Uncovered in Merriweather, page 1
Contents
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Chapter Twenty-seven
Author's Note
The Henrietta And Inspector Howard Series
Buy Direct from Me
Acknowledgments
Author Bio
Landmarks
Contents
Start of Content
Cover
Copyright © 2025 Michelle Cox
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law. For permission requests, contact Woolton Press at WooltonPress@gmail.com.
The story, all names, characters, and incidents portrayed in this production are fictitious.No identification with actual persons (living or deceased), places, buildings, and products is intended or should be inferred.
Published: 2025
Printed in the United States of America
Print ISBN: 979-8-9987571-1-2
E-ISBN: 979-8-9987571-0-5
Library of Congress Control Number: 2025909277
For more information, address:
Woolton Press
285 N. Cambridge Ct.
Grayslake, Il. 60030
Second Edition
Dedication (posthumous)
Peter Nicholas Bonnet (1839–1926)
and Mary Catharine Luis (1853–1919)
. . . the first of us.
Other books by Michelle Cox
The Henrietta and Inspector Howard series:
A Girl Like You
A Ring of Truth
A Promise Given
A Veil Removed
A Child Lost
A Spying Eye
A Haunting at Linley
A Christmas at Highbury
Stand-alone novels:
The Fallen Woman’s Daughter
The Merriweather series:
Matched in Merriweather
Uncovered in Merriweather
There it was again. A cry. Edmund perked his ears. Yes, it was definitely a cry, but of what? It was almost like the meow of a kitten, which delighted him. Though he was only seven, he was particularly good at finding batches of kittens tucked away in the hay barn, usually in the upper loft, hidden by many a mama cat.
He dropped the cottonwood leaves he had been collecting and pressed into the weeds nearer the creek. They had decided to have a leaf race there, and Edmund knew that cottonwood leaves made the very best sort of racers. Beating Louisa would be easy, but May might be harder.
Normally, they played war or Cowboys and Indians, but it wouldn’t be the same without all the Kerwyns, especially Ray. He and Ray were always the captains of the two teams, but Ray had been made to stay behind today to help his dad fix fences. None of the other Kerwyns—besides Louisa and May, that is—had been able to come out, either, so they had decided to race leaves instead.
There it was again. The cry. Though now it was more of a whimper. And it wasn’t a cat, Edmund decided. It was more like . . . well, like a baby, maybe. He quickened his step and, avoiding the giant thistles, plowed into the Queen Anne’s Lace instead.
“Hello?” he shouted.
The crying stopped. “Mama? Mama!” Then the crying started up again, more frantic now.
Definitely a baby! “Here, baby!” Edmund called excitedly.
Pushing through the weeds, Edmund hurried in the direction of the cry, only to almost trip over a little creature. Edmund stared at it. It was indeed a baby! Well, not a baby baby, but more like a toddler. Maybe two years old, Edmund guessed. It had long black hair and very chubby red cheeks streaked with tears and dirt. Must be a girl, Edmund decided, going by the hair and the dirty shift it—she—was wearing.
Startled by Edmund’s sudden appearance, the baby locked her big black eyes on Edmund and promptly began to scream.
“Shh, baby! Shh! It’s okay,” Edmund cooed, using the voice he usually reserved for calming calves and dogs and, well, almost any creature. “Shh, baby, look.” He crouched in front of her and held out his hands, palms up. “I won’t hurt you.” He wished he had something to give her.
The baby kept crying, fresh tears streaming down her cheeks.
Edmund stood up and scratched his head. He looked around for the others. “May?” he called.
No one answered.
The baby continued to cry unabated. Edmund remembered, then, that he had half a peppermint stick in his pocket and pulled it out. Unfortunately, it was covered with lint and likewise a few hairs. He quickly popped it into his mouth to clean it. After sucking for a few moments, he pulled it out. Looked okay. He spit out the lint and held the candy in front of the baby.
The baby stared at it.
Edmund waited for the baby to take it, but she did not. She must not know what it was. Bending closer, he touched it gently to the baby’s lips. The baby’s eyes lit up in surprise.
“Here, you take it,” Edmund encouraged, but the baby did nothing, just blinked at him. But at least she had stopped crying. “Here.” He wedged the stick in the baby’s chubby hand and stood back, waiting to see what the baby would do. Ater a few moments she put it to her mouth, and then her tiny tongue came out and gave it a little lick.
Edmund pealed with laughter. “You look just like a baby possum!”
The baby continued licking and then tried to gnaw it.
“May!” Edmund called again. “Come see what I found!”
This time he heard a rustling. “Where are you?”
“Over here!” he shouted.
More rustling, and then a girl of eight finally pushed through the weeds. She was covered with sweat, as was he at this point in the afternoon.
“What is it?” May asked.
“Look what I found!” Edmund pointed at the baby.
May’s eyes grew wide as her gaze shifted from the baby to Edmund. “A baby! Who is it?”
Edmund shrugged, still grinning. “How should I know?”
“And what is she eating?” May placed her hands on her knees and peered more closely.
“She was crying, so I gave her some candy.”
Horrified, May snatched the candy from the baby. “You can’t give a baby a peppermint stick! Don’t you know that?”
The baby began to wail.
Edmund frowned. “See?”
May hesitated, then gave the sticky candy back to the crying baby. “What if she chokes?”
“She won’t choke.”
“What are you guys doin’?” came another voice from the weeds. “How come you always leave me behind? When are we gonna do the race?”
Louisa appeared. “Hey!” She stared at the little girl. “Where’d you guys find a baby? In a cabbage patch? How come you didn’t tell me?” She looked from her big sister to Edmund and stuck out her lower lip. “And, hey! Why does she have candy? Do I get some?”
“Be quiet, Lou,” Edmund said. “I’m trying to think.”
“About what?”
“About what to do with this baby.”
Louisa flopped down and rested her head on one hand. “Are we doin’ the race or not?”
“Wonder where her family is,” Edmund mused. “Think she belongs to the Warehams?” He nodded in the direction of the Wareham farm, whose pasture abutted the Kerwyns’.
“They don’t have any kids. You know that, Ed.”
“Well, maybe they got company.”
“Maybe.”
“I guess we can’t leave her here.” May picked up the baby. Startled, the girl resumed her wailing and squirming again, despite May’s efforts to pat her hard on the back. “Shh!” May said. “It’s okay. You’re a feisty one, ain’t you?”
Edmund slowly held out his hands. “Come here, Possum,” he said softly. “Come on; you’re okay.” Gently, Edmund took the crying baby from May’s arms, staggering for a moment under weight of her. He was not very big himself. “She’s heavy!” he said as he shifted her onto his hip. “There you are,” he said soothingly. “You’re okay now, aren’t you? Shh. It’s okay now.”
Miraculously, the baby stopped crying and instead stared at him, only a few hiccups escaping and the candy stick still grasped tightly in her little fist. Her tiny dark eyes were filled with fright, and Edmund felt a crush of pity for her. She reminded him of a small animal inadvertently caught in a trap meant for bigger prey, and he desperately wanted to soothe her.
“That’s it, Possum,” he said softly.
“Possum?” May’s nose wrinkled.
“Don’t she look like a baby possum?”
Edmund began to walk.
“Where are you going?” May called.
“Taking her to your ma.”
“Why not take her to yours?”
“ ’Cause yours is closer. Anyway, your ma will know what to do, most likely.”
“Aw!” Louisa whined, reluctantly getting to her feet. “What about the race?”
“Be quiet, Lou!” May scolded.
“Come on, Possum. Let’s get you home,” Edmund said and gently rubbed the baby’s back as he tramped through the weeds.
“But you must remember something,” Kate called from where she was propped up on the sofa in the front room of the Kerwyn farmhouse.
“Honestly, Kate, I don’t,” replied a frazzled Mrs. Kerwyn, who was busy churning wet shirts through the kitchen laundry press. “Louisa, go out and bring in some more wood. If we don’t get that stove hotter, these’ll never dry.” She pulled her gaze from the tub of dirty suds and inspected the clothes hanging from temporary crisscrossing lines.
Louisa dropped the socks she was folding and let out a disgruntled harrumph. “Why can’t Kate? It’s not as if it’s taxing to walk outside and grab a couple of logs.”
“In this weather? She’d catch her death again. Go on.”
Despite the fact that Louisa was all of twenty, she stuck her tongue out at Kate before moving toward the back door and pulling on a pair of black rubber farm boots. She didn’t bother to buckle them.
“Mom, I can help,” Kate insisted and set aside the afghan that Mrs. Kerwyn herself had tucked tightly around her legs. Kate had no real desire to ease the burden of her lazy older sister, but she was sick to death of lying around.
When she stood, however, she did feel a little weak. Leaning one hand on the arm of the sofa to steady herself, she glanced quickly at her mother, hoping she hadn’t noticed.
“Oh no you don’t!” Mrs. Kerwyn exclaimed over her shoulder. “You lie back down. You know what Doc Hodges said.”
“I know, Mom, but I’ve been lying in bed for nearly two months. If I don’t walk around a little, I’m going to forget how.” She concentrated on not wobbling as she made her way to the kitchen.
“Pneumonia is tricky, Kate.” Mrs. Kerwyn kept her weak gray eyes on the rollers, careful not to get her fingers caught. “Takes a long time.” Mrs. Kerwyn might have been considered pretty at one time, but her frizzled strawberry blonde hair had thinned, as had her frail body, and her eyes now had permanent dark circles under them.
Kate pulled out a kitchen chair and eased herself down. “Well, I’ll just sit here, then. How about that?” She picked up the socks Louisa had dropped, folded them, then rummaged through the rest of the clothes on the table to find more. She knew she couldn’t push her mother too hard, as Caroline Kerwyn was overly protective when it came to sickness, having had two children die from the flu during the epidemic eight years ago.
It had been hard on all of them to lose Eula and Fern, but it had been hardest, of course, on poor Mrs. Kerwyn, who, in Kate’s opinion anyway, had never been quite the same. May had also left to marry her sweetheart, Will Dresden, that year, which had further added to the family’s sense of loss.
“Well, do you?” Kate asked, pulling a few small towels out of the pile.
Mrs. Kerwyn eased a wet shirt out of the rollers and shook it. “Do I what?”
“Don’t you remember anything else from when you found me? What was I wearing?” Kate asked, hoping the answer might provide a clue as to her origins.
“Lord, Kate. How should I know?” Mrs. Kerwyn reached into the bag of clothespins and began pinning the wet shirt to the line. “That was fifteen years ago.”
“You’re not talking about all this again, are you?” Louisa banged through the back door and dropped an armload of logs onto the empty wrought-iron rack. She then pounded the snow from her boots on the braided rug, a few strands of her long blond hair coming loose from the bun she normally wore.
Kate gritted her teeth. “Yes, we are, Louisa. No one asked you to be a part of it, so you can mind your own business.”
“Why does it matter so much to you?” Louisa shrugged out of her coat and hung it on the peg by the back door.
It was a good question. Why did it matter? Kate supposed she just wanted to know, definitively, to whom she had once belonged. She had grown up thinking that she was a Sauk Indian, but, according to nearly every book on the subject in the Merriweather Library, the Native Americans were very family-oriented, loyal, and honorable, despite their reputation for being vicious, bloodthirsty savages. It seemed impossible that they had simply abandoned her. Had they meant to leave her behind like some sort of cursed creature? Or had she wandered away and gotten lost? But if that were the case, why had they not searched for her? And how had she come to be wandering by the Wareham farm?
As a child, she had been happy enough as a Kerwyn, but as she grew older, it became more obvious that she did not belong, not just in her looks but in her temperament.
“You were wearing a brown shift, I think,” Mrs. Kerwyn mumbled, a clothespin between her lips.
“And there was nothing on the ground near me? A blanket maybe? A basket?” Kate looked from her mother to Louisa.
“Don’t look at me!” Louisa exclaimed. “I was five, so no, I didn’t notice. What are you hoping for? A tidy little basket with a letter outlining your name and family history, complete with a desperate appeal to ‘take care of our darling child’?”
Kate threw her a wicked look. “Why are you such a shrew, Louisa? It’s no wonder you aren’t married yet.”
“Me? You’re one to talk! At least I have Vernon. You’ll never find a man with all that vinegar in your veins!”
Kate opened her mouth to deliver a blistering retort when there was a quick rap on the back door, and Edmund ducked in.
“Oh, Ed!” Mrs. Kerwyn set down her bag of clothespins. “You and Gus done already?” She wiped her hands on her apron and glanced nervously at the clock on the wall. “Good gracious! I haven’t even started supper yet.”
“No, Mrs. K, Mr. K sent me in for a thermos of coffee. Said to tell you it’s gonna take a little longer to rebuild that stall than he thought.”
“Well, here, sit down by the stove and warm yourself. Louisa, make some coffee.”
Louisa let out a deep sigh and rolled her eyes before doing as she was bid.
Edmund’s brown eyes grew large at the sight of Kate, half hidden behind the pile of laundry. “You’re up! How are you feeling?” He moved anxiously toward the table but then stopped when he noticed he was tracking snow across the floor. “Oh! Sorry, Mrs. K.”
“Here, you sit there, Ed.” Mrs. Kerwyn nodded at one of the kitchen chairs and went to grab the braided rug by the door. “Put this under your feet,” she said, bending in front of him. Ed obediently lifted his feet, and Mrs. Kerwyn shoved it under. “There we are. That’ll do. You want something to eat?”
“No, I’m okay. Thanks, Mrs. K.”
“Well, at least have a biscuit.” Mrs. Kerwyn went to fetch one from the stone canister on the counter.
Edmund looked approvingly across the table. “You look better, Possum. Stronger. Are you?”
Kate smiled, her anger at Louisa dissipating. Edmund always had that effect on her—making her feel calm. He was the brother she wished she had instead of the brutish Ray. Edmund, an only child from the farm next to theirs, had grown up with the Kerwyns, and they had whiled away many a summer day romping through the woods and fields outside of Merriweather proper.
It was Edmund, of course, who had come to her aid when she ran off to live in a badger hole on Christmas Tree Hill when she could no longer stand Ray’s relentless harassment. Edmund had helped to make the dwelling not only habitable, but rather cozy, though he had betrayed her slightly by finally informing the Kerwyns as to where she had disappeared.
When she heard where her daughter was, Mrs. Kerwyn herself had several times made her way to the badger hole to plead with Kate to come home, but to no avail. Kate stubbornly refused to leave, having found that independence suited her quite well, thank you very much. She liked living on her own and probably would have remained thus had she not become desperately ill. After finding her unconscious, Edmund had, for the second time, rescued her and carried her home.
