Amelia inhaled the sweet scent of the syrup room for the final time. “So that’s everything then?”
“That’s it, miss.” Hanover slipped his handkerchief from his back pocket and wiped his hands with it. He nodded to the rack of turned-over syrup pans. “Everything’s sterilized and ready for the harvest.”
“And the wood?”
“Delivered and stacked. Both wood sheds are full to the door. Mr. Robertson kept to his schedule to the very last.” He tucked his rag away. “Your father was a good man, miss. He’d be heartbroken to see the fix he left you in. You sure Moore’s on the level?”
She shrugged as they walked to the front entrance. “It doesn’t matter. Without a will, there’s nothing I can do.”
After placing a huge padlock on the door, he handed her the key. “The boys and I checked every nook and cranny in the mill.”
“Thank you, Hanover. I hope you all will be working on the estate this year until harvest starts, but until I know what’s going to happen I can’t make promises.”
He handed her into the buggy. “Don’t you worry, miss. We’ve talked it over and will stay as long as you need us. We owe your father that much.”
She drove homeward with warmth surrounding her heart. Her father had been a special man, not only to her, but to his employees. Whoever ended up with the mill would be wise to keep the same loyal men working it.
Halfway home she saw the dust trail of a rider heading her way, but it was minutes before she recognized Moore. Her heart thumped against her rib cage, keeping time with his loping horse. Letting go of the buggy lines with one hand, she placed it on her errant heart. Since when did the sight of Moore receive such a response? Since they’d watched the cranes dance with abandon.
But as the distance closed and she saw his expression, she knew his visit wasn’t due to a matter of the heart.
“What is it,” she called out, unable to keep silent.
He pulled up beside her, both he and his horse breathing heavily. “We need to find your father’s will.”
It wasn’t what she’d expected to hear. “But we looked everywhere.”
He set his horse to a walk beside the buggy. “Is there any place you haven’t checked? Somewhere he liked to go alone?”
“What’s this about?”
“It’s—” Pursing his lips, he shook his head. “It would make everything easier.”
He was hiding something. She could tell by the way he wasn’t catching her eye. “Have you heard from Winston?”
He looked away. “How’s the mill?”
So, he had heard from Winston and the news wasn’t good. Should she push him? No, because his lack of an answer meant he was second-guessing Winston and that could only be good for her and her staff.
“The mill’s closed for the season. We’ll open as soon as the harvest starts.” His look made her realize what she’d said. “Or someone will.”
He cocked his head as a bemused expression settled on his face.
Now that he was looking at her, she wondered why. Reaching up, she tucked a small batch of hair tendrils behind her ear and then tugged her wide-brimmed hat down over them to keep them in place.
“What are you doing, Mr. Moore?” She asked as her cheeks warmed.
“Looking. It appears you’ve been out in the sun too long.”
So much for preening. “I was out planting this morning.”
He threw her a sharp look. “You were?”
“Yes, the seedlings are safely in the ground.”
“You think they’re safer in the ground?” Something dark crossed his face.
“At least they have a fighting chance with the weather instead of being left to wither away in the conservatory.”
“You don’t know what you’ve done.”
She turned into the tree-lined drive to the house. “I know exactly what I’ve done, Mr. Moore. I have responsibilities, and I’m taking care of them before I leave.”
His face reddened. He shook his finger at her, his voice rising with each shake. “If you find the will, you won’t have to leave.”
“Quit shouting, Mr. Moore. Everyone in the county can hear you.” What was wrong with him? Didn’t he want her to leave? She sent him a furtive glance. Something had riled him to the extent he’d boiled over like an unwatched syrup tray. He thought she hadn’t searched everywhere for Father’s will when her whole life depended on its existence? Moore was the one who appeared to have been out in the sun too long.
As they approached the house, Jimmy ran out to take the buggy. “Shall I take your horse, Mr. Moore?”
“No, Jimmy, I won’t be staying.”
“Good-bye, Mr. Moore.” Amelia climbed the steps with the aid of the banister as soreness from the morning’s activity stiffened her muscles.
“Amelia,” Moore called after her.
Williams opened the door and then closed it after she’d entered.
“Amelia!”
She dragged herself to the stairs. “I’m done for the day, Williams. Please have a bath prepared and send someone up with my dinner.” Heaven help her, it may be the last ones ever in her childhood home.
Amelia!
Fire flicked toward Jeremy as he ran through the burning mansion. “Ame—”
The sound of his voice shattered the nightmare. He lay in bed with his pulse pounding in his ears as awareness of his hotel room returned. After several moments of reassurance that the nightmare had been a manifestation of his worry over Winston’s order, he swung his legs over the side of the bed and sat up.
Outside his window, the light gray sky heralded the dawn of a new day. What would it bring? The messenger carrying Winston’s response to his final plea to save the Robertson holdings from destruction had shown up as he’d eaten his dinner in the hotel dining room. He hadn’t possessed the courage to unfold the telegram at the table, and his appetite had fled with its arrival. Alone in his room, he’d read three little words.
YOU OWE ME.
Jeremy hung his head between his knees. It wasn’t the house and mill only that would be wasted, but all the plants in the conservatory. As memories of dancing cranes flooded back, he thought of farther-reaching consequences. If fire from the buildings started a wildfire across the grassland, where would the cranes dance? How many animals would lose their lives and habitats? How many human homes would the voracious flames devour?
No, he couldn’t do it.
Jeremy reached for his clothes. He had always believed that the law was the ultimate legal authority, and Winston had a right to his revenge as long as it was within that boundary. Yet he’d lagged in his duty to escort Amelia off the Robertson estate because it hadn’t been morally right. Winston’s destruction order served as the knife that cut Jeremy free of any remaining loyalty.
“Fire!” The voice ripped through the house like a lightning bolt.
Amelia paused brushing in midstroke. As the word sunk in, she threw her brush onto her bureau and ran to the door. Clutching her dressing gown closed, she sniffed the air, relieved that smoke wasn’t barreling through the house. At the balcony railing, she looked down to see Williams, Woodward, and Thornby in the foyer.
“Where’s the fire?”
They all looked up.
Thornby yanked his hat off his head. “We think it’s the mill. Hanover’s gone over. I’ve sent Jimmy to warn the neighbors. We’re heading over now.”
“The mill? But how—”
“We’ll see, miss. I’ll report when I can.”
He rushed out the door with Woodward right behind.
The mill? Her conversation with Hanover about the wood delivery popped into her head. Two woodsheds would throw off a big fire with a lot of heat. And with the dry spring they’d had and a good prairie breeze it wouldn’t take much for the fire to spread to the mill. Maybe farther.
She ran back into her room and across to her balcony door. Black smoke billowed against the early morning horizon. Nothing to indicate what was burn
ing, but the mill was the only large structure in that direction for miles. And they’d need every hand to fight it.
Minutes later, wearing her planting outfit, she strode past Williams in the foyer.
“Miss Amelia, where are you going?”
“To help, Williams. Have Mrs. Fielding and the girls prepare soup and sandwiches for a large crowd. Something that will be ready whenever the fire is out.” She whipped open the door.
“But, miss—”
She slammed the door behind her, cutting off his voice.
Down the steps she ran toward the stables. With a clear blue sky overhead, she knew it would take a miracle for rain to fall without the clouds.
At the drive shed she yelled out, “Anyone here?” When no one answered, she kept going until she entered the low light level of the stable. The stalls were empty, their doors open as if there hadn’t been time to close them. It didn’t matter—she’d walk all the way if that’s what it took. She turned back to the house.
“Miss Amelia!” Her youngest staff member, the twelve-year-old stable boy, appeared around the corner of the drive shed.
“Oh, Charlie, am I ever glad to see you.” She cast a critical eye on the old mule Charlie towed behind him. “I need a ride. Is he all that’s left?”
“Yes, miss. Jimmy chased the rest into the pasture, just in case, but Digs wouldn’t go.”
Thank the Lord for Digs. “We’ll take the wagon, then.”
While Charlie harnessed Digs, Amelia rounded up as many buckets as she could find and tossed them into the wagon.
Williams hailed them as they passed the house on their way out. Not wanting to hear more objections, she almost told Charlie to keep driving until she noticed the pile of blankets and jars of water stacked on the bottom step.
Soon they were off. Charlie coaxed Digs toward the fire until the mule balked and refused to move when they were still several hundred yards away.
“It’s all right, Charlie.” Amelia climbed to the ground. “Do your best to keep him quiet and we’ll come to you.” With her skirts clutched in one hand and carrying two blankets and buckets with her other arm, she headed toward a scene that was worse than she’d imagined.
A wall of dancing heat threatened to smother her as she approached the mill, where flames licked up the walls above broken windows and high ventilators. One man worked the pump above the well. Buckets of water were passed on down the line of eager hands until they were thrown against the mill wall. Amelia couldn’t tell if they were having an effect, but she prayed it was so.
As if they’d been the first to go, two piles of burning embers marred an area on one side of the building where the woodsheds had stood. On the other side of the mill, two men furiously pushed empty barrels off their stacks and rolled them into the newly planted field.
Hanover approached with his handkerchief in his hand. “The sheds were on fire when we arrived, so we put our effort into stopping it from spreading. Not sure how, but we didn’t notice the fire inside the mill until the glass started busting from the pressure.” He wiped the back of his neck. “The door was still padlocked, miss.”
Above the snapping of the flames, the timbers groaned under their crushing load.
“Run!” Hanover grabbed her arm and herded her back the way she’d come.
She ran toward Charlie as fast as her skirts would allow but couldn’t stop herself from craning her head around to see what was happening.
Barrels littered the area as Hanover’s men scrambled into the field.
Chunks of burning debris flew in all directions as the mill caved into itself with a horrendous crash, leaving blackened timbers with burning ends jutting out at strange angles like dropped cigars.
“Amelia?”
Moore’s emotion-filled voice was like a steadying hand on her arm—until her sanity returned. Of course he had a legal right to be there.
“Amelia, what happened?” His voice sounded strangled, as if trying to keep his anger under tight control.
Did he think she started the fire to keep Winston from inheriting Father’s accomplishment? She crossed her arms. “I don’t know what happened. Hanover said the fire was going when he got here and the door was still locked.”
“Fire!” A shout from one of the field hands rippled through the workers.
“Look!” Hanover pointed to the northwest.
A plume of gray smoke rose toward the blue sky, close to the area they’d watched the cranes dance.
Moore sucked in a sharp breath. “What’s over there?”
“Pasture up to the woods that border the estate.” She judged the distance between the two fires. “I don’t understand how it got there. It couldn’t have been lightning. There wasn’t a storm last night.” She backed away. “I have to see.”
Hanover shouted an order to the workers. Several of them left the bucket brigade and ran toward the wagon, only stopping long enough to pick up shovels. “The mill’s gone, miss,” Hanover said as he wiped his neck. “Take the men. I’ll meet you there as soon as I can.”
The wildfire skipped from treetop to treetop, dropping burning limbs which started smaller fires in the dry underbrush. What had been a plume of gray smoke when they first spotted it had turned into a billowing mass as the flames spread through the woods, consuming everything in its path. Across the razed land, black poles stood as sentinels on the ash-spewn ground—black and gray, nothing green.
Thornby shook his head. “I’m sorry, miss, there’s nothing to be done.”
“How long do you think it’ll burn?” Her worries turned to the few neighbors who lived near this part of the estate.
“Until it hits the river,” Thornby said. “It’ll miss the farms unless the wind changes.”
“I didn’t hear a storm last night.” Moore picked up a twig and then bent it. Snap. “Don’t you need a storm for a lightning strike?”
Amelia eyed him. “Yes, you do. But if someone was bent on revenge, all they would need is a match after the spring we’ve had.”
He looked away.
She wondered if the idea hadn’t crossed his mind and then immediately regretted it. She hadn’t eaten anything yet, and the lack of nourishment made her crabby. “Thornby, I’m going back to the house. Stay with the fire, and let me know if it changes direction. I’ll send someone out with refreshments.”
As they left the woods behind and headed across the fields, it took a moment to recognize the black smoke curdling up from the area of the house. “No!”
Startled, Digs reared. His brazen hee-haw filled her ears as if he, too, felt the unfolding horror.
She grabbed the lines from Charlie and slapped them down against the board. “Yaw!”
Digs sprang off so fast they lost a bucket or two. She didn’t care. She raced homeward with her heart in her throat. Why, God, why?
“I don’t understand.” Amelia stared at the charred wreckage of her home. “Who would do this to me? To us?” She gestured to Mrs. Fielding and the members of her small staff who sat on the old well cover as if in a stupor.
“Only a madman, Amelia.” Jeremy walked up to her carrying his coat, which he’d shed when they first arrived. Tucking it under his arm, he unrolled his long sleeves.
“Let me take that.” She reached for his coat so he could perform the task easier. As he handed it to her, a sheet of paper slipped out. She grabbed for it.
It caught the wind and opened as it fell.
“No, wait.” He reached down and picked it up—but not before she read the six incriminating words.
Chapter 8
You.” She jerked away from him. “You started the fires?”
“No, not me. I—” He floundered for words. “It was Winston.” How could he explain that he hadn’t even considered carrying out Winston’s diabolical conflagration?
“You work for Winston!” She pushed her fists straight down her sides as if to keep them under her tight control. “First you set fire to the mill. And while we were wor
king on that, you started the woods on fire.”
“No, it wasn’t me. He ordered me to do it, but I refused.”
“How could you do it? Why you? Or did you have help? Oh.” Closing her eyes, she shook her head as if she hadn’t heard him.
He opened his mouth to lay more protestations at her feet when he realized there wasn’t anything he could say when she’d read the proof of his misdeeds with her own eyes. Or at least the proof of what appeared to be his crime.
“Please leave, Mr. Moore. I need to see to the comfort of my staff.”
He raised his hands to stop her from walking toward the smoldering, burned-out shell of her home and then dropped them by his side. She needed to be surrounded by people who cared for her. Although his arms ached to hold her as her staff were doing, he needed to clear his name before he could ever hope to receive any sort of affection in return.
But if he didn’t start the fires, who did?
Amelia had felt abandoned at being forced to leave her home to a man who didn’t deserve it, yet she would have given it willingly if it would have saved her beautiful home from devastation. Everything made of wood had burned away, both inside and out, on the sides and back of the house only. Due to the wind, the garden, the lawn, and the trees lining the drive were untouched, creating an eerie contrast between the past and present.
Scorched brick walls stood as a testament to their strength, while other walls lay in rubble among the charred timbers that had held the flammable roof in place. Here and there wisps of smoke rose from dying embers turning into ash.
At the corner of her eye the conservatory stood with blackened glass. She’d studiously ignored it, unable to face the disaster within, but she had to see for herself. To remember this day and all that she’d lost.
She trudged along the familiar walk, eyes shimmering at the darkness within the glass building. She hoped the moisture in the structure and inside the green wooded plants had saved them, but at the door she gasped. Instead of greenery and brown limbs, drooping black stalks crowded together in misery. Mounds of ash where wicker had stood. Her potting table a pile of rubble with botany instruments poking up proving they were there.
The American Heiress Brides Collection Page 26