It took Nigh a moment to understand what he meant, then she smiled. He had taken a vow of celibacy. She didn’t know why the idea pleased her so much, but it did. She wondered how many men were capable of love to the point where they’d give up sex.
Years before, Nigh had been somewhere horrible, surrounded by men as she always was, and they were waiting to tell the American TV-viewing audience in three minutes all about the horror they were seeing. One of the men—who’d been leering at her for days—asked her what she wanted in a man. Knowing how selfish he was and what a lecher, she snapped out, “I want a man who is capable of love.” It had been a spur-of-the-moment statement, but she’d thought about it later and she knew it was right. A man who was capable of true love, deep love, love that put others above itself.
She watched Jace as he put the candle down and began to dig at the dirt. She knew it was a futile act, but she liked that he was trying. He was a man who had loved so completely that he’d stood up against what everyone told him they thought and had remained true to his own conviction. He didn’t believe that Stacy had killed herself and he’d dedicated his life to proving that she didn’t. He didn’t want the false accusation against her or himself.
“I think you should sit down,” Nigh said softly.
He turned to her and looked as though he was going to make some cheery statement about their getting out soon, but he seemed to change his mind. “Yes, we should conserve oxygen.”
He sat down beside her and pulled her into his arms, her head on his chest. One candle was almost gone and the other one wouldn’t last for long. But then, neither would the air.
He held her, stroking her hair, and they didn’t talk. Nigh thought about telling him that she loved him too, but she knew that he knew. They had been inseparable since the first day they’d met. If they had run off and eloped that day they couldn’t have been more together.
She didn’t know she was crying until she felt the wetness of his shirt under her cheek.
“Sssssh,” he said, stroking her face. “Be quiet. We need to be still and quiet and breathe as slowly as possible.”
She nodded. There was no use doing anything else. Anger would be futile. Talking was unnecessary.
She didn’t know how long she lay there, her body close to his, feeling his warmth, her face against his heart, hearing the steady rhythm of it, before she fell asleep.
She didn’t know how long it was before Jace woke her. “Quiet,” he said hoarsely and she could feel how he was breathing deeply. There wasn’t a lot of air left in the tunnel. “Listen.”
She tried to raise her head, but it seemed to be too much effort. She put it back down on Jace’s chest.
“Do you hear it?” he asked.
She could hear nothing.
With effort, Jace moved her away from him, then stood up, using the cold, earthen wall for balance. He put his ear against the wall.
“What do you hear?” Nigh whispered, then took a few deep breaths, searching for oxygen.
“I don’t know.” He moved to the other side of the tunnel and put his ear against that wall. “Maybe it’s nothing,” he said, then pointed. Whatever he heard, it was coming from the wall that Nigh was leaning against.
Bending slowly, Jace helped her to stand, both of them gasping for air. He helped her to move to the far wall and toward the end of it, as far away from where they had been as possible.
She could hear it now, and looked up at Jace with wide eyes. What is…it?” she asked.
He took a breath. “Machine,” he managed to get out, then pulled her down to sit beside him on the floor, his big arms wrapped around her protectively.
They waited, listening for any sound, then they felt it. They could feel a great rumble, a vibration coming from the wall. Nigh envisioned another explosion, or one of the ancient roof beams coming down and bringing the ceiling with it, but she was too light-headed from lack of oxygen to be concerned. She put her head on Jace’s arm and started nodding off to sleep.
When the big bucket of the backhoe tore into the ceiling, she wasn’t prepared for it, but Jace was. He had figured out what was going on and he knew that when there was a hole made in the tunnel, the roof would collapse. He had to be ready!
When the bucket came through the ceiling, he looked up, meaning to spring into action, but he was too depleted of air to be able to move. But he didn’t have to worry. There were a dozen faces peering into the hole and they were ready to work. Before the hole was fully open, two men had jumped into the tunnel and a ladder was lowered. One burly man slung Nigh over his shoulder, then Jace was pushed up the ladder, the last man behind him.
Seconds after they reached the top, what was left of the tunnel collapsed, swallowing the ladder and almost swallowing the last man, but there were others to pull him out.
There was an ambulance waiting and Jace and Nigh were put in it and oxygen masks were placed over their faces. Nigh lay on the bed in the ambulance while Jace sat beside her, holding a mask to his face.
A man in the uniform of an emergency technician looked at both of them. “You all right?” he asked Jace, and he nodded.
Jace removed the mask for a moment. “Who found us?” he gasped out.
“An old man named Hatch. How long were you down there?”
Jace looked outside the ambulance. It was daylight, but he didn’t know what time it was.
“Since two a.m.,” Jace said.
The technician smiled in a patronizing way. “That’s not possible. You couldn’t have lived that long,” he said as he got out of the ambulance and closed the door. Minutes later, they were on their way to the hospital.
21
Nigh awoke slowly, afraid of what she’d see. The last thing she remembered was being in Jace’s arms and knowing that she’d never wake up again. She wondered if she’d open her eyes and see Heaven.
When she did open her eyes, she smiled at her thought. Sitting in a chair, sound asleep, a blanket over him, was Jace. For a moment she watched him, smiling at the sight of him, and slowly she began to remember the rescue. The bucket of a backhoe coming through the wall, then the dazzling sunlight followed by a rush of life-giving air. Men had jumped into the tunnel, ropes about their waists, then someone threw her over a broad shoulder and carried her to the top. She remembered looking back and seeing Jace climb over the ladder onto the grass and into the sunlight. Behind him, with a great roar, what was left of the tunnel collapsed. There was shouting as a man was pulled out of the falling ceiling, then yells of triumph when everyone was safe.
After that, she didn’t remember much except lying down with a mask over her face and again breathing.
Jace had opened his eyes and was looking at her. “Hello,” he said.
“Hello.”
They exchanged smiles, not needing words. Somehow, they had survived the unsurvivable.
She sat up in the bed and Jace got up to help her, moving her pillow about, then handing her water to drink. There was an IV in her arm.
“Tell me everything,” she said.
“I can’t,” he said, kissing her forehead. “I have to go to London.”
“London?” She took his arm. “You’re going to see Tony Vine, aren’t you?”
“Yes. Don’t look at me like that. This has become serious. I have to find out who killed Stacy.”
Nigh realized that for the first time, he said the name without pathos, without agony, without regret in his voice. She clutched at his arm tighter. “You can’t go without me.”
“You need to stay here for a day and let the doctors check you out.”
“And I guess they didn’t tell you the same thing.”
Jace gave her a one-sided grin. “Yeah, they told me the same thing, but I have to go. And I have to go alone.”
“I’ll tell them where you went,” she threatened.
He put his hand on her cheek. “Nigh, baby, I can’t let you go with me. As soon as we got here last night, I called my uncle and he fou
nd out some things. Stacy’s roommate Carol was more right than she knew about this guy Vine. He’s the head of a minor English organized crime group. No one has been able to prove anything, but he’s messed up in some really bad things, like drugs.”
“So you’re going to go see him and accuse a man like that of killing your fiancée. Do you have a death wish?”
“I’m not going to accuse him of anything. I just want to know what happened.”
“Jace,” she said, her nails cutting into his arm, “you need to turn this over to the police.”
Jace’s face turned hard. “You think I wouldn’t like to? I’ve talked to them this morning and I told them about the explosions. But they didn’t believe me. They said that what I heard was a three-hundred-year-old tunnel collapsing, and that I should be grateful to be alive.”
“Did you tell them about the stereo playing and the doors being open and all the lights on?”
“Of course, but they said it was probably the Priory House ghost, the lady highwayman. They all thought it was a great joke.”
“How do you know that this man, Tony Vine, will see you?”
“I had a messenger service in London deliver a note to the address Carol gave us. All I did was give him Stacy’s name and he agreed to see me.”
Nigh leaned back against the pillow. “You can’t go without me. I’m part of this.”
“You’re going to stay with Hatch and Mick while I go to London.”
“Last night I heard someone say that Hatch had been the one who knew where to look for us. How did he know where we were?”
Jace looked away. “You can ask him that when you see him. He should be here in about an hour—if he can get through, that is.”
“What does that mean?”
Jace grimaced. “There are about a dozen reporters outside waiting for one of us to appear. Someone in the village told them that Lady Grace’s secret tunnel had been found and she’d nearly had her revenge on us by taking it down with you and me inside. The story is making headlines across England.”
“And you’re planning to leave me to deal with them alone.”
Jace looked astonished. “You are a reporter, did you forget that? You usually have your microphone in someone’s face.”
“I do not do celebrity interviews and I certainly don’t do local ghost stories.”
“That’s how you met me!” he said, exasperated. “And can you honestly tell me that you haven’t followed somebody around with a microphone and demanded that he tell you what was none of your business?”
“No. I mean, not like you’re talking about, I haven’t. I just reported what people have—” She looked down at her hands.
“Reported what?”
“What people have the right to know,” she said. “There! Happy now?”
“No. You’ve done it to people, so now you can be on the receiving end. I’ve got to go.”
Nigh swiveled and got out of the bed, then was pulled back by the IV in her arm. “If you go to London without me, I’ll…”
“You’ll what?” Jace said, anger rising in him.
“I’ll…” Her head came up. “After we’re married, I’ll remind you of this for the rest of our lives together. I’ll make you so sorry you didn’t take me with you and left me alone to face the reporters that you’ll rue the day you did this. I’ll—”
“You win,” he said, cutting her off. “Where are your clothes?”
“Haven’t a clue, but I guess they’re in that closet.”
As he got her clothes, she took a deep breath, then pulled the IV out of her arm. She started to tell Jace to turn around while she dressed, but then she gave him a little smile and stripped down to her skin in front of him. He was mesmerized, staring at her, taking in every inch of her nude body.
“You approve?” she asked.
“Nigh,” he said softly, then crossed the room in one step and pulled her naked body into his arms and kissed her. It was good to know that he desired her, good to know that she hadn’t imagined that he’d said he loved her.
“London,” she whispered as his hands went down her bare back. “Tony Vine.” He didn’t stop stroking her skin and she knew that if they didn’t want to end up on the hospital bed, she had to make him stop. “Vow of chastity,” she said louder. “Remember Lancelot?”
Smiling, Jace moved away from her, then turned his back to her while she dressed. “I want to get this settled quickly,” he said.
Nigh laughed. “Me too.” It took only minutes to pull her clothes back on. She vowed to burn them as soon as she could because they smelled of the tunnel. They were musty and dirty and the last time she’d worn them, she had been facing death.
“So how do we get out of here without being seen?” Nigh asked.
“Follow me,” he said, then took her hand and led her to the door. He checked that the corridor was clear. “Get two bunches of flowers,” he said, nodding to the vases in her room.
She hadn’t even noticed the flowers. “Ooooh, who sent them?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” Jace said. “But they’ll be our cover. We’re looking for sick people to visit.”
“As opposed to being sick people,” she said. “Right.”
Ten minutes later, they were out of the hospital and going toward the parking lot. Jace took his keys out of his pocket and headed for his car.
“How did this get here?”
“Mick.”
As she got in, she said, “You still didn’t tell me how Hatch knew where we were.”
“Danny told him.”
“Ah,” Nigh said, her eyes opened wide. “Was Ann with him?”
“Do you have a sister?”
“No. Then Ann was with him. Mick said it was a young woman who looked like you.”
Nigh kept her eyes on the road. “Did anyone know they were ghosts?”
“Mick doesn’t, but I think Hatch did, although I haven’t talked to him. Mick said that some man told Hatch where we were and he woke up Mick, then they woke up everybody.”
“But Mick saw the man and woman?” Nigh asked.
“Yes. He was matter-of-fact about it. He said Hatch pointed out some guy standing on the sidelines and said he was the one who’d told him we were in the tunnel. I asked Mick who he was so I could thank him, but Mick said he was too shy to come out of the bushes. He wouldn’t even let the rescue team thank him.”
“I guess you had Mick describe him.”
“Oh, yes. Down to the riding boots Danny was wearing.”
“And what about Ann?”
“Mick said the man was talking to a woman in a long dress. Mick thought it was her nightgown except that she had on a belt with it.”
“Ah,” Nigh said, nodding her head, then she looked at him. “Talking to her? But that means that Ann and Danny are back together. But that’s wonderful! He’s been haunting Tolben Hall and Ann’s been here. So now they can get together forever and live happily ever after. Or go to the ‘white light’ or whatever.”
“That was my first thought too,” Jace said.
“But what?”
“I asked Mick some questions about them. I said they were friends of mine from another village and that I’d told them about my explorations of the tunnel and my fear of collapse. I said that they’d had a big fight and I was wondering if they looked like they were back together again.”
“So what did Mick say?”
“He said they looked sad, but he figured they were worried that you and I were going to be dead by the time they got to us. It took a while to get a JCB there and it took a while to figure out where to start digging.”
“I guess Danny told them. After all, he could move back and forth between the walls and see where we were.”
“Mick said that Hatch went into the shrubs and asked the man a couple of times before he let the backhoe operator start digging.”
Nigh blinked. “I wonder how ol’ Hatch took that? Going to a ghost to ask questions, all done in br
oad daylight.”
“Mick said that during the whole thing, Hatch kept taking deep drinks from a flask he was carrying.”
Nigh laughed. “I know how he feels. I’ve talked to Danny before, but if I had to do it again, I’d want some of Hatch’s brew.”
“I’d rather face an army of ghosts than ever again have one swallow of Hatch’s brew,” Jace said, making Nigh laugh again.
He glanced away from the road to her. “It’s good to be alive, isn’t it?”
“Wonderful,” she said. “Truly wonderful. By the way, I need some food and I need some clean clothes. I do not want to meet this gangster wearing dirty jeans and jumper.”
“Wives are very expensive, aren’t they?” Jace said solemnly.
Nigh took a deep breath. “Yes, and it starts with a ring. Are pink diamonds expensive?”
Jace groaned. “Very.”
“Perfect,” she said, laughing.
It was late afternoon before they were ready to go to meet Tony Vine. They went to one of the arcades in London’s fashionable Mayfair district and bought new clothes. Then they checked into one room at Claridge’s and bathed and dressed. They were very polite, respecting each other’s privacy, and making no remarks about the one bed. A big, comfortable-looking bed that ate up most of the room.
At 3:30, they were ready to leave.
They were silent as they went down in the elevator, and as they passed the front desk, a man handed Jace a large envelope. He opened it in the taxi, read it, then looked at Nigh. “Tony Vine was in the hospital when Stacy died.” He hesitated. “It seems that Tony tried to kill himself on the night Stacy died.”
She took the paper from him and read it. It was from his uncle, Frank Montgomery, and it was a photocopy of a report from a hospital near Margate. Nigh looked at Jace in disbelief. “A double suicide? A pact?”
“Aren’t those when people kill themselves together?” he asked dryly. “But in this case, Tony lived while Stacy died.”
Someone to Love Page 24