Love Inspired Historical March 2014 Bundle: Winning Over the Wrangler\Wolf Creek Homecoming\A Bride for the Baron\The Guardian's Promise (56 page)

Lord, I will need Your guidance and assistance on this path I never expected to walk as a peer. Help my aunt understand that I want no less than what Northbridge and Bradby have found, and help me make the right decision if the time comes that such a love touches my heart.

A sense of peace filled him, and he realized he had been running around too much of late—often to avoid his matchmaking aunt—and he had not stopped to make a connection with God.

He walked to where Miss Fenwick stood to one side as two teams of oxen pulled down the last wall of the vicarage. Men scooped up the scorched flint with wide shovels or with their bare hands. The pieces were tossed into the back of a cart. When it was full, a team of horses drew it to where they could drop the stones into the cellar of the former church. The plan was to pack soil on top until there was no sign of where the church had once stood.

Several hundred yards away, more teams arrived with supplies from Whitby. After discussing the delivery with the merchants in the city north of Sanctuary Bay, it was decided that the slower overland route would be easier than bringing the lumber and stone up the steep streets of the village.

Edmund watched Miss Fenwick's face closely. It was one thing to know that the vicarage was being torn down. It was quite another thing to witness it. The flint cottage had been her home for ten years. He could not help wondering what thoughts filled her mind.

As if he had said that aloud, she mused, “I was thinking...”

“Thinking what?” he asked.

She looked at him. Her eyes were not filled with tears. Instead, the sturdy resolve that he admired burned in them. “It is a shame that all the stone from the vicarage is being dumped into the cellar. If several layers of the stone were laid along the walls in the new cellar, it might keep the smugglers from finding an easy route into our church as they did before.”

“That is an excellent idea,” he said, wondering why neither he nor the men working on the site had considered that. He had been so focused on making sure the old church's cellar did not collapse farther and jeopardize the graves closest to it that he had given no thought to protecting the new one from the smugglers. “Come with me.”

“Where?”

“To count off the perimeter of the new church, so I can calculate the necessary amount of stone to line it thickly enough.”

They went to where the foundation of the new church had been begun. The whole area was marked with pieces of wood and rope from fishing nets. Most of the brown grass had been stripped away, and in a few places, holes had been dug down a few feet. As he walked off the length of the sides, she kept track of the numbers. She gave him the total when he was finished, and he was not surprised that she had also added in the height of the future cellar.

“Assuming the cellar will be eight feet deep as the old one was,” she added.

“That is a good assumption. Good enough for setting aside several runs of stone to make it more difficult for anyone to get through the walls.” He excused himself and sought out Sims, who was in charge of the demolition of the vicarage.

Sims listened to Edmund's explanation, then said, “An excellent idea, m'lord. I am glad you thought of it because it will save us time in the long run.”

“It is not my idea. Miss Fenwick came up with it.”

Sims frowned. “'Tis a shame.”

“That she had such a good idea?” he asked, baffled.

“No, but that a nice lady like Miss Fenwick has to have such thoughts in her pretty head. Riles me that the vicar's sister cannot think, as she should, only about keeping his house and the church clean and food on his table.”

Edmund nodded, though he suspected she would be annoyed at Sims's comments. Any woman who could design a church with such skill and was able to find solutions to problems others had not even thought about must have done more for the parish than keep the church tidy. He was curious why she kept that fact to herself.

A shout came from closer to the cliffs where the wooden debris from the ruined church had been gathered. A flame flared among the charred rafters and floor joists, then almost died before leaping back to life. The breeze off the sea caught the flame and set it dancing. With each twist, it scattered more fire across the debris. The beams that had soaked up the brandy flared even more brightly.

Everyone watched the fire burn, but his eyes focused on Miss Fenwick who remained by the rope that marked the new foundation. Her face was composed; yet she must be sad to see all her brother's hard work being consumed by the flames.

Not only her brother's, but hers. Edmund was more sure of that all the time. Since the vicar had left Sanctuary Bay to confer with the bishop, Miss Fenwick had handled his work with a quiet and easy efficiency that bespoke much practice.

Drawn to her because she looked alone and yet brave, he gave her a sympathetic smile. Strands of ebony hair blew around her face, emphasizing the gentle planes that belied her inner strength.

“I would have insisted,” he said, “that you remain at Meriweather Hall if I had known they intended to start burning the debris today.”

“I know it has to be done,” she said, “before our new church can rise like a phoenix from the ashes of the old one.” She turned her back on the pyre and gazed across the cliffs toward the village. The red-and-gray roof tiles marked the uppermost houses along the steep street. “In a few years, all that will be left are our memories of these difficult days. We will be in our new church and the first weddings will have been celebrated and the first babies will have been baptized. Then we can look back and be relieved....” She glanced over her shoulder at him. “We shall be relieved that this time is past.”

He chuckled under his breath. “I thought you were going to say something else.”

“About how we grow stronger while overcoming challenges?” She shook her head. “If that were so, everyone returning from the war would be superior to the rest of us mere mortals.”

“That definitely proves the inaccuracy of that adage.”

“I am not so sure of that. You and Lord Northbridge and Mr. Bradby possess a strength that is admirable. You may have had it before you went to the Continent, but Sanctuary Bay is better for having you come here, my lord.”

Her quiet praise, praise he knew he did not deserve, eased a few of the bands around his heart. Those strictures had tightened each time he was faced with a decision and could not make it. He wanted to believe that she saw something in him that he had failed to see himself. Maybe he was fooling himself again as he had when he had believed Lady Eloisa loved him, but he yearned to lose himself in the delusion while he stood beside Miss Fenwick.

“I don't know how to respond to that,” he said with all honesty, “but I do know, as we are working together on this project to rebuild the church, it seems it might be simpler for you to call me Edmund.”

He had shocked her, he could tell, because her eyes widened as she said, “Simpler, but not proper.”

“Are you always the vicar's proper sister? My cousin mentioned once that you and she had a few adventures that turned heads.”

She laughed. “Cat must have been talking about the time we dared each other to jump our horses over a low hedgerow. Neither of us stopped to ask ourselves if the horses we were riding had been trained to take a hedge.”

“And they had not been?”

“No, and worse, the beasts were so insulted by the very idea that we would ask that of them that once they tossed us over their heads, they refused to let us remount.” She laughed again. “It was a long walk back to Meriweather Hall with the bumps and scratches and bruises we received as a reward for our silliness.”

“So if you could be silly then, can you be silly now and use my given name?” He grinned. “That did not come out as I meant it to.”

“I know what you intended to say. All right. I will address you as Edmund.”

“And may I use your given name?”

“Of course. The only thing more inappropriate than me calling you by your first name is for me to do so and you to continue to speak to me as ‘Miss Fenwick.'”

He folded his arms in front of him as he watched sparks climb from the fire and flit like daylight fireflies on the sea wind. “Then that is settled. Would you settle something else for me?”

“If I can.”

“Will you tell me now how and why I upset you before my aunt came into the billiards room?”

She opened her mouth, then closed it. Finally, she said, “Truly, my lord—”

“Edmund.”

Nodding, she said, “Edmund, it is only me reacting to nothing. I have not been myself since learning about the fire at the church.”

“I can understand that. I have not been myself for longer than I care to admit.” His hands clenched in frustration at his side when deeper dismay flickered through her eyes. Now he had upset her by letting her know how his own words picked at the new scab over his war memories. “Forgive me. I should not have said something that makes you uncomfortable.”

“I am uncomfortable only because I was unsure how to respond.”

“You could have answered like my aunt and told me to do my duty and stop acting foolish.”

Vera smiled. “I believe one woman giving you that scold is enough.”

“Have I told you that you are, without question, a brilliant woman?”

“I don't recall you saying that.”

He savored her light tone that floated like the sparks did. Being with her lifted the burden of his own flaws from his heart. For a single moment, but when he was with her, chatting easily as they were now, he could breathe deeply and relish each bit of air he drew in.

“I must,” he said, “correct that oversight.”

“If you fail to, I'm sure your aunt will point out your error.”

His laugh exploded from him, and heads turned to discover what he found funny in the midst of the disaster the whole parish had suffered. Seeing Vera's eyes alight with amusement, he offered his arm. She put her hand on it, and he led her away from where the men were returning to their tasks.

They walked toward the cliffs where they would have a good view of the narrow beach at the base of the village that hugged the sheer wall. Upwind from the fire, the air was fresh and tasted of salt and recently caught fish.

He heard a shout and looked back to see Sims directing the few workers he had. “It is clear that we need more workers than can be spared from the estate farms and the village. With planting soon to start, even fewer men will be available to work here. I have already sent word to Whitby and Scarborough that there is a fair wage to be paid for hard work here on the church.”

“You should get plenty of interested men,” she said, becoming as somber as he was. “Many former soldiers have come home to discover there is no work for them.”

He nodded. “And if there are not enough volunteers looking for work, I will look for more elsewhere.”

“Where?”

“Both Sir Nigel and Ashland have expressed their desire to offer assistance. If I contact them, they might have some men they could spare on occasion.”

Her eyes flashed. “Have you lost your mind?”

He struggled not to bristle at her vexed question. “Not that I am aware of, but it would seem that you have a differing opinion.”

“Lord—”

“Edmund,” he corrected in a sharper tone than he intended to use.

It did not matter, because she was now furious and made no effort to conceal it. Her eyes snapped with anger.

“Of course, I have a differing opinion,” she said. “Asking either man for help could be playing right into your enemies' hands. If one of them is leading the smugglers, as we believe, any man he sends from his estate to help may be a criminal.” She stamped her foot against the ground in her frustration. “Don't you see the truth, Edmund? How could we trust them to rebuild the church and not create a place for the smugglers to stash their illicit goods in it? If—”

Her voice rose in a cry as her hand slipped off his arm. Her arms flew into the air in the moment before she vanished into the earth.

Chapter Seven

E
dmund leaped to grab Vera's hands. His fingers missed hers by inches. He stepped back when the ground started to slip beneath him. Was the whole top of the cliff ready to give? If the earth collapsed more, it could bury her alive.

He heard running feet. The men must have heard her scream.

“Stay back,” he ordered. “The ground isn't stable.”

“Where is Miss Fenwick?” someone shouted.

“Down there.” He pointed to the hole where dirt continued to trickle from its edges.

Sims yelled, “Get some timbers out of the fire. We're going to need them to shore up the ground so we can get her out.”

“No time.” Edmund dropped to his stomach and pushed himself forward with his toes. The buttons on his waistcoat caught, but he kept moving cautiously toward the hole. One of the buttons pinged as if it had been shot from a pistol.

He sensed rather than heard someone behind him. Sims ordered whoever it was back. A low murmur of prayer came from the men.

Edmund concentrated on inching across the grass without disturbing the ground beneath him. When he was able to stretch out his hands and touch the edge of the hole, he shouted Vera's name.

A faint answer came from below the ground. She was alive!

“We are going to get you out!” he called back.

“Hurry! Hurry, please!” she shouted back, but paused between each word as if fighting for breath.

That spurred him forward. He heard her cry out as more dirt and small stones tumbled down.

“Go back!” she cried. “Get some of boards from the wagons. If you lay them on the ground, you may be able to get close enough so you can reach in and pull me up without bringing everything down on me.”

He looked over his shoulder and repeated her orders. The men scrambled to obey. Only Sims remained by Edmund's feet. The man pulled off his coat and tossed it aside, then bent to yank off his boots.

“What are you doing?” Edmund asked, inching back and getting to his feet.

“I am the smallest and lightest,” Sims answered. “I have the best chance of reaching her.”

“You're right.” He clapped the shorter man on the shoulder. “Good idea.”

Edmund helped the men lay the wooden planks on the ground. He winced each time another clod fell into the gap. When Sims asked for someone to hold on to his legs, so if the ground gave out, he would not tumble on top of Vera, Edmund grasped one of his legs while a muscular man whose name he could not remember took the other as Sims crawled on his belly.

Edmund held his breath as Sims edged to the hole. When the man leaned over it, Edmund strained for any sound to reassure him that she was all right.

“Rope!” Sims called over his shoulder. “I need some rope to get her out. Dirt is filling in around her. She can't move.”

Edmund looked toward the delivery wagons. The pieces of rope there were too short. “The rope marking the new foundation!”

Two men followed him as he raced across the cliff. He hoped none of them fell into another section of what had to have been the smugglers' tunnel. Unlashing the rope from a stick, he wound it around his arm. The men tore other sticks out and loosened the rope. A length of it trailed behind him as he ran back to where Sims had not moved. He tossed one end of the rope to the prone man. Sims lowered it with care into the hole.

Edmund motioned to the largest man. When the man came over, Edmund ordered him to tie the rope around his waist. He did and planted his feet while Edmund and several other men grabbed the rope, ready to pull when Sims gave the signal. Edmund tried to look toward the hole, but his view was blocked by the backs of the men in front of him.

“Steady,” Sims called back before asking, “Miss Fenwick, can you get it tied around your waist?”

Edmund did not hear her answer, and his heart faltered.
God, keep her safe. Keep her safe. Please, keep her safe.

The prayer kept repeating through his head as Sims yelled, “Pull. Slowly. Stop if I tell you to.”

The rope grew taut in Edmund's hands as he and the other men edged back. A weight, greater than Vera's, warned that the dirt had clamped around her when she had fallen in. Maybe stones, as well. He tried not to think of how she might be crushed within the debris.

“Keep it up, lads,” Sims bellowed. “She's coming loose. Slowly, slowly.”

Edmund focused on moving his feet. Back on the ball of one foot, then down on his heel. Back with the other foot. Over and over.

Shouts raced along the line, Edmund ran to where Sims struggled to assist Vera out of the hole. Edmund grasped her under the arms and lifted her out. The dirt released her reluctantly; then she was free. He pulled her back. Sims jumped aside as the hole widened another yard.

“Are you hurt?” Edmund asked as he set her on her feet. When she winced, he scooped her up in his arms.

“My right knee,” Vera replied with another grimace. “I twisted it when I fell. I guess this will teach me to hold on to my temper, won't it?”

He knew that, if she could make a joke, she was not hurt badly. But he did not feel like jesting. After giving her a chance to thank the men who had assisted in her rescue, he carried her to the carriage. Griffin, the coachman, rushed past them and opened the door so Vera could be placed on the seat.

Edmund stepped in and closed the door. The carriage jostled when Griffin climbed into the box. Seconds later, they lurched into motion.

Beside him, Vera made a soft sound halfway between a sigh of relief and a moan. When he asked her if she was in pain, she murmured, “Other than my knee, no.”

“Thank God for that.”

“Yes, thank God.” She closed her eyes for a moment, and he had to wonder if her prayers of gratitude echoed his. She opened them and met his with her uncompromising gaze. “But no thanks to the smugglers.” She leaned her head back against the seat and his arm that he had draped along it. “I saw broken timbers. Recently broken ones. I landed on a heap of stones, and the cavity was closed in both directions. I think I had the misfortune to stamp my foot on the one spot they failed to fill in before they set fire to the church.” Her bonnet creaked against his arm as she turned her head toward him. “Thank you for saving me.”

As he gazed down into her soft eyes and the faint smile on her lips that looked even softer, he could not imagine not being truthful. “I was only one of many who pulled you out.”

“But you were the first one to try to reach me, and you directed the men.”

“Following your commands.” He looped a strand of her hair over his finger and tucked it behind her ear. His fingers splayed across her silken cheek.

She breathed out something that might have been his name, but he heard only an invitation to kiss her. As he leaned in closer, she flinched as his knee brushed her injured one.

He pulled back but kept his arm beneath her nape. What a bacon-brain he was! Kissing her was the first decision he had made in almost a year, and it was as half-witted as his last one.

“I am all right,” she whispered.

She had no idea the course of his thoughts, and, for that, he was grateful. Telling her that her knee would be tended to as soon as they reached Meriweather Hall, he watched her eyes close. He looked out the window at the unending sea, wishing he knew how to heal the invisible wound he had brought home from the war.

* * *

Being bored was worse than being too busy. Vera sat in a chair with her foot propped on a high stool. Mrs. Uppington and Lady Meriweather had been insistent that she stay off her leg. That had been fine for the first thirty-six hours when her knee hurt. In the past two days, the pain had diminished to almost nothing. She had tried explaining that to both women, and both women had given her the same answer. Such an injury required her to remain off her feet for a week.

By that time, she would lose her mind. She had read two novels and paged through several other books. She knew little about needlework other than mending. There was none of that because her clothes were either new or borrowed. The same for Gregory.

Not that he had returned to Sanctuary Bay. She looked at the letter that had been delivered an hour ago. It had been simple and to the point. He had a meeting arranged with the bishop, but not until next week. Many Lenten responsibilities were occupying the bishop. Gregory stated that she should be hearing from a pastor from Scarborough who, though retired, was willing to come north to Sanctuary Bay for Sunday services until Gregory returned.

“But where will we hold those services?” she asked aloud.

After the most recent
al fresco
service led by Mr. Hamilton, who had shivered so hard that none of the words she had written for him had been understandable, several parishioners had implored her to ask her brother to find a place indoors.

“Excuse me? What did you say?” asked Lord Meriweather as he came into the small parlor.

No, she needed to think of him as Edmund, as he had requested.

Maybe it would have been easier if he had not torn down that wall of formality. He had said nothing about their ride back to Meriweather Hall, but she could not forget the expression on his face as his hand had curled around her shoulder and his mouth had lowered toward hers. If he had not bumped her knee, would he have kissed her?

She would have been a willing participant to a kiss, but she must not let it happen again. That was how the trouble began. Nolan Hedgcoe had teased her into giving him a kiss, and she had believed it was because he was in love with her. What else was a naive girl of fifteen to think? She could not have imagined he was luring her into lying for him while he spent time with a woman his father had forbidden him to see. If she had been honest then, he might not have ended up fighting a duel and dying from his wounds.

“Vera?”

“Forgive me,” she said, looking up at him for the first time.

He must have been outside because grass was stuck on his boots. His hair was damp and twisted on his forehead by the wind, and she thought of her fingers combing his hair back into place.

“For what?” He smiled while he crossed the room and folded his arms on the back of a chair facing where she sat.

“For being so lost in thought that I started talking to myself.”

“I recall someone stating that talking to oneself proves that person is ready to be banished to Bedlam.” He glanced at the letter she held. “I trust that contains good tidings.”

“Geoffrey is delayed because he will not be speaking with the bishop until next week.” She folded the letter and put it beneath her glass of water on the table beside her chair. “He is sending a substitute for the service on Sunday, but the man is coming from Scarborough. I worry that few people will be willing to stand in the cold again.”

“I might have a solution.”

“Really?” Excited, she stood. A tiny twinge came from her right knee, but nothing more.

“Vera, shouldn't you remain sitting?” Concern darkened his eyes.

“Not you, too. Between your aunt and Lady Meriweather, you would think I am too feeble to do anything.” She stepped carefully around the stool. “I am better, but they won't listen to me.”

“I had thought Lady Meriweather would.”

When his lips twitched, she rolled her eyes. “She is being as stubborn as your aunt.” She did not pause before she asked, “What is your solution for the problem of having no church?”

“I was going to tell you, but now I think I will show you.” He offered his arm.

She put her hand on his sleeve. Trying to pretend she did not like being near him was silly. Maybe the past two days had been boring and bleak because Edmund had been busy. The only time they had had together was during the evening meal, and his aunt had kept her from joining in the conversation by asking Miss Kightly a question each time Vera had opened her mouth.

As he led her out of the room, he made her promise to tell him the moment the journey became too much for her. Her knee would have to hurt as much as it had when they had pulled her out of the collapsed tunnel before she would call for a halt. It was too wonderful to escape from the chair in the small parlor.

“Has the hole been filled in?” she asked.

“Yes, but not before we examined it.”

“Someone went down in it?”

He shook his head. “No, but we lowered a torch so we could see the broken timbers better. They looked like the ones in the cellar of the old church. I have told the men to be on their guard. If they feel the ground shifting beneath them, they should flee as fast as they can.”

Vera let him change the subject to the progress on the new church. Now that the old cellar had been filled, the new one was being dug. It was slow work, because they had found a lot of stones that had to be lifted up and out. That was actually good news because it meant the smugglers had not dug underground in that area.

Edmund led her slowly along the hallway where they had worked together designing the church. He walked past his sanctuary, where the door was closed, and to the end of the corridor.

The door there was shut, as well. It was different from the other ones in the corridor, far older and a single panel of oak. The tree it had been hewn from must have been huge. No trees of that size grew around Sanctuary Bay any longer because they had been harvested to build ships.

“I was thinking we could use this for Sunday services until the new church is finished.” He opened the door and stepped back to let her enter.

What she saw almost made her knees buckle beneath her. Not from pain, but from joy. The chamber was half the size of Meriweather Hall's dining room, but the ceiling soared more than forty feet above her head. The red-and-black floor tiles were hidden beneath deep dust and had been disturbed by only a few footprints. Simple benches were set in two rows, facing the simple pulpit. The sounding board leaned against the pulpit. Paint was peeling on the benches as well as the eagle lectern that had been made from black walnut. One wing was missing, and its beak broken, but it still gazed heavenward. A gallery was set high on the back wall. Its narrow stairs tilted away from the wall, and several steps were broken or missing.