Serena

by Claudy Conn

  “Do your worst,” she answered and turned away.

  Her heart was no longer broken in two.

  It was shattered, but her fury kept her from crying. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. What had moved him to behave like this? She had assumed he had come to try and wheedle out of her what he had not been able to get from his nephew about their morning’s adventure. Well, obviously she had been wrong. He had come once more to get a promise from her that she would not marry Freddy.

  What was wrong with him? What was wrong with Freddy? Why hadn’t Freddy told him he meant to return to school? Why hadn’t Freddy told him she had refused his offer of marriage time and again?

  It didn’t matter. How could he have spent so much time in her company and not known who she was? He couldn’t love her and spoken to her like that. He didn’t love her. Worse than that, he thought her a woman without morals because she had given herself to him.

  Did she deserve that? No, dash it, she did not!

  They did not speak or look at one another for the remainder of the drive.

  ~ Nineteen ~

  A FULL MOON met Serena’s eyes. She wasn’t sure if she was thankful for its light or frightened that its rays would expose them at the wrong moment. Her horse was neatly tethered, and she stood beside the mare, wondering what was keeping Freddy.

  This was mad. She had been mad to suggest it. What was she doing here at the churchyard at such an hour? What if someone discovered her missing and alerted her poor uncle? He would be sick with worry. This notion made her turn to her horse and say, “He won’t wake up, will he? And even if he does, he won’t go looking for me. Why should he?” She eyed the sky and realized that clouds were beginning to obliterate the stars and that those clouds looked stormy. The wind had picked up. This was a bad idea. Perhaps she should just return home immediately?

  A sound at that moment caught her attention, and she peered through woods growing increasingly dark as more and more clouds moved in. She heard Freddy trip over a branch and swear, and nerves made her giggle. “Freddy?” she called.

  “Aye,” he said, coming up to her. “Have I kept you waiting long? I know it must be past ten already.”

  “No, no, but I have been getting second thoughts …” she said, still thinking perhaps they should just give what they knew to Tuthill and allow him to take it from there.

  “’Pon my soul, not you! I am sorry for being late. I had the devil of a time escaping. Thought my uncle would never stay put. Every single time I started out of my room, there he was doing something or other, and watching me. I think he suspected I meant to be off. He questioned me a good part of the afternoon, but I didn’t tell him anything.” Freddy pulled a face, “He did say something strange to me about you. Said you were trying to bamboozle me into marriage and that he wouldn’t have it.” He shook his head. “I told him that he was usually a knowing one but that this time he had it all wrong.”

  “Did you? What did you say to him?” she asked in a small voice.

  “What should I say but the truth? I told him that you have turned me down over and over again and, in fact, demanded I leave for school. Told him that you finally got through to me in your own way, in your own time.”

  “And what did he say to that?” Pieces of Serena’s heart jumped towards one another and meshed with hope leading them.

  “That was the other odd thing. He clapped his hand to his forehead and told me that he had been the worst of all fools. He said that he was a bumbling cad and that he meant to spend the rest of his life making up for it.” He looked at Serena. “Does that make any sense at all to you?”

  She smiled. “I don’t know …” Larger pieces of her heart found each other and melded comfortably, and she found she could breathe without a catch in her throat.

  He took her Serena’s hand and urged, “Come on … we better hurry.”

  It didn’t take them long to reach the tomb and to expose the entrance to the hidden tunnel. Freddy lit the lantern, turned to her, and said grimly, “Serena … perhaps you should stay up here and let me know if anyone is coming?”

  “No, I am coming with you,” she answered. “Go on, and I will follow.”

  He held the lantern quite easily as he took the stairs and told her idly that she was one of a kind.

  Serena clung to the hem of his buckskin riding jacket, and as they reached the last steps she held on so tightly that she nearly made him stumble.

  “Let go, do … are you trying to kill me?” Freddy accused on a hushed sound.

  She smiled to herself. Oh yes, his infatuation was quickly waning now. “Shush,” she admonished.

  “Well, dash it woman, you nearly made me fall,” he responded in aggrieved tones. “You know, I am surprised we haven’t come across any number of rats yet.”

  “Rats? Oh … no … rats?”

  He chuckled. “Finally, you are afraid of something.”

  “Freddy, look!” Serena said excitedly and louder than she had meant to.

  Mischievously, he took his chance to admonish. “Shush. Do you want to bring down the villains around our ears!”

  “Sorry, but Freddy … there,” she said, pointing.

  He looked down the line of her pointing finger and frowned. “What?”

  She took his sleeve and pulled him along. “Those …”

  He saw them then, metal pots and bags full of gold. “Whoa. Where is the trunk the gold was in?”

  “No doubt whoever transported them here must have done so with little or no help and found it easier to manage in smaller containers,” Serena mused almost to herself.

  “Aye,” he agreed touching some of the coins.

  “Freddy,” Serena said, all at once. “We have to get out of here at once.”

  * * *

  “The reverend is in his library,” Mrs. Plumstock said with a sniff. She didn’t like the man standing before her. It was late, well after ten. She had only stayed because she had been delayed with a few things and had put up some dough for the morning. She had, in fact, been just about to leave. Another moment and she would have already taken her cob and wagon the short distance home.

  The man introduced himself as Joe Reed.

  Her response was a simple, “Humph.” He had the look of a sailor, but something about him made her suspicious. No decent person called on a man in his home at such an hour. It was unheard of.

  She did not approve and hoped he would leave. She said, “He cannot be disturbed at this hour. It is late, and he is preparing his sermon.”

  “Oi understand ye, ma’am, but if ye was to tell him that Joe Reed was here … well, Oi think he might see me. There ye go, be a prime mort and do that for me.”

  The man used thieves cant. What was such a scoundrel doing at the rectory? “I certainly will not,” she responded and attempted to close the kitchen door.

  Joe Reed put his foot in her way and grinned broadly. She thought him a perfectly horrid man, and then he put a bit of fear into her when he said, “Now, Oi tell ye whot, mort. Mayhap, Oi’ll announce meself. And ye would be wise to remember, Oi don’t like a door slammed in me face, Oi don’t. Oi would take it as unkindly and react in such a fashion.” So saying, he pushed past her and would have set up a howl had the reverend not appeared in the kitchen at that moment.

  Eustace did not at first see Joe Reed and said, “Mrs. Plumstock … you here still? Go on, you must get home. The hour is late … too late for you to still be working.”

  Mrs. Plumstock was shocked by Joe Reed’s presence and thought perhaps she should stay to protect the reverend. “This man wants a word with ye, so I’ll stay a bit longer …”

  “No, Mrs. Plumstock, you are most kind, but it is late, and I think you should get home,” the reverend said and eyed Joe Reed. “I cannot imagine what, sir, you want with me at this late hour.”

  “I be in a bad way of it,” Joe Reed said. “And I need yer guidance.”

  Mrs. Plumstock sniffed and took up her cloak. “Good n
ight, Reverend.”

  “Good night, Mrs. Plumstock,” Eustace said and then waved Joe Reed to the hallway and told him to go across and into the library.

  As soon as they were closeted in this chamber, Eustace turned on Joe Reed and shouted, “What in all that is holy are you doing here, damn you!”

  “Had no choice, have no time. There be some bobbery out by the tunnel. Oi got ol’ Mack there now standing guard, ye might say.”

  “What the deuce are you talking about?” Eustace demanded.

  “We found two horses tied in Piney Woods not far from the churchyard when we was coming through to meet ye as we planned. Whot? Says Oi. So, we had a look see. In we goes to some blasted tomb, and lo and behold … we hear two people talking, we did. So Oi says, Well, Mack, that’s where the reverend has been hiding the gold.” He took a threatening step towards Eustace. “So here is whot we decided, me and Mack. No more meetings, no more. Ye give us our fair share, and we’ll lope off, we will.”

  Eustace ignored all this and said, “Who was it you followed to the tomb?”

  “We don’t know who they be, but Mack, he stands ready to fire if and when they come out of that blasted place. So, I’m thinking we best hurry, what say ye, guv … do ye agree to m’terms?”

  “Yes, damn your soul. I agree, but if you get caught and mention my name, I’ll have more than your soul. Understood?”

  “Understood,” Joe Reed said.

  “Right then. I didn’t do all this to allow anyone to stand in my way!” Eustace snapped as he took up his gun from a drawer and headed out.

  ~ Twenty ~

  YOUNG BILLY TUTTLE heard his friends tapping at his window and ignored them. He had chores to do in the morning, as he was strong enough to put in his time. His father needed help, and he wasn’t the sort to take advantage and leave all the work to his parents and older brother.

  His friends, however, wouldn’t give up. Tap, tap, tap!

  The bed was warm, and he grumbled as he tried to go back to sleep. They continued to tap and whisper his name. It was late, and he sat up and told them to get going and leave him be. They laughed.

  He threw his pillow at the window, and his best friend, Al said, “Come on then, Billy-boy … it’s been no fun without ye these days. Come on.”

  He was pleased that they had missed him. Perhaps he could sneak off for a time and still get in a couple of hours sleep before he had to get up and feed the chickens like he had promised he would do in the morning?

  He got up and went to the window. “What do my twiddle-poop friends want with me?”

  “River South woods, that’s where we’re headed. Do ye come, Billy?” Al asked.

  “Eh, we’d have to be too careful. I heard tell that old man Bart’s gamekeeper is laying in wait for poachers there. Oi think we should work the Piney Woods. Some fine pheasant there, what say ye?”

  “Aye, then … ye be in the right of it, Oi think,” Al said and looked at the two boys at his back, “What say ye?”

  The other two nodded, and Billy grinned as he hurriedly pulled on his clothing and climbed out the window. “So be it.”

  They were young and ready for an adventure together, and it didn’t take them long to race through the woods, laughing and calling to one another. Then something got Billy’s attention, and he held up a hand for everyone to be still and quiet.

  They immediately complied. For as long as he could remember, his little band of lads always obeyed him.

  “Whot is it?” Al asked on a hushed note.

  “Somethin’, dunno just whot,” Billy answered.

  “Ye be cutting up m’nerves loike ribbons,” Jeremy told him anxiously.

  “Stubble it and let me listen. Oi ain’t got any of ye caught when we go poaching, cuz Oi’m careful Oi am.”

  “Aye, that’s the truth of it,” Al replied.

  “Hold … those be horses,” Billy said and walked right up to them. “Oi knows this one … ’tis Miss Serena’s horse, Brandy.”

  “Be ye sure, then?” Al asked.

  “Aye, Oi’m sure. Now whot be she up to in the dead of night?” he said, looking around.

  “Sneck up!” Al said suddenly on a hushed note. “We be in for it now … there be the reverend coming this way.”

  “Shake yer shambles,” Billy told his crew, and he hurriedly took his friends out of the way and out of sight, but he had no intention of leaving the area until he discovered where Serena had gone off to. What if she was in trouble?

  The boys huddled together at a distance and low to the ground but not so far that they didn’t hear what next transpired.

  * * *

  Eustace and Joe Reed went right up to Freddy and Serena’s horses and undid their tethers. The reverend was visibly distraught as he studied one of the horses and exclaimed, “I know this horse … ’tis Miss Moorely’s horse … Serena … what the deuce is this?”

  “She must be in the tomb then with the other one,” Joe suggested. “Oi thought they be both lads, and if she be a mort, well then, she seems to be breaking all her flash rules, cuz she was in britches.”

  “Shut your filthy mouth,” Eustace exclaimed angrily. “Don’t speak of her that way. Miss Moorely is a lady.”

  “Lady or no, ye said yerself, here is her horse,” Joe answered, apparently unafraid.

  “You know nothing of the matter. There are any number of reasons her horse might be here.”

  “Well then, Oi’ll hold the horses, and ye go see to our flash covey visitors in the tomb …” A rustling of leaves, a twig breaking, and Joe Reed dove through the brush and found Al, caught him by the collar, and shook him till he squealed a flurry of youthful oaths and demanded to be released. Al made a hard show of it, kicking, fists flying all the while.

  Billy stepped forward and said on a hard note, “Let him go.”

  Joe Reed grinned. “Whot ye young lads doing here at this hour?”

  “Whot ye think we are doing? Poaching, and why not? How are we to eat if the gentry keeps us from hunting, tell me that?”

  Eustace’s eyes narrowed. “Indeed and why then did you hide and how much did you hear?”

  “We hid so ye wouldn’t catch us and turn us in, and hear? Hear what?” Billy said and was certain he put on an excellent face.

  “Aye, go and poach then, and make sure it is far away from here, right?” Joe Reed said.

  “Don’t let them go yet …” Eustace said.

  Billy put his hands together in supplication and put on a show. “Please, please sir … we only meant to get a rabbit or a pheasant or two … nothing more.”

  “Look, we best get them far away from here,” Joe Reed suggested. “We don’t need no one else about now, do we?”

  “No, we don’t. I suppose you are right.” Eustace eyed the boys. “You better do your poaching somewhere else. Get out of here, and don’t let me see you around here again.”

  “No, no … never again,” said Billy, helping Al up as Joe Reed had thrown him to the ground. “Come on,” he told his friend, and they started off at a quick pace.

  * * *

  His lordship sat upright in his chair. How the devil had he fallen asleep? Damn, damn, and bloody damn.

  He got up and went to find Freddy. Not in his room. With another oath, he threw his cloak over his shoulders and tied it in place as he took up his gloves and made his way outside and to the stables.

  The grooms were all asleep, and he didn’t wake any of them as he quietly took up his horse, tacked him, and easily mounted. Where the deuce was he going?

  How the bloody hell would he find Freddy at night?

  Suddenly dawning hit him between the eyes.

  He had seen the look that passed between Freddy and Serena early that morning. They had planned to meet again at night, and he was guessing it was where they had met that very morning.

  Of course! He suddenly saw it as though laid out for him. Their activity, whatever it had been, had been cut short when the sun had come up. They ha
d to give up whatever it was they were at and had made a pact to meet in the evening. It was already ten, and he wondered how long he had been asleep.

  What were those two up to? He knew now it had nothing to do with a romantic, clandestine meeting. He knew that all this while, Serena had been treating Freddy more like a brother than a suitor. She had been trying to let him down easy. He saw it all, because his eyes had been opened by his nephew. He should have seen it on his own. He knew her; in his heart, he had known her.

  Piney Woods. That was where they had found the body. That was what they were investigating, because it all had to do with the stolen gold.

  His uncovered hair of black silk blew about his face as he made his way down the pike as quickly as he could in the waning moonlight. Clouds had moved in, and soon if this continued there would be no moonlight whatsoever.

  He had been distraught all afternoon and into the evening over his conversation with Serena. How had he called her a ‘doxy’? What was wrong with him? He knew, better than anyone, that she was an innocent. She drove him mad with jealousy and agitation over Freddy, and yet in his heart he knew better. He simply knew better, and yet he had allowed his wild, unthinking green demon to take over.

  He loved Serena Moorely. He knew that, had made his peace with the realization that his bachelor days were done, but now he would have to beg her forgiveness and beg on his hands and knees if he must, because he loved her and had to have her for his wife.

  Yes, but first, he had to find the blasted pair!

  * * *

  Female instincts made Serena act without logic as she took Freddy’s hand and dragged him away from the gold and back down the dim, dank corridor to the stone steps. She only knew one thing—they had to get away and fast.

  “But …” he objected as she pulled him along. “Did you hear something? Is that why we have to leave?”

  “No, yet, oh, Freddy, this is no place for us. We must report this immediately and before the gold is removed.”