Slowly, an awareness returned to him. He had an idea that time had passed, but he wasn’t sure how long it had been since . . . since what? He frowned, and opened his eyes, remembering with a sudden jolt the fall he’d taken.
“Bloody floor giving way underneath me,” he croaked, his voice as dry and dusty as he felt. “You really don’t have to try to kill me, you damned house. I just want to make things nice again.”
He coughed a couple of times, and pushed himself upward, taking stock of his limbs as he did so. His legs felt fine, but there was a slight pain in his right shoulder, as well as a dull throb above his right ear. He touched it with tentative fingers, and found the lump he expected.
“Hello?” he called, looking upward. He’d been with Lisa; that much he remembered. But where was she? “Lisa? Hello? Anyone?”
There was no answer.
“Bloody, bloody hell,” he groaned as he got to his feet, squinting in the light that drifted downward from the gallery. All he could see was broken wood, bits of plaster, and large, head-sized pieces of what looked like mortared brick and stone.
Dammit, there wasn’t enough light to see the dimensions of the space he was in. He shuffled forward, hands outstretched, moving aside bits of wood and stone for three steps until he felt the rough surface of a wall. “There’s one.” He turned his back to it, and repeated the process, this time taking five steps before he reached the second wall. He glanced upward at the hole, noting the jagged edges of wood that stabbed across the hole like accusing fingers. “Anyone there?” he called, although he hadn’t heard any sounds of people.
Five minutes passed while he located a third wall, this one made of rough stone, fist-sized chunks of which were missing at various spots. But when he tried to find the fourth wall, he nearly came to grief, the boards under his feet cracking and popping ominously a few feet past where he’d fallen. Hastily, he scrambled backward, not wanting to fall through yet more rotten floorboards.
Distantly, he heard the sound of footsteps, and hurried back to stand under the hole that was located about six feet over his head. “Hello?” he called again. “I’m here, if anyone is looking for me.”
“Alden? Sugar, are you all right? Merciful heavens, I just about died when you went through the floor like that.” Lisa’s voice drifted down to him. “I swear to you, I just about died!”
“Don’t get too close,” he warned. “The floor is weak.”
“It’s all right, I brought you a rope. I just need to tie it to something. . . . Oh, this’ll do nicely. Alden, I’m throwing you the rope. Now, you climb it carefully, you hear?”
“Stay well back from the hole,” he called, ducking when a rough bit of rope spilled over the edge onto his head.
“I’m being careful, but you do the same,” she answered.
He took a firm grip on the rope, and tugged. It seemed sturdy enough. He started to climb, Lisa’s continued admonitions to be careful and not hurt himself following his painful progress upward, inch by inch, as he awkwardly hoisted himself up the rope.
He was a few feet from the hole, when he heard a commotion from above, resolving itself into Mercy’s voice demanding to know what was going on.
“It’s Alden. He’s fallen into the floor below. I thought I would die when he disappeared like that, I can tell you.”
“Alden? Are you OK?” Mercy’s voice came clearly down to him. He gritted his teeth against the pain in his hands, and inched upward again.
“I’m fine,” he grunted.
He heard Fenice asking what was going on, and Lisa repeating how she could have died, she really could have died, when he’d disappeared from sight.
“You’re not hurt? Are you—holy shit! What did you do? Alden! Let go of the rope! Let go right now!”
“No, he’ll fall and hurt himself,” Lisa answered, her voice losing some of its sweetness in her annoyance with Mercy.
“Let go, Alden!” Mercy demanded. He saw a shadow flicker near the edge of the hole, and, gritting his teeth, reached upward to catch the edge of the floor above him.
“I’m almost . . . there . . . ,” he said in between pants.
“Let go now!” Mercy all but screamed, and with a swift glance downward, he hesitated.
“Why—”
A horrible grating noised reached his ears, followed by a shriek from one of the women, and the sound of glass and wood breaking. He released the rope, landing heavily on one leg, biting back an oath that soon turned to a shout of surprise when a loud grating sound was followed almost immediately by dirt, dust, and a large piece of black wrought iron crashing down next to him.
Dust stirred from the floor, surrounding him in a cloud that blinded him for a moment, but after a few seconds of coughing and waving his arms, he managed to get a look at what had happened.
“Alden!” Mercy was shrieking his name over and over again. “Alden! Holy shit, he’s—”
“I’m all right,” he said, coughing and spitting out bits of dust and dirt. “It didn’t hit me.”
“Thank god for that.” He was pleased to hear just how much worry there had been in Mercy’s voice, which had turned soft when she realized he was unharmed. That quickly changed when she lit into Lisa. “What the hell do you think you were doing? You could have killed him! Those railings are totally unsafe, and having him pull one of them in on top of him could have ended up with him impaled by it, at the very least.”
“I did the best I could,” Lisa said, her voice as sharp as a knife. “After all, I was here all by myself while you were out having dinner with your friends.”
“I do not have time for you right now,” Mercy said in a voice that shook with anger. “Alden! Tell me where you are.”
He explained his circumstances, ending with a suggestion that he might be in some hitherto undiscovered hidden room. “It’s a small one if it’s that, although I can’t get to one end of it.”
“Stay where you are,” Mercy ordered without a shred of irony over that statement. “I’ll go down a floor and find you. Do you have something you can tap the wall with?”
He gave a grim little smile at the debris piled around him. “Any number of things, yes.”
Forty minutes later, after much tapping and calling to each other, Mercy finally located a panel in a linen cupboard that opened into the small, stunted room where Alden had slumped to the floor.
“Mercy!” He got to his feet painfully when light streamed in through the narrow opening, motes of dust dancing as the air was stirred by her entrance.
“At last!” She entered the passage, bringing with her a flood of emotions.
Pleasure at the sight of her filled him . . . pleasure and something else, something warm and serious, too serious to think of at the moment. Later, when he had time to do nothing but reflect, then he’d examine the emotions her presence triggered in him.
But for now . . . “That was smart thinking on your part.”
“Eh,” she said with a little twist of her lips. “It’s nothing Nancy Drew wouldn’t do. Come on, Ned, let’s get you out of here.”
Chapter 14
Alden took a step and winced at the pain.
“You’re hurt,” Mercy said, hurriedly picking her way over the debris. She paused to glare for a moment at the piece of railing that had fallen into the room, holding out her hands to help him. “You said you weren’t, but you are. Dammit, Alden!”
“I’m not injured badly. My knee is a bit sore, but to be honest, it was that way after my session with Vandal today.”
“Go ahead and lean on me,” Mercy told him, and almost an hour after falling into the passage, Alden stumbled out of it, sweating, covered in dirt, dust, and minute shards of the glass that had come down with the railing, and more grateful for being alive and able to kiss Mercy than he ever recalled.
“You know what this means,” he sai
d a short while later, sitting in the kitchen and allowing Mercy to dab at the various cuts, scrapes, and bruises from the fall.
“You’re not a superhero?” she asked, spreading a little antiseptic ointment on a bandage and applying it to one of his injured fingers.
“That’s a given. No, what my experience means is that the house is unsafe. I’m going to have to insist that everyone move out of it to the gatekeeper’s lodge, which is perfectly habitable since it has been renovated.”
“I don’t think you have to lock down the entire house,” Mercy said, tucking away the bandages into the first aid box. She was still kneeling at his feet, her eyes grave as she looked up at him. “With the exception of the furry four-legged invaders, I like the house. I like being in it, and since you had the exterminator guys upstairs, I haven’t seen so much as a mousey whisker. And now you want us to leave?”
“It’s not safe,” he said stubbornly, admitting to himself that he really would hate to see everyone leave the house. He’d stay, naturally, since it was his home and his responsibility, but he wouldn’t risk anyone else’s well-being. “If the floor can go like that at any time—”
“Yeah, but what if it didn’t—” She stopped, and got to her feet when Lisa and Lady Sybilla entered the kitchen.
“I understand that you have been injured,” Lady Sybilla said in her slow, precise voice. She pursed her lips and made a show of examining Alden. “You do not look seriously harmed to me.”
“He’s not, but he could have been,” Lisa said, giving him what he thought of as her come-hither look. “I declare, he’s just the luckiest person alive. No one else would have walked out of that horrible situation with just a couple of scratches.”
He felt Mercy start behind him, but she said nothing.
“I’m fine,” he said, addressing Lady Sybilla. “As you see, I have just a few minor injuries. However, the accident has made it clear that until I can complete the renovations, the house is not safe for habitation. I must insist that you and everyone else move to the gatekeeper’s lodge.”
“That sounds like a very smart idea,” Lisa said, nodding vigorously. “Very smart.”
“Nonsense,” Lady Sybilla said with a ladylike snort. “There is nothing at Bestwood Hall to fear, certainly not the floors. Adams and I will remain.”
“No,” Alden said, stiffly getting to his feet. He didn’t want to upset Lady Sybilla, but he’d be damned if anyone else was harmed in the house. “I’m sorry, but I’m adamant about this. Take what you need for the evening, and tomorrow, we’ll get the rest of your things.”
“Young man—”
“You are going to the gatekeeper’s lodge,” Alden said firmly, pinning the old woman back with a look to let her know that this time he wasn’t going to accede to her wishes. “You can either do it voluntarily or I can carry you, but you are going there. Go pack up a few things that you will need for the night, and I will drive you to the lodge.”
Lady Sybilla sniffed loudly, and tried to go all lady-of-the-manor on him, but he was having none of it. “Do it on your own, or I’ll carry you,” he repeated, then turned to Lisa. “The same goes for you. Pack up and meet me by the car in twenty minutes.”
“Oooh,” she said with a little fake shiver. “You’re so forceful. I like that in a man.”
He heard a snort of disgust from behind him, but didn’t bother to give Mercy a stern look.
“I will not be spoken to in this manner,” Lady Sybilla said, making a show of sweeping by him to the door. “I shall retire to my chambers, where I will stay perfectly safe.”
Alden held out his wrist, displaying his watch to her. “You’re down to eighteen minutes.”
Her lip curled. “Good night, Mercy. Lisa, please be so kind as to stop by later to take dictation of a few thoughts I’ve had regarding the war years.”
With another sniff at Alden, she creaked her way out of the room.
Lisa hesitated a few seconds, giving him a sympathetic look.
“Pack,” he told her. “Help Lady Sybilla if you have the time, but we leave in eighteen minutes.”
Lisa left without saying anything more.
“The urge to say ‘good riddance to bad rubbish’ is almost overwhelming,” Mercy said, strolling over to his side. “But I wouldn’t want you to think I was that catty, so I’ll keep it to myself.”
His lips quivered as he looked at her. She was as beautiful as ever, but it was the memory of her eyes shining with emotion when she reached for him in the hellhole that stayed with him. No one had ever looked at him the way she’d done.
“You love me,” he found himself saying without realizing it, and when he did, he didn’t know whether he should stammer out an apology, blush hot enough to fry an egg, or wish the earth would open up at his feet and let him fall in.
On second thought, he’d already experienced the last one, and it left a lot to be desired. In the end, he simply stood and watched her, waiting for her outraged response.
She blinked a couple of times. “You must have hit your head when you fell.”
“I did, but that’s not why I said that. You love me. It’s a fact. I saw it in your eyes when you climbed into that passageway to rescue me.”
“You didn’t need rescuing,” she said, her gaze dropping from his. “You’d have found a way out once you had caught your breath again.”
“You don’t love me?” he asked, his stomach feeling as if it had fallen without him.
She chewed on her delicious lower lip, instantly causing him to want to be doing that. “Do you want me to be in love with you? I thought we didn’t have a thing. We were just . . . you know . . . enjoying each other’s company.”
“Ah.” He cleared his throat, feeling bereft for some absurd reason. Stupid, stupid, stupid, he chastised himself. Now you’ve gone and made her think you’re in love with her, and want her to feel likewise, when clearly she just wanted a summer fling. “Just so. You’d better get your things for the evening.”
“Things?” she asked, tipping her head so her hair swung down. He loved her hair. He loved letting it run through his fingers, like cool, silky water. “What sort of things? Are you going to let me tie you down with scarves tonight?”
Instantly, his penis was on board with that idea. He told his nether parts to calm down, and shook his head. “I meant things you’ll need to sleep over at the gatehouse.”
“Why would I do that?”
“Because it’s not safe for you here.” Just the thought of Mercy being hurt made his guts tighten painfully.
“Oh, that.” She pursed her lips for a minute, then smiled. “I’m not going. There’s no need.”
“Mercy,” he said with a sigh, “I’m not feeling up to yet another verbal battle.”
“Good,” she said, taking his hand in hers, and gently rubbing his hurt fingers with her thumb. “Then don’t argue. Also, can we leave the relationship talk for another time? Later tonight, maybe? Because I have something important to show you, first.”
“What?” he asked, following her when she headed toward the main staircase.
“I want to show you that floor you fell through.”
He stopped her before she could get to the second floor. “No. It’s not safe. I meant what I said, Mercy—I don’t want anyone else getting hurt.”
She squeezed his hand on the part that wasn’t grazed, and gave him a fleeting smile. “Don’t worry, no one is going to be hurt. I want to show you what I barely had time to see before I realized the railing was about to come loose.”
“The floor is dangerous—”
“Not anymore, it isn’t,” she said grimly.
“Don’t let the hole fool you into thinking that was the only weak spot,” he warned, following her up the second flight of stairs. He wanted badly to get her out of the house, to tuck her away somewhere safe and sound,
preferably a place that had a nice bed, and a shower big enough for two. “If the floor is weak in one location, it will be weak in others.”
“I doubt that,” Mercy said, the words drifting over her shoulder as she leaped up the last couple of stairs, and started down the long gallery. “She didn’t have time to do the whole thing.”
“She? She who? Mercy!” He caught at her arm when she continued forward, shaking it a little. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“I’ll show you,” she said, gesturing down the hall. The hole gaped rough and black in the twilight, and even the lights that Mercy flipped on didn’t do much to illuminate the damage to the floor. She walked toward it, keeping to the wall, with one hand in his. “It’s OK, it’s safe over here. This is where Lisa was standing.”
They stopped a few feet from the broken floorboards.
“Am I supposed to see something that will make me change my mind about how dangerous the house is?” he asked, nodding toward the gaping blackness. “Because from where I stand, all I see is weak floorboards and a drop that could have been quite harmful, if not downright deadly.”
“Knees,” she said, kneeling. “You have to get down close to see it. Look. See that?”
He knelt next to her, and cautiously leaned forward to where the hole began. He didn’t see much but broken hardwood, crumbled underflooring, and the wooden ribs that held up the floor. Except two of the ribs were missing. “All I see is broken floor.”
“Then you’re not looking close enough. I saw it as soon as I realized what had happened—and for that, I thank the University of Strathclyde Forensic Detection class, because they taught us to look closely at all the bits surrounding an accident site.”
He looked where Mercy was pointing, frowned, and edged forward to touch the broken piece of hardwood floor.
It wasn’t broken. The edges were too neat. And a closer look at the underflooring and ribs showed that they, too, did not display the edges of wood that had simply rotted away. He looked back at Mercy, his mind struggling to process this information. “Someone did this deliberately? Someone deliberately sabotaged it?”
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