Laurie Brown

by Hundreds of Years to Reform a Rake

  She gave a snort of laughter.“I’m supposed to be the one energized and you’re supposed to be ready to collapse.”

  He picked her up and carried her out of the shower, setting her on an armless chair near the fireplace. He rubbed her dry with a large soft towel. “I don’t know about your reactions, but I have about fifteen minutes before that exhaustion sets in.”

  “Time enough to get dressed and out of the lady’s bedroom?”

  “I refuse to answer that,” he said. He threw a towel over her head and rubbed her scalp. “What did you say?” He lifted one corner and she peered up at him.

  “I forgot to say wow.”

  He smiled and bent to kiss her nose.“You didn’t forget.”

  After wrapping a towel around his waist, he picked her up, towels and all, and carried her to the bedroom. He stood her on her feet long enough to pull back the huge goose-down duvet.

  “No wet towels in the bed,” he said.

  She stripped hers off without hesitation, and then she pulled his towel off as well.

  “Feeling better, I see.” He picked her up again, and then he walked up the steps and right out onto the middle of the massive bed.

  “What can you do in five minutes?” she asked.

  He dropped her onto the feather softness and then lay down beside her, pulling the duvet over them both.

  She hit his shoulder with her fist.“That was rotten.”

  “No. It was expedient.” He adjusted a pillow under his head.“Give me about fifteen minutes and I’ll be good as new.” He gathered her into his arms and closed his eyes.

  Placing her arm on his chest, she propped up her chin.“Is that time frame estimate also based on experience?”

  A slight snore was her only answer.

  She snuggled into a comfortable position to wait. And promptly fell asleep.

  Josie stretched and tried to wipe the satisfied grin off her face. Then she realized she was no longer in Dev’s bed and she sat up with a start.

  They had made love several times during the night using every square inch of the huge bed.

  The last thing she remembered was making slow, sweet love with Dev as the sunrise tinged the wall of windows pink and gold. Now she was back in her own room.

  As she swung her legs over the edge of the bed, she noticed the note leaning against the lamp on the table. She grabbed her dressing gown from the end of the bed, padded barefoot over to the table, and settled into the chair. She tucked her feet up before unsealing the folded sheet of paper and reading Dev’s flamboyant handwriting.

  My dear Josie-love, I have an errand this morning and you are sleeping too peacefully to disturb. (And too soundly to wake.) I will return at approximately noon. Please have luncheon with me in the folly.

  Yours, Dev P.S.Wow, wow, and WOW.

  Josie checked the clock on the mantel. Two hours until she saw him again. She hummed a little tune as she rang for Dora and retreated behind the screen to wash.

  While dressing, she realized she hadn’t heard from Deverell for a while. She hadn’t had a chance to discuss the séance with the ghost and missed his acute observations. She also missed his appreciative smile when she returned his repartee.

  Perhaps he would be waiting in the library to help her check her traps. Eager to see him, she ran down the stairs. The entry and library were empty.

  Josie set about checking her traps.To her disappointment, none of the threads or beads had been disturbed, so no one had entered or left the room.

  Confused, she peered under the table. Definite activity there. She checked the back of the chair Madame used. Traces of green fingerprints were preserved in the sticky oil.

  “Aha.” Specters did not leave fingerprints. She’d bet her entire CD collection that those prints would glow in the dark. She wondered if she could preserve them and match them to someone in the house. She let down the secret panel in the back of the chair to see if any green dust was present there.

  When the library doors opened she spun around, expecting Deverell. She instantly realized her mistake. The ghost never bothered to use doors.

  Madame X entered, closing the doors behind her.

  “So, it was you.”

  Josie crossed her arms. Even though she still didn’t know how the gypsy did it, she had enough proof to discredit her. “You are a fraud, and I will expose you and your accomplice to Lady Honoria.”

  “Quite the little detective, aren’t you?” Madame moved closer.“And becoming quite a nuisance.”

  “You’d better go pack your bags. I’m sure Lord Waite will be asking you to leave soon.”

  “I think not.” Madame lunged for Josie.

  She turned to run but smacked her shin on the secret door. The momentary delay gave Madame enough time to grab her from behind. The older woman was amazingly strong, and her hand covered Josie’s mouth with a firm grip. She fought back, but she managed only to grab scarf after scarf.

  Madame dragged her to a chair by the fireplace and threw her into it.Before Josie could rise, the other woman pulled out a pistol and pointed it at her.

  “Scream and you die.”

  Estelle entered the library, and with a sense of relief Josie waited for her to raise the alarm.

  Instead Estelle turned and locked the door. She sauntered across the room and sneered at Josie, “I knew you were trouble the moment I laid eyes on you.”

  “What are we going to do with her?” Madame asked.

  Josie realized Estelle was also Madame’s accomplice. Then who was the man helping them? “Let me go and you...”

  “Tie her up,” Estelle ordered.

  “...can still get away scot...”

  “And gag her.”

  Madame X handed Estelle the pistol and followed her orders, using the scarves Josie had pulled from the gypsy’s head during the struggle. The close position and lack of covering on Madame’s neck revealed an Adam’s apple. Suddenly Josie knew how she, rather he, had done it. There was not another accomplice. The man who played Amanu was in reality Madame X.

  “Now what?” he asked.

  Estelle stepped to the fireplace and opened a small door. She pulled a lever, and a section of the wall swung open. Josie was vindicated. She’d been sure there had to be a secret panel.

  “Time for her to magically disappear.Take her down to the dungeon.”

  X picked her up and slung her over his shoulder.

  She wiggled and tried to get free despite her bonds.

  “Gads, she’s a handful.”

  Josie felt a sudden pain on the back of her head and then only blackness.

  She woke sometime later. X’s shoulder still dug into her stomach, so she figured she hadn’t been out long. Her hands hung over her head. All she could see in the dim light of the lamp he carried was the rickety wooden steps they descended.

  “Hurry up, Xavier,” Estelle hissed from somewhere far above them, her voice echoing against the stone walls. “Someone is knocking on the library door.”

  Xavier stopped, and by the change in the light, Josie deduced that he had set the lamp on the step.

  He slipped her off his shoulder and sat her on a step, her back against the cold stone wall.

  “Stall them,” Xavier hollered. He looked down at Josie, no pity in his dead black eyes. “Much as I’ve enjoyed the feel of your sweet bum, you’ll have to make the rest of the trip alone.”

  With that, he kicked her shoulder. Not hard, but enough to send her tumbling sideways into dark nothingness. Unable to reach out with her arms or legs to stop her motion, she ducked her head and covered it with her arms as she tucked into a ball.

  Josie woke curled in the fetal position, her head resting on a large rock.And to absolute darkness. So black was the air around her, she raised her hands to her face to make sure her eyelids were open.

  Her body was bruised and hurt like hell, but she didn’t think anything was broken. She pushed herself to a sitting position and rested a moment until a dizzy spell pas
sed. She clawed away the gag and breathed in several deep gulps of the musty air.

  “Help! Help! Can anybody hear me?”

  Her words echoed back, and she deduced that she was in a large chamber. Judging from the dirt beneath her, she was on the lowest level of the cave or dungeon or whatever it was.

  Using her teeth and twisting her hands back and forth, she finally freed her hands. Then she made short work of the bonds around her knees and ankles. Something warm ran down her temple, and her fingers found what could only be blood. She used one of the scarves to dab it away and discovered crusted blood underneath. That meant she must have been lying there for some time. She tied the scarf around her head.

  With determined thoroughness, she examined the rest of her body with her fingers. She used other scarves to bind up two bleeding gashes on her legs and to cover a burning scrape on her left arm. Satisfied that she’d done everything she could, she stood up slowly, testing for dizziness. She kept the large rock she’d used as a pillow beside her right foot as an anchor in the darkness.

  Stretching her arms out, she reached for the wall and felt nothing in any direction. Panic reared its ugly head.

  Stay calm. Stay calm.

  “Help! Help! Help!”

  “There’s no use wasting your energy yelling.No one can hear you.”

  “Deverell!” Her relief at not being alone was so great, she sat on the rock. “Where are you? Your voice echoes and I can’t see a damn thing.”

  “Exactly why I haven’t wasted energy manifesting myself.”

  “Couldn’t you at least appear as a glowing apparition? Even Amanu could do that.”

  “Very funny.”

  “I’m serious.”

  “No, I cannot. Since I never needed that skill, I didn’t bother to practice it.”

  “Great. Could you try? Please?”

  “I will think of something. In the meantime, you might consider getting out of here.”

  She stood up.“Fine.You can talk me out.Which way do I go? Left? Right? Straight? Hello?”

  “Uh, I don’t know the way out.”

  Stay calm. “But you are here.Which way did you come?”

  “I didn’t come a way. I’m not exactly sure how it worked, but I sort of heard your distress inside my head, like a scream. I focused on your unique energy, and here I am. Do you mind telling me why you are in the dungeon?”

  She gave him the short version of the Xavier and Estelle show.

  “Are you injured?”

  “Bruises, abrasions, and one hell of a headache, but other than that I’m fine. And anxious to see a little sunshine. It’s your dungeon. Surely, you’ve been down here before.”

  “In my youth.However, I didn’t care for exploring the narrow tunnels and secret staircases the way Estelle did. Believe me, I would help you if I could.

  I don’t like being down here either.”

  He wouldn’t leave her, would he? He kept her panic at bay even if he had no better idea of what to do than she did.“I appreciate you staying with me.”

  There was no point running around blind. Josie sat down with a sigh.“Tell me what you do know.”

  Eighteen

  DEVERELL KEPT HIS VOICE LOW AND SMOOTH even though he wanted to shout out his frustration at not being able to help Josie escape the dungeon. No need for her to feel his panic. Despite the fact that he didn’t see how his small store of useless information would be of service, she had asked and he would comply.

  “It has always been called the dungeon, and undoubtedly held prisoners at one time or another. There is evidence that leg and arm shackles had once been attached to the walls. However, since several of the secret passages in the castle proper lead down here and one tunnel supposedly leads to an exit near the lake...”

  “Supposedly?”

  “I never heard of anyone actually using it, and some evidence in period diaries suggests it collapsed many years ago under the weight of newer construction. The foundations of the east wing caused particular problems for my ancestors.”

  “How many passages lead down here?”

  “Three that I know of.”

  “But you didn’t know about the passageway from the library.That makes four.”

  “Which lends credence to the theory the passages were meant as escape routes. Possibly added during Jacobean times, although there are no records. Understandable, if that were the case. There is also a theory that Robert, often referred to as ‘that old pirate,’ actually was a pirate and used this area to store his smuggled and stolen goods until he could bury his booty somewhere on the estate. Totally unproven. And again, there are no written records...”

  “Naturally.”

  “Except for Robert’s journals, which are written in code. I tried to decipher one of them when I was about fifteen, but after weeks of absolutely no progress I tired of the effort.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Not really.”

  “That means there is something else.What?”

  “It is not relevant. And you won’t like it.”

  “I insist you tell me.”

  “Very well. Rumor has it that several times over the years servants had come down here for whatever reason and never returned. It is said their ghosts haunt the dungeon. Probably just a scare tactic to keep the staff out for their own good.”

  “Can you feel the presence of other ghosts?”

  “No.”

  “Too bad.You could have asked them the way out.”

  “If they’d known the way out, they wouldn’t have died down here.”

  “I think it’s time to leave.” Josie slapped her hands on her knees and stood.“Any suggestions?”

  “The best way out of a maze is to trail your right hand against the greenery and never take any route that causes you to lose contact. Therefore, I expect the best action to take is to find a wall and follow it to an opening.”

  “Exactly what I was thinking. Since my head was pointed this way when I landed...” She turned so that the rock was against her left foot. “This should be the direction I came down.”

  “Illogical.You said you blacked out during your descent.Your body could have tumbled any which way and come to a halt facing an entirely different direction.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Spock. Do you have a better idea?”

  Silence was her answer.

  She instantly regretted her testiness. The absolute darkness was agonizing enough. Adding silence made it unbearable. “Okay, this way it is,”

  she said, making her tone cheerful if only for her own benefit.

  Waving her arms back and forth in front of her, she began walking. Slowly at first, but her confidence soon matched her determination and eagerness. And caused her to trip and fall.

  “Ow, ow, ow.” She tried to grab her sore elbow, which had landed on a rock, and her twisted ankle at the same time.

  “Are you all right?”

  “No, I am not all right. I’m bruised, and tired, and hungry, and thirsty, undoubtedly filthy from rolling around in God knows what on the ground, and...and...” Josie sucked in a deep breath and blinked her eyes to keep from crying.

  If she once gave in to panic and tears, she would be lost.

  She rolled to a sitting position. She pulled a rock the size of a golf ball from beneath her hip.“Damn rocks.” She threw it as hard as she could.

  “Perhaps, you should...”

  “Be quiet.” She scooped up a handful of rocks and stood. Her ankle gave only a twinge of pain.

  She threw another stone and listened to the sounds it made as it came to a halt. She turned her body a few degrees and threw another one, repeating the process until she ran out of rocks.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Finding the nearest wall,” she said. She knelt and ran her hands along the ground to find stones of the right golf ball size. Using her skirt as a makeshift pouch, she gathered the eight rocks she would need to quarter the four cardinal directions.

 
She explained her plan to Deverell as she worked.

  “Very scientific,” he said.

  Josie smiled at his compliment. She stood and hefted the first stone in her hand.“How big would you say this room is?”

  “My best estimate, based on absolutely nothing but a vague memory, is approximately one-hundred-and-twenty feet in diameter.”

  “That’s room for a lot of pirate booty.” Josie made some quick calculations in her head. If the distance from the pitcher’s mound to home plate in women’s fast-pitch softball was forty feet, she could conservatively estimate throwing the uneven rough-surfaced rock half that distance. If she didn’t hit a wall on the first go-round, she would take twenty steps and try again.

  She set her feet, wound up, and let the rock fly.

  Low on the inside corner. Her form was a little rusty, not having played since college. But the noise of the stone rolling to a stop provided the information she sought, if not the result.

  Josie used the distance between her chin and her shoulder as her forty-five-degree angle template and turned to her left until her nose was halfway between her imaginary lines. Nothing different happened on the next stone or any of the subsequent six. She counted out twenty steps, using a sliding motion similar to that employed by a beginning ice-skater so she didn’t trip again.

  Repeating the gathering, throwing, and turning process, her second throw yielded a satisfying thwack.

  She wanted to jump up and down and cheer, but because she was afraid she’d lose her direction, she settled for a fist pump and a shout of,“Strike!”

  “I’m presuming that has something to do with your unfortunate baseball phase.” Deverell sounded bored.

  “Softball. And don’t knock it—I found the wall.” She counted her steps as she ice-skated to the wall.“Approximately thirty-two feet. Not bad.”

  “You must be so proud.”

  Josie ignored his sarcasm.“Left or right?”

  “Six of one and half dozen of another.”

  “Okay. I’m holding up my fingers. Pick a number, one or two.”