Helen Dickson (27 page)

Holding the smooth surface of the rock for support, Edward knew what was happening and moved back. His eyes were burning in his pale face, his laugh one of maniacal glee.

With mounting horror Lucas realised what Edward intended—that he had no intention of saving himself. ‘Wait,’ Lucas shouted urgently above the noise that engulfed the mine. ‘My God, are you mad? You know what is happening. Friends or foes we share a common danger now. Don’t be a fool, man. Give up. Save yourself.’

‘’Tis you who are the fool, Mawgan,’ Edward snarled, ‘for following me down here. You heard that. The wall holding the water in Stennack at bay has finally collapsed. In trying to capture me you have played right into my hands.’ He continued to back away, towards the danger. The noise of rushing water was unearthly and inhuman, coming as it did from out of the blackness, all the more terrible because it was unseen. ‘There can be no yielding. Beyond this point, there is only death. I am ready to die and I have no doubt you will follow me—unless by some miracle you can escape the water.’

Unable to triumph over Edward in this moment of extreme danger and perhaps death, caught up in a mesh of panic and with his arms out-thrust, Lucas surged towards him, making a grab for his arm. Edward uttered a short, inarticulate cry of rage and tried to push him away, but Lucas clung on in an attempt to drag him towards the ladder leading towards the upper level, shouting to Captain Dalby
for help. But Edward was having none of it. Breathing heavily, he fought, straining with all his might to free himself from his enemy’s grip, both men fighting for supremacy on the sloping, slippery surface. Edward prevailed in the end and succeeded in bringing Lucas to his knees. He stood for a moment, poised like a statue, and then he turned and flung himself into the pitch-black darkness which led to the mounting water.

Immediately Lucas scrambled to his feet and stumbled in pursuit, but Captain Dalby’s iron grip on his arm prevented him from going further than a couple of yards.

‘Come on, sir,’ he said decisively. He had no liking for being underground, where he could feel all the weight of the rocks and earth above him pressing down on his defenceless back. ‘We must leave him. We have no choice. ’Twould be madness to try and save him. If we don’t go back up now all three of us will drown.’

At that moment, when another explosion rocked the mine, when the rocks beneath his feet seemed to heave upward, as if it were some living thing caught in a terrible agony, Lucas knew he was right. Edward Carlyle was beyond saving. With one last brief look into the blackness, without a word he turned and followed Captain Dalby, climbing back up the winzes in earnest. It became a matter of life or death. The great roar of water grew louder by the second. The stagnant, foul-smelling black liquid rolled into Wheal Rose in long waves crested with foam, and Lucas and Captain Dalby scrambled up, from level to level, to escape the oncoming flood.

It was just before dawn when those gathered around the shaft felt the vibrations beneath their feet. Too afraid to move, the crowd, which had steadily grown throughout the night, stood motionless, staring wide-eyed with horror at each other.

More terrifying than the vibrations was the calm that
followed, sending terror rippling through Laura’s frozen body. She reached out and gripped Walter’s arm, her eyes leaping to his in alarm.

‘What was that?’ she whispered through frozen lips, but even as she asked she knew there was only one thing it could be.

‘Flood!’ somebody muttered close by, which seemed to be echoed by a million voices.

Laura was devastated. She was filled with an utter, aching desolation when she thought of Lucas down in that subterranean labyrinth filled with the filthy, surging waters from his own Stennack. What he had predicted would happen had happened. How could he possibly survive that? In her terrible, heart-rending anguish she wanted to scream, to cry out her husband’s name and beat her fists on the solid, silent wall of the shed against which she stood.

But she did none of these things. She stood straight and still, her eyes staring out of her stricken face, her mind frayed with worry. No, she thought fiercely, she refused to believe Lucas was dead. She would not let herself even think it, for it was too dreadful to contemplate what her life would be without him. If Lucas was dead, then she might as well be dead too.

‘I will not believe he is dead,’ she whispered. ‘I will not believe it until I have seen his body for myself.’

And so they waited. The unbearable, unearthly quiet seemed to go on and on. No one moved and the scene became like a fatalistic tableau as Laura bowed her head and began to pray for the man she loved, praying with her very soul for him not to leave her.

The cold, biting wind continued to blow in from the sea, but was calmer now in the pale light of a late-autumn dawn, the surrounding hills shrouded in a greyish blue mist. Birds began to stir, the gulls crying loudly where they circled overhead and perched in the crevices along the cliffs.

Captain Dalby was the first to climb out of the mine,
filthy and exhausted. Someone ran across to help him as he stumbled forward. The sudden commotion caused Laura to raise her head. She looked on in disbelief. Her eyes moved to the black hole behind the captain, transfixed, waiting to see, sure she could hear something. And then her heart soared in her breast and life began to flow through her anew. Suddenly she was running, running towards him, her husband, who had survived, unrecognisable to many who waited, but not to her. Never to her.

Lucas stood for a moment to accustom his eyes to the sudden blast of light, and then he saw Laura, running towards him, her face, her eyes illuminated, spilling over with love. She flung herself upon him and his arms went round her, holding her as she clung to him, unable to speak for all the gladness and joy that filled her.

For all its cold clarity, the afternoon following the night when the whole world had been turned upside-down had the radiance of a summer’s day. The sky was blue with drifting white clouds, the sea bright and glittering. From where she stood on the cliff path, Laura watched a tall ship where the sea met the sky. With sloping masts and dipping prow, and sails full of a chasing wind pushing it along westward, it would soon disappear from view. Better to see its sprightly pennant she lifted her hand to her eyes to shade them, but the sun placed a radiance around it, making it difficult for her to make it out clearly.

She was still trying to come to terms with what had happened, and that Edward was dead. Lucas had told her that he had died in the sudden explosion of water from Stennack, triggered when Edward had fired his pistol. That was all it had taken to bring down the thin, fragile wall separating the two mines—Wheal Rose and Stennack—making them one.

The flooding of Wheal Rose wouldn’t make any difference to the working of Stennack, for Lucas had already
closed those deep southern reaches beneath the sea, working away in other directions. Soon it would be up and running, and there would be plenty of work for the people in and around Roslyn once more, even those out of work because of the flooding of Wheal Rose—which would never be worked again.

Laura’s eyes continued to follow the ship on the horizon, her expression soft and dreamy. When Lucas appeared quietly behind her she didn’t turn, but she was aware of him. He slipped his arms around her, strong and protective, drawing her close. She sighed with contentment, breathing in the manly scent of him—of soap, leather and a hint of tobacco.

‘Is it over?’ she asked softly.

She felt him smile before he lowered his head and placed his mouth on her neck, gently nuzzling her warm flesh. ‘Yes, indeed,’ he murmured. ‘The men aiding Carlyle have been rounded up, and the cargo impounded by His Majesty’s Customs.’

‘It’s difficult to believe Edward is dead,’ she whispered, turning her cheek a little to give it access to his lips.

‘Despite my efforts to try and save him before he disappeared into the inky blackness of Wheal Rose, I have to say that it is no more than he deserved. He was a rogue and a blackguard to the end, who manipulated and cheated all those involved in his illegal operations. He lived a villain and died a villain, and leaves a legacy of torture and plunder—excessive evils indeed in a county where smuggling is almost a way of life.’

‘Have you seen Caroline?’

‘Yes. I spoke to her before coming in search of you.’

‘How did you know where to find me?’

‘John told me.’

Laura smiled, not really surprised. ‘I’m glad he suffers no after-effects from that blow to his head. It could have been so much worse.’

‘I know. Caroline seems remarkably well considering her ordeal. It’s her wish to go to London to be with Daisy, by the way. Has she mentioned it to you?’

‘Yes. And how do you feel about that, Lucas?’

‘Now Jean de Mournier is no longer a threat, I see no reason why she should remain at Roslyn any longer.’

‘No, I suppose not. But—you will miss her, I think.’

Hearing the catch in her voice and a note of gentle accusation, mystified and concerned by it, Lucas turned her round in his arms. Her face was set in a calm mould, her eyes slightly averted. ‘Laura, look at me,’ he said, touching her cheek and forcing her gaze to his. ‘What is this? Come, don’t be evasive with me.’

She looked at him steadily, her eyes naked and defenceless. ‘Why did you never marry, Lucas—before you married me, I mean? Most men are wed long before they reach thirty.’

With his head on one side he regarded her curiously, thinking it an odd question for her to ask just now. ‘Because I never met a woman I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. Also, because of my work, I always shied away from commitment. Do you have a reason for asking?’

‘It—it doesn’t matter. Truly.’

Gazing down at her pain shadowed blue eyes, he said quietly, ‘I think that whatever it is matters to you a great deal.’

Laura shook her head slowly, wishing she hadn’t spoken, but all the doubts, the hurt she had felt over Lucas’s relationship with Caroline would not go away. Now she had begun she knew he would insist on an answer. A dark shadow dimmed the brilliance of her eyes as she asked, ‘If—if you had not abducted me by mistake that night, would you have married Caroline?’ she asked quietly.

He frowned, looking at her in an odd, speculative way. ‘Why, what is this? I thought that particular matter was settled.’

‘It is,’ she was quick to assure him.

‘But?’

‘You—you must have been fond of her; after all, she was the one you had planned on abducting—on marrying.’

Unexpectedly, Lucas’s heart wrenched at the thought of her believing that. ‘So that’s what you thought. You fool,’ he breathed. ‘You adorable, extremely stupid little fool. Laura, I would never have married Caroline. That was not on the agenda.’

‘It wasn’t?’

He smiled wryly. ‘No. There was a time when she thought herself in love with me—but I never reciprocated her feelings. So, she set her sights on Anton instead, and poor Anton was lost. Unfortunately her mother refused to consider a union between her precious daughter and a Frenchman, so, eager to escape her mother’s dominance and be forced into a marriage not of her choosing, she and Anton planned to elope—and I was dragged into the plot.’

Laura was quite bewildered. ‘But why did Anton not abduct her himself?’

‘Having taken a tumble from his horse, he had broken his arm. That was where I came in. The night I abducted you by mistake I was supposed to take Caroline to meet up with Anton at an inn south of Richmond. From there they intended to make their way to the coast and across the Channel to France. It was a foolish act on my part. I should never have agreed to assist them in their escapade, but Anton was quite besotted—and desperate—and they were both very determined. As you know, their next elopement proved successful—although Caroline’s mother never forgave her.’

‘Lucas!’ Laura choked, unable to believe that what had happened all that time ago had been one big misunderstanding. ‘Why did you not tell me this before? Have you any idea how wretched I felt—feeling like some foundling you were obliged to marry to save me from disgrace and to ease
your guilt? Can’t you understand just a little how that made me feel about myself? Have you any idea what you have put me through?’

Inwardly, Lucas flinched at her words, fully conscious of the true depth of his heartlessness towards her, deserving of her contempt. With tenderness bursting inside him, he pulled her close, burying his face in her hair. He tightened his arms about her, as if to absorb some of the pain he had unwittingly caused her. ‘No. I’m sorry, my love. None at all.’

‘All this time I have thought you were in love with Caroline—that you would have married her but for me.’

‘Never. I was fond of her. But I love you. There is a difference.’

Laura became still within the circle of his arms, her face pressed against his chest. Slowly she pulled back and stared at him, enraptured, unable to believe he had uttered those words she had been waiting to hear for so long. ‘You
love
me?’ she whispered achingly. ‘You do? You—you are serious?’

He tipped her chin up and focused his gaze on hers. ‘Absolutely. I never lie, Laura. I’ve a lot of faults, but that is not one of them. Yes, it is you I love. I admire, respect and love you above any woman I’ve known. You have reinvented my life for me, and I am never more content than when we are together. Despite the heartache I caused you, I bless the day I drove off with you by mistake. You have brought purpose and meaning to my life, and you make me feel human again—to forget that accursed place I was incarcerated in for two wasted, miserable years of my life.’

The intensity of his gaze ploughed through Laura’s composure. The yearning in his eyes smote her. He was looking at her in a way she had always dreamed of, and with a beating heart she timidly returned his look. His grey eyes burned with all the love and passion she had despaired of
ever seeing there, and for the first time in her life she was able to savour the joy of loving and being loved.