Clandestine (House of Oak Book 3)

by Nichole Van

  A tear escaped the side of her eye. Marc could only imagine what such an admission cost her strong pride.

  “Only the worst of cads would do such a thing,” Linwood said, lowly, taut with anger.

  Well, what do you know?

  He and Linwood had finally found a topic on which they could agree.

  Ruby nodded and gave a gasp. She fought for control, swallowing back tears.

  After a moment, she opened her undamaged eye and fixed it on them. “He started the fire as a way to cover his tracks. He intended to kill me and then make it look like an accident. But the fire spread too fast. I managed to hit him and crawl away. But he caught up with me. If you had not arrived, Lord Vader . . .” Her voice trailed off. She swallowed and then coughed again.

  Linwood nodded his head. Decisive. “If he escaped that inferno, I promise he will be apprehended and . . . dealt with. I will personally ensure that no lingering dishonor touches your family over one traitor’s decision.”

  Marc lifted his head and cocked a brow at the viscount. Linwood would be true to his word.

  Ruby relaxed, closing her eye again as the housekeeper hurried up to them, the doctor in tow.

  Seeing there was nothing more for him to do, Marc wandered toward where Marianne and Arthur stood, watching the burning house. It would likely burn for a while. Arthur still had his arms wrapped around his petite wife and child, stroking Marianne’s back soothingly.

  It was a touching scene of love and support. Despite tendencies toward self-importance, Arthur Knight was a kind husband and a doting father. The kind of man who matured into a pillar of strength. No matter how hard the going, Marc sensed Arthur and Marianne would walk through it hand-in-hand.

  And in that instant, Marc wanted that scene for himself. He wanted to be holding Kit, comforting her, secure in the knowledge that no matter the problem, they would face it together as a team. That her laugh and wit and the sheer delight of her would always be at his side.

  He was desperate to see her. To hold her. She had left Marianne to Arthur’s care and was now probably helping comfort someone else. Capable. Strong.

  He scoured the assembled throng of people, all watching the house burn. Footmen, grooms, gardeners, maids . . . but no Kit.

  Perplexed, he threaded his way through the crowd until he spotted Fanny, the only maid he knew by name.

  Grabbing hold of her arm, he caught her attention.

  “Have you seen Miss Ashton?” His voice still scratchy and rough.

  “Miss Ashton? I do believe she was just here.” Fanny glanced about with him, trying to see through the crowd. “Well, she was just here,” Fanny repeated. “Gilbert, have you seen Miss Ashton?”

  One of the footman turned his head. “Miss Ashton? I saw her leave with Mr. Jedediah a short while ago. Headed down the lane they were, probably off to arrange more help in Marfield.”

  Marc had heard the phrase ‘my blood runs cold’ often enough. But he had never actually experienced it.

  The sensation felt rather like . . . one’s insides turning to ice.

  Go figure.

  The panic that washed in behind the terror was no better. Tasting of fire and ash.

  Kit had just been here.

  Except, suddenly, she wasn’t.

  Chapter 23

  Marc took off at a run down the lane. His lungs burned in his chest, hurting worse than the most vigorous workout he could ever remember. His wrist throbbed.

  But he pushed himself through it. Numb. Terrified.

  If something happened to Kit . . .

  Nausea crept in at the thought.

  After a few minutes of running, Marc had to slow down. His poor overworked lungs couldn’t handle any more abuse. His throat on fire. Coughing wracked him.

  Coughing which wasn’t going to help him sneak up on Jedediah unawares.

  Why hadn’t he thought to bring some water with him?

  Oh, that’s right. Because he was stuck in 1814, and water bottles wouldn’t be invented for probably a good hundred years. Granted, if he had been thinking, he probably could have found a canteen . . . or, at the very least, a bucket.

  After struggling for a few seconds, he managed to quiet his cough, but the sensation tickled almost unbearably at the back of his throat.

  Walking as quickly as he could up the lane, Marc scoured the trees and sides of the road for any sign of Jedediah or Kit, fighting to hold his coughing to an occasional quiet burst of air. Spring was just starting to creep into the forest, lending the trees a suggestion of leaves. The lack of foliage made it easier to spot an attacker. But it also made Marc a more visible target.

  Nothing.

  He carefully peeked around the sharp curve in the lane where he had first met Kit.

  Nothing.

  He continued on, crossed over the bridge, pausing every twenty feet or so to listen. But he heard only the birds in the bare trees, chirping cheerfully.

  Still nothing.

  But drawing near the lane which curved off to Duir Cottage, something glinted in the middle of the road. Small and silver. Rushing up to it, Marc picked up Kit’s rape alarm.

  No!

  And then, a faint noise caught his attention.

  It wasn’t much. Just the sound of scuffling, the muffled cry of a woman.

  Kit.

  Marc clutched the alarm in his good hand and darted up the lane toward the cottage, staying low, eyes alert and scanning.

  He could see nothing out of the ordinary and, each time he stopped, he heard nothing more. The tickle in his throat caught up with him, and he had to pause for a second, leaning against the trunk of a tree, stifling a coughing fit with the sleeve of his coat.

  How was he going to save Kit if his coughing trumpeted his arrival?

  Firmly swallowing against the itchy sensation in the back of his throat, Marc continued up the road.

  After a minute, he came into the clearing where the house stood.

  It looked much as it had when he arrived. Shuttered and lifeless. The front door closed. The guards Arthur had set were nowhere in sight. Most likely drawn away to fight the fire.

  Crouching, Marc scurried up to the house, keeping his back to the honey-colored stone wall, carefully circling the building. He rounded to the rear and noted the kitchen door was ajar.

  Voices drifted out, though he couldn’t make out the words. Just the tone.

  First Kit’s, taunting and fierce.

  Jedediah’s, loud and sneering.

  Creeping forward, Marc peered into the window.

  Jedediah stood in the kitchen, his back to the window. Kit was before him on the floor, her hands and feet bound. Soot and dirt on her face.

  “Where are the damn plans! I know you and Vader were involved with this. I grow tired of this game!” Jedediah brandished a pistol in one hand. A wicked-looking knife in the other.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Kit lifted her chin bravely. Her eyes flashed with courage, but there was terror there too.

  “You lie! The plans were altered. You had to have been involved with the mix up. Both you and Vader—”

  “You have the wrong people!”

  “I’m going to give you two minutes to change your mind and then I torch this building too. You tied up inside it, of course. A nice little present for Vader to mourn later. Unless you care to start talking . . . ”

  Kit’s eyes widened in fear. But she pressed her lips together. Shook her head. Protecting Marc and her brother.

  With a disgusted shake of his head, Jedediah swiveled. Marc ducked down just in time.

  Two minutes.

  What to do?

  He breathed through the panic swamping him, swallowing cough after cough. He couldn’t allow Kit to be hurt. What had he been thinking running off without a pistol?

  He was tired, sore and had a sprained wrist at best.

  Marc examined his options.

  Jedediah was legitimately armed and dangerous. Unlike the encoun
ter with Linwood the previous week, Jedediah would show no compunction in killing them both. No matter how he played through different scenarios, one of them could easily be hurt or killed.

  There was no time to go back for help.

  Kit was in danger now.

  What if Jedediah set Duir Cottage on fire? What would fire do to the portal?

  Stemming his panic, Marc settled on a single solution. It wasn’t the fanciest of plans, but it was the only one his panicked mind could focus on.

  Marc ignored the tiny thought which insisted there were other plans, but this one got him what he wanted most too.

  Creeping back around to the front of the house, Marc examined the rape alarm. It appeared to still have battery power, having not been used. With a deep breath, he switched it on and threw it into the brush beside the front of the house.

  The noise was satisfactorily loud, sounding like a hyper car alarm.

  Without hesitating, he scurried around to the back of the house, peeking through the window just in time to see Jedediah cautiously head out front to inspect the strange noise.

  Marc darted through the partially open kitchen door, meeting Kit’s startled gaze. Kit visibly sagged with relief at seeing Marc, tears swimming in her eyes.

  Jedediah had disappeared out the front door, but he would find the alarm in less than a minute. It’s frantic beeping cut through the calm.

  Kit struggled to get free of the ropes that bound her, indicating with a jut of her chin that Marc should help.

  They didn’t have enough time.

  Silently, Marc shook his head and mouthed, “I’m sorry.”

  Instead of freeing her, he grasped Kit by the waist and pulled her upright. And, then, for the second time in as many hours, he hefted a woman over his shoulder, his wrist throbbing from the effort.

  There wasn’t time to dash for the trees. Besides, he hadn’t the strength.

  And that had never been the plan.

  The rape alarm still screeched frantically. Jedediah hadn’t found it yet. But they only had seconds left.

  Without hesitating, Marc made for the closet and cellar door under the stairs. Quickly, he opened the door, set Kit inside. He lifted the large trap door in the floor and then stepped onto the first stair, turning to shut the closet door.

  Darkness instantly closed around them in the small space. Their combined breathing loud.

  The alarm suddenly stopped.

  Not a moment later, he heard Jedediah re-enter the house.

  Marc held his breath, as footsteps echoed down the hall outside the cellar door. The footsteps faded into the kitchen.

  Only to return as Jedediah dashed out of the kitchen, swearing profusely at Kit’s disappearance.

  “Vader!” His voice rang through the house. “This can only be your doing. You have to be in the house still. And when I find you, you will both die!”

  Marc paused, but only for the barest of moments. Jedediah would find them. And who knows what the outcome of that fight would be.

  Without hesitating, Marc caught Kit around the knees and carried her into the cellar. The portal loomed ahead, thrumming with life.

  Reading his intent, Kit squirmed against his shoulder, butting him with her head. Indicating in every way her sharp disagreement with his decision.

  Marc paused.

  The door to the cellar rattled.

  That was all the motivation he needed to step forward into swooping, falling darkness.

  Chapter 24

  Duir Cottage

  March 9, 2014

  Kit felt the dizzying disorientation of the portal. The sense of falling, falling, falling.

  And then suddenly, the world righted itself. Leaving her slung over Marc’s shoulder like a sack of potatoes.

  Her mind reeled in shock. A figurative version of one of Marc’s roundhouse kicks to the head.

  Marc had truly done it. He taken her through the portal.

  Leaving Daniel behind.

  Without so much as a by your leave.

  Without. Even. Asking.

  But . . . why?!

  He was Marc Wilde, for heaven’s sake. He could take on one slimy, ridiculous, over-primped—

  “Put me down this instant!” She all but shouted the words.

  She had long considered his shoulders capable of bearing burdens. And even, quite frankly, of bearing her. But she never dreamed they would carry her away from her brother.

  She wriggled emphatically just to underline the point.

  Obligingly, Marc set her on the ground with a groan, staggering slightly as he did. His breathing labored, wheezing.

  Kit stared down at her tied hands and feet and then, in sheer frustration, tried to free them again. She was starting to lose feeling in her fingers.

  “Let me get a knife.” Marc choked, stumbling up the wooden stairs, coughing.

  Of course. He would leave her to stew in the dark cellar.

  She was just so . . . so . . . ugh! How could he!

  He had no right to make this decision for her.

  Emotions swamped her.

  Loss. Frustration. Anger.

  She stood helplessly, tapping her foot as much as possible. Waiting.

  When she had gone through the portal last time, she had been too frantic and frightened to really take it all in. Not to mention, the light too dim.

  Not this time.

  Afternoon sunlight streamed down the steps from the open closet door. Was it really only afternoon still? So much had happened. The fire, Jedediah shoving a pistol into her back and telling her to walk, arriving at Duir Cottage and being tied up.

  The light illuminated the cellar with its stone walls and dirt floor. The portal stood a little behind her, its electric pulse thrumming through the ground.

  Upstairs, she could hear Marc clattering through a utensil drawer, looking for a knife. And then his footsteps returning to her, backlit as he half fell down the stairs.

  Bending down, he quickly sliced through the ropes around her ankles and then moved up to remove the bindings on her wrists.

  “Come on.” He rasped and nodded his head, retreating back up the stairs. Still coughing.

  Kit stood in the darkness, chewing on her cheek. Anger welling up from deep inside.

  Though, it was more like fury at this point. Blind, mind-numbing rage.

  How dare he!

  How dare he make this decision for her. Return her to 2014 without even asking.

  She glanced back at the portal, half-tempted to walk right back through it.

  No.

  Before she did that, Mr. I-have-control-issues Wilde could explain himself.

  Marc disappeared through the doorway into the hall, coughing loudly, incessantly.

  Shaking some feeling back into her hands, she stumbled up after him, nearly tripping on her long skirts. She stopped in the hall, staring at a large antique-looking trunk across from the door to the cellar.

  Daniel’s trunk.

  The stabbing pain of it literally robbed her breath. Sharp and vicious.

  She turned and walked into the kitchen, jaw clenched. Noted the greatcoat and beaver hat slung over the dining room chair in front of her.

  Daniel’s coat and hat.

  And then she turned to see Marc. He was at the kitchen sink, guzzling a glass of water.

  Drinking water!

  He casually dragged her literally two hundred years through time, kicking and (mentally) screaming. And then felt the need to just get a freaking drink?!

  That did it. Something snapped.

  With two steps, she grabbed the knife Marc had set on the marble island counter. Turning, she flipped open Daniel’s trunk in the hallway. If she knew her brother at all . . .

  Sure enough, an antique pistol sat gleaming on top of everything else. Guns were generally illegal in modern Britain. Antique ones, however, got a pass.

  Snatching up the pistol, she tromped back down the stairs into the cellar.

  If Marc wouldn�
��t fight for her brother, she would.

  “Kit?!” Marc’s voice sounded warningly from the kitchen.

  Heedless, she strode over to the portal and leaned into the stone.

  Nothing happened.

  Frowning, she put her back against it and pushed.

  Again, nothing.

  Turning, she pounded against it with the fist that clutched the knife.

  Nothing.

  “Kit . . . please.” Marc’s voice sounded behind her. Soft. Raspy.

  “How. Could. You!” She whirled on him, hysteria finally getting the better of her. “How could you drag me through? How could you leave him? Leave me without any choice—”

  She turned again, pounding on the portal.

  Let me through!! But silently shrieking the words didn’t help either.

  With a hiccupping sob, she collapsed to the floor, the knife and pistol clattering beside her.

  Awful, wracking gasps tore through her. Ugly crying at its worst.

  Her brother was gone. Lost to her as surely as if he had died—

  Wait! He was dead. No one lived two hundred years . . .

  Which just made her cry harder. And harder and harder.

  She would stay here. She wouldn’t leave this spot until the portal allowed her to return.

  Thoughts of Daniel raced through her mind. Her brother’s little hand in hers, teaching him how to look both ways for cars before crossing the street.

  Daniel home on school holiday laughing over a prank he pulled on some upperclassmen.

  Daniel bent over research with her father, their identical dark heads nearly indistinguishable, voices tangling as they talked.

  Daniel’s face the day they buried their father, watching the casket being lowered into the family crypt.

  Memory after memory washed over her.

  How long she lay on the floor, she couldn’t later remember. Long enough for her hands to go numb from the cold, for her legs to cramp.

  Eventually, she realized only half of her was cold. The other half was tucked up against Marc. At some point, he had sat down beside her on the ground, cradling her against his chest.

  Comforting. Understanding.

  Well, she didn’t want that.