by Kate Bateman
Struck by sudden inspiration, she patted at her wayward hair and found a stray hairpin, clinging stubbornly to the strands behind her ear. She approached the circle of stones.
“Please, well,” she muttered, feeling slightly foolish at having to voice the thought out loud, even with only Galahad to hear. “Save me from having to marry Sir Mostyn. Help me find some other way to restore the Montgomery fortunes.”
With a final kiss for luck, she tossed the hairpin into the open mouth of the well and listened for the corresponding splash.
None came.
Maddie leaned forward, expecting to see the dark ripple of water below, but to her astonishment all that greeted her was a dark, gaping hole.
“Good Lord!” Her shocked whisper echoed back to her from the darkness.
“Do you know, I’d forgotten this place was even here.”
Maddie spun around with a yelp, one hand pressed to her pounding heart. Gryff Davies’s handsome face peered over the parapet, his dark brows raised in interest.
“What are you doing here?” she scolded. “Are you following me?”
His expression was innocence itself—and she didn’t believe him for a minute.
“Why would I be following you? I thought you were headed home. I was just refamiliarizing myself with my land.”
“Our land. This particular bit belongs to both of us, remember?”
He sent her an angelic smile. “How could I forget?”
Sure that her cheeks were pink with embarrassment, and uncomfortable with his elevated position giving him the advantage, she hastened back up the steps until she was back on an even level with him.
His horse stood happily beside Galahad, cropping the grass at the edge of the clearing. He leaned back, settling himself casually on the low wall, and Maddie became acutely aware of the fact that they were alone. The thick trees and dense ferns muffled even the sound of birdsong.
She cast around for something to say. “The waters here are supposed to cure everything from scurvy to colic.”
The corner of his mouth twitched. “Do you have one of those?”
“Of course not. I’m neither a sailor nor a sheep. I’m in excellent health.”
His gaze slid down her body, and his lips twitched again, but all he said was, “I should say so. You look remarkably hale and hearty, Miss Montgomery.”
A new flush rose on her skin. She probably looked as if she had a fever.
“If you’re not here to be cured of some hideous ailment,” he said, “you must be here to make a wish. Unfortunately for you, I’ve never heard of these waters fixing a wicked tongue or a fiery temper.”
She sent him a withering glare.
“And I’m pretty sure they’ve never provided anyone with a husband, either.”
Obnoxious man. “You couldn’t be more wrong. I wasn’t wishing for a husband at all.” Quite the opposite. She wanted to escape an engagement, not attract one. “And even if I was, it’s of no concern of yours.”
He rose to his feet, and she took a wary step back.
“So what do you desire? Come now, I’m all agog to hear it. What could the spoiled, pampered Miss Montgomery possibly want or need?”
Freedom, she almost blurted out. And a fortune to assure it.
“You’ll never know. Besides, this well is dry.”
His eyes danced with teasing merriment. “Is that a euphemism?” He shot her a mock-sympathetic look. “Just because you’re a twenty-two-year-old spinster doesn’t mean you’re a dried-up old prune just yet.”
She glared at him, and his smile turned wolfish.
“You’re clearly not meeting the right kind of men. Why, I’d be willing to bet that I could—”
“It was not a euphemism,” she sputtered, desperate to stop his provocative words. She didn’t entirely understand what he was talking about, but just the way he said it made her sure it was something he shouldn’t be discussing with a lady. “I meant that the well”—she waved vaguely behind her—“is literally dry. As in, ‘without water.’”
He glanced at the lush greenery around them, from ferns to moss to grasses.
“Are you sure? This place doesn’t look like it’s lacking rainfall.” He stretched his arms above his head and inhaled deeply. “There’s nature blooming everywhere. I can practically feel all this clean air doing my lungs good. God, I miss the smog of London.”
Maddie turned away from the sight of his broad shoulders flexing beneath his jacket and started across the clearing.
“It is odd. We haven’t had many days without rain. Certainly not enough to have caused a drought.” She tramped over to the far side of the glen and began to pick her way over a heap of lichen-speckled rocks. “Perhaps something happened to divert the course of the underground spring that feeds the well?”
“Why does it matter?” he called from behind her, sounding bored. “I’m sure it’s not the first time a well has dried up.”
“I’ve never heard of it. Not around here.”
“You’re an expert on wells, are you?”
“No, but I’m used to looking at the surface of the land to determine what lies beneath.”
“Ah yes. I remember your passion for scrabbling around in the mud, looking for treasure.”
“It’s called archaeology,” she said primly. “And there’s a lot more to it than ‘scrabbling around in the mud.’”
“Yes, like luck. Which you don’t seem to have. I bet you’ve never found anything more exciting than a few Roman coins and bits of old pottery, have you?”
His accuracy was extremely irritating. She’d dreamed of unearthing some vast treasure ever since she’d been a girl. This particular part of the country had an ancient, checkered history—everyone from the Celts to the Romans had left their mark. Who knew what riches might be hidden beneath their feet?
For the last few summers she’d overseen her own digs, hiring local men to do the strenuous work, and fantasizing about finding some impressive Viking hoard. When she’d learned about her father’s financial troubles, she’d spent hours in the fields, looking for anything that might be sold to the British Museum or to a private collector.
Maddie shook her head at her own naïveté. Hoping to find buried treasure was as silly as expecting a wishing well to restore their fortunes.
But how else could they avoid ruin? She’d already researched all the paintings in the house, hoping one might have been wrongly labeled COPY OF REMBRANDT instead of BY REMBRANDT, but no such luck. She and cousin Harriet had moved on to scouring the library, in case any first-edition folios of Shakespeare’s plays were lying about in there, dusty and forgotten.
Her only other option was to marry a rich man, because according to society her only real attributes were her noble family lineage and single status. Perhaps she should just sacrifice her pride, go to London, and try to snare a rich husband?
The idea was extremely distasteful, even if it was common enough among the upper classes, and it was unlikely to yield results. Maddie was too odd, too opinionated. Hardly the meek little mouse most men seemed to want for a wife. The only ones who showed her any interest were widowers and letches, like Sir Mostyn.
“It’s not luck,” she said, belatedly remembering her unwanted companion. “It’s making an educated guess, based on scientific observations.”
Behind her, Gryff gave a skeptical grunt.
A strange, sunken indentation in the earth farther on drew her attention, and she started forward to investigate. “There must be a logical explanation for the lack of water. A rockfall farther up the source, for example.”
The grassy hollow looked as if some giant hand had taken a scoop out of the earth. She reached the edge of it and turned to see if Gryff was following, but at that very moment the ground beneath her seemed to buckle and sink, as if she’d stepped on a feather mattress.
She flung her arms out, trying to catch her balance, but it was too late. Before she could do more than give a panicked cry, she
was falling—down, down in a terrible blur of earth and rock. The roar of falling stones and ripping roots filled her ears and the last thing she heard was Gryff’s voice, bellowing her name.
Chapter 5
Maddie landed on her back with a painful thump that knocked the air from her lungs. She sucked in a shocked breath, then coughed in the dust-filled air. Her ribs spasmed in protest. When the sound of falling stones trickled to a stop, she opened her eyes to darkness, half amazed that she wasn’t dead.
Her eyes adjusted slowly to the dim light. Above her—at least ten feet above—was a patch of blue sky with clouds scudding overhead.
Gryff’s face appeared in the opening, his handsome features twisted in an expression of concern. “Christ! Are you hurt? Don’t move a muscle!”
Maddie almost snorted. He was probably worried that if she died, he’d be blamed. She wouldn’t be the first Montgomery to have been sent to meet her maker by a murderous Davies.
She made a brief inventory of her body, rotating her ankles and wrists, and started to rise.
“Don’t sit up!” Gryff immediately shouted. “Stay right where you are. I’m coming down.”
“No, don’t! We’ll both be stuck down here.”
He ignored her objection. His head disappeared, only to be replaced by his booted feet as he carefully lowered himself into the hole and slid his way down the rock slope that now slanted to the floor. A flurry of loose stones cascaded in his wake, settling all around her, but he was soon at her side.
“Are you hurt?”
Maddie ignored his outstretched hand and sat up on her own. He sucked in a disapproving breath at her rebellion, then squatted down in front of her and caught hold of her ankles. She gasped and tried to push his hands away.
“Stay still,” he growled.
Maddie was still too shaken to object when he pushed her petticoats up to expose her stockinged shins and ankle boots. His strong fingers gently squeezed her ankles and she stared down at his tousled hair in wordless astonishment.
He shot her a smile from under his lashes. “Before you start haranguing me, I swear I’m not taking advantage. We need to make sure you haven’t broken anything.” His eyes twinkled. “Just pretend I’m old Doctor Williams.”
Maddie suppressed a snort. Gryff was nothing like the white-haired, stoop-shouldered village physician. Doctor Williams’s liver-spotted hands were always cold, no matter the season, whereas she could feel the heat of Gryff’s fingers through the cotton of her stockings as they slid confidently up her shins to her knees.
Her stomach contracted in alarm. How high was he planning to go? She shoved her skirts back down and drew her knees up to her chest to prevent his exploration from going any further.
“Nothing’s broken. Truly.”
He released her with a chuckle and sat back on his haunches. “Spoilsport. Still, it doesn’t look like there’s any serious damage. How’s your head?”
“Still attached,” Maddie snapped. “Stop fussing. I’m fine.”
He held up two fingers and leaned forward, peering deeply into her eyes. Maddie’s breath hitched. In the semi-darkness his mossy-green eyes appeared almost black.
“How many fingers am I holding up?”
He was far too close. She could feel the warmth of his breath on her cheek. “Green,” she murmured.
His brows drew together. “What?”
She swatted his hand down. “Nothing. Two. Two fingers.”
He nodded, apparently satisfied, and stood. The move put the flap of his breeches—and the manly bulge contained therein—right in front of her eyes. Maddie blinked again, to clear her swimming senses. Perhaps she ought to remain sitting for a little longer?
“Can you stand?”
“I think so.”
He offered his hand again, and she ignored it—again—and got stiffly to her feet. She felt like a ninety-year-old woman. “I’m fine. Really. Just a little shaken. It was no worse than taking a tumble from a horse. I was just winded, that’s all.”
Her ribs ached in protest but she bent and brushed at her skirts to dislodge the remaining dirt. A flurry of debris fell from her hair.
“How’s your bottom? Bruised? Want me to take a look?”
She sent him a narrow-eyed look.
“Maybe you should loosen your bodice?” he said, straight-faced. “Let yourself breathe.”
“You seem full of helpful suggestions to undress me.”
He sent her a wicked grin, utterly unapologetic. “Is it working?”
“Not in the slightest.”
He gave an exaggerated sigh of disappointment and stepped closer. She took a cautious step back.
“Stay still,” he commanded softly. For a bizarre moment she thought he was going to cup her cheek or stroke her face, but his hand detoured at the last moment. She felt a tug as he plucked at a stray hairpin dangling near her shoulder, and held it up in front of her nose.
How mortifying. She must look a complete wreck. So much for appearing a cool, mature, sophisticated woman. What was it about him that made her feel as gauche and as scrappy as the eighteen-year-old she’d been when he’d left?
She snatched the pin from his fingers, then flinched as he pushed her hair back from her forehead. She registered a brief sting.
“You’ve hurt your head.”
She tested the painful lump with her own fingers. “It’s just a graze.”
“Let’s hope it knocked some sense into you.”
“What do you mean?”
His expression darkened. “What were you thinking, scrambling about up there like a mountain goat?”
Her mouth fell open. “Are you blaming me? For an unavoidable accident?”
“Yes, I’m blaming you,” he scolded. “You shouldn’t have been risking your neck. What if I hadn’t followed you? You could be lying down here with a broken leg, or worse. Nobody would find you for weeks.”
Unwilling to admit that he had a point, she went on the offensive. “Why were you following me?”
“To make sure you got home safely, of course.”
His angry confession knocked the wind out of her sails. “Oh.”
He lifted his brows. “Yes, oh. Contrary to what you might believe, Miss Montgomery, I do have a shred of chivalry within me. Anytime you want to thank me—”
She opened her mouth to curse him, but he didn’t appear to expect an answer because he placed his hands on his hips and swung around, away from her, peering into the darkness. “Looks like this is some sort of cave.”
Maddie squinted into the gloom. The single shaft of light from the hole above only illuminated a small area, but she could make out a rocky wall off to her left. A chill, damp breeze and the sense that the darkness extended much farther than this little patch of light raised the hairs on her arms.
“There must be a series of them that bring the water to the well,” she said. “But we’re only about ten feet down. The well is much deeper than that.”
“So the cave system must continue beneath us.” He strode a few feet away, out of the puddle of light, and she bit back the urge to call him back. “It’s too dark to see how far it goes. I’ll come back another day with lanterns. Find out how big it is.”
He stepped back into the light, and the look on his face was a mixture of excitement and devilry. Maddie wondered if it was the same look he wore when his horse was winning at Newmarket, or when he’d been dealt a particularly good hand at cards.
“Why are you so interested in exploring?”
“I’ve been desperate for an adventure ever since I got back from France. This fits the bill nicely.”
“Wasn’t your duel with Lord Sommerville excitement enough?” she asked sweetly.
He gave a careless shrug. “Didn’t even wing him.”
She waited for him to say more, but he remained infuriatingly tight-lipped.
“Well, you’re not doing anything without me,” she said finally. “This is shared land, remember? I have just
as much right to explore as you do. Besides, what if you discover something interesting?”
“I suspect your idea of interesting is rather different from mine,” he said drily. “But God knows, this is probably the best entertainment a man can hope for around here.”
She ignored his grumbling. “We might be the first people to set foot in these caves for thousands of years. Maybe the first people ever. What if we discover something of archaeological importance? Like human bones? Or artifacts?”
“This may surprise you, Miss Montgomery, but finding human remains isn’t high on my list of fun things to do. But I promise to tell you if I find any. How’s that?”
“Not good enough. You’d probably walk right past them, oblivious. Or you’d find something exciting and not tell me, and hog all the glory for yourself.”
He rolled his eyes heavenward. “Fine, Little Miss Suspicious. You can come—if you think you can keep up.”
He tossed the challenge down so lightly, and even though Maddie knew it was a deliberate taunt, knew it was a mistake to have anything to do with Gryff Davies, she couldn’t help but rise to the bait.
“Of course I’ll be able to keep up. When do you want to meet?”
He sent her an appraising look. “Think you’ll be recovered enough by tomorrow?”
“Of course.”
“All right then. Meet me back here at noon.”
He started to scale the tumbled slope and she scrambled up after him, her sore muscles protesting. He didn’t even attempt to help her, this time. When they finally stood back in the clearing she took a grateful lungful of air, glad to have escaped from the pressing darkness below.
The horses were still grazing peacefully together by the trees. Since there was no mounting block nearby, she used a moss-covered boulder to mount Galahad and sent Gryff a stiff nod. He gave her that mocking salute again.
“Until tomorrow, cariad. I can hardly wait.”
Chapter 6
Maddie’s attempt to sneak in from the stables unobserved was foiled when she encountered her cousin Harriet in the back hall.
Harriet’s father, Uncle John, was brother to Maddie’s father. Harriet lived most of the year in London, helping to run Uncle John’s mapmaking business, but she always spent a good part of the summer at Newstead Park. Only a year younger than herself, Maddie considered her the sister she’d never had.