by Danice Allen
“Gabby?” he called, turning down another corridor and then another. “Gabby, are you here?” Just when he was beginning to lose hope of finding her in that part of the mine, he heard her voice, muffled at first, then louder, more sure.
“Zach! Oh, Zach, you’ve come!”
And there she was. She would have been horrified to see the veritable herd of rats she shared her dark space with, their beady black eyes shining in the light of his torch. But Gabby seemed to see only him, a smile of tremendous relief and joy lighting up her pale, strained little face. She was huddled in the middle of the passageway, balled up like a porcupine under attack.
“Gabby! Thank God,” he cried, bending on one knee to embrace her trembling form.
“I knew you would come,” she mumbled against his shoulder. “You always come.”
“I always shall, you little noddy,” he assured her with rough affection.
“Don’t scold me,” she pleaded, lifting her face to look at him beseechingly.
“I won’t, but Beth will,” he predicted soberly. “And I shall be scolded, too. Justly so, I suspect,” he added on a sigh.
Gabby looked at him, and Zach could tell she didn’t understand what he meant. But that was just as well. Time enough for the poor little wretch to learn the complexities of mature relationships. Let her enjoy her innocence while she could.
“Let’s get out of here. If you hold the torch in front of you—just so—I can carry you. Shall I carry you, Gabby?”
Gabby nodded gratefully. He lifted her, and they wended their way back toward the crack that opened to the main tunnel. Suddenly Zach stepped on a rat, and the nerve-shattering screech of the injured rodent sent him twirling around in surprise. He fell heavily against the wall, and a soft whoosh of dirt emptied onto the ground in front of him. Then, like blood spouting from a mortal wound, more and more dirt followed—mounding, building. Zach stood for one horrified, never-ending moment watching the wall dissolve.
“Damn!” he muttered, the mild epithet a monumental understatement for the mix of terror and anger that coursed through him. If Gabby died in this mine, buried beneath the earth as her sweet breath was crushed out of her, it would be his fault entirely. Gabby must have sensed the increased danger, for Zach felt her body stiffen.
Spurred on by Gabby’s fear into desperate action, Zach hurried toward the opening. He could see it now, but he could also hear rotted wood straining and splitting. All the walls were crumbling. He darted a quick look behind him, but it was a senseless, instinctive gesture, for it was impossible to see anything. He could well imagine the sights hidden in the darkness, however, for he could hear the increased chatter and scurry of rats and the ominous gushing of heavy earth filling the passageway. Now there was a rumbling. The gravitational forces of nature were taking over. Soon the whole mine would collapse.
Zach ran. He stumbled on a rock and lurched forward, catching himself just before they both tumbled to the ground. Gabby squealed and dropped the torch. Zach could not stop to pick it up. Gabby wrapped her arms about Zach’s neck and buried her face against his shoulder, whimpering softly in his ear. Lord, how was he to find his way out of there now? They were caught in utter darkness. But he had to try for Gabby’s sake … and for Tessy’s.
Suddenly Zach saw a light at the opening he was blindly approaching at breakneck speed. Someone was holding a torch through to light his way.
They reached the opening, and the torch withdrew. Zach peeled Gabby’s clinging hands from about his neck and passed her easily through to waiting arms on the other side.
“Come on, Zach, hurry up!” It was Alex. His shadowed face appeared briefly, backlit by the garish orange aura of the torch.
“Take Gabby. Go on. I’ll be along,” he panted, hitching one leg through the opening.
“I’ve sent her ahead with the others. Hurry up! I’ll not leave without you, brother!”
“More the fool you, brother,” Zach retorted, though his heart swelled with love and a sense of kinship with Alex.
Alex thrust his hand through the crack. His muscular fingers tangled in Zach’s shirtfront, the material wadding in his palm. He dragged Zach through none too gently, and none too soon. Zach fell against Alex, and a plume of dirt, like powder from a cannon blast, billowed through the hole. The noise increased to a deafening thunder as the walls inside the mine fell like dominoes. The ground shook like a harlots’ den on Judgment Day. Alex pinned a dazed Zach against his side with an iron grip and propelled him toward the main shaft, hauling him to his feet when he stumbled.
Zach could see the shaft just ahead. The men were lifting Gabby through, and then Beth was reaching out for her, cradling her, welcoming her. Thank God Gabby was safe! But whether he and Alex would make it out was still very much in question. Clouds of dry, choking dirt filled the air, obscuring his vision, filling his lungs. The walls all around him were slipping, dissolving, the timber splitting, shifting.
Moments passed like years. Panic was replaced by deep, soul-wrenching remorse. He would not spend another night in Tessy’s arms. Tessy …
Alex was determined they’d make it. Just a few more steps. Just a few feet stretched between him and Beth. He hadn’t done with living. He would not go to his grave without kissing her, without loving her as a man loved a woman. He loved her!
Despite Beth’s kicking and screaming, the men pulled her away from the mine shaft. It was too dangerous for her to stand so close, especially since she’d been leaning in to watch for Zach and Alex.
“Won’t do ye any good standin’ in harm’s way, miss,” said Henry, whose firm grip on her belied his gentle words. “If they’re goin’ to make it, they’ll make it whether ye’re standin’ there or here. Watch and pray.”
Beth prayed hard. She squeezed her eyes shut and promised God everything from her firstborn son to her own chastity. Then she prayed for the ability to keep her promises.
“They made it!” Henry’s buoyant words ended her prayer on a note of thanksgiving. She opened her eyes and watched Alex and Zach stumble arm in arm from the mine to collapse on the ground, coughing and gasping for air. They were covered from head to foot in dust. She rushed forward, then stopped inches away. Her inclination was to go to Alex first, but it would not have been seemly for her to show affection for Alex in front of the servants. Indeed, it would not have been seemly in front of anyone to ignore her fiancé till she’d showered his brother with kisses.
So Beth stood there crying, aching to embrace them both, and embracing neither.
Beth stepped out of the copper tub and onto the glazed delft tile in front of the fireplace. A low-burning fire crackled on the grate. She’d washed her hair, and it streamed down her back in rivulets. Darkened by the water, it was more the color of walnuts than chestnuts. She picked up the towel Sadie had placed on the rocking chair and buffed her skin till it was pink, dry, and warm, then gently rubbed her hair and ran her fingers through it till it was damp-dry and fluffy. Untamed by the stern hand of her abigail and that lady’s boar-bristle brush, Beth’s hair fell in rippling waves about her shoulders. She reached for her white cambric night rail, pulled it over her head, and began the long process of buttoning up the front. She had no servant to assist her, having sent Sadie to bed after Gabby’s bath.
Since they’d returned to Pencarrow, Mrs. Tavistock had refused to allow Gabby out of her sight. Even while Gabby bathed, she had hovered over her, wringing her hands and watching her younger child as if she were a precious jewel that might be stolen away at any moment. Now they were both asleep in the bedchamber across the hall from Beth’s usual room. When Beth had last looked in on them, they’d been curled up together in the center of the bed, Mrs. Tavistock’s arm draped over Gabby. It had been quite a shock to their mother when she’d awakened from her drugged sleep to learn that Gabby was missing in a tin mine, and the servants had had the devil of a time calming and controlling her till Gabby’s return to the house.
Since everyone was mise
rably dirty and exhausted, Alex had deemed it best that Mrs. Tavistock and the girls stay at Pencarrow for the night. Beth was happy to comply and Mrs. Tavistock too weak to protest even if she’d wanted to. Zach offered no opinion about this plan, nor did he comment on the fact that Alex—calmly issuing orders to the servants and returning something like normalcy to the household—seemed more the master of Pencarrow than he was.
In fact, Zach seemed so subdued and sorry about the day’s happenings that Beth immediately and completely forgave him for the part his thoughtlessness had played in the near tragedy. He had gone to his bedchamber upon their return and had stayed there. Beth hoped he was making good resolutions. Gabby was quiet and submissive, too, but that could be attributed merely to exhaustion.
After Sadie had heated so many buckets of water and toted them up the stairs, Beth took pity on her and sent her to bed. Her mother would have disapproved, of course, but Beth knew she was perfectly capable of bathing and preparing herself for bed without a servant’s assistance. She was glad to find one of her night rails tucked away in a drawer from another night she’d spent at Pencarrow.
The mantel clock struck midnight. Beth twisted a small, pearlescent button through each corresponding finely sewn hole as the chimes sounded through the quiet room, and still there were more buttons to fasten. Now the room was as silent as before, lit only by the brace of candles on the piecrust table by the tub and the low fire. The silence and darkness of the room ought to have been calming, relaxing. But Beth was restless. She padded on bare feet across the carpet to the window, still buttoning the night rail. A soft, cool breeze lifted her hair and toyed with the lace ribbons at her bodice. Beth breathed deeply. There in the night was life, a whole world of movement and sound.
The moon was nearly full, like a round of cream cheese with the barest sliver removed. The grass of the formal grounds below her window shimmered like fingers of light.
The fluttering leaves of the ash trees that shaded the topiary of an evening flashed like fobs on a dandy and rustled like tissue paper in a gift box. Beyond the gate the creek gurgled and splashed. Frogs and crickets sang their courting songs, and the distant cawing of sea gulls floated on a fine mist that blew in from the sea.
She ought to have been tired, but she wasn’t. She ought to have been concerned about the changes that daily occurred in her feelings toward Zach, but she pressed that worry to the back of her mind to dust off and consider when she wasn’t so attuned to the thrumming, living energy that stirred the night and stirred her blood, too.
Oh, how she wished she had an outlet for this odd sense of well-being, this strange urge to embrace each moment of life as if it were her last! Had today’s near fatal accident brought on this renewed appreciation for her mere existence in such a perfect, imperfect world? Despite its beauty, it was imperfect, this world she was living in. If it were perfect, she’d be betrothed to Alex and not to Zach.
Beth shook her head and pressed her fingers against her temples. No! She would not think of herself as unlucky or as a victim of misfortune. She loved Zach—like a brother. In the truth-seeking part of her brain, those three words tolled like a death knell. Like a brother.
Beth could stand this restlessness no longer. She turned and left the chamber, determined to leave her vexing thoughts behind her as well. She closed the door and tiptoed quickly down the hall, down the main stairs, and around to the servants’ entrance that opened to the kitchen gardens. She unlocked the door with a key that hung on the wall next to it and let herself out. With each step, the smooth, hard cobbles of the garden walkway gave the soles of her feet an icy kiss. How stupid of her, she thought on a giggle, to have come outside without shoes to protect her pampered feet. But she wouldn’t go back.
She opened the ivy-covered garden gate and was surprised by a rusty squeak, a noise she’d paid no heed to before, but which now caught her attention quite effectively. She glanced up at the windows of the house. All was dark. No one would hear her or see her leave the premises. Where was she going? She didn’t know. She didn’t care. Something beckoned to her. Something as intangible as fairy dust, but as compelling as love’s first embrace.
She walked past the flower beds filled with ghostly mock orange blossoms and the candescent globes of white roses and tobacco flowers. She left the formal grounds through a side gate that was always left unlatched at night—for Zach’s convenience, she supposed. Here the grass grew tall and feathery, bending to the wind’s will. Tonight the carpet of grass undulated like a soothed sea after a storm, still full of movement, but soft, soft….
She made her way through this verdant sea at a leisurely pace, enjoying the tickle of the seed-tipped blades against her calves. The grass tugged at the hem of her night rail like an insistent child or an eager lover. But she would not succumb to this earthy invitation to sink down into a bed as soft as moss. She would go to the creek and sit beneath the ancient oak tree whose huge twisted roots writhed above the earth, seeking sunshine.
It was dark beneath the oak tree where the moon could not cast its light. Shadows from the leaves and smaller limbs of the tree danced on the ground below it. Then, when she was just a few feet away, another shadow caught Beth’s attention. At first it seemed just a part of the oak’s thick trunk, but it slowly separated and took on a life of its own. It moved toward her.
Beth stopped and stood deathly still, her exhilaration turned to panic. Had she been summoned by demons to her death? Had some creature from Pye Thatcher’s store of fairy tales charmed her away from the safety of her home? But knackers and pixies and even water sprites were not so tall.
“Beth?”
Her heart lurched and twisted inside her. Alex! But while he still stood in the shadows of the tree, her fevered mind thought it might not be Alex but some creature masquerading in the form so beloved to her. Could fairies and witches conjure up so true a voice, so deep and melodious a tone?
He stepped into the moonlight. “Beth? What are you doing outside at this hour?”
Ah, here was substance—he was scolding her! “I’m walking,” she said. She held her breath. He was beautiful, so beautiful. He was dressed in dark pantaloons tucked into boots, and his white shirt was half unbuttoned, the sleeves rolled up to just below his elbows. He looked very much the way he did yesterday morning on the beach, except more chest was showing. She remembered how it felt to touch him there, and she shivered.
“Foolish girl, you’re cold,” he said, stepping forward as if to lend her warmth. Yet how could he? He had no coat to lend her. He had only his arms. “Why are you gadding about in your night rail, Beth?” His eyes were averted, as if he’d suddenly realized how near naked she was. She looked down at her gown and saw how the moonlight filtered through the thin fabric and how the wind molded it to her body. She was oddly unashamed. And at the moment—for this bewitching night, perhaps—she felt no guilt.
“I don’t know why I came outside,” she answered, as puzzled as he was by her impulsive behavior, her total disregard for propriety. “It just seemed as though everything outside my window was alive and free, and everything within so dull and stifling.” Her brows knitted. “I don’t know why. I just came.” Suddenly she lifted her chin, saying daringly, “Perhaps I knew you waited for me. Perhaps you beckoned me here. Have you been thinking of me, Alex?”
He studied her. They were separated by just two arms’ breadth. His hair gleamed glossy black in the moonlight, blue lights threading through the waves that fell forward to skim his roguishly arched brows. So like a rogue he looked, except for his expression. He appeared deeply troubled. He did not share the moon-spawned ease of mind that loosened her tongue so, nor did he enjoy a similar relief from fetters forged by guilt.
“Go inside, Beth. Do it now!” he urged her, his tone harsh and insistent. He turned away and walked back into the shadow of the huge tree.
She stepped forward bravely. “Alex, we must talk. I’m so confused about my feelings for Zach, for you. … I need
to—”
“You’re not dressed for talking,” came his brusque reply. Then, more gently, he said, “We’ve nothing to talk about.”
“Nothing? That’s a danker if ever I heard one.”
Alex chuckled, but a bitter note emerged. “Where’d you learn that cant phrase, gosling? From Zach, I’ll wager.”
“Where else? I’ve traveled little, you know,” she answered defensively.
“Precisely.” He hissed the word, enunciating each syllable. “You don’t have a farthing’s worth of worldly sense, Beth, or you would not be here with me tonight.”
Frustrated, Beth pressed curled fists against her hips. “I did not plan this, you know. But since we’re both here, and alone, I’m going to speak of this … this thing that lies between us. I’m going to speak plain and clear and loud, since there’s no one in the wide world to hear us but the toads and crickets.” She flung her arms in an all-encompassing gesture. When Alex did not turn or reply, Beth continued.
“We both know what’s happening between us. We both know that I was more pleased to see you than Zach when you climbed out of that mine together.” A sob caught in her throat, and tears stung her eyelids. “I don’t know how or why. All I know, Alex, is that I’ve come to cherish you more than Zach. And I don’t know what to do!”
“Go inside, Beth. I implore you.” Alex turned slightly, and a shaft of moonlight pierced the shadows to illuminate his profile. He pressed the tips of his fingers, splayed and taut, across his forehead.
Beth stepped forward till he heard her approach and glanced over his shoulder. He walked swiftly away to lean one hand against the trunk of the tree, his head bowed. Beth followed till she stood just behind him. “Tell me you don’t love me, Alex. Then I’ll go. Tell me you don’t love me, and I’ll leave you willingly.”
