Tomorrow's Treasure by Linda Lee Chaikin

upward, but the trees were thick, and the dark sky was blotted out. “It’s soon to pour.”
    Derwent took a few steps and tested his ankles. “Good as can be. We best dash for it. Say—what happened to those leaves for Mrs. Havering?”
    For some reason, Evy did not tell him about the stranger she had met. “The wind blew them all away.”
    She hurried through Grimston Wood, and Derwent struggled to keep up, loaded as he was with his bag of kindling.
    Evy called over her shoulder: “As for being an explorer … Curate Brown will be unhappy if he thinks you’re not going to follow his steps in life.”
    â€œAye.”
    â€œYou are to be a curate just like he. Sons always follow in their father’s steps.” She paused to let him rest a moment and catch his breath. “Your future waits here in Grimston Way.”
    â€œAye, and yours, too, I’m thinking.”
    Evy thought of the gentleman who had spoken to her. Who could he have been? Had he been staying at Rookswood?
    More lightning streaked across the darkening sky, prodding them onward.
    Thick fir trees hugged the side of the road as they emerged from the woods. She could look up the road and glimpse the big stone gates leading onto Rookswood, so named because of the many black rooks that nested in the nearby wood and made such a fuss in the spring with their cawing.
    Rookswood, prominent on the hill overlooking the village of Grimston Way, was even more mysterious and interesting to her now that the stranger had spoken to her and asked her if she wished to visit. Somehow the mere question gave her the exciting sensation of beingconnected to that huge gray-stone mansion and its forbidden halls. At least, she secretly liked to imagine such things, even though she was not likely ever to be invited there.
    Cold splashes of rain from the roiling dark sky splashed on Evy’s face, shaking her from her daydreaming. She turned away from the mansion and started down the road toward the rectory.
    Derwent switched the heavy load to his other shoulder and followed behind. “Your folks were saints all right, Miss Evy, and important ones too, dying the way they did in Zululand years ago, but most folks in Grimston Way agree that no one is as important as Squire and his family.”
    It was rather a blow for her to hear that it was not her martyred parents who filled the good villagers with admiration, but the local squire, Sir Lyle. Well, she knew far better. No matter how she might hold the squire in respect as master of the village, the ofttimes arrogant Chantrys could not compare with Dr. Clyde and Junia Varley.
    â€œI do not believe you, Derwent Brown! Why, my parents’ photograph hangs in the rectory hall. Aunt Grace says I look just like my mum.” She threw him a glance. “I do not see Squire’s photograph there.”
    â€œShe said that? I don’t see it, myself. If you don’t mind my saying so, your hair is—er, prettier. Goldenlike. Your mum’s is black, like your aunt’s.”
    Evy stopped on the road and turned to face him.
    â€œSo? My hair will turn darker when I get older. What are you trying to say, Derwent Brown?”
    His eyes widened. “Say? Why, nothing Miss Evy. Nothing at all. Just that I think you’re prettier—but I wasn’t suggesting—” He stopped, red filling his freckled cheeks.
    The rain splashed cold and startling against her face. The gusts of wind whipped at her hooded cape as a nameless fear suddenly whipped at her heart. Evy turned and ran down the road toward the village green.
    Fancy his saying she did not look like her mum’s photograph. Her father had light hair didn’t he? Of course he did. The photographshowed that he did. And she’d wager his eyes were like hers too, amber with flecks of jade green. Derwent could be so exasperating at times.
    Perhaps Rogan Chantry was right after all.