The Deadliest Sin

by Caroline Richards

  Julia was suddenly aware that she stood in a magenta and gold room, richly furnished and grandly proportioned, and overly warm from the heat thrown out from blazing piles of logs in two great fireplaces. On every wall were mirrors in gilded frames reflecting the soaring paneled ceiling, curved like the bow of a ship on which were painted scenes depicting the abduction of Helen of Troy by Paris.

  Beaumarchais released Julia’s arm, his eyes scanning her person with renewed interest, making Julia suddenly aware of the obscene nature of her gown. The fine flesh-toned silk moved against her body as insubstantial as mist. “I should like to retire to my rooms,” she said, forcing her breathing to more normal levels. He made no move to step out of her way, his gaze fastened on the low-cut square of her bodice. The house was silent, the guests who had made an appearance at dinner seemingly vanished.

  “Retire to your rooms, my dear?” Beaumarchais repeated as though it was an outrageous request. He arched a thin brow, clearly feeling resplendent in the white evening attire he wore. “I believe Wadsworth would prefer that you rest here in the drawing room. You have all the time in the world, never fear,” he said. “After all, we have some unfinished matters to complete.”

  Julia didn’t understand and was about to say so when she was alerted to a presence by footsteps behind her. Looking quickly over her shoulder, she saw Giles Lowther advance into the cavernous drawing room, his reflection—the high-domed forehead, the barrel-chested posture—multiplied in the gilded mirrors surrounding them. He carefully closed the double doors, leaned back against them, and smiled gloatingly.

  “I can see the situation is proceeding according to plan for a change, Beaumarchais.” He added with a glint in his eye, “Good evening to you, Miss Woolcott, we meet at last.” Swallowing another wave of shock, Julia registered that Lowther would have no idea they had met before, the night at Gordon Square, when she and Strathmore had secreted themselves behind the bookshelves.

  “It did go rather well, didn’t it?” Beaumarchais agreed. “Now that Strathmore is out of the way for the time being, at least.”

  “Still with the whore?” Lowther asked calmly, shedding his greatcoat and tossing it carelessly over one of the low ottomans littered about the room. They were speaking as though Julia was not present.

  Beaumarchais answered, his voice malicious with mockery. “I think they should just about be completing the first round, if I’m not mistaken. The catharides do have a lingering effect, so I shouldn’t be surprised if the exchange, so called, doesn’t continue once they find themselves in the caves.”

  Julia found her voice, not bothering to acknowledge Lowther’s presence with a semblance of formality. “You mean you drugged Strathmore?” she asked, her arms suddenly pricked with cold despite the heat emanating from two giant hearths.

  “Amazing, isn’t it, the potency of the dried beetle,” Lowther murmured thoughtfully, adding for her edification, “known in Latin as cantharis vesicatoria. But then, Miss Woolcott, I am given to understand that translation is unnecessary, that you know Latin and Greek.”

  Julia advanced into the room, suddenly brave. She was convinced she had nothing to lose. Wanting to put distance between her and both men, to allow herself time to think, her slippered feet made no noise on the highly glossed marble floor. Something seemed to shudder beneath her, the vibration traveling from the ground with infinitesimally small reverberations. She shook off a sense of ominous dread, instead focusing with unwavering attention upon Lowther. “You seem to know something of me and yet we have yet to be introduced,” she addressed him directly.

  Lowther contentedly examined the polished toe of his boot. “Let’s just say that I am a friend of an old friend of your aunt’s, Lady Woolcott.” His eyes, small and assessing, met hers calmly. “Once our evening is concluded,” he said in even tones, as one might tick off items on a list, “your knowing my name will hardly be necessary.”

  “All very neat, as requested,” Beaumarchais said with a certain smugness.

  Julia listened quietly, rubbing her arms against the chill that suddenly descended, although her mind was racing to make sense of the labyrinthine plot that Lowther held in store. Another part of her barely made sense of what she had just heard. Assimilating the implications of the aphrodisiacs, relief flooded back in one intake of breath. Strathmore had been drugged, and was in the caves, the word a sudden threat, turning her to ice.

  She consciously willed her hands to unclench her arms before either of the men noticed. “I trust that you intended to separate us. How clever, gentlemen,” she said casually, wishing she had Mclean’s pistol in her two hands, eager to frame Lowther in the crosshairs of her sights and then to see a neat, black hole blossom in the middle of his forehead. Her hands shook, and once again she imagined the floor beneath her feet shuddered in response.

  “Ah, the caves,” Beaumarchais drawled, his mild voice suddenly incongruously harsh. “It might well be a fitting end. I fear that Strathmore will not get so far as to enjoy the sepulchral corridors and peer at niches containing moss-covered statues in interesting poses.” He looked up at the image of Paris and Helen overhead. “Do you feel what I feel?” he asked.

  “You mean the explosions?” Lowther answered with a smile in his colorless eyes. “Strathmore is impossible to kill, unlike a normal man, but we shall see. I’m sure our special guest is even more curious to know whether he will survive the challenge.” It was clear that he disliked loose ends. “I trust the corridors beneath the house will hold.”

  A series of explosions in the caves—where Strathmore was searching for her. Julia absorbed each realization individually as though the message would alter with a change of rhythm, but the meaning was callously fixed, mocking her. She felt cold, chilled to her bones by an icy rage, surging slowly at first but building in a momentum. The mirrors enclosing the drawing room shimmered, and her frightened heart raced. She glared at Giles Lowther, lounging against the fireplace mantel as though the world was his to command. That man had wanted Strathmore dead. That man had arranged for Rowena’s death. Tiny black dots danced around the edges of her vision.

  “Are you feeling quite yourself, Miss Woolcott?” he asked with mock concern. “We shouldn’t want you to faint before meeting our exemplary guest who is, word has it, more than eager to make your acquaintance.” He gestured to Beaumarchais, his high forehead gleaming in the firelight. “Please see to it that smelling salts are at the ready, in case Miss Woolcott feels overcome.”

  Lowther knew that he mocked her, realized she was close to feeling overcome not with helplessness but with a blinding rage.

  She actually wondered whether she could choke the life from him with her bare hands. His neck was thick, she considered, burying her fists in the folds of her gown. The thoughts careening through her mind, fueling her monstrous anger, should have felt foreign but extraordinarily felt exactly right. “Do not expect me to ask for whom we are waiting,” she said. “I already know.”

  Lowther cupped his chin and looked at her inquiringly. “You are hardly what I expected, Miss Woolcott, the withdrawn, diffident spinster who rarely ventured far from home. You speak with a confidence and certainty that is admirable and rare in a woman. I trust you will not be disappointed by our guest.”

  “Doubtful,” she said, her suddenly involuntary appetite for violence swift and sure.

  Lowther smiled knowingly. “I’m certain you have many questions.” When she didn’t answer, he continued unhesitatingly, stretching an arm out to embrace the heavily carved fireplace mantel. “Perhaps we should first begin with Lord Strathmore, clearly the object of your affection. Am I quite correct? Ah, I see that you are suddenly reluctant to divulge your true feelings. How discreet of you Miss Woolcott, despite the fact that Lord Strathmore has seen fit to disrupt his plans because of you.” He gazed at her speculatively. “Does that make you feel any better? Knowing that Lord Strathmore has recklessly squandered his chance of finding the source of the Nile because of an
unreasonable infatuation? Difficult to believe, given the man’s history.” His expression was contemptuous. “Have you heard of the Ptolemy map, by any chance, Miss Woolcott?”

  Her legs were trembling beneath the ridiculous excuse of a gown, but Julia did not give in. “Of course,” she said. “Maps lost to antiquity and merely replicated in the Renaissance based on Ptolemy’s writings.”

  “Or so you believe,” interrupted Beaumarchais suddenly. He had been watching the exchange between Lowther and Julia with the desultory interest of an observer at a game of whist. He held a thick crystal tumbler filled with brandy, which he had taken from the drinks table at his elbow groaning under the weight of decanters and goblets.

  “What of it?” asked Julia sharply. “Might I have some refreshment, gentlemen?”

  “Certainly,” said Lowther gesturing to Beaumarchais. “The lady requires brandy as fortification.” He looked down at the fire for a moment before continuing. “We are in possession of the original map which draws upon some of the most consistent and enduring apocryphal elements in the history of cartography. As you may know, the source of the Nile River has been a matter of speculation for thousands of years. According to Herodotus, the ancient Egyptians believed that the Nile had its source in two great mountains within which were eternal springs. It was believed by some that the Nile’s annual inundations was caused by snowfall at its source.”

  Beaumarchais thrust a heavy tumbler in Julia’s hand but she barely looked away from Lowther. “Hence, Lord Strathmore’s eagerness to access the map. Nothing I don’t already know,” she lied, wondering as to the source of her sangfroid.

  Lowther pursed his lips, removing his arm from the fireplace mantel to undo the top buttons of his straining evening coat. “All the more reason to test Strathmore’s character.”

  “Why ever would you care—to test his character?” Julia asked, taking a small sip from her glass. Once again, she marveled at her transformation, at her courage, reveling in the recognition that if she lost her life that evening—and it was entirely possible she would—that she was done with hiding. She was amazed that she would confront Lowther, and eventually, Montagu Faron, with the intensity of a lioness protecting her young. They had taken Rowena from her…would rob her of Strathmore. Her emotions threatened to explode from her chest, the brandy burning a path to her heart. “Where is Strathmore at present? The caves?” It was a question that demanded an answer.

  Lowther shoved himself away from the fireplace as though giving due consideration to her query, his hands behind his back, his pacing an affectation designed to inflame her anxiety. “Strathmore, if you must know, Miss Woolcott,” he said with exaggerated politeness, looking at her from under arched brows, “is presently trapped beneath several hundred feet of stone.”

  Julia did not feign indifference or pretend that she did not already know what the vibrations implied, the tremors beneath the great house testament to an inescapable fate. “You are trying to kill him,” she said sharply combatative, “and it won’t work.”

  “You should feel some measure of guilt,” purred Beaumarchais from his corner of the grand drawing room. “After all, he went looking for you in the caves. It’s where dear Felicity told him you could be found.”

  An icy rage flowed through Julia’s veins, a rancor inflating with every breath she took. “You claim that Strathmore is impossible to kill, gentlemen—which I believe to be true also. However,” she continued, unsure from where her audacity originated, “as you will soon discover, you and your guest will be easier to dispatch because I shall ensure this evening is your last.” Her eyes narrowed and she allowed herself a small smile. “You have my word.”

  The force of the first explosion threw Strathmore against the wall. When the smoke cleared, the entrance to the cave was sealed from the winding corridors he had just exited. Shaking the dust from his shoulders he estimated that in one or two more explosions, his light would be gone. The air in the caves would be limited once the shafts were closed off.

  It served him right, following Felicity Clarence down the winding stairs to the caverns beneath the estate that led to the mines long abandoned save for the maniacal whims of an earl over a century before. Torches along the narrow walls flickered, already starved of precious air, and Strathmore knew, without looking behind him, that Felicity Clarence had not accompanied him into the bowels of the earth. It was Julia’s face he could not forget, her eyes breathtakingly huge with pain, numb and stunned with shock at the scene he and Felicity had presented in the music room.

  Julia would survive, he lied to himself. He had no other recourse. He could not live without Julia Woolcott, and he forcefully held off the specter of her demise. Taking one step after the next, aware of the flickering flames starved for air decorating the narrowing underground passage, he knew he was a short breath away from black oblivion. Frantic thoughts of Julia evoked her image, floating around the hazy perimeter of his mind. His lungs already reacting to the deprivation of air, the face and body of the woman he loved faded like a receding echo down the panicked corridors of his mind.

  Julia would not be found underground, trapped in the twisting corridors leading to the caves about which Wadsworth had boasted with such relish. It was all a lie. The thought burst in his head just as another explosion shook the white, chalky walls enclosing him. Leaning and panting against the tunnel wall, he waited for what seemed like an eternity before a third blast knocked him to his knees.

  When he awakened, it was pitch black, and pain in his shoulder ripped through him with nauseating force. He compelled himself to move, drawing on thoughts of the past, days spent thirsting in the desert, weeks trapped in the jaws of a storm, his survival instinct lingering in his oxygen-deprived mind. Aware that he was sweating profusely, the pain in his shoulder was an agonizing burn. His body was in shock. Only his strength of will and thoughts of Julia held the darkness at bay.

  He pulled himself to his knees and crawled, his shattered shoulder dragging along the roughness of the cave wall, his exposed nerve endings screaming with pain. He pushed himself up until he was standing. How long he stood swaying in the dark, he would never know. Images flashed through his mind. Julia, bravely confronting him in the cork-lined room at Eccles House. Her face dissolving in grief. Her body melding with his. Julia, eyes burning with intensity, insisting that she accompany him to meet with Montagu Faron.

  None of those thoughts, he thought with bitter irony, hauling the last pockets of air into his heaving lungs, had to do with maps, or mountains, or rivers. Only Julia.

  Strathmore leaned against the wall of the narrow shaft, allowing a wave of panic to subside. He opened his eyes against the darkness, the pitch blackness his current reality. He forced himself to breathe calmly, running through a cold calculation, relying on his instincts to determine the possibilities remaining to him. He thought of the gold mines of Africa, his memory blurring but not enough to erase his recollection of the mines of Wangara, along a tributary of the Senegal River. What were they called? His mind grappled, the knowledge slipping like coins from his fingers. There was always a vertical or near vertical chute into a mine from the surface, a tunnel that was originally used for haulage, drainage, or ventilation or any combination of the three. They were typically six feet wide and a little over six feet tall, and somewhat arched.

  He was beset with the nagging realization that Montagu Faron was anticipating his every move, secure in the knowledge that the most recent challenge would not prove to be Faron’s downfall. It was as though the man knew him better than he knew himself.

  His mouth dry with chalk dust, Strathmore spit into the ground, Faron’s name a smothered curse. Using his hands he began a search of the wall nearest his uninjured shoulder, looking for an arch or shaft reinforced with concrete, or log cribbing to protect from erosion and caving. Whether the search took a minute or an hour was difficult to tell. He had to rest finally, his arm throbbing in a steady, pulsing agony. Resuming his search, his
open palms traced the arched cribbing with relief. Only six feet away, he told himself, estimating that freedom was no further above his head. Grappling amid the sharp and plentiful boulders at his feet courtesy of the explosions, he began chipping away at the soft stone. He rested every few moments, dozing off as the lack of air took its toll, only a spurt of fear rousing him to wakefulness.

  The stones quickly became chalk in his hands, the notion of air and Julia mere inches away keeping him alive. The soft chalk gave way repeatedly but once he broke through, a layer of sand and topsoil poured in. He very quickly realized his left shoulder was useless, and carefully maneuvered himself up the narrow shaft, rising carefully, a fresh pool of sweat following his every exertion. He didn’t move one foot until the other was securely placed, aware that he could not risk a fall. His injured shoulder, still stinging from its recent injury at Birdoswald, screamed with every motion.

  A night sky, overflowing with stars, greeted his gulping breaths as he hauled precious air into his lungs. His shoulders, breaking the surface of grass and moss, ached with a combination of misery and exultation. Strathmore lay panting, face down, breathing in the sweet smell of earth and sky. He allowed himself only a moment, after which he rose from the ground, painfully turning toward the silhouette of Eccles House, outlined by the light of the moon. He found himself standing in the kitchen gardens, bloodied, covered in chalk, a ghost returned from the dead, a mere fifty yards from the house. His first and only thought was of Julia.