Freddie Killer, dark-haired and skinny as a rake, lay at an awkward angle, with his eyes closed. His breathing was shallow and interspersed with a low groan every so often. Josephine could see that his right arm was twisted in an unnatural position and what she was convinced was a sliver of bone poked through his shirt. One of his boots had come off and Sam Bonsall, tow-headed and grubby-faced, had put it near the entrance.
While Josephine surveyed their surroundings—not that there was a lot to see—Sam stuffed his mouth with food and grunted his thanks. When he’d finally swallowed the last mouthful, Josephine decided he might be ready to answer her questions.
“Now tell me all about it,” she suggested in an unthreatening voice.
“Me dad’ll kill me,” Sam said gloomily. “An’ if he don’t, Will’s ma will. See, we knows we aren’t supposed to come down the holes or in the caves. Both our dads told us it were dangerous. But we know they did it, so why shouldn’t we, eh?” he asked passionately. “And when we heard of that boy John’s treasure, well, why not?”
She could understand his reasoning even if she didn’t condone it.
“Boy John’s treasure?” she queried. “What’s that?”
Sam shrugged. “Dunno, we just overheard old man Cassel, him who bought the farm over by, sayin’ he were sure Boy John’s was in his cave, not just at the castle. Well, stands to reason it’s got to be that John’s treasure that were in the caves, and it’d be a right fortune. Reckon if we found it, it might be finders keepers or sommat. At least a reward.”
Did he mean Blue John? The gem David had talked about? But surely she remembered David saying that was only found around Castleton, which was a fair few miles away. Was that the castle? Had the boys misheard somehow?
“Did you find anything?” she asked Sam, as if it wasn’t overimportant. “Or was the cupboard bare? You know, like Old Mother Hubbard.”
Sam sniggered and shook his head. “We didn’t hardly look afore them bits of muck and stuff started down on us. Then, as we was coming out, Fred slipped on some stones and, well, that were it.”
A hail of small stones and earth fell onto her head and Josephine cursed. “Has this happened a lot?” she asked as Sam brushed her shoulder clean for her. “The stones and things?”
“Ah, a bit. More and more, really.”
Josephine shivered as the possible consequences of that hit her. If more fell and they were smothered or cut off, the results were unthinkable.
“Sam, we need to move Freddie near the opening,” she said, and hoped the fear she experienced didn’t manifest in her tone. “After all, he can’t shield himself from soil and stones, can he? And if more fall, one might hurt him and— Run to the entrance now,” she added urgently as the next shower of stones descended. She leaned over Freddie and bit back an agonized groan as several large rocks bounced off her shoulders.
“Nah.” Sam’s voice wavered. “Come on, miss, we do it together. What do I need to do?” Sam asked her in a stronger tone. “He’s me mate and mates help each other.”
“True, and as I now consider you and Freddie my mates, we’d better move him, eh?”
Hopefully, the idea of mates helping mates meant that David was on his way to aid her. Sadly, they were not true mates. But could they be? Josephine turned her mind away from what might be to what was. A pressing need to move.
“Where did he hurt himself, his leg and his arm?” she asked Sam as she carefully ran her fingers over Freddie’s head.
“Nah, just his arm, but he curled up like that and I durn’t move him.”
“Good boy. It was wise not to. Now, though, knowing where he is hurt makes it easier.” Without any regard for propriety, Josephine found her last two rags. Sam didn’t blink, in fact she wondered if he’d even realized he was getting a bird’s-eye view of her petticoats. All his attention was focused on his friend.
“Now let me see if we can tie his arm to his chest and then drag him. How does that sound?” she said once she’d rearranged her skirt. One side had a long, jagged tear in it, where, she assumed, she’d caught it on a rock. Josephine shrugged philosophically. No doubt it would be a lot worse before they returned home.
Another rumble of stones and soil brought that thought to an abrupt end to be replaced by the horrific one of…if we get out.
“Sam, it won’t be comfortable for Freddie, but I can’t see how else we can move him.” There wasn’t enough room to lift the lad. “We must, though. This roof is collapsing by the minute.”
“Hard, but we’ll do it.” Sam appeared to grow in stature at her assumption—flawed though it was—that they could manage. “And the roof has been at it ever since we got down into the cave. After all, that’s what did for ole Fred here.”
“Then let’s see what we can do.” By dint of pushing, shoving and thanking the Lord Freddie didn’t really come to, they anchored Freddie’s arm somewhat clumsily to his body. Then Josephine fixed Sam with a hard stare. “This will hurt him, so it follows it will hurt you because you are his friend. But”—she coughed as yet more stones fell—“we have to do it. It is not safe here. Do you understand?”
Sam nodded, white-faced under the grime that dusted his skin, but resolute. “I get it, miss. It’ll be all’ right. I won’t cuss and he’s too gone to be able to.”
Josephine thought she’d probably cuss enough under her breath for the lot of them. “Right then, on three. We will have to drag him one leg each.” Heaven knew what other injuries he would sustain, but better than being killed. “So on three…one, two…three.”
They heaved.
Chapter Eleven
Whether it was the rising sun, which had a hard time to appear between the ever-growing black clouds, or the ominous stillness in the air that made him twitchy, David wasn’t sure. The atmosphere was heavy, sultry in the wrong way even, and tiny black thunderflies began to appear and settle on him.
He climbed cautiously down the rock face as fast as he dared. Hand and footholds were a lot easier to find than in their younger days, but conversely a lot tighter for his now larger hands and feet to get into. At one point, a seemingly sturdy root snapped and he swore as he scrabbled for purchase on a large boulder.
Once he thought he heard a rumble of thunder but, with the noise of his boots scraping and his heart beating, he couldn’t be sure. It could easily have been his stomach. Food seemed a distant memory.
David made his slow and steady way ever downward. Once he stopped and wiped his clammy hands on his buckskins in turn. A stone bounded off his head, followed by a shower of smaller pebbles, and he stopped abruptly, several yards from the bottom. When the bombardment stopped, David shook some muck from his head and eyebrows and took a cautious glance upward. Will looked worriedly down from the top of the scree.
“You okay, Davy? That was a helluva fall.”
“Am I mistaken in thinking this scree is a lot less stable than when we were lads?” he asked. “I swear we didn’t bring half as much down, and even though we were lighter there were three of us.”
“I don’t rightly know,” Will said in an anxious voice. “I’ve not been around here for years.”
“Then fingers crossed I make it down in one piece.” David began to move again and didn’t add… ‘And that we get the boys and my lady up in one piece each.’ That would be understood, and worried over without him heightening the disquiet. He scrambled down the last three or four yards and breathed a sigh of relief when he touched the ground.
“When I get them, is it easier to go down the gorge toward the farm and home via Apple Lane?” he called up. It had been so long since he’d been in this exact area, his memory may well be faulty.
“Ah, longer, but probably better for injuries. Shall I send the trestle down that way when it gets here? Might be better for it, else it might get broken.”
A further rumble of thunder echoed around the gorge. “How long would it take?” There was silence while he reckoned Will made mental calculations.
“’Bout an hour to you from here and mebbes two back home. There’s only a plank over stream unless you go around by Becketts.” Using the plank wouldn’t work with a body on a trestle. It was dangerous enough with all your limbs unencumbered.
“Hmm.” David thought over their options. Via the bridge at Becketts added a good couple of miles to the journey. “That’s probably too long. Send the trestle down here on ropes and we’ll decide then.”
He went over the instructions young Rose had relayed to him. It sounded easy, but instead of getting lighter, the early morning was rapidly appearing like dusk, or beyond. A definite rumble of thunder sounded to the west followed by a second, which he would wager was closer. Time was of the essence if he was to find Josephine and the boys and get them up to the others. He well knew that if it rained to any great extent, the bottom of the gorge could be flooded.
“I’ll shout when I know more.” He waited to hear Will’s reply in the affirmative and began to scour the area.
“Josephine?” He projected his voice until it bounced off the walls of the gorge and reverberated around him over and over again.
“David?” The shout was faint but he would have sworn it came from near the base of the cliff. In the area Rose had reported was the place to head toward. For the first time since he’d discovered Josephine had headed out with Rose, he allowed himself to hope, just a little, that all might turn out reasonably well.
“Keep calling.” He’d save his breath and ask all the other questions he needed answers to when he found her and hopefully the boys.
“Near the cliff, and, oh, David, please, come as fast as you can. It’s caving in…” Her voice faded and he caught the noise of a sharp cough and splutter.
What? He began to run, heedless of how close he was to an injury. As he skidded over a damp area of long grass, he saw a rag, an arrow of stones and a hole in the base of the cliff that opened up like a monster’s mouth. Gaping and intimidating.
David stopped abruptly and levered himself to the ground before he looked down over the edge.
Two worried and grimy faces peered back up at him.
Two? “Hello, fancy meeting you here,” he said with an insouciance he didn’t feel. “What are you doing in a hole?”
Sam giggled. “Ah…”
“Trying to get out now,” Josephine said in a raspy voice. “But it is too far for me to climb, and Sam will not use me for a stepladder to get out.”
“I can’t, miss, I needs to stay and help you with Freddie, and you agreed.” The uneven tones of a youth whose voice had only half broken floated up to David.
“Of course you must,” he said gravely. “No true gentleman would leave a lady in potential danger.”
“You’re right, and Sam is very much a gentleman.” Josephine coughed. “Ugh, sorry, that last shower of muck fell into my mouth. Sam and I have dragged Freddie as far as we can. I think it is only his arm that is broken. Or it was before we decided it was best to move to where we might have a better chance of not being entombed. But, David, we need to get him out. The roof is crumbling and I fear this cave is at the end of its lifespan. I don’t want it to be the end of ours.”
That pronouncement, said in such a prosaic way, made his skin go clammy. “Give me a second.” He stood and, now he knew where he was, took scant seconds to reach the base of the scree.
“Will? I need one of you down here now. We need another sturdy rope tied to the top and dropped down. It is imperative that we get the lads and my lady out as soon as we can.”
“You found ’em?” The relief in Will’s voice was obvious. “Thank the Lord.”
David didn’t have the heart to tell him how worrying the situation was. “Found but not safe yet. It’s a cave below the overhang, and it’s not that stable. I imagine it’s man-made, not natural. I don’t remember it from the odd occasion we came around here. I’ll leave a rag outside.”
“Got it, and I’ll come down.”
“Fine.” David didn’t wait to hear more. He went straight back to where he had to be.
With whom he had no doubt was the most important person in his life.
Three minutes later, he had anchored a rag with a rock, tied one end of a rope firmly around the trunk of a sturdy sapling and the other to his waist, and was ready to descend. “Will I kick anyone as I come down?”
“No, we won’t let you. We value our skulls, even if they are thick.”
David smiled to himself as he began the descent. At least Josephine could still make a joke.
The scramble down wasn’t hard when you had a rope to use, but he could understand how difficult it must have been for Josephine, especially as she would have been encumbered by her skirts and petticoats. He reached the bottom with only a single maneuver of his legs by someone.
When his feet finally touched the ground, he took a deep breath and clapped Sam on the shoulder. “Sam?”
“Ah, that’s me.”
“And Freddie.” Josephine nodded. “To your right.”
“And you?”
“I’m here, unharmed apart from two broken fingernails.”
“Thank the Lord.”
“That I broke my nails? How ungentlemanly, eh, Sam?”
Sam guffawed. “Me mam’d agree with you, I reckon.”
“Fingernails can be repaired. A broken skull cannot.” Unheeding of Sam, David dragged Josephine to him, plastered her as close to him as he could and kissed her long and hard. She returned the salute with fervor. Her lips softened and parted under his. David teased her tongue and drank in her soul. He didn’t even realize he had moved his hands to her bottom and started to caress her through her skirt in tiny but ever-increasing circles. For once in his life, he truly let his senses dictate to him and ignored everything else.
“Cor.”
Sam’s one word spoken in a voice of awe made him break the contact and laugh, even though he half wished the lad to perdition. It was perhaps as well Sam was there and he had brought David to his senses, so David stopped before he actually got started.
Out of the corner of his eyes, David watched as Josephine took a deep breath, licked her lips—damn her, that sent his desire soaring and his body tightening—and smoothed all the loose strands of her hair from her face. Even dirty and bedraggled, he wanted her.
Mine. Very caveman, but then, they were in a cave after all.
“Very ‘cor’ indeed,” he said to Sam with a wink and a cheerfulness he didn’t feel. It was so dark now, he doubted that Sam could see the gesture. Which thankfully meant he would also not be able to see the state of David’s body. Aroused and throbbing was a mild description.
“And that, young Sam, is what a gentleman does when he finds the lady he loves is unharmed. Even if he does have the knotty problem of how to get her and two young lads out of a hole in the ground.”
Sam sniggered. “Ah, there is that.”
David perused the lad’s face for a moment. “Can you climb that rope?”
“Yes, but I need to stop with Freddie.” Sam’s expression was mulish. “Mates don’t leave mates.”
“They do if it is for both their safety. And the well-being of a lady. You need to be our scout,” David said evenly but with enough force to show he meant what he said. “I am relying on you. Your pa is on his way down. You have to get up there so you can show him where to come. I’ll sort Freddie out, so when your pa gets here we can lift him and Lady Josephine out. Deal?”
He waited, his pulse overfast as Sam bit his lip. Slowly, the lad nodded to David. “Deal.”
David let his breath out in a soft whoosh. Thank goodness.
Josephine watched as Sam shimmied up the rope with ease and scrambled over the lip of the hole.
“The agility of youngsters,” David said wryly. “It would have taken me three times as long.”
“And me four.” Josephine gave in to the luxury of leaning on David and absorbing some of his strength. He looked down at her and kissed the top of her head.
Not a sexual want-to-learn-more kiss, but one of reassurance and, she fancied, strong emotion.
“All right?” he asked softly. “Everything will work out.”
“I hope so, and I am fine now you are here. I will be even more so when we get Freddie out. I have a nasty premonition this cave is not at all stable.” As if to agree with her, thunder rumbled and once more several large stones fell from the roof a few yards farther in. “The boys were convinced John’s treasure was here. In Cassel’s place.” She searched her mind. What had Sam’s exact words been? “Sam said, and I hope I remember this correctly, that they overheard Cassel saying he was certain Boy John’s treasure was in his cave. Cassel’s cave I presume, not John’s. I did wonder if he meant Blue John and Castleton and the boys got it wrong. Whichever, here they arrived, here Freddie got hurt and here we are. I saw no sight of any treasure, but then I have been more concerned with the boys’ welfare than supposed treasure.”
“And here we will soon not be,” David said. “Time, I think, is of the essence. Plus, if there were any treasure, I suspect it would have been found by now. And it certainly would not be Blue John. Too far away from the only place it is found. Now it’s time for you to go up.”
“What? Why? I thought mates stayed together,” she said. “Does this mean you don’t want me?” She got a mouthful of earth and spluttered before she had a chance to finish her sentence.
In the gloom, David’s teeth showed as he grinned. “I do. Very much. But not here, and sadly it cannot be now. However, hold on to that thought for later.”
“I didn’t mean—” she began indignantly.
He put his finger over her lips. “Don’t spoil it and dash my hopes.”
Josephine’s pulse sped up. Goosebumps dotted her arms and her breasts became heavy. Was it wrong to want to suck that digit? How forward.
The Viscount Meets his Match: A Regency Romance Page 18