Serena

“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.”