“Miss! Miss!” the loyal little mosquito cried at the same time, hovering over Lady Elizabeth. “We ’ave to go!”
Lady Elizabeth lifted her head and made an abortive movement that made Neil think she was trying to get up but could not.
“Keep going!” one of the other females screamed in warning as the bunch of them surged forward, surrounding her. “They be coming! Get through! Leap over!”
Taking heed, the women rushed the doorway, crowding through, abandoning Lady Elizabeth posthaste and leaping over the fallen giant like a herd of spooked deer even as Neil—acutely conscious of the yelling, onrushing crowd just strides behind him now, and in grim expectation of taking a bullet or knife to the back at any instant, if anyone had seen him throw the knife—reached her. Her glorious hair cascaded over her shoulders like silken flames. Her bountiful bosom heaved, threatening to overspill the bright confines of her bodice. Her beautiful face was both unnaturally flushed and bruised in places as it tilted up to his. For the space of perhaps a heartbeat, their gazes met. Fear shone out of her wide blue eyes, and he realized that with the hood shadowing his face and the desperate circumstances no doubt disordering her senses to a degree, it was unlikely that she recognized him. Her lips parted as if she would say something, but not a sound came out, and anyway there was no time.
“I’ll see you safe,” he promised, but whether she heard and understood over the tumult was impossible to tell. Scooping her up in his arms with barely a pause, registering her delicate scent and warmth and softness only peripherally, he ran through the doorway with her not inconsiderable weight clutched to his chest and leaped the giant just as a pistol spat behind him. The bullet he had been expecting splintered stone in the approximate place where his head had been a mere split second before.
He ducked reflexively, and the domino’s hood fell back. Lady Elizabeth flinched in his arms, and he tightened his hold on her. The yards of silk that comprised her gown made her abominably slippery, and dropping her at this crucial moment would be disastrous for them both. Their eyes met again. Hers widened, and her lips moved.
“You!” she said. Or at least, he thought that was what she said, but he couldn’t be sure because the women, many of whom were already flying up the narrow back stairs urged on by others who were pushing and screaming behind them as they fought to get up the stairs in turn, shrieked in window-shattering concert at the explosion of the bullet, nearly deafening him.
“’Ware ricochets!” a man cried behind him. “Demmed walls in the tower are stone!”
“Stop him! He’s stealing a gel!”
“Don’t hit the bawds, ye bloody idiots! The chase does but add spice, and the night’s yet young!”
“Go! Go!” a chorus of females screamed, and go they did, pounding up the stairs in a riotous pack, with every footfall seemingly accompanied by a fresh volley of ear-splitting shrieks.
With only seconds left before the pursuers were upon them and knowing he needed at least one hand free, Neil threw Lady Elizabeth over his shoulder with a barked “Hold on!” to which he could not tell if she replied. He then paused only long enough to yank his knife from the fallen giant’s blood-soaked neck, swipe it clean on the dead man’s sleeve, and drop it in his own pocket.
He was already racing from the scene when he remembered she couldn’t hold on, her hands were tied. He tightened his arm around her thighs, twisting his fist in the fine silk of her skirt for added insurance as he dashed down the corridor away from the stairs. With any luck, the pursuers would think he had run up the stairs in the midst of the fleeing women—or would be so intent on recovering the women that they wouldn’t care about him. Too frightened or foolish to realize that silence would serve them better, the women were making so much noise that the path they had chosen was impossible to mistake.
“They be coming!” one screamed above the rest, clearly referring to the pursuing men.
“That way! Hide, hide!”
“Ah! They can see me! Move!”
The cries of the panicked females were all but drowned out by answering masculine shouts, clearer and closer than they had been.
“They’re taking the stairs!”
“Malloy! Avast, ye lot, look ye at Malloy!”
“Get out of the way! They’re getting away!”
“’E’s been kilt!”
“Stand aside! Let me at the stairs!”
The first of the pursuit was through the doorway, Neil gathered from those cries, although having just rounded a fortuitous bend in the corridor that blocked both the doorway and the stairs from view, he could not confirm it with his own eyes. The thunder of feet seemed to be going up rather than following behind him, he noted with real gratitude, brought on by the knowledge that his defense of them would be hampered by the fact that he could use only one hand, and had to be careful of the lady besides. Had it not been for the twin distractions of Malloy’s body and the fleeing women, coupled with the shadows in the narrow servants’ hallway that grew darker with every foot that separated it from the Great Hall, this alternate way out of the tower stairwell would certainly have been spotted at once. Indeed, he expected someone who knew the castle to point out this possible escape route at any moment.
The saving grace was that he knew Trelawney Castle, too, not well but enough. Just a few strides farther on was a staircase that led down to the cavernous cellar, where long ago prisoners had been held and, more lately, potatoes, vegetables, and wine, amongst other less exceptional goods, were kept. The stout wooden door of his memory was missing, but he was relieved to discover that the steep stone stairs endured. Plunging into darkness that deepened with every step, he descended the twisty staircase that wound down into the cavernous rooms of the cellar as swiftly as he could, keeping careful hold on Lady Elizabeth as he took good care not to lose his footing.
Fortunately, the chit kept still, although the position she was in had to be uncomfortable, and probably frightening as well. With her hands bound, she had no way to brace herself, and thus slipped and slid with every step he took. Clearly, though, she had sense enough to realize that a fall from such a height would do neither of them any good, and lay still as a sack of potatoes as a result.
Finally, the screams and cries and pounding feet above them were barely audible, muffled by distance and the dense stone walls. From the now thick-as-pudding darkness and the earthy scent that increasingly enveloped him, he calculated they were nearing the bottom. Searching his memory, he tried to visualize the layout of the vast, labyrinthian space through which he must take them. They hadn’t much time, he knew. Once their pursuers realized exactly what had befallen Malloy, they would be searching for him. The stairs to the cellar would be remembered. The hunt—this time for him—would be on.
Neil calculated that he had no more than two steps to go to reach the flat stone of the cellar floor when a sound—the faintest of scuffles, an indrawn breath—behind him caused every muscle in his body to tense.
Of only one thing was he certain: they were no longer alone.
Chapter Twelve
NEIL WAS GRIPPING HIS KNIFE AGAIN by the time his feet touched the floor. With one dead by his hand already, he was loath to add more corpses to the tally and thus draw more attention, but for the lady’s sake he was prepared to do what was needed and count the cost later. Tightening his grip on Lady Elizabeth in anticipation of running hell for leather with her when the deed was done, Neil had just whipped around to dispatch their pursuers as quickly and silently as possible when, by the faint grayish light that filtered down from the top of the stairs, which rendered them into faint but unmistakable silhouettes, he saw that they were females. Four, no, five of them, unless he’d missed a bobbing head. Descending the stairs in an untidy rush, they had clearly followed him and his fair burden.
Just about the time he recognized that he was not going to be able to deal with this particular gaggle of pursuers as he had intended, an insistent toe prodded him firmly in the chest.
“Put me down,” Lady Elizabeth whispered, just loud enough so that he could plainly hear her. But in case he didn’t, her squirming coupled with her prodding toe underlined her words so that her meaning was unmistakable. “Put me down. At once, if you please.”
Cursing silently at the turn of events that had given him pursuers he saw no easy way of getting rid of, he eased her off his shoulder and, his hands carefully gripping her trim waist until she found her balance, set her on her feet. No sooner had he done so than she was surrounded by women. Six, even more than he had feared.
Neil experienced a flash of true horror.
“Be ye all right, miss?”
“Yes, yes, and thank goodness so are all of you!”
“Sure, and ye were so brave!”
“We were all of us brave.”
“I didn’a think we would win through, did you?”
“Did any of ’em follow us down ’ere?”
“What’s to do now?”
“Are we safe, do ye think?”
“O’ course we’re not safe! We’ll not be safe till we’re well out of this great barn!”
“Aye, but who knows the way?”
To Neil’s consternation, they all spoke at once, the volume of their voices rising alarmingly as each fought to be heard.
“Keep silent!” Neil commanded, speaking through his teeth even as he took the opportunity to wrap a steadying hand around Lady Elizabeth’s arm. Thus holding her still, he sliced through her bonds. The women had been speaking in whispers, if increasingly loud ones, but any degree of noise was a risk. With so many of the prized females missing, the search would undoubtedly expand even sooner than he had supposed. Someone might even now be remembering the cellar. If they heard voices floating up the stairwell, the gig was up with no possibility of mistake.
“Well, here’s a rudesby!”
“Who be he?”
“’Ow do we know ’e’s not one o’ them?”
“I don’t think he can be. Else why did he save her?”
“May’ap ’e wanted ’er for ’imself.”
Neil couldn’t see the speakers properly—he could barely make out their separate shapes in the dark—but the increasing suspicion in their tones was unmistakable. He could feel their eyes trained on him even through the dark.
“Shh,” he said, the syllable fierce.
“He’s a friend,” Lady Elizabeth intervened in a husky whisper, and he realized that she sounded hoarse. The giant had done damage to her throat, no doubt, and as he remembered how close she had come to being severely injured or even dying, he could only thank fortune that he had been in a position to secure her release before either occurred. Her hands freed now, she shook her arms, then scrubbed the back of her hand over her lips as if to remove something distasteful. They had been, he remembered, scarlet with paint. “You may trust him, I promise. He’s a good man. Look, he’s freed my hands. Come here, and he’ll cut you loose, too.”
Neil’s lips twisted wryly. Her description of him was novel, if nothing else, but not necessarily true, especially as it concerned the others, who were most emphatically nothing to him and whom he had no desire whatsoever to make his concern. But with the women instantly crowding around and presenting their backs to him, twittering with murmurs of anticipation and inundating him with whispered variations of “Me next! Free me!” cutting their bonds seemed the simplest thing to do.
“Me fingers be tingling!”
“Rubbed my wrists raw, that did.”
“Bloody bastards! I ’ope they gets what’s comin’ to ’em!”
“I was that scared, you wouldn’t believe.”
“Thankee. Oh, thankee!”
“Ye be a God-send, sir.”
“Quiet,” he growled. “Unless you want to be found.”
All talk immediately ceased. He sawed through the last of the ropes with a feeling of thankfulness that the task was behind him before restoring his knife to his boot amidst a silence thick with swallowed words and nudges.
But at least it was silence.
Then with a quick movement he untied the now-useless-to-him domino and dropped it around Lady Elizabeth’s shoulders. The cellar was cold and damp, the gown she wore was thin, and his scheme wasn’t worth a farthing if the centerpiece of it sickened and died.
“Thank you.” She looked up at him. He could see the gleam of her eyes through the dark. Her voice dropped so that it had just enough volume to reach his ears only. “What on earth are you doing here?”
“Life is full of strange coincidences,” he replied drily. Then, before she could expand on the topic, he added, “Come,” in a voice meant for her alone, and caught her by the hand, pulling her after him. The slender warmth of her fingers gripped his willingly, and she fell in behind him without protest—or, indeed, a word. The route he meant to try at least had the virtue of leading away from the steps where anyone searching for him—or the bothersome females—would almost certainly first appear. With the faint illumination seeping down the stairs left behind after no more than a pair of strides, he was unable to see even Lady Elizabeth, who stayed close behind him and whose fingers now twined securely with his, much less anything or anyone else. It was dark as pitch, so dark that he stumbled more than once on the uneven floor and had to feel his way along the clammy wall, and trust to his memory besides, to get them where they needed to go. But it was impossible to mistake that the women followed, managing to stay with them despite the darkness and the brisk pace that he deliberately set. Although they were clearly trying to be quiet now, their noise, from muffled whispers to various dull thumps and thuds to the rustle of skirts and the shuffle of feet, was enough to give them away to a deaf man, which he emphatically was not. It was certainly enough to make him grit his teeth and search his mind for a less-than-lethal way to rid himself of them.
“’Tis so dark!”
“What be that?”
“Ow! I’ve bumped me head!”
“’Ware the overhang!”
“I can’t see!”
“Mary, is that you?” This voice he knew: Lady Elizabeth, lagging a little as she spoke to one of the others. He could feel the drag of her behind him, realized she had slowed down, and tightened his grip on her hand, tugging to bring her along faster in hopes of losing the rest of them.
“Aye, it is.”
Losing them did not seem to be working. That voice was even closer at hand than the rest.
“Oh! Watch out for the dip in the floor!”
“Where are we going?”
“Be they still looking for us, do you think?”
“Of course they are, ye great looby! Do ye think they’ll—”
“Quiet,” Neil snapped, thoroughly exasperated now, and the talking stopped again. But that didn’t obliterate the fact that the plaguey nuisances were trailing him and Lady Elizabeth like the tail on a dog. Having reached his immediate goal—a sturdy table resting against the clammy stone wall he’d been feeling his way along—he stopped, opened its single drawer, and by feel removed one of the many candles that he was pleased to discover were still kept exactly where they had been since time immemorial, or at least since he’d become acquainted with the castle, along with flint and steel. The scraping of the drawer was loud enough to make him grimace, but if there was anyone nearby to hear, the women’s noise would have already given them away, so he assumed that his own noise was a matter of little concern.
“Don’t move.” Speaking in her ear once again, he directed the order to Lady Elizabeth alone, then let go of her hand and proceeded to bring flint and steel together to light the candle. As the flame sparked to life with a sulfurous smell and a small plume of smoke, he glanced around. The cellar was basically a series of chambers of various uneven shapes and sizes that had been carved long ago from solid rock. They opened into each other and wound snakelike beneath the castle. Like the floor, the ceiling was stone and in this spot scarce higher than his own head. The rough-hewn walls were shiny with damp. C
enturies’ worth of detritus—barrels, trunks, coils of rope, discarded furniture, and the like—were piled high against the far wall, leaving this side relatively clear. The candle was something he would rather not have had to resort to, but continuing to feel his way along was more likely to bring them to grief than was risking a light, he judged, although if anyone came down the stairs their presence would now be apparent from a dangerous distance. But there was obviously no one within earshot, and probably no one in the cellar at all, else they would have been discovered by now. Anyway, too much time had passed, and too many things might have changed, for him to trust only his memory to guide them to safety.
“Do you know of a way out?” Lady Elizabeth asked as he looked at her. Still hoarse, she was pale but calm, her expression resolute rather than afraid. Her bright hair was as vibrant as the flame, and having tied the strings of the domino at her throat she was now swathed neck to feet in its concealing folds. She was also, he saw to his profound dismay, clasping the hand of the black-haired mosquito, who was clasping the hand of a comely blonde in red, who was clasping the hand of—well, it went down the line, all of them, plus Lady Elizabeth, linked together in a chain. Neil realized that all unknowing he’d been towing the entire group through the dark, and cursed silently again.
Seven pairs of eyes looked at him expectantly.
Will no one rid me of these pesky creatures? The line from Macbeth—altered to fit his present circumstances—popped unbidden into his head, proving yet again that even a bit of education is never entirely lost.
“Perhaps.” The situation had to end. “Perhaps not. In any case, we’ll fare far better on our own.” He swept a frowning look over the gaggle of women. Raising his voice just enough to be sure of being heard by all, he directed his next remarks to them at the same time as he reached for Lady Elizabeth’s hand, the one that clasped the mosquito’s, meaning to pull it free and get on with getting her safely out of the castle as quickly as possible. But the more he tried to subtly disengage her grip, the more her hand tightened on the other woman’s. “If you will take my advice, you would each do well to search out a far corner and hide yourself there. These cellars are vast. If you stay quiet, I doubt you’ll be found.”
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