Nicola Cornick - [Bluestocking Brides 01]

by The Notorious Lord

  ‘Then there is no more to be said,’ he said.

  For Rachel there was. ‘Please—’ the hot tears stung her eyes again ‘—if you withdraw your friendship from me, Cory, then all will be lost.’

  She saw the pity in his face then and felt her heart miss a beat that it could be for her. But his expression was softening and he almost smiled.

  ‘Poor Rae,’ he said. ‘Of course I shall not withdraw my friendship from you, but I cannot promise that it will ever be the same again.’

  He bowed and walked away and Rachel felt that, despite his words, it was too late. She had lost something irretrievable.

  Chapter Nineteen

  The thunderstorm struck the following day. Rachel had given the servants the afternoon off and Sir Arthur and Lady Odell had gone to a fête champêtre at Saltires. Rachel had felt far too miserable to be in company and had sent her apologies. She had retired to the library to read, as she had done so often in the past when she was unhappy, but this time neither the romantic overtones of The Enchantress nor the beautiful language of Shakespeare nor the philosophical common sense of Marcus Aurelius could soothe her. Instead she stared blindly out of the window and thought about her quarrel with Cory, her mind going round and round over the same ground until she was utterly exhausted. It was some time before she realised that the glass panes through which she was staring were liberally streaked with rain.

  When she finally went over to the window, a shocking sight met her gaze. The sky overhead was a strange pale brown colour with puffy rain clouds building angrily overhead. Away to the east, where the black horizon met the sea, lightning flickered and there was the distant sullen growl of thunder.

  Rachel went to the door. A sheet of rain hit her full in the face as soon as she opened it and the rising wind sent her stumbling back into the hall. There was a roaring in the air, the sound of the wind in the high trees combining with the rushing of the Winter Race as it lived up to its name and pounded the bank that ran alongside the burial ground.

  ‘Oh, no! The excavations!’

  Rachel’s anguished exclamation echoed through the empty house. There was no one here to help her secure the site and no one to save the trenches from being swamped with water or the precious artefacts from being washed away. Rachel knew that there was nothing she could do. Even so, she grabbed one of Sir Arthur’s old cloaks from the hall cupboard and dashed outside.

  Out in the rain, the storm was even more frightening. Rachel struggled through the wicket gate into the field, her body bent almost double against the power of the wind. The black outrider clouds were already overhead and the thunder rumbled much closer now. Rachel half-stumbled, half-ran along the footpath that bordered the field. She was blinded by the flapping material of the wet cloak as it whirled about her in the wind. The rain came down in torrents. The ground underfoot was already running like a stream, for so much water on the dry ground could not be absorbed all at once. And it was hopeless to imagine that she could ever save the excavation. Rachel could see that at once. The trenches were filling with water and the sandy soil was crumbling, turning to mud and flood, drowning all that was in it.

  As she came to the corner of the long barrow near the knot of pines that overlooked the river, Rachel saw that she was not the only person who had thought to save the excavation. Cory Newlyn was standing on the riverbank, looking across the flooded trenches. There was no time for embarrassment or surprise. Rachel merely found that she was very pleased to see him.

  ‘Cory!’ she said. ‘What are you doing here? I thought that you were at Saltires?’

  ‘I came to check on the site,’ Cory said. His tawny hair was plastered against his head with the rain and he wiped the water droplets from his eyes. ‘I promised your parents that I would do what I could. They cannot get through, Rae. The road is already flooded.’

  He pushed the soaking hair back from his forehead. ‘This is worse than I had thought, for soon the river will burst its banks. Come away, Rae. There is nothing that we can do here.’

  ‘But the dig!’ Rachel said hopelessly. ‘All your work! Mama and Papa will be utterly bereft if it is all swept away.’

  ‘There is nothing that you can do,’ Cory said again. ‘It is dangerous to stay out here, Rachel. Come along.’

  He took her arm and they retraced their steps along the edge of the bank. The soil felt strange and unsteady, both clinging and shifting at the same time.

  ‘Mind the edge!’ Cory said sharply. ‘The sand is unstable here—’

  But even as he spoke, Rachel felt a strange sucking sensation beneath her feet, like the tide pulling at her heels. There was a rumble and the grating of shingle on stone, and the sensation of falling down and down into darkness. She heard Cory shout, but her eyes were blinded by rain and sand, and though she put out a desperate hand, her fingers slid helplessly through his grasp. And then she hit something hard and flat, and lay winded and still, staring into the dark.

  Rachel was not sure how long she lay there, her thoughts tumbling in shock, her eyes wide and staring through the darkness for a glimmer of light or a clue as to what had happened. The sliding sound of sand and pebbles had ceased and beneath her the rock felt smooth, hard and dry, but she could see nothing at all. She was lying on her back, but now rolled cautiously on to her knees and from there tried to stand. It was fortunate that she did so slowly, for she hit the back of her head on stone and stifled a groan.

  She sat down again, drawing her knees up to her chin and curling up as much for comfort as warmth. Her clothes were unpleasantly damp and encrusted with sand, and she could neither see nor hear anything but the rapid breath of her own panic. The air smelled stale. It seemed that the ground above her—the very river bank itself—had collapsed in upon itself and plunged her into a burial chamber that they had not even realised was there.

  Rachel tried to breathe more slowly and calm herself, remembering at last all the things that she had learned over the years.

  ‘If you are trapped underground, do not panic,’ Sir Arthur Odell had once told her when as a child she had become locked in the cellar of a house and had roused the entire neighbourhood with her screams, ‘for you will only use up all the air and achieve absolutely nothing at all.’

  Keeping calm was more easily said than done, however, for Rachel had always had a sneaking fear of the dark. She bit her lip and thought of Cory trying to catch her before she fell, and reassured herself that he would dig her out soon, just as together they had dug out Sir Arthur and Lady Odell when a trench had collapsed on them in Wiltshire. The memory made Rachel feel a tiny bit better, until she thought that perhaps Cory had also been injured in the landslide and was even now lying unconscious, or buried like she, or washed away by the Winter Race as it burst its banks…

  Rachel gave a little sob and stifled it furiously. Action, not thought, was the key to helping herself now. Cautiously, she started to feel about her, running her hands over the rocks beneath and to the side of her in order to ascertain the dimensions of her trap. That she was in some sort of cave seemed certain, and also that it had opened up as a result of the torrential rains, only to be sealed like all the tombs about it when the fall of mud and sand had swept away the bank. She started to crawl forwards gingerly, feeling her way, each inch seeming a mile, each fresh brush of sand against rock making her heart beat faster in case it presaged another landslide. The air was heavy and warm and Rachel felt light-headed, with panic only a heartbeat away.

  She had no notion how far she had crawled before her hands came up against a lip of rock that seemed to stretch upwards, and then another beyond it, rising up in the darkness. Rachel’s fingers clutched at the steps and her heart clutched at the hope, for steps led upwards, towards the light and the fresh air. Towards escape.

  She stood up. The roof was high enough to stand here and slowly, following the line of the wall, she slowly followed the line of shallow steps upward. Was it her imagination, or did the stifling air become a little
fresher here? And was that not a faint sliver of light that she could see ahead of her, as though down the end of a long, dark passage?

  When she finally reached it, it was disappointing enough. She was in another, larger chamber and the light came fitfully through what looked like tiny cracks in the earthen walls. Rachel tried to visualise where she could be, but she had lost her sense of direction almost immediately and could not guess which of the many barrows she had come up into. It was one that Sir Arthur and Lady Odell had not yet started to work upon, for there was no evidence of digging or disturbance here. Nor, to Rachel’s immense relief, could she see any bones or burials, nor smell the unmistakable scent of decay. In the dim light the chamber seemed completely bare.

  Rachel went over to the earthen wall and put her face up to the nearest chink of light. She could see nothing, but she felt the chill of the fresh air against her skin and the stray coldness of rain against her lips. She scrabbled at the wall with her fingers, but it was more sturdy that it looked. It would take her hours to dig herself out.

  There was a sudden rush of air and a rumbling sound as the whole of the tomb shifted behind her and another wall of mud and sand pressed down, closing the steps up which she had so recently come. Rachel caught her breath and pressed more closely to the wall. And as she opened her mouth to shout for help, she heard the scrape of movement and felt the shift of the walls, and drew back in fear again in case the whole edifice was about to collapse.

  A moment later, when she heard the scrape of a shovel on stone, she realised that it was not another landslide that had caused the noise, but human hand. Cory had come for her, as she had known he would. Suddenly Rachel felt as though all the stuffing had been knocked out of her. She sat down heavily on the earthen floor and tried to quell the trembling in her limbs.

  ‘Rachel?’ Cory’s voice echoed about the tomb, bouncing off the roof. ‘Are you there?’

  ‘Cory!’ It came out as a rather pitiful squeak. Rachel tried again. This time it was a high-pitched shriek. ‘Cory! Help! The chamber is filling with sand.’

  The movement stilled.

  ‘Rachel? Thank God! I’ll get you out of there soon. Stand back.’

  Just to hear his voice was reassuring. She could see him now, a darker shadow against the slim sliver of light. The spade bit into the earth, sending a shower of soil tumbling into the tomb.

  ‘Rachel?’ She scrambled across to the widening gap. ‘Are you hurt?’

  ‘No,’ Rachel said. ‘Just a little bruised and shaken. Please be quick, Cory.’ Her voice shook a little. ‘I think the whole tomb is going to collapse!’

  ‘The entire riverbank is washing away,’ Cory said. ‘I am doing what I can, Rae, but I cannot work too quickly for fear the roof will come down on you.’

  Rachel stifled a sob. ‘I understand. Just be as quick as you can…’

  It was another couple of minutes before the gap was large enough to pass the lantern through.

  ‘Take the light,’ Cory said, pushing it through the space.

  The brightness made Rachel feel much better in some ways and worse in others. She could see her prison now, with its two sturdy walls to the south and west, where Cory was digging. On the northern side, where the river ran, the sand had completely blocked the steps down to the lower chamber and the roof sagged perilously low. The rest of the tomb was as bare as she had initially thought, but for what looked like a small, empty ledge on the eastern wall that looked as though it was intended as a shelf for a vase or chalice. There were no bones or offerings, or artefacts of long-dead kings, for which Rachel thanked God. She pressed herself to the western wall and prayed for Cory to be quick.

  The gap widened and Cory’s face appeared, lit from beneath by the lantern. It was dirty, creased with worry, his hair tumbled across his brow.

  ‘Rae—another few moments only…’

  There was an ominous rumble of sound from below, then a swirl of water swept across Rachel’s feet. The steady thud of the spade filled the tomb above.

  ‘Cory! The water is coming through!’

  ‘Hold on, Rae.’ Cory’s voice was a little out of breath but remarkably calm. ‘I am nearly there. Pass me the lantern—’

  What happened next was quick and confusing. As Rachel held the lantern up there was a grating roar and the back wall gave way. In the lantern light, Rachel saw the little shelf appear to slip and slide sideways, revealing a large cavity beyond. It was full of wooden brandy casks. In the lamplight they appeared ghostly white with cobwebs clinging like glue. They were tumbled on the floor and stacked against the wall. A few were broken and the jagged wooden edges showed in the light.

  Rachel stared, transfixed. Then icy water swept up to her waist and clinging mud dragged on her skirts. Cory was pulling her through the gap, but the whole roof was coming down and it threatened to take him with it. Rachel scrambled to safety and turned desperately to see Cory fighting for his footing as the ground gave way beneath him. With a superhuman effort she caught his flailing arm and pulled so hard she was afraid she would dislocate his shoulder. They rolled over, Cory dragging Rachel beneath him, his body arched over hers for protection and her cheek against his chest. They fell over and over in a tumble of limbs and brackish water, finally to lie still.

  Rachel uncurled herself slowly. Her hands were spread against Cory’s chest and she could feel the beat of his heart, slowing now to its normal pace. Her mouth and nose were buried against the wet material of his jacket. She could feel the rain still falling in sheets, running down her face, but she lay still, clinging to Cory as though she never wanted to let him go.

  ‘Rachel?’ Cory shifted, his mouth pressing against her temple.

  ‘I am all right,’ Rachel said. She reluctantly moved a little away. ‘You?’

  Cory nodded.

  ‘Thank you,’ Rachel said, her voice breaking a little. ‘Thank you for rescuing me.’

  Cory smiled. ‘Any time, Rae. And thank you. I rather think I would have been washed away by now without you.’

  Rachel raised a hand and rubbed it against his lean cheek. ‘You have mud on your face…’

  They stared at each other for a second and then Cory’s arms went around her again. Their lips met in a tingle of rainswept cold, and it was heaven, and then Cory had crushed her close and Rachel gasped in pleasure against his mouth. They could have been standing at the gates of hell itself and neither of them would have paid the slightest notice.

  Eventually Rachel freed herself from Cory’s embrace slightly, grabbing his arm again as her knees threatened to give way. ‘Come inside the house,’ she said. ‘Quickly, before we are both drowned.’

  Clasping the lantern, and staggering like a pair of drunken sailors, they wended their way towards the house. Though it was barely four o’clock the sky was completely dark and heavy with unshed rain and the house had a shuttered, quiet air that felt very different from the atmosphere of suppressed tension between them. It seemed to Cory that Rachel was burning up like a torch with the relief and the release of tension. There was high colour along her cheekbones and a hectic sparkle in her eyes. All the passion and excitement that he had known was latent within her was awake and burning and it was demanding a response from him.

  ‘You should get out of your wet clothes and take a hot bath,’ he said, trying to control the most inappropriate images of lust and desire that tormented him. ‘I will heat you some water and fetch you a drink—’

  He got no further. Rachel put a hand around the back of his head and pulled it down, touching her lips to his. Cory gasped. He felt her tongue slide along his lower lip, a little hesitant, seductively innocent. He grabbed her and kissed her back with no half-measures.

  Five minutes later they were both panting, but Cory still held on to his self-control. His body was burning up with need but there were a thousand and one reasons why to take Rachel to bed now was the worst idea in the whole world.

  ‘Rachel,’ he said, ‘we must stop this. You wil
l only regret it later.’

  Rachel placed her hand against his chest. ‘I think not. I love you, Cory. You saved my life today.’

  Cory closed his eyes in an agony of denial. ‘Please, Rae—there is no need for you to express your gratitude in this particular way.’

  ‘Don’t joke,’ Rachel whispered. ‘Not now.’

  Once again she placed her arms about his neck and drew his head down to hers, pressing the whole length of her body against his. Cory shook with suppressed passion. He knew that this was in part a natural reaction to the release from death and the need to celebrate that escape by celebrating life. The same force that drove Rachel possessed him too. When he thought that he might lose her his entire being had cried out against it. Rachel had been a part of his life for so long that he could not bear to lose her now. Not now, not ever.

  She was kissing him again, teasing his lips with hers, driving him to wildness. The scent of her hair and her skin sent sanity spinning from his mind.

  ‘Rae,’ he said, ‘if we do not stop this now, then you will end in my bed—or rather, I shall end in yours.’

  Rachel eased back and looked into his face. ‘It is the second door on the left upstairs,’ she whispered.

  Cory looked down at her, his eyes blazing. Then he picked her up and carried her up the stairs, sending the bedroom door crashing open and kicking it shut behind them.

  Their clothes were sodden but quickly shed. Cory ripped off his jacket and shirt whilst Rachel knelt behind him on the bed, nipping his collarbone, nibbling his earlobe and pressing her lips to the soft skin of his neck. He could scarce believe that this was Rachel, the prim young lady who had spoken of passion as though it were an unwanted encumbrance in life. And when he turned to her, maddened by her caresses, she giggled and pulled him down with her into the billows of the big four-poster bed. She made a soft sound and rubbed against him, their bodies separated now by nothing other than her soaked chemise and his pantaloons. She ran her hands over his bare chest and back, arching against him and exulting in the contact.