”

  The vicar began praying for their safety as Edmund put his foot on another beam. Edmund added a few prayers of his own as he shifted his weight onto it, and his boot slid slightly. The beam held. With one foot still on the ground, he gave orders for the men to follow one at a time, testing each step they took and never allowing more than one man on a beam at the same time. Without knowing how the joists had been weakened by the fire, they must take extra care.

  Edmund eased down into the cellar, feeling more alive than he had in months. The only decision he had to make was where to put his foot next, and he was relieved to see there was no choice. The crisscrossed joists offered a single path. He reached the bottom and frowned at the broken font to his right. For how many centuries had it been part of baptisms? Now it was rubble.

  The odor of brandy was very strong, and he saw several crates of empty bottles in a dark pool. He knelt by the pool, dipped his fingers in and tasted the liquid. Water.

  He pushed himself to his feet and leaned toward a joist. The odor of brandy was strong on it. Whoever had started the fire had soaked the floor with enough smuggled alcohol that the reek remained. But had it been the smugglers?

  The lantern was passed down to him, and he edged toward the place where the opening was cut into the stone
wall. The work had been done fairly recently because the chisel marks where the stones had been torn out of the wall still had rough edges.

  He peered into the opening. He slapped his hand against the wall when he saw earth and stone blocked what once had been a tunnel. Someone had pulled down the ceiling only a short time before because the stones still had dirt clinging to them.

  Taking a step toward the opening, he stopped when his foot struck something soft. He bent down. It was a water-soaked coil of French lace, another favorite item among the smugglers. He had no further doubts. The smugglers had been using the cellar and had burned the church. It was not the first time they had used fire to intimidate, because there had been a suspicious fire in Meriweather Hall’s kitchen before Christmas. But who had given the order to set the church aflame? The order had to have come from their leader, a man who would have no compunctions about burning the parish’s church.

  He heard a warning creak. He looked up to see Henderson and Sims dashing up the beams. Dirt and ash fell on him. He did not hesitate. He was close on their heels by the time he reached ground level. Jumping off the beam, he whirled as several joists caved in to the cellar. A gray cloud rose up. He waved aside the ash and coughed.

  Edmund motioned for everyone to get back from the edge, then thanked Sims and Henderson and the other men. They nodded and went back to piling debris closer to the cliff. But he did not miss their troubled expressions.

  He picked up his coat and pulled it on, listening to make sure the men were not within earshot. As he drew on his greatcoat, he asked, “Mr. Fenwick, when was the last time you were in the church’s cellar?”

  “At least eight or nine years ago.” His nose wrinkled. “Shortly after I accepted the living here, I had everything stored down there brought up so it didn’t molder away. The door into the church has been locked shut, and the key was lost years ago.”

  “So the smugglers had the perfect place to hide their cargo.”

  “Smugglers! In my church?” The vicar shook his head. “Impossible.”