by Sandra Dubay
Almost immediately, there was a rasping, scraping sound. Dyanna leaned over and saw, to her amazement, that where once there was only the soot-blackened back of the fireplace, there was now a gaping hole. Tattered cobwebs hung there, moving gently on a breeze that had its beginnings at the other end of the passage.
Stunned and delighted, Dyanna moved the cherub's wing back into place, then stooped quickly to watch the panel slide back, leaving no hint of what lay behind.
"It's true!" she marveled. "The story was true! I can't believe it!"
Thrilled by her discovery, Dyanna swung the wing upward once more and once more watched, breathless, as the panel opened.
In her excitement, she forgot Justin's warnings, forgot what trouble her imagination and impetuous nature had led her to in the past. Without thinking of the consequenceswithout wondering if, perhaps, it might be wiser to read the rest of the book and discover what secrets lay at the other end of that dark and mysterious passageDyanna took up her candle and stepped inside.
The brick tunnel stretched before her, dank and black, festooned with cobwebs both new and old. Every few feet it widened into niches on either side that looked like bricked-in arches. Dyanna wondered if there had once been a labyrinth of tunnels beginning here and leading through the walls, honeycombing the great castle.
Her footsteps shuffled on the brick floor; she tried hard not to notice the rats that skittered in and out of the golden circle of light her candle cast. She started at their every squeak, gasped at the sudden movement of a lacy web caught in the air currents.
Nervously, she glanced back toward the end of the tunnel and wished she had lit some candles in the drawing room.
It was then that the powerful arm snaked about her waist, then that she was jerked off her feet and brought hard against someoneor somethingwarm and far larger than herself.
"Justin!" she screamed, the candlestick dropping from her fingers and rolling across the narrow tunnel. "Justin!"
"Yes?" an all-too-familiar voice breathed in her ear.
Twisting around, she found herself gazing up into a pair of laughing golden eyes. Justin stood in one of the niches, obviously pleased with himself.
"You!" she cried. "But howwhen?"
"I saw you coming out of Digby's shop with a package," he told her, retrieving her candle and leading her back out of the tunnel. "Then, when you were in your bath tonight, I found the book." Outside, beneath the overhanging inglenook, he pushed the cherub's wing back into place and watched the panel slide across the tunnel. "I knew you couldn't possibly resist coming down here to see if the tunnel actually existed. While you were in the sitting room, reading, I came down to wait for you.''
"You weren't asleep at all when I got up, were you?" she accused him, balling her fist and punching him hard in the chest.
"No." He laughed, catching her wrists and pulling her into his arms. "Ah, Dyanna, I love you very, very much. But I can see I'm going to have my hands full."
Turning her face up to receive his kiss, Dyanna did not disagree.