“I’ve never seen so many.”
Arabella smiles. “They’re beautiful, aren’t they?”
I ease my mount alongside hers. “Bella.”
“Hmm?” She’s still enthralled by the pumpkins.
“Are we a team?” I hesitate. “Like your father and mine?”
She ponders. “Better than your father and mine.”
I smile but her eyes instantly narrow. “Speak plainly, Henry. What do you wish to ask?”
“This will be our last moment alone. You. Are not being honest with me.”
Her eyelids sink. “Whatever do you mean?”
Anger threatens, but I strive to control it. It will not extract information, nay, a fight is what she wants—to distract me.
“True partners divulge any and all pertinent information.”
“Well, that is debatable, father—”
I hold up a finger. “One. What is on that inventory list? And although I rather enjoyed the disguise, the contents were important enough to make you skulk about in the worst area of Philadelphia, and be almost raped by a lusty, pimpled teener. Really, I think you broke the poor lad’s heart.”
She stares, red lips pursed, obviously contemplating.
I forge on. “Two. The morning after the attack. I saw.”
“You saw what?” Her face flushes scarlet.
“You staring. Stygian has a tattoo. I caught you looking at it.”
“I confess myself impressed, Mr. Watson.”
“Bella, bloody-well what is it?”
So much for not letting her bait you.
“Giurio di vendicarmi.”
Latin. I’ve always hated Latin.
I force my mind to recollect. She doesn’t wait.
“I swear to avenge myself.” Her eyes sharpen. That photographic data machine behind them turning on.
“That is what the tattoo says?”
“Yes. Stygian has one. As did the man who attacked me on the steamer.”
Worry hardens like a musket-ball in my stomach. “Do you know what it means?”
“I think so.”
“Mr. Watson? Is that you?” A decrepit voice calls from the farmhouse.
Blast.
I do not know if I can behave normally. I must know. How much danger is she truly in?
I raise my hand in acknowledgement to the wizened man on the front porch and grind my teeth together.
“This conversation is not over. Merely postponed.”
She shrugs and gives me a maddening smile. “Whatever you say, Henry.”
She sets the horse to a trot and I grit my teeth and reluctantly follow.
The caretaker is as crooked and out of point as his dwelling.
“Good day, Sir. I assume you are Mister Abner?”
He nods. It manages to look like an effort. “Yes.”
“I am, indeed, Mr. Watson, and this is Miss Holmes. We will be in charge of the dig.”
He eyes Arabella as if she’s sprouted horns. “And by we, you mean you, correct?”
Arabella goes instantly rigid.
“No, sir. Miss Holmes is the osteologist.”
His ancient eyebrows furrow in confusion.
“The bone expert. And she is here as a fully competent antiquarian.”
Not that it is any of your business.
He harrumphs. “You can give your horses to the stable hand and follow me inside. I’ve made up rooms in case you choose to stay on.”
In a few minutes we’re inside. We follow him into a simple kitchen. “This is the way.”
He shuffles us through a sitting room filled with shabby furniture most likely older than he.
Arabella’s gaze drifts over the pictures on the wall. It stops and holds.
I see what she’s fixated on. In the center of the paintings is a faded, circular oval, as if a long-hung painting was recently removed.
“Your fields are astounding,” I offer.
Abner nods. “Yes, they are quite…fertile.”
Arabella draws close and whispers, “And you are quite creepy.”
###
Henry
“Arabella, this is madness. It shall soon be dark and the dig is acres away.”
After unpacking, and a quick visit to the writing desk, Abner insisted we eat. I watched Arabella pick at her food and tap her fingers on the table, her eyes flicking outside every ten seconds. She’d nearly flown out the door once it was remotely polite.
“I said it’s too late, wait till tomorrow morn.”
Her horse is tethered to the white fence. Bella’s eyes shoot to the barn, the sky, and then to the main house as she contemplates.
As she throws her pack over her shoulder, more auburn hair escapes the half-bun at her crown. A trickle of auburn slides across her back, clear down to her buttocks. I stop dead and stare. At both.
She whirls in exasperation. “Henry, you mean you will be able to sleep—or even sit with the dig so close?”
Her shapely leg flips over the saddle.
Focus, man.
I shake my head. I cannot believe Stygian was right. Arabella is the definition of distraction. I’m missing details left and right.
I relent, gritting my teeth. “Fine.”
I call to the stable boy and hastily scribble a note. “Could you be sure this is sent—to let our party know we’ll be staying the night?”
The young man nods, and takes off toward the main house. And another thought occurs to me. “Wait—two more, if you please?” I hastily pull more letters from my overcoat. One of them Arabella’s—addressed to none other than Sherlock Holmes.
The boy looks irritated but takes them just the same.
My smile feels smug as I anticipate my Smithsonian friend’s response, how I will gain the upper hand, how—
She’s already cantering across the field.
“Blast.”
She urges the horse into a full-gallop and gives him his head.
I launch myself into the saddle.
“Ha!” I gently kick my horse into action. I’ll never catch her; she’s had too much of a head start.
Thunder rumbles overhead. “Perfect.”
I feel the birth of panic, squirming to life in my gut.
She keeps ducking in and out of my sight. The rain will only decrease the visibility.
A little voice chastises, keep her safe, keep her safe.
The forest rushes past on either side, the barely visible path becoming invisible as the brambles thicken.
“Arabella!”
Stupid. I shouldn’t call to her. What if someone is watching, following? I just revealed our exact location.
A flash of black darts in and out of my peripheral vision. My head jerks to the side and front, trying to catch a glimpse. To find the smattering of black within the green forest.
I weave the horse faster like a barrel racer in and out of the thick trees.
Thunder groans into a cracking, sharp bark, in time with a white flash of lightning.
“For the love of ….”
My breath shudders out. She’s mercifully stopped, waiting for me at the cave’s yawning black mouth.
Chapter Thirteen
Dark Manifestations
Bella
Henry pulls the lantern off my saddle and lights it.
His dark blue eyes turn heavenward; his face illuminated in the lightning flash.
“Honestly Bella. Could you have picked a worse night?” Henry’s eyes are weary and for once, he is unable to disguise his frustration with me.
I shrug. “I know, you’re probably right, but we’re here now.” I sling my pack across my chest. “Ready?”
“No,” but he follows me into the dark. “From what Jeremy tells me, Stygian usually sends a few laborers out with the staff. He must be desperate to keep this dig quiet.”
“I expect he is. He won’t want the Smithsonian or any other ins
titution, beating him to the dirt. Assuming you aren’t giving away any of our state-secrets to your friend there. What’s his name?”
“Oliver. Oliver Goodwin, if you must know.”
“I have a friend named Oliver as well.”
“Is that so?” His face appears disgruntled somehow. ”What is that strange look?”
I shrug, feeling the heat to my collar, and thankful for once, for the dark.
“Is this Oliver sweet on you, then?”
I pick up my pace, weaving through the rubble as best I can with the dim light.
Henry prompts apparently giving up the fight. “I also wrote to my old professor.”
Henry then passes me and stomps forward to take the lead. Stalagmites and stalactites surround us like stony teeth jutting from the cave’s mouth.
We carefully pick our way through them. “How far did Mr. Abner say it was?”
“He said we’d come to an underground pool. That was where they found the hand.”
The sound of dripping water intensifies with every step. I take deep breaths as my chest tightens.
It’s nothing. It’s your imagination. Be sensible.
The black before us and the black behind press in like a suffocating cloth against my mouth. Only the lantern holds my panic at bay. I feel the sweat pop on my brow.
“Henry?”
The dark is a slipknot; tightening, tightening on my windpipe, choking me.
“I hear the water. It isn’t far now.” Henry turns, highlighting my face with the lantern. “Bella! Are you ill?”
I jam my eyes together and the panic blossoms; the hair framing my face goes damp. “I—I.”
“What? What is it? We need to go back. We’ll go see father.”
“I’m fine.”
His voice turns steely. “You are not fine. Unless you consider wax-corpse to be a normal color. At least tell me your symptoms. I am not going a step further until you do. I can be just as immovable as you.” The lantern dims.
The light flickers and my heart pumps madly in time with its guttering flame. “Oh laws, Henry. Do. Not. Let it go out.”
“Claustrophobia,” he diagnoses, his blue-green eyes searching my face. “Yes.”
“You didn’t foresee this as a problem?”
“The other digs I visited were not in caves.”
“Ah.” He shakes his head. “Dance with me.”
“What? Are you mad?” My hands are shaking.
Henry’s arms wrap around me, pulling me flush against his hard body. I revel in every glorious inch of him. The panic lessens the tiniest degree.
I shake my head. “I’m so sorry, Henry. I—I am hindering the dig, just as Stygian said I would.”
“Drowning.”
“What? What’re you talking about?”
“I’m afraid of drowning. Have nightmares about it.”
My voice cracks, “Claustrophobia feels like drowning. On dry land.”
His hand balls the back of my shirt into a taut knot. The motion somehow feels desperate.
Something is rising inside me. Something I’ve always been able to control. Desire warms every inch of my body and I’m sweating, for a different reason. It blossoms as a hot-house flower in my mind, wrapping and deliciously warming every inch of my body.
I am so very grateful for the dark; my face is so hot I fear I shall combust.
I step on his foot. “I told you. I’m hopeless.”
“There is no such word in my vernacular.” He eases our bodies together in a slow, tight circle. Our boots crunch against the stones on the cave floor.
It’s the closest I’ve ever come to a dance. My brain is recoiling. I never allow anyone too close—permit them this power over me.
The pain of rebuffs…is intolerable. Better to avoid attachment altogether.
The metallic taste of fear floods my mouth, which I’m certain is from the heart-box melting and back flowing up my throat in a last-ditch warning.
Henry bows his head; his fine, straight lips inches from mine. “Do you remember when you commented on father’s particular attention to Violet at the ball?”
My mind flicks to the pages of my etiquette rule book, which father insisted I memorize. “Yes. It’s considered excessively attentive for a man to dance with his wife more than once at a social outing.”
His lips part. “I, would dance, each and every dance, with you—if you would have me.”
“I—” The panic is gone. The claustrophobia is gone. All that remains is Henry. His breath blows warm against my lips.
I feel something rough on my back, and realize I am flush against the cave wall.
His lips brush mine, softly, waiting.
They’re soft and hard and irresistible.
I press back harder. His lips part mine. My breath comes in quick, harsh gasps as I open my mouth, searching, exploring the velvet of his tongue.
His breath is as loud as mine, and somewhere my analytical mind worries we’ll use up all the air with our panting. I laugh against his lips.
“What?” He doesn’t remove his kisses; they just trail down my neck, toward my collarbone.
“Nothing.”
“Don’t think.”
I take his face in my hands and every stroke of his lips sends the hot sting of longing from my neck, down my back to my core.
His tongue traces my lower lip and I see the word self-control ignite and catch fire. Burning the rules.
My hands race down the front of his shirt. I want him. It’s dangerous and wrong and…and my heart pounds against my ribcage, silencing my protests.
Now, I understand how it happened. How I happened. How my mother made her grave, selfish mistake.
To bed a Holmes, out of wedlock—this resulted in me in her belly and the loss of her most precious commodity…her chastity.
And to her leaving me, alone.
I must find the will to stop. History shall not repeat with me.
“Arabella—I—” Henry whispers.
The lantern goes out. Footsteps and shouts are everywhere. I feel a club strike my hand, then Henry’s back slide through my fingers as he crumples away from me in the dark.
Chapter Fourteen
A Stable of Choices
“Henry!”
He doesn’t answer. Hands seize my shoulders, jamming my back into the rock, trying to bash my skull.
The man’s whiskey-laden breath is on my forehead; my mind estimates the height of his crotch.
My knee shoots up, connecting with soft flesh.
The body halves, his hair brushing my hand on the way down.
My mind whirrs. You are no match for him. Use a weapon.
My hands slips down to the knife anchored at my heel. I whip it out, flip it upside down, and grasp his hair with my left. I crash the knife’s butt down, smashing it against his head. His hair drops away as he hits the stone.
“Ah!”
“Get off!” Henry.
My mind estimates the lantern’s last location. If it hasn’t been kicked.
I drop to my knees, hand on the wall for perspective, and crawl along the stone floor. Keeping my left hand anchored to the wall, my right hand scrabbles in the dark, searching.
My stomach contracts. The dark. The dark.
Henry. I no longer hear him.
I will away the invisible fingers squeezing the air from my lungs and suck in deep breaths.
My fingers finally brush metal, and I pull the light to me. I strike a match and the room illuminates. I sigh in relief at its yellow glow.
My attacker lies sprawled on the floor.
The second man straddles Henry, pinning his chest. The assailant’s eyes shoot to me.
Mistake. Always focus on the opponent.
Henry’s fist collides with the man’s jaw with a sickening crunch. I spring forward and kick, my boot connecting with the man’s kidney at the same instant Henry clocks his other si
de. Unhinging his jaw.
He howls in pain and crumples off Henry, scurrying backward.
Henry leaps up, and flings himself after him.
The man pulls a gun, halting Henry in mid-lunge.
“Just give me ‘im, and no one will get ‘urt.” He gestures to the man on the cave floor.
I’m searching, searching.
Black ink tattoo? Large ring?
My attacker struggles to his feet, woozily walking to his partner, steadying himself on the wall.
“Now you two—”
My eyes tighten. I aim and launch the knife. A yawning gash spews red as the blade slashes the man’s forearm but doesn’t imbed.
He gasps as the pistol and knife clatter onto the rocks.
His fingers splay and shudder and I spy the heavy, circular ring, now covered in blood.
The ring is emblazoned with an R-.
Henry dives, sliding for the pistol.
Both men dart into the tunnel, and are instantly swallowed by the dark.
Henry looks up from the floor, cocking his head.
“Next time—we listen to me. Next time I say it is too dangerous. It is too bloody dangerous!”
###
The Hudson Shoreline
Henry
The steamship is just over the hill; we decided not to dig at first light—feeling the need to report the attack. We debated returning last night, but the trek through the dark woods seemed unadvisable.
Arabella has been quiet since waking. I know this might start trouble. She’s anxious. But I must have this information.
I stare at her hands; her digits are white, clutching the saddle horn.
“Bella. Please tell me the contents of the inventory sheet.”
She stares straight ahead. “A fortnight prior, Newton brought me a bone.”
I laugh. “Normal behavior for any dog. I expect he was quite proud of himself.”
Her fingers turn bluish-white as she winds the reins tighter. “I believe it to be a portion of a long bone. Of a human. It was broken at one end. The epiphysis was slanted.”
I swallow. A human. “Where did he get it?”
“I told him, ‘Find’, and…he led me to the sausage plant.”
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