“A few, but I don’t know their exact location. I usually follow the trails I took with my uncle whenever I go for a walk in the moors. It is safest if you stick to the well-trodden paths.”
“I’ll remember that when I go in search of the right location to paint,” he murmured, knowing she still wasn’t convinced that he was an artist.
“Of course,” she murmured noncommittally, starkly aware of the distance between them. It bothered her just how much of an impact this man had on her in such a short amount of time. They had been acquainted less than a day, and she could already read his thoughts as though she had known him all of her life.
Later that day, Francesca’s words of caution still ringing in his ears, Simon wandered through the village. It was disturbing for such a large area to be so deserted. He tried not to stare into the windows as he passed the many houses lining the main street, but found himself glancing into the darkness anyway. Although he couldn’t see anyone, he could practically feel their eyes boring into his back as he passed.
Carefully keeping his demeanour relaxed, Simon walked through the village and headed toward the path that led to the tin mine, clutching his satchel containing his meagre art supplies.
As he approached, he studied the desolate buildings of the abandoned mine. One long single-storey building lay alongside a four-storey tower nestled amongst a variety of weeds and what appeared to be building rubble. At the corner of the low slung building he glanced back toward the village, unsurprised to find the main street still quiet and empty. Still, his gut instincts warned him that danger was nearby.
Refusing to be cowed by anyone posing any particular threat, Simon slowly worked his way around the perimeter of the buildings, studying the surrounding area and the escape routes carefully. When everything appeared undisturbed after several minutes, he made his way around to the door, disappearing inside moments later as silently as a ghost in the night.
He paused inside for several moments to allow his eyes to adjust to the gloom before walking deeper into the room. It was as cold and unkempt as outside but there was something about it that made his instincts ringing. He was fairly certain he was missing something only couldn’t decide what it was. Taking note of the trolleys and tools that lined the far wall, he slowly wandered around the empty barn of a room until he was at the base of the tower that was undoubtedly the shaft leading to the mines. Deciding not to venture that far for now, he turned back to the room behind him. Easing his pistol out of its holster, he slowly edged toward the door that would take him back outside, one eye on the dark void of the mineshaft and the other on the various objects littering the main room.
Once at the door he turned the handle and tugged, cursing fluidly when the door didn’t give. He stood beside the wall, peering out of the dirt-smudged window as far as he could, for any sign of movement. At least now he knew why his instincts had been ringing so alarmingly. There was someone nearby, and that someone had seen fit to lock him in the mine.
Had he walked into a trap? He wasn’t sure but had been fairly certain nobody had followed him. If they had, they were professionally trained at subterfuge, and were as adept at following someone undetected as he was.
Tugging on the door once more, his mind began to race with possibilities. His situation had grown alarmingly dangerous all of a sudden. He had to get out of the mine now while he was still alive to do so. Racing over to the far end of the room he plastered himself against the wall, peering cautiously out of the window.
“Shit,” his curse echoed hollowly around the empty room at the sight of the thirty foot drop on the opposite side. He had known the mine had been built on the side of a hill and sat protruding from the moorland like a barnacle. With that escape route closed to him, he made his way back toward the door, his mind calculating the best way out. Although he knew it was futile, he tried the door one last time, unsurprised when it refused to budge.
He cursed himself for being several kinds of fool, knowing that he had just made a colossal mistake in not leaving the door wedged open. At least the noise of the wedge moving would have alerted him to another person’s presence, if not their intentions. He would usually have had the foresight to do so, and would have done today too, if his thoughts had been locked on the woman he had left across the valley. The woman who, in a small space of time, had taken firm control over his thoughts. He realised there and then, just how dangerous Francesca had become not only to his physical safety, but to his emotional security as well. It was a situation he couldn’t allow to continue.
He tugged hard at the door, twisting the knob this way and that in an attempt to gain his freedom. When it didn’t give, he drew his gun, took several steps backward and pulled the trigger. The boom that echoed around the room made his ears ring, but he was oblivious to everything but the daylight that now lay before him. Lunging forward, he burst through the door as though the hounds of hell were on his heels, fully expecting the sound of reciprocal gunfire from outside. He almost felt cheated when nothing happened.
Not bothering to glance behind him, Simon raced to the top of the hill behind the mine. He had learned long ago that there was an advantage in finding the highest point in the area. Cresting the rise, he paused, his chest heaving with a combination of exertion and exhilaration, only to curse fluidly at the sight that met his eyes.
There, far across the valley, racing toward Thistledown House and Francesca, were two riders. Even from a distance, Simon knew they were Tom and Charlie. They had undoubtedly been watching him, and following, and had decided to confine him long enough to finish what they had started the other day.
Glancing around the moors, Simon mentally plotted the quickest path back to Thistledown, and took to his heels.
The race back to Thistledown took the longest minutes of his entire life. Simon was sure he aged with every step. His heart thumped heavily in his ears as he thundered across the moor, his eyes locked firmly on Thistledown, his thoughts fixed on Francesca. Whatever Charlie and Tom wanted with her, Simon was determined they would cause her no harm.
He raced as fast as his feet could carry him, his gaze flickering between the moors around him and the house that Francesca called home. Francesca’s words of warning about the marshes rang in his ears but it held little significance at that moment. Nothing mattered more than getting to Francesca and keeping her safe.
If he had taken a moment to look back at the tin mine, he would have seen the door he had just shot his way out of close ever so slowly.
Sometime during his flight across the moor, the soldier deep within him resurfaced. By the time he arrived at the burned out wing of the old mansion, he had already considered whether he was actually going to kill Tom and Charlie, or save them to interrogate, only deciding on the latter given they were riding two horses it would be difficult to hide.
Silently tip-toeing to the first window of the burned out room that had contained the library, Simon squatted down and peered into the building. It was impossible to tell if the men had gone inside; if they had, they weren’t there now. From his stance he could see through the room, out into the stable yard, which at first glance remained undisturbed. Scanning the area, he headed over to the small copse of trees and began to circle the area, picking up the new hoof tracks at the rear of the stable block. Following them was easy yet caused more questions than answers, when he circled all the way around Thistledown House before heading back to Much Hampton’s main street.
Although Simon couldn’t see them, he knew they were probably waiting for him to appear in the village. Shaking his head, he had a strange feeling that he had just been taken on a fool’s game. Were they testing him to see what he was capable of? Or were they trying to get him away from the tin mine? He wasn’t certain, but he suddenly had the need to check Thistledown and Francesca.
He may have been sent on a merry chase around the moors, possibly with the intention of trying to get him to fall into one of the marshes. How close he had just come to doing e
xactly that, he wasn’t sure, but he did know that he wasn’t going to be put off from searching the abandoned tin mine some other time. They may have won this particular skirmish, but they weren’t going to win the overall battle.
One thought crossed his mind as he made his way back to Francesca’s house; Tom and Charlie weren’t likely to have the intelligence to send him on a merry chase by themselves. They were brutes, more akin to fighting than strategic thinking. Someone was definitely behind their activities. It was down to Simon now to find out who it was, and if this morning’s events had any relevance to the real reason he was sent to Much Hampton.
At the front door to Thistledown, he paused and turned around. It seemed a flight of fancy to consider it a possibility, but he knew instinctively that someone was watching, even from as far away as the mine. One thing was for certain; there was a clear view of the tin mine and its surroundings from Thistledown. Anyone keeping watch from the front of the house, would be able to keep tabs on who visited the building. Whoever it was clearly wanted everyone to believe that it was abandoned and falling into disarray, and was determined to do whatever it took to keep everyone away – but why? Was it because the French spies were being housed there while they received new papers? Or was something altogether more sinister going on?
Sighing deeply, he quietly entered the main hall, unsurprised to find it empty. He could hear the quiet conversation between Matilda and Francesca, who seemed to be involved in taking inventory of the house contents. There was no sign of Bertie. He had been aware that Francesca had yet to show him her uncle’s bedchamber, located directly above the library. Was that because she didn’t want to revisit painful memories? Deciding not to push her for now, he eased away from the door and crept up the stairs, arriving at the smoke-scarred door minutes later. It hadn’t been difficult to find. He had only needed to follow the acrid smell of smoke that still hung in the air. Beneath him the floorboards creaked once or twice and he could only hope that they wouldn’t alert the ladies to his snooping. He tried to be as quiet as possible, and was surprised when the door to the room swung silently open with only the slightest push. The ease in which it swung open seemed strangely at odds with the blackened, unkempt state of the rest of the wing. Immediately, his senses warned him that something was amiss. Had someone oiled the doors in the house? If so, why?
Creeping into the room, he closed the door carefully behind him. The charred carcass of the four-poster bed stood in the centre of the room like a spectre from past times. At the far side of the room, the floor had been burnt through, leaving an open view of the equally carried library below. Aware that the boards that remained may not carry his weight, Simon kept to the beams that were visible, sending a silent prayer that time hadn’t rendered them completely useless. He would have enough explaining to do to Francesca if she found him in the room as it was, destroying what was left of its carcass would be considerably harder to apologise for.
The floor did reveal that someone had walked around the room recently, several times if the numerous footprints around him were anything to go by. He studied the dresser standing beside the wall, wondering if Francesca had managed to get that far yet. Moments later, he had his answer when he eased open the drawer and found several shirts, cravats and waistcoats lying waiting. Disturbance of the dust that hung over them confirmed that someone had searched through the drawers not so long back, but why? What were they looking for? Shaking his head, he began to carry out a thorough search of the room.
CHAPTER SEVEN
“What are you doing?” Francesca demanded, warring between curiosity and outrage as she studied him. She felt like they had done this before, only last time he had been trying to shoot her wardrobe.
Simon rose to his feet, brushing soot off his hands while trying not to notice the effect she had on his libido simply by being nearby.
“I have been taking a closer look at the smoke damage in here,” he replied, nodding toward the hole in the floor and the room below. “It looks bad, but I don’t think it will take too much to return it to its former glory.” Although his attention was seemingly focused on her, his mind was running through the last few minutes, trying to remember if he had closed the door to the chest of drawers entirely before Francesca crossed the threshold.
“I am not sure,” Francesca replied, glancing around the room suspiciously. There was nothing out of the ordinary but something warned her that once again, he wasn’t telling her the truth. “I have yet to get someone in to take a look at it. I don’t really know if it is worth the bother.”
Her heart wept at the state of the room her uncle had once considered his bedroom. She wasn’t sure if it was her imagination or not, but she felt certain she could smell her uncle’s distinctive scent mingled with the scent of soot and burnt wood. She wished she could speak to him, just once more. Suddenly she felt so very alone in the world, and was not altogether comfortable with it.
She wandered into the room, looking around her yet not seeing the armoire sitting at the far wall, or the smudged and dirty mirror next to the large bank of windows on the opposite wall. The floor beneath her feet groaned alarmingly.
“Watch out!” Simon snapped, lunging forward as a loud cracking noise broke the silence.
Francesca barely had the time to turn toward him when she felt the wood beneath her feet suddenly give. She tried to lunge forward, away from the chasm that had opened up beneath her but the downward fall of her body weight plunged her relentlessly toward the floor below.
Simon cursed fluidly. Oblivious to the danger he placed himself in, he threw himself on the floor, barely grabbing hold of her wrists before she disappeared through the hole completely.
“Hold on, sweetheart,” Simon growled, reaching down with his other hand to grab her wildly flailing arm. He could feel the delicate bones beneath the soft flesh of the arm he was holding onto a little too tightly, but there was nothing he could do about it. At least she wasn’t very heavy. The ground was too far away for her to be able to fall to the floor safely. The floor began to groan alarmingly beneath the combined weight. He began to pray that it wouldn’t give again and plunge them both to their deaths, or severe injury.
“Please, Simon, help me,” Francesca gasped, trying to stem the threat of tears as panic took hold. Her pleading eyes met and held his and she read the calm reassurance in his blue eyes.
“I’m not going to drop you,” he replied, trying desperately to figure out how to haul her up. There was nothing around him to gain purchase against. He wondered briefly if he should call out for Madeline to help, but couldn’t waste the time waiting for her to get to them. The bones beneath his fingers felt so very fragile, he was certain that he was crunching them.
“If I pull you up, can you place one hand on the floorboards there for a moment?” He nodded to the jagged edge mere inches from his face.
“I’ll try,” Francesca gasped, her voice trembling with fear. She had no choice at that moment but to trust him implicitly. If he chose to let go, she would plunge to her death and there was nothing she could do about it. Her life was literally in his hands.
Moments later, she had one hand firmly wrapped around the rough edge of the wood, watching as Simon moved around, disappearing from sight for a moment.
“Simon?”
“I’m here,” he grunted, bracing his feet against the beams nestled beneath the fragile wood and straddling the hole so he could lean down toward her. Within seconds, firm hands grasped her wrist, and she was effortlessly lifted back through the hole and into Simon’s arms. It all happened so swiftly that she barely had the time to draw a breath before she found herself braced against the broad chest as he carried her toward the door.
Once in the hallway, he knelt on the floor, cradling her against his chest. He knew he should release her and allow her to stand on her own two feet but was shaken far more than he cared to admit, and couldn’t bring himself to sever contact with her just yet.
Francesca was more
than happy to simply absorb his strength. If he tried to release her, she wasn’t sure she would have the strength in her legs to support her and was grateful that he seemed equally content to just hold her. If she was honest, the reassuring warmth of his strong arms around her made her feel more protected than she had ever felt in her entire life. Protected, and cared for. Having come from a family that wasn’t particularly emotionally demonstrative, it was difficult to remember when anybody had last given her a hug. She had no choice but to lay her head on his shoulder and simply absorb his reassuring comfort.
“Are you alright?” Simon whispered, several long moments later when he was sure he could talk without his voice trembling with contained emotion. He slid one large palm down her arm, to the red marks encircling her wrists. “I’m sorry to hurt your arms, do they feel very sore?”
“A little bruised maybe, but nothing that I cannot live with,” Francesca replied, easing back in his arms slowly and staring up into his stern face. Their eyes met and held for several long moments. She watched his head lower toward hers, so slowly. Everything within her hesitated, unable to believe he was about to kiss her. She should protest, only found herself unable to find the words. Her eyes had closed by the time his head blocked out the light as she sat in his arms and waited expectantly. She didn’t have long to wait. Seconds later she felt the gentle brush of his lips against hers, so light, so petal-soft that for one moment, she wondered if she had imagined it. She lifted her lambent gaze toward his and felt one large palm cup the back of her head, holding her steady as his head lowered once more.
This time the pressure of his lips was slightly firmer, hesitating just a fraction longer than before. Softly teasing, they brushed over hers, backward and forward; searching, teasing, and drawing out her response.
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