Chapter 124

Ashes drifted across the fields like snow. The sight was eerie in the middle of a sunny English afternoon. The ruins of his tenant farmer's home were nothing more than blackened cinders and smoldering beams. It cast a strange contrast to the bright flowers in the field nearby and the contented bleating of sheep that dotted the roadside. A watchful sheepdog sat with them, his tail wagging in the dust. Several village children peered over the top of a waist-high stone fence along one side of the road, staring bleakly at the place that had once been someone's home.

Ashton rolled up the sleeves of his shirt and loosened his cravat as he studied the ruins.

"How did the fire start, Mr. Higgins?"

The farmer stared in bleak anguish at the destroyed remains of his home.

"I don't rightly know, my lord." The man scrubbed at his eyes as though to hide any evidence of fresh tears. The Higgins family had lived on this land and in that house for seventy-five years. And now it was gone. Mr. Maple