It was an excellent question. There really was no way for him to know for certain, but the same sensation he got whenever Emily was nearby was growing with his every step.
“I am sure,” he muttered and then louder he added, “If the level of beer gets so high that you can no longer keep your footing, go back to the stairs.”
“Yes—”
Melinda was interrupted by a frantic call for help coming from farther down the hall.
“Emily, is that you?” he yelled.
“Alex? Oh Alexander, please help.”
He was already moving toward her voice like a bull charging the color red.
“Hurry, Melinda. This beer is not waiting for us.”
“I am going as fast as I can in this…stuff.”
“Where are you, Emily?” Alexander shouted as he pounded on any closed doors he passed in the long hallway.
“Third door on the left. It’s stuck, and the room is flooded nearly to the ceiling,” Emily called back.
By the time she had finished talking, Alexander had already made his way to the room in question.
“Don’t worry. We’ll get you out of there. Is anyone hurt?”
“We are all fine, but Roddy and Eleanor can’t swim, and I am getting so tired keeping us all above the surface.”
“You’re swimming already? The beer is only about four and a half feet high out here.”
“A wall collapsed behind us. The ale is gushing in like a deluge. Where is it all coming from, Alex?”
Emily sounded close to tears.
“I have no idea,” Alex replied, “but I am right here. You will be all right.”
Alexander and Melinda had been pushing on the door the entire time he had been talking with Emily, but it wasn’t budging.
“We need to find something to pry this door open,” Alex said to Melinda. “Look in one of the other rooms and see what you can find.”
“Yes, sir,” Melinda said, and she immediately turned to make her way to the closest room.
Alex pushed his way over to the next room down the corridor. He had just reached it when Melinda let out a loud shriek. He came around and rushed to her side.
She was pressed up against the door jam and was looking into the room in horror.
Without even entering the room, Alexander could see that this was from where the majority of the beer was flooding in. Once he stepped into the space, two facts immediately assaulted him.
One, the wall in this room had also been crumbled by the onslaught of alcohol and said liquid was gushing in unimpeded; and two, the girl who had identified herself as Livvy must have been standing next to the wall when it had fallen.
She was still half trapped under the rubble and was clearly deceased; whether by the impact or drowning, Alex couldn’t rightly tell, but he sent a quick prayer to God for her poor soul.
Acting quickly, Alexander shoved Melinda out of the room—the young woman did not need to see this sight any longer than she already had—then he reached down and grabbed an ax that he could just make out through the murky ale lying next to a wood-burning stove and a pile of wood.
He knew it was only by God’s grace that Melinda had stumbled into the second kitchen and upon the tool he needed to rescue his beloved.
His beloved?
The thought gave Alex pause for a fraction of a second, but he shoved it aside almost immediately. He had no time to waste on flights of fancy.
Leaving Livvy to her watery grave, Alexander rushed back to the room Emily was locked within. The beer was nearly to his chin by now.
“Go back to the steps,” he ordered Melinda, who was already on her tiptoes to stay above the lapping waves.
Thankfully the girl didn’t argue. She turned and paddled back to the stairs.
Heaving the ax, Alex called out, “Move away from the door if you can, Emily dear.”
Swinging with all his might, he made quick work of the sodden wooden door. It finally splintered apart enough to impact whatever law of physics was keeping it shut.
Alex yanked the offending planks apart, and a deluge of beer knocked him off his feet and carried him down the hall toward the stairs and Melinda.
“Emily? Where are you?” Alex shouted as he struggled to his feet. He lost his footing once again when a body slammed into him. It was quickly followed by two more.
When he finally got upright, Alex had his arms wrapped around Emily, and Melinda had pulled Roddy and Eleanor onto the stairs.
“Oh Alex,” Emily cried softly as she clung to him. “I thought we were going to die.”
“Hush now, darling. You are safe.”
“How did you know? How did you know we were in danger?” Emily pulled back to look at him, her eyes searching his for some answer.
“I don’t know. I just did,” Alex replied honestly.
“He never hesitated for a moment,” Melinda added. “It was remarkable. It was as if he were reading your thoughts.”
And it was, Alexander admitted to himself. Just then, the words of his friend came back to haunt him. What was it David had said? That he and Sarah knew each other’s thoughts because of the “mystery of love.” Could it be that Alex loved Emily? But how could that be? Until recent weeks, he would have sworn he hated Emily.
Could love be that fickle? And if so, how could he trust it?
“Well, whatever the reason, I am certainly glad to see you,” Emily said, interrupting his thoughts. “Now what do you say we leave this establishment forthwith?”
Disentangling herself from his arms, Emily went to check on her friends. Her absence further sobered him. Holding back a deep sigh, Alex climbed the stairs to clear any debris blocking their path back to the front entrance. The smell of tepid beer was beginning to overwhelm him, and he was rather sure he wouldn’t be partaking of the beverage again any time soon. He was quite sure he had lost his taste for ale altogether, to be honest.
When he reached the top of the steps, he pushed on the door that had once again shut, presumably due to the continuing flow of alcohol. Unfortunately, no matter how hard he shoved at it, the door wouldn’t open again. He went back down a few steps and crouched over to look through the crack at the bottom of the door. Beer was still trickling from under it, but not enough to keep the door from opening. His view was anything but clear, however Alex was able to make out a number of unidentifiable masses blocking the door.
“It looks like every piece of loose junk has been pushed by the flow of ale up against our exit. We need to find another way out of here.” Looking back at the still-rising river below, he added, “And quickly.”
“We could try to go out the way Roddy and I entered,” Emily said doubtfully, “but that’s all the way at the other end of the hall.”
What would have been a fairly easy task without all the beer was next to impossible now that he knew two of the little group could not swim and the level of the ale was still climbing. By the time they got to the end of the corridor, they would no longer have any air to breathe.
For the first time, Alex began to wonder if they were going to get out of the pub alive.
“I’ll swim back and find the ax,” he decided, already heading into the pungent river. “I dropped it when the door burst open earlier, but it shouldn’t be too hard to locate.”
“I may ‘ave a better idea,” Roddy offered.
Alexander turned to look at the boy. “Oh? Do tell.”
“As you know, my friends and I have been ‘ired ‘ere to do some ratting, and one time we came across a secret little door. We followed it, ‘cause we were mighty curious. It leads to a bunch of tunnels that run all over under the city.”
“Underground tunnels?” Melinda repeated with a little shudder.
Roddy shrugged. “Can’t be much worse than it is in ‘ere, miss.”
“He’s got a point,” Emily agreed. “And it may be our only way out of here still breathing.”
Eleanor said something for the first time since being let out of the beer-filled room
.
“There have long been rumors of rumrunners using secret tunnels throughout London to smuggle in goods. I don’t think the Tavistock owners would support such a thing, but I wouldn’t put it past Lola and Hank.”
“If that’s the case,” Alex mused, “it’s probably in good enough shape to escape through. Where did you find that door, Roddy?”
“In the back of that closet over there.”
The lad pointed to the first door on the right of the hallway. It was only five or so feet away and because it was slatted, it likely would open fairly easily.
Alex swam over to confirm his hypothesis. The door swung out almost immediately, as he had hoped it would, against the still rising river. Feeling the back wall, it took only seconds to find an outline of a false panel. He could also detect a distinct flow of liquid being pulled through edges of the panel. This was the passage Roddy spoke of, certainly, but how to get it open and all of them through it while fighting the flow of beer that would surely be gushing through the hole just as they were trying to escape?
There was no time to come up with a plan. Emily and Melinda were already struggling to keep Roddy and Eleanor above the surface.
Grasping the top of the doorframe, Alex pulled himself up and then launched his feet against the back panel as hard as he could. His felt the wood give way under his feet, and it took all his strength to hold on and not get sucked through the small opening. Bracing his feet on either side of the hole, he let go of the frame with one hand. He reached back for Roddy.
“Climb onto my back, son. You and I will go through last.”
Roddy did as he was instructed with the agility of a monkey.
Alex reached back again, and as he took Emily by the hand, he said, “You and Melinda hold Eleanor between you and come to me.”
The ladies released the stair banister and without any effort on their part found themselves being pulled toward the closet. The beer was flowing so fast at this point, Alex could barely keep steady. He remembered back to a childhood trip to the Pembroke summer home and an ill-fated swimming adventure he and William had once experienced. There was a stream running through the property that he and his brother enjoyed greatly whenever they visited. That year, due to an especially heavy spring rainfall, the stream had swelled to the size of a respectable river.
Alex and William were both excellent swimmers and, therefore, paid the extra water no mind. They had plaited some branches together as a makeshift raft and had had a grand time riding it down the rolling river. In their enjoyment, they had failed to notice how far downstream they had gone, and all of a sudden they found themselves in rapids that could only indicate an impending waterfall.
What had once been a lazy drop in the sweet little stream had now become a raging drop-off of white frothy death. Or so it had seemed to Alex. He remembered that William had done exactly what Alex was attempting to do now. His brother had stuck out his legs and buttressed himself on two rocks at the edge of the fall as he grabbed an overhanging branch. He had told Alex to hold onto him and together they watched through William’s legs as their little boat continued down the river, only to break up seconds later on the rocks and rough water.
Afterward, William moved hand over hand and rock over rock to the riverbank with Alex on his back. It took them hours to walk back to the house, and neither of them said a word about it to each other then or ever since. Alex realized now how much he owed his brother his thanks for saving his life, and he vowed to convey those feelings as soon as humanly possible. He also prayed for whatever strength William had had that day be transferred to him in this moment of trial.
“Emily,” he said once the ladies were by his side. “I need you all to go through the hole one at a time but with hands tightly clasped. I do not know what to expect on the other side, and Eleanor may need your help if the passage is completely flooded. You will need to ride out the flow of beer until it recedes.”
“But it will recede, correct?” Emily asked, with the barest quaver in her voice.
Alex cupped her face with his free hand. “Yes, my dear. If it does indeed lead to a system of tunnels, there will likely be many off—shooting passages that will draw away much of the ale…eventually…and you will be left standing. We simply need to have faith.”
“And excellent lung capacity.”
“Exactly,” Alex chuckled. “There’s my girl.”
Emily took a deep breath and tried to smile back, but Alex didn’t think she was entirely successful. He admired the attempt, however.
“Are you ready?” He directed the question to all the ladies and was greeted with three fearful nods. “Melinda, give me your hand, and I will try to keep you all from being pulled through the hole too quickly.”
Melinda grabbed onto Alex frantically.
“It’s going to be all right,” he assured her. “Now then, all of you take a deep breath and hold it. Now go, Emily, go.”
Emily dove under the water, and Alex could just see her disappear through the hole followed quickly by Eleanor and Melinda in a chain reaction. Alex slowed their descent as much as possible to prevent them from all getting to the opening in a jumbled pile. The current was still awfully strong, and soon enough it was time to release Melinda’s hand so she could slide through the small door.
“Our turn, Roddy. Hold your breath.”
Alex felt Roddy’s chest inflate against his back, and that’s when he lifted off the wall and let his feet be sucked into the ragged hole. Then he let go of the doorframe and with a rush of stale beer, he and Roddy were pulled through the secret door that he hoped would lead to their salvation.
Chapter Nineteen
Never give up.
~The Duke of Lancaster
Emily thought her lungs would burst. How long had they been in this tunnel of beer? It seemed like it had been forever since Alexander had directed them through the secret door. He had said the river would peter out and she trusted in that…but she didn’t know how much longer she could hold her breath.
She was especially worried about Eleanor. The girl must be in a panic being underwater for so long. Not that this was water, but the instinct to breathe would be the same whether in water, beer, or sand. And that instinct would be especially strong in one who could not swim.
At least her friend was still gripping her hand firmly. That was a good sign.
Suddenly Emily felt herself burst through a narrow opening, and for a moment she felt as if she were flying. And she could breathe again. She was able to take one deep gulp of stagnant air before landing heavily on a stony floor. If there had not still been a couple of feet of ale flowing through the passage, she surely would have broken something. As it was, what little breath she had managed to grab was knocked out of her.
But she was alive.
Emily splashed around in the dark feeling for her friends. She had lost contact with Eleanor’s hand the moment she flew out of the flood of beer.
“Eleanor, Melinda?” she gasped.
She heard coughing to her right and she felt an arm or a leg that was not hers to her left. The body part was moving, and Emily let out a sigh of relief. They were both alive anyway. Alone, wet, and in pitch-black darkness, but alive nonetheless.
“Emily,” a weak voice croaked. “Please tell me that is you touching my knee and not some other creature?”
“Oh, yes,” Emily laughed, surprised that such levity could be felt in this situation. “It is I. Are you all right, Melinda dear?”
“As right as I can be, considering the circumstances. It is nice to be breathing, even if it is air heavy with the scent of this vile drink.”
“Amen to that,” Emily agreed wholeheartedly. “Eleanor, where are you?”
“I am here,” Eleanor coughed out raggedly. “I swallowed a fair amount of beer in the last few seconds. I am ashamed to say I had just about given up hope.”
“There is no shame in that admittance. I, too, had more than a moment of doubt.”
“
Me too,” Melinda added. “I believe that was the scariest thing I have ever experienced.”
“Shouldn’t Alex and Roddy be here by now?” Eleanor asked, audibly closer to Emily than before. The sloshing sounds were also an indicator that she was trying to get to her friend.
“I was just wondering the same thing,” Melinda said, taking Emily’s hand from her knee and clinging to it desperately.
“I am sure they will be emerging any moment now,” Emily replied with more confidence than she actually felt. It was horrible to think she could lose Alex, just when she had found him.
Found him? She wasn’t looking for Alex. John was the man she wanted. Right?
Suddenly she heard a strange kind of splashing coming from the same direction they had come.
It must be them, Emily thought with more relief than she ever thought possible.
“Quick, we should move aside.”
“Which way is aside?” Eleanor asked, just as she bumped into Emily. “Oh, I’m sorry.”
Emily hugged her with her free arm. “I’m not sure, but Eleanor, you were to my right and Melinda to my left. Perhaps if we just scoot back as much as possible, we will be out of the way when the boys land—”
The words were no sooner out of her mouth than she heard something bursting out of the dark to her right. A split second later, a body seemingly made up of arms and legs landed in her lap. And a louder thud sounded just in front of her. The splash of beer was enough to drench her yet again in the fetid alcohol.
I will never get the smell of beer off me, Emily bemoaned silently.
“Roddy, please stop kicking me.”
“Oh, I am sorry milady, I didn’t know that was you. You made for an awfully soft landing, though.”
“Happy to be of service,” Emily replied dryly.
Roddy moved off of Emily. “It sure is dark in ‘ere. Milord, are you all right?”
A groan came from the location of the thud Emily had heard earlier. Something in its tone was worrying.
“Alex!” Emily cried, as she felt her way over to where the sound had originated.
It didn’t take more than a second for her to reach what could only be a fully grown man’s body. Emily wasn’t sure which body part she was touching, but it felt warm and muscular. The intimacy wasn’t lost on her, but now was not the time to give in to the butterflies.
A Rogue for Emily (Lady Lancaster Garden Society) Page 17
