“You dare . . . !”
“Daring is certainly required, but then I’ve always considered myself a fairly daring fellow,” he agreed in the mildest of fashions, and barely controlled a smile when she made an infuriated sound under her breath and turned her head away from him again. If the passage had been wide enough to allow for flouncing, he was quite sure she would have flounced away.
“Come, Beth, cry friends,” he said to the back of that red head when he caught up to her again. “You really have no reason to be so vexed at me, you know. I at least let you go without having to be forced to it by aid of a fireplace poker.”
Her head whipped around again. “You are never going to let me forget that, are you?”
He grinned. He couldn’t help it. “I admit, at the moment it seems to be claiming a place at the top of my most cherished memories. Right along with how you looked that night clinging to the balcony, your breasts bathed in moonlight . . . ”
“Oh!”
The passage was really very narrow, he discovered when, turned sideways like the others, he attempted to catch up again as he followed her through it. But then, he was a great deal larger than any of them, which accounted for at least some of the reason she was managing to move much more quickly than he. The rest of the reason could undoubtedly be attributed to her desire to escape his teasing.
By the time he had won free, she was bunched in the middle of the other females. He was content to let her go. Later, when he truly had her alone, there would be plenty of time to engage more in the promising pastime of causing her cheeks to heat until they matched her hair color.
“Be they still hunting us, do you think?” Alyce asked as they emerged from the tunnel at last into a chamber almost as large as the one in which they had passed the previous night. Like that one, it had a soaring ceiling, a goodly number of stalactites and stalagmites, and curved walls terraced by flat stone shelves. At the opposite end was a solid granite wall with the entrance to the last of the tunnels situated some twenty feet above where they now stood. This tunnel would take them directly into the cellar of the inn. Unless, as Jane had so depressingly suggested, the way was blocked. Which he trusted it wasn’t, although the deteriorating conditions in this end of the passage suggested that of late it had gotten very little use.
“Unless they—” Mary began, but her reply was interrupted by a sudden sharp crack that made the hair on the back of Neil’s neck stand up. He barely had time to glance up in the direction of the sound before the ceiling came crashing down.
Chapter Nineteen
ONE MOMENT BETH was standing there looking at Mary, who was talking. The next there was an ear-splitting boom, and the world seemed to cave in on top of her. Something slammed into her with the force of a runaway carriage and dashed her to the ground to the accompaniment of a thunderous roar. The back of her head smacked into stone, the air was forced from her lungs as a huge weight crashed down on her chest, and everything went black.
But she wasn’t unconscious. She knew she wasn’t, because her head ached and her ears rang and she saw stars despite the blackness, and she had to be conscious to be aware of that. Plus she could hear terrified screams that sounded somehow muffled, so that they seemed to come from a little distance away, and more crashes, smaller crashes, as if brittle objects were hitting the ground one at a time and shattering just beyond where she lay.
“Beth? Beth, are you all right?” Neil spoke urgently in her ear. She was so glad to hear his voice, so relieved to know that she wasn’t alone in the terrifying darkness, that she completely forgot that she had been feeling vexed with him scant moments before. She let out her breath in a long sigh. It was only then that she realized she had not been breathing at all.
“Beth? Are you hurt?” His hand slid across her shoulder to her neck, where his warm fingers pressed into the soft flesh below her ear. “Answer me, damn it.”
She couldn’t see him, although her eyes were wide open and straining with the attempt. The blackness was more absolute than anything she had ever experienced. She could see nothing, absolutely nothing at all. Not even Neil, whom she realized must be lying almost completely on top of her. His hard body was the smothering weight crushing her down into the unyielding stone beneath her back; he had thrown her to the ground and fallen on top of her. Even as she regained enough of her wits to become aware of that, and registered that his fingers on her neck were checking her pulse, he shifted so that he was no longer lying on her, but stretched out against her side. Even though she couldn’t see him, she turned her head to follow his movement, desperate not to lose contact.
“What . . . happened?” she managed, wheezing a little as she pulled air into her lungs.
“Thank God.” The relief in his voice was palpable. “The roof collapsed. We’re damned fortunate to be alive.”
“You tackled me.” Reaching out, she tried to find him, making clumsy contact with smooth wool—his greatcoat. Her hand was on his broad chest, she realized as her fingers splayed out and discovered a button. With her hand flat on his chest, she moved a little, turning toward him. “I think you might have saved my life.”
“Saving you is getting to be quite a habit with me, so think nothing of it. Stay still for a minute. Are you bleeding anywhere? Can you move your limbs?” As he spoke, his hands ran lightly over her face and neck, her arms and legs and body, checking for injuries. Even when he skimmed her breasts and other private areas, she didn’t think of protesting because it was so clearly designed to make sure she was all right.
“I’m not hurt. What about you?” Except for a slight ache where she’d struck her head, nothing felt out of the ordinary.
“I’m fine.” His tone was impatient. His fingers were sliding through her hair now, and when they touched the tender spot at the back of her skull she winced. “You’ve got quite a bump coming up here.”
“It’s nothing. It barely even hurts. What about the others?” Remembering the screams, her pulse quickened with alarm. “I heard them screaming.”
Only then did it occur to her that the silence was now profound. There were no screams, no crashes, nothing at all. Suddenly terrified, she started to jackknife upright, ready to call out to the others, to start searching through the dark for them, only to have him press her back with a restraining arm across her shoulders.
“No, don’t do that. You want to watch your head. We’re under one of the shelves, so there’s a stone slab about three feet above you. And I don’t know about the rest of them. When I saw the ceiling coming down I dived for you, and we ended up under here. What happened to everyone else I have no idea.”
“But you heard them screaming, too.” Unable to help herself, Beth reached up as she spoke, and sure enough her fingers brushed stone. Pulling her hand back, she took a deep, steadying breath.
“Yes, I heard them.”
“They might be hurt. Or—or dead.”
“They might be.”
“Oh, dear God.”
“We have to see to ourselves before we can help them.”
She felt him moving, felt him reaching across her, and got the impression that he was also testing to see what was around them. Experimentally, she, too, reached out toward the side that should have been open, only to discover what felt like a wall that seemed to cover the entire space. Squirming around, careful not to lose contact with his body because to be alone in the pitch-blackness would be the most horrifying thing she could possibly imagine, she tried to find an opening—any opening—and failed. As far as she could tell, there was solid stone all around: floor, ceiling, four walls.
Her heart pounded like a cornered rabbit’s.
“It feels to me like we’re trapped under here.” She was trying not to sound as afraid as she felt. “I can’t find a way out.”
“We’ll get out somehow, never fear.”
The fact that he didn’t contradict her she took as terrifying confirmation of her worst fear: they were walled into a space not much larger
than a coffin.
Her pulse thudded against her eardrums. Her mouth went dry.
“We’re trapped, aren’t we?”
“It seems so, yes.”
Her nails dug into her palms as she tried to hang on to at least a semblance of outward calm. The complete absence of light coupled with the chilly dankness of the air enfolding them was oppressive in the extreme. Beth took another deep breath, greedily filling her lungs, then had a thought that caused her stomach to drop: Would they suffocate? What if there was only a limited amount of air?
“Neil. What if the air runs out?”
“It won’t. Don’t trouble your head about that.”
“How can you be—” “Sure” was what she meant to add, but was interrupted before she could finish.
“Oh, please, can anybody ’ear me?” The desperate-sounding shout came from the cavern beyond, and Beth instinctively looked in that direction, although of course it was useless: she saw nothing but that terrible, intense black. But she recognized the voice instantly, and was so glad to hear it she felt almost dizzy.
“Mary!” she cried. Turning impulsively toward the sound so that she was now lying on her side with her back to Neil, she pressed both hands against the cool stone slab in front of her. It stayed solid and unmoving; she thought about shoving at it with all her might, but then was afraid to. It felt huge. What if it was only precariously lodged, and she brought it down on top of them? The prospect made her shiver, and she withdrew her hands as quickly as if the stone had suddenly turned red-hot.
“Miss! Miss, be that you?”
“Yes! Yes, it’s me!”
“We’re here,” Neil yelled. “Beth and I, under the rocks that fell against the wall we came in through.”
“Yer worship! Are either of ye ’urt?”
“No. What about you?”
“Nothin’ to speak of, or Alyce either. Oh, Alyce be ’ere with me.”
“’Tis just me and Mary left!” Alyce cried, her voice high-pitched with fear. “Everybody else be gone! What do we do?”
“Do you have a light? Can you see what’s on top of us?” Before he spoke, Neil put his hand over Beth’s topmost ear, presumably to keep her from being deafened by the volume of his shout. Although she was facing out toward the cavern, she could not see the stone blocking them in. All was total, unrelieved darkness. She could see nothing of Neil, who was so close she could feel his body pressed against her back and his breath feathering across her cheek. If she’d held her hand directly in front of her eyes, she would not have been able to see it.
“Alyce dropped the torch, but we be tryin’ to organize a light,” Mary answered. There was a moment of silence. “I tore off a strip of me bleedin’ dress and lit it on fire, but we just ’as a moment afore . . . Ah, there be the torch! Alyce, there!”
“Dolly! Look, it be Dolly!” Alyce cried.
More silence. Beth strained to hear, but beyond her own and Neil’s breathing there was silence. His arm was around her waist now, and she folded her own on top of it, glad of its solid comfort. Terror, cold and creeping, was inching through her veins. If Mary had managed to kindle a light and they hadn’t seen so much as a flicker penetrate the gravelike darkness in which they lay, then the rocks imprisoning them had to be solid, and thickly layered.
The hideous truth hit her like a blow to the stomach: they might never get out.
“What’s happening out there?” she cried, battling back panic.
The arm around her waist tightened. “They are undoubtedly rendering aid to the others,” Neil said in a voice as prosaic as if they were standing in the middle of Green Park discussing the weather. But she was glad of his calm, because it steadied her.
Breathe in, breathe out. Don’t panic.
“We found Dolly. She be under some rocks, but we’re getting her free,” Alyce reported.
“We ’ave ’er!” Mary cried, while in the background Beth heard Alyce calling for the others. “She got a good knock to the ’ead, but she be all right! And Jane and Nan be yellin’ to us from under the rocks over ’ere, but we can’t get to ’em. Just like we can’t get to you, miss, and yer worship. There be a positive mountain o’ rocks on top of ye, some of ’em big as a bed!”
Beth’s heart thumped harder at this information. We’re trapped. Although she’d suspected it, known it really, the confirmation was terrifying. Her stomach clenched. Cold sweat broke out along her hairline. But she couldn’t, wouldn’t give into fear. There had to be something they could do . . .
“Steady.” Neil must have been able to sense some part of what she was feeling, because his voice was cool and calm in her ear. “We’re going to be all right, you know.”
Her mouth was so dry she had to swallow and wet her lips before she could speak.
“Do you think, if we both kicked against this slab that’s lying in front of us, we could . . . ?”
“No, I don’t. You heard Mary—there is no telling how many rocks are piled on top of the slab. The last thing we want to do is bring the whole mess down on us.”
They would be crushed instantly. She knew it, although he refrained from being quite that graphic.
Her palms had grown damp, and her hands had curled into fists. She was breathing way too fast. Her heart raced like she had run for miles. She was sore afraid that they were going to die.
But there was, simply, nothing to do.
“Peg! Peg!” Alyce’s voice could be heard more clearly now, and Beth guessed that she and Mary must be walking around the chamber as they searched for the girl who was still missing. “Answer if ye hear me! Oh, she’s here! She’s moving! Mary, come help me get her out!”
“That’s all of them, then,” Neil said. “If Jane and Nan are talking, and Peg’s moving and they’re digging her out, then everyone’s alive.”
“Do you think they’ll be able to get us out?” She was cold, so cold, freezing really, but not because of the coolness of the air or the less than warm temperature of the unforgiving stone on which they lay. Shock and a burgeoning fear that she wasn’t able to keep completely tamped down despite her best efforts coursed through her body in waves, mangling her nerves, freezing her blood. But panicking was clearly worse than useless, and she battled back against it with every ounce of courage that remained to her. At least Neil was with her. His arm around her, and his solid warmth against her back, served as an effective antidote to the abject terror that threatened to consume her.
“Probably not,” Neil responded. Once again the measured calm of his voice robbed the words of some of their power to frighten. “If the rocks are as large as Mary says, they’re going to need help to shift them.”
“Where can they find help?” A fresh burst of fear wobbled through her voice as she realized that down here in the caves there was absolutely no help to be had.
Neil didn’t have a chance to answer as Mary yelled, “We’ve got Peg out! Oh, she be bleedin’ bad.”
The voices then lowered to what, to Beth’s ears, sounded no louder than murmurs. Straining to hear, she thought she detected the sound of someone noisily weeping: Peg, probably, if she was injured.
“I’m getting ready to shout again,” Neil warned as he put his hand over her ear. Then, true to his word, he raised his voice to near-deafening volume: “Mary, I need you to listen to me.”
“I be listenin’, yer worship.”
“One of you needs to go for help. See that passage on the far wall? It’s the last one. You must climb up into it, and follow it, and it will take you directly into the cellar of the inn I was telling you about. I once knew the proprietor very well. His name is Creed. Find him, tell him what has happened, and inform him that his old friend Hume begs his immediate assistance.”
“Tell Mr. Creed—’ume begs assistance,” Mary repeated, as if fixing the words in her mind. “Aye, yer worship.”
“Will he come, do you think?” Beth asked, conscious of her heart knocking against her ribs and trying to stay as calm as possible
despite it.
“Of a certainty.” Incredibly, Neil almost sounded as if he was smiling. “The last time we met, I absconded with a very large sum of his money.”
“Oh.” Beth was reminded of the criminal tendencies of this man she’d come to feel she could utterly rely on in the most terrifying of circumstances, and knew she should by rights be recoiling in disgust at his cheerful confession of this newly revealed crime. Instead, she felt a spurt of thankfulness that the inn’s proprietor would have such an excellent reason for hastening to their aid, and decided that her recent adventures must have addled her brain.
“Yer worship, there be a slight difficulty.” Mary was still shouting, but she sounded as if she was closer to them now.
Neil covered Beth’s ear again. “What’s that?”
“We’ve only the one light, and none of us wishes to stay ’ere in the dark. We’re that scared, like. And if we was to encounter some difficulty in the passage . . . ”
“You may as well all go. You can do us no good here, after all.”
Beth shivered at the idea of being entombed in the dark without anyone to watch over them. But there was a torch burning in the cavern already, and the blackness where she and Neil lay was still absolute. And there was no help Mary or Alyce or the others could give those who were still trapped. Therefore, it could make no possible difference whether one or more of them stayed in the cavern. Better that they should go for help, although the thought of them leaving made her chest feel tight.
“Be sure to tell Nan and Jane that you’re going for help, and you’ll be back,” she called, summoning up all her fortitude in an effort not to appear as weakly frightened as she felt.
“Aye, we will. And we’ll ’urry as fast as ever we can, too.”
“We won’t fail ye, miss.” Alyce already sounded like she was farther away. Beth pictured them, heading toward the tunnel opening that she had just glimpsed high up in the far wall before the ceiling fell.
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