by Brenda Novak
When Rachel reached the place where Wythe had been meeting with the hewers of Number 14 Stall, she could see their bodies lying on the ground. Their blood, looking like black ink in the dim light of the two Davy lamps that had been left behind, seeped into the ground.
Such a gruesome sight made it far too easy to imagine what would happen to her if Wythe managed to catch her.
It wasn’t a pleasant thought that she would be alone in the dark with four dead bodies and their killer, but she had to extinguish the lamps. If he was going to have light with which to come after her, she wanted him to have to go back to the surface to get it. It would buy her some time, at least.
“You bitch!” he screamed. The sound echoed off the walls, making it difficult to tell if he was coming after her. The extreme darkness made it feel as if the mine had swallowed her whole. She hadn’t spent enough time as a putter to feel comfortable navigating the many tunnels without light. She had assumed she would be able to remember the various footpaths, but that wasn’t remotely realistic.
Keeping one hand on the wall so she would know approximately where she was in relation to what was around her, she moved as fast as she could. She wished she could break into a full run and put some real distance between them. But there were too many dangers in the mine for that—low ceilings, sudden drop-offs, machinery, turns. She could only hope she was walking at least as fast as he was.
When the ground gave way, she yelped in surprise. She half expected to fall to her death—but it was just a puddle. Still, she turned her ankle, which caused some pain, and the stinking, fetid water soaked through her shoes, making her even more miserable. Lord knew what was in it, but the real problem was that she had given her location away.
“You think you’re getting out of here alive?” he asked.
Fear nearly choked her. He was right on her trail—and he spoke low, as if he knew it.
God help me. Covering her mouth to keep from making any sound, even when she dared breathe, she felt for a crevice, slipped into the first one she could find and tried to make herself small. He would be batting the air, hoping to make contact.
She prayed he would pass her by so she could double back.
Chapter 26
Wythe had never been angrier in his life. Everything he wanted was so close he could taste it. Now that Collingood, Greenley, Thornick and Henderson could never reveal what they knew, only Rachel stood between him and the title, between him and the admiration and power he had always craved. He would be the one riding through the streets of Creswell in the earl’s coach. He would be the one hiring a steward to run the mine. He would be the one traveling to London with an entourage of servants to cater to his every whim instead of being a burden, someone who was only tolerated, a mere hanger-on.
Maybe he would even take up residence in Town part of the year.
But first he had to silence the stubborn, overly ambitious wench who threatened it all. And he had to dispose of the four bodies lying on the loading dock. The miners would arrive for work in two hours or less. If the earl wasn’t lying hurt or dead somewhere, as the bitch seemed to think, he could show up sooner.
“You’re making a mistake,” he called out.
He paused to listen, but there was no response. Could she even hear him? Or had she slipped too far away?
“Rachel?” He wished he hadn’t sent Mrs. Poulson to destroy the paintings. He needed someone to block the entrance of the mine so that Rachel couldn’t escape while he took those corpses to Number 15 stall. They would be safe there until he could bury them, if only for the chance to load them into a wagon.
But even if he had the opportunity, it wouldn’t be as easy as it could have been. Thanks to Rachel, he didn’t have a lamp.
What was he going to do? He could spend hours down here searching in the dark and never find her. Even if he went to the surface and brought back a Davy—and locked the lift up at the top so she couldn’t get out while he was gone—he could search any number of tunnels before finding her. It was possible that she could elude him indefinitely.
That meant he had to do something else, something with a better chance of success.
“You have a choice,” he yelled. “Come out, or I will blow up the mine.”
He thought he heard a slight whimper, but there was water dripping not far away, and that made it difficult to tell. “It must be a frightening prospect for you. Your brother died in a cave-in.” He made a clicking sound. “What a terrible way to go. Straining to breathe. Unable to get air. Depending on how much damage my explosion causes, you could go the same way. I have heard it can take several minutes to suffocate. Imagine the panic.” He lightened his voice. “Or, if you’re lucky, you could be blown to bits. Either way doesn’t matter to me, as long as you’re dead in the end.”
Had his gruesome description of her death caused a response?
Not that he could tell. There was just the water, continuing to drip. Plink. Plink. Plink…
“Rachel?”
Something scrabbled past him. He reached out, hoping to grab her, but it was just a rat or some other noxious animal. Damn it. If only he could get his hands around her slim neck.
“Come on, Rachel. Don’t make this any harder than it has to be. I don’t want to destroy the mine but you are giving me no choice. Think of how many lives that will impact.”
He felt his way along the wall, sliding his foot out at the same time to make sure he didn’t miss her on the other side. “You deserve what you are about to get, you know that?” he finally bit out. “And it won’t hurt me one bit to lose the mine. Not really. You might not be aware of this, but Truman has so many other holdings. Maybe this will be for the best. When they find Thornick, Collingood, Henderson and Greenley in pieces, they won’t know they died before the blast. They will assume they brought you down here for a little revenge.”
He was starting to get excited about his newest idea. Could she see how perfect it was?
“Do you hear that, Rachel?” he said, hoping to reiterate. “Everyone will think Collingood and the others dragged you down here. Maybe you fought back and got a little reckless with the lamp and… pow!… firedamp did the rest.”
The more he spoke, the more convinced he became that he had hit upon the ideal solution. Losing some of what he would inherit was better than losing everything. An explosion would solve all his problems at once. Then he could hurry home and pretend he’d had nothing to do with it.
Pivoting abruptly, he felt his way to the cage and started hoisting himself up. The black powder, used for blasting new tunnels, was locked up.
But, as steward, he happened to know right where Tyndale kept the key.
Wythe was rolling a keg of gunpowder around the corner of the office toward the pithead when a horse bearing a rider stepped out of the shadows. Shocked to find that he had company, he almost let the slope of the ground carry the keg away from him.
“What are you doing here?” Cutberth asked, his horse rearing up at the sudden encounter.
Wythe wasn’t happy to see the clerk, but at least it wasn’t the earl. “I could ask you the same thing. Isn’t it a little early for you to be starting your day?”
“I’m not starting my day. I’m looking for Thornick.”
The knowledge that Thornick lay in the mine, dead, made Wythe begin to sweat. “I would imagine he is in bed this time of night.”
“Apparently not. His wife came to my house thirty minutes or so ago, frantic because he hasn’t come home.”
Wythe managed a shrug while keeping one hand on the powder barrel. “I haven’t seen him. You might try Elspeth’s.”
The rain had stopped but Cutberth’s hat was still dripping. He removed it long enough to fling off the water. “He told her he was coming here. For a union meeting. That’s why she sought me out.”
The smell of wet horse made Wythe wish he had his own animal. He had left it in the stables at Cosgrove House so he could move without alerting anyone, but he feare
d that would prove to be a mistake. He felt so immobile.
Putting a knee on the barrel, he straightened. “This is where you have been holding your meetings? At my own bloody mine?” He laughed as if he could appreciate the irony, but promised himself he wouldn’t let that go on in the future.
Instead of laughing with him, Cutberth gave him a funny look. “Don’t you mean the earl’s mine?”
“Of course. Didn’t I say that?” He tried not to glance toward the pithead, even though he was desperate to get back there before Rachel could do anything else to thwart him. “Anyway, you might find Thornick at Elspeth’s, like I said. The poor bloke had to tell his wife something in order to get out of the house, didn’t he?” He grinned as if that had to be the answer and hoped Cutberth would accept it. But the clerk didn’t leave. He lowered his gaze to the keg.
“Planning on doing some blasting?”
“When the men arrive. I couldn’t sleep so I thought I would come over and get ready for the day.”
Cutberth’s horse neighed and pranced to one side as if it was tired of standing in the same spot, but Cutberth brought it around again. “That’s a bit out of the ordinary, isn’t it? For you to get involved in this type of work?”
Wythe propped his hands on his hips and jutted his chin forward. “What are you saying?” He used a tone that suggested Cutberth had no right to question him, that he had no right to judge his actions no matter what they might be. He would soon be the Earl of Druridge and he expected people to remember that. But the clerk didn’t back off as he always had in the past.
“I’m saying that’s a bit out of the ordinary.” His voice was firm.
When their gazes locked, Wythe cursed silently to himself. Cutberth knew something wasn’t right, and that created yet another complication.
But there was still hope. The explosion Wythe had planned could take two lives as easily as one. He just had to get Cutberth into the mine.
“Not necessarily. Not if you knew what I was up to. Come on, I will show you. You can give me a hand.”
Cutberth shook the water off his hat again. “A hand with… what?”
“Getting this into the pit. I will hook up the machine on the lift, and you can lower me down. It will make it much easier. This thing weighs a ton.”
“I’m afraid you’re on your own with that, Mr. Stanhope,” he said. “I’m going to keep looking for Thornick.”
Wythe stood the barrel on its end so it could no longer roll. He had his knife in his belt. He wanted to use it, but it wouldn’t do him any good to try unless he could get Cutberth to climb down off that damned horse. “If you value your position here, you will take a minute and help me,” he said.
An odd smile curved Cutberth’s lips.
“What is it?” He was trying to act no differently than usual, but the stress he was feeling added an unwanted quaver to his voice.
“I guess you haven’t heard the news. I spoke to your cousin earlier. I no longer have a job here to protect,” he said and galloped away.
Wythe didn’t have the means to go after him, not without his own animal. So what now? What was he going to do about Cutberth? The ex-clerk was no friend of the earl’s. Or Rachel’s, either. But he would know exactly what happened as soon as Thornick and the others were discovered in the rubble.
Damn it! He couldn’t set off an explosion, not now that Cutberth had seen him with gunpowder.
He would have to find Rachel and kill her the hard way, he decided, and then bury all the bodies. As long as the corpses were never discovered, no one would know he had been involved.
If only he could get hold of that little whore before daybreak. Everything hinged on timing.
Dear God, his hands were shaking. He needed something to calm his nerves.
He withdrew his flask, only to find that it was empty. How could he have forgotten? He’d drunk the whole thing while waiting for Thornick, Collingood, Henderson and Greenley.
Truman urged his horse into a faster clip. It wasn’t safe to travel at a full run, not at night. But he had to find Rachel as soon as possible. There were too many people, people like Cutberth, who blamed her instead of themselves for their recent turn of bad luck.
What if she had fallen into the hands of the sacked clerk? Or the hewers who had attacked her that day he took her from the mine?
“My lord! You go on. I will catch up when I can,” Linley called.
Truman couldn’t wait for him. He had to find the woman he loved. All the things that had once seemed so important to him were nothing in comparison to her.
“Go back,” he called. “Wait at the manse.” He had tried talking Linley into staying in the first place. His butler was too old to help with something like this. He had done enough for one night, anyway. But he’d insisted. “Two is better than one,” he’d said.
Truman appreciated the devotion, but with Rachel’s safety in jeopardy, he had to stay focused, had to act quickly.
He leaned over to avoid the tree branches that swatted at him as his horse charged down the familiar path to the colliery. Cosgrove House came up on his right. It seemed as quiet and dark as he would expect it to be so early in the morning, but he was still tempted to stop there. The memory of Wythe telling Rachel, “I could throw your body into the ocean,” kept playing in his head. If his cousin had anything to do with why Rachel hadn’t come home—anything at all—the forbearance Truman had shown him over the years would be gone in an instant. The promise he’d made his parents would mean nothing. Neither would the fact that Wythe had once saved his life. He was carrying his pistols and wouldn’t hesitate to use them.
It seemed to take longer than usual to reach the office, despite his breakneck speed. He was relieved when he finally charged into the clearing. But he found everything as he had seen it last night.
Except that there was a keg of gunpowder sitting out.
He got off his horse to investigate. Black powder was expensive, and it could be dangerous. It was not to be left out in the open.
The locker where they stored the gunpowder was closed but the key had been left in the lock. Another storage shed close by, this one full of tools and Davy lamps, had been broken into quite forcibly and the door stood ajar.
What had happened here? As far as he could tell, no one was about. But someone had been here. Who? And did the state of those storage closets and the gunpowder keg have anything to do with Rachel going missing?
He couldn’t see how. Maybe the damage had happened earlier, before he met with Cutberth. Or immediately after. Cutberth could have done it in anger.…
“Rachel?” he called.
There was no answer.
“Rachel!” Where could she be? His imagination suggested many places, but none eased his fears. “I don’t want to live without you,” he murmured. Especially now, when he’d finally allowed himself to hope, to believe, he could have her forever.
Just in case she could have gone into the mine—or been dragged there—he walked down to the pithead. But the gate was locked and all seemed quiet. Should he search the mine, despite that? He was tempted, just to be sure he had covered every possibility. If Cutberth could get the key to Rachel’s shop from Wythe’s office, he could certainly come by the key to the pithead after working in the office for so long. But searching the tunnels would take forever. The time would be better spent heading to the village so he could check on Cutberth, Thornick, Greenley and the others. He would wake the whole damn village if he had to.
He hurried back to his horse, but almost as soon as he climbed into the saddle, he heard the approach of someone else, also on horseback.
Unsure of who or what he might face, he pulled out one of the pistols he had brought from the house as Cutberth entered the clearing. “What are you doing here?”
His ex-clerk reined in a few feet away. “Where is he?”
“Where is who?”
When Truman let his pistol be seen, Cutberth stiffened. “What do you plan to do wit
h that, m’lord?”
“Anything I have to in order to find Rachel. What have you done with her?”
His eyebrows shot up. “Nothing! I haven’t even seen her.”
“She went out looking for me and hasn’t come back.”
He lifted his hands. “I swear to you. If she is gone it has nothing to do with me. I am not here to start trouble. I was merely hoping for another word with your cousin.”
Truman squinted through the darkness, trying to ascertain his expression and decide whether he was telling the truth. “Why would you expect Wythe to be here?”
“Because this is where he was not more than half an hour ago.” He pointed at the powder keg. “He was wrestling that toward the pit.”
His cousin was the one who had gotten out the gunpowder? Surely this couldn’t be true. “What could he have wanted powder for?” Truman asked.
“That’s what I came back to find out. Something isn’t right, my lord. Thornick, Collingood, Henderson and Greenley are all missing.”
This news made Truman sick to his stomach. “Then they’ve got Rachel.” He couldn’t think of another explanation, but Cutberth didn’t seem convinced.
“I don’t think so. If they were planning to harm her, they could have done it when she came back to the village. It’s not as if Mrs. Tate could have stopped them. Greenley told me he stopped by there to apologize, but she wouldn’t receive him.”
Truman frowned as he looked around. Was Cutberth really searching for Wythe?
“Thornick’s wife claims he was coming here to attend a union meeting,” he said. “The other wives say the same about their husbands. But I haven’t called a meeting. And Wythe, when I saw him, was behaving strangely. He was sweating, despite the cold. And he wanted me to help him get that powder into the mine and seemed overly upset when I wouldn’t.”