Page 103 of To Treasure an Heiress
At the wave of her hand, Mr. Pepper and a few other local chaps hurried forward from where they’d been clustered at the line where grass met sand, obviously happy to stay out of the cross fire until they were called upon. He pivoted to watch them join Telford and the others haul the now-wrapped chest away from the site.
He couldn’t help but grin anew. Probably felt like a kick in the nose to the Scofields.
And it served them right. Turnabout, and all that.
In all the times Senara had come to St. Nicholas’s and sat in the pew her family had occupied for generations, she’d never had cause to poke about inthispart of the church. And it only took a few seconds for her sense of discomfort to outweigh her curiosity. This was the vicar’s domain back here in this room, not a mere parishioner’s.Even if said parishioner was with said vicar’s grandmother. “Mrs. Tremayne, are you quite certain—”
“No need to fret, Senara dear.” Mrs. Tremayne chuckled and padded over to an enormous cupboard. It had scrollwork on its heavy wooden doors and a Latin inscription that she had no desire to try to translate just now. A cupboard so ornate and fine must hold something truly holy. The sacraments or vestments or illuminated manuscripts from the twelfth century or...
Nothing. The shelves within, she saw when her aged companion pulled open the doors, were completely bare. Senara frowned. “What goes in there?”
“It’s where the parish records have always been kept. But I think it will do quite nicely for our new purpose. Quite nicely indeed. Have you the measuring tape, dearover?”
Senara reached into her pocket for the soft tape she’d pulled from her mending basket. She still wasn’t certain what their “new purpose” was, but when Mrs. Tremayne took your hand from the porridge pot and asked you to come with her, you went. Even when she led you out into the morning street, up the road into the village, and through the back door of the island’s single church.
She handed the tape to her companion, who immediately unrolled it and began measuring the interior dimensions of the cupboard. Her mutters of “Ah, good, good” did nothing to elucidate the situation.
“Mrs. Tremayne, what exactly are we doing?”
The lady turned to face her with an impish smile on her face but that troubling, clouded look to her eyes. “They’ll need a place to stow it where no one will think to look for it. And I couldn’t come up with a less likely place for pirate treasure than this. Can you?”
Pirate treasure? Senara sighed and tried to muster a small, placating smile. “But, madame, we don’t even know that they’ll find anything.”
To be perfectly honest, she had her doubts they would. Though even so, she’d lain awake half the night regretting her decision tostay on Tresco rather than go with them to dig. At the time it had seemed wise—they didn’t need one more set of hands, after all, but theywouldneed food taken to them, given their unwillingness to wait yesterday for Mam to pack them enough, and she could easily help with that. But she rather regretted giving up the chance to see Ainsley with a shovel in his hands. Perhaps when she took them breakfast on theNaiad, she’d get a glimpse.
Or so had been her thought before Mamm-wynn apprehended her.
“They will. And I’m quite satisfied with the depth of this cupboard. We should be able to stack some records in front of it, even.” Mrs. Tremayne held out a hand to Senara.
Senara assisted her to her feet. “But—”
“We’d better rouse Mark and Prue to help us cart the record books back up here. We’re running a bit short on time. These old legs don’t move quite as quickly as they once did.”
Senara opened her mouth, ready to object to the idea of rousing Oliver’s uncle, now retired, from the vicarage next door. But there was no point. Despite her claims of feebleness, Mrs. Tremayne was already striding out of the room and toward the back door again, and it was only a few steps after that to Mark and Prue’s door. Senara had little choice but to keep up.
Mrs. Tremayne didn’t bother herself with long explanations. She merely greeted Prue with “Come, then, both of you. Chop-chop.”
Though Prue sent Senara a mystified look, she didn’t argue. Just called out over her shoulder, “Mark! Mamm-wynn needs us.”
And so, the four of them hurried back down the hill and into the Tremaynes’ garden. Tas was tending the roses but looked up when he heard them.
Mrs. Tremayne smiled at him. “The cart please, dear. For the record books. Time to return them.”
Senara’s father nodded and set down his pruning shears.
Nobody, it seemed, questioned Adelle Tremayne when she began giving orders, which made Senara feel a bit less silly for not doingso herself. And Ollie and Beth wouldn’t dare to sputter and spout any objections to them moving all their research materials back to the church, given that it was on the matriarch’s command.
By the time they’d finished loading Tas’s handcart with all the record books, Senara was perspiring from the constant hefting, hurrying, and stacking under the August sun. Then there was the hike back to the church, and the second round of hefting, hurrying, and stacking—though Mrs. Tremayne insisted on being the sole one to organize the books as she put them back in the cupboard.
Not like Ollie and Mark before him had kept them, no doubt. She started by instructing Tas to move the center shelf up a few inches, which required a few tools and a lovely fifteen-minute reprieve. Then she filled the space only around the edges and on the upper shelf, leaving a gaping hole in the middle.
“There,” she pronounced at last, dusting her arthritic hands off on her dress. “That should fit it, I’d think. And just in the nick of time too.”
Senara couldn’t say what was so timely about it, but her stomach was reminding her that she hadn’t taken time to eat any breakfast after helping Mam cook it. She was happy to follow Mrs. Tremayne back out of the room and into the sunshine.
“Mamm-wynn? Mrs. Dawe met us at the door of the house and said you told us to come here.”
Senara was still blinking her vision back into focus in the bright sunlight when Beth’s voice drew her face to the right.
