Laurie Brown (24 page)

“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 passed. 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

D
EVERELL 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.”

“Two.”

“Right hand. So we go left.” She turned and started walking.

“Why left if I picked your right hand? What is that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing. Just a silly method for choosing a direction. Like flipping a coin.”

“If I had said ‘left’ to your first question, would you have gone right?”

“Probably.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. Now I’ve lost count of my steps.

How far until we find a passageway?”

The ghost was silent.

She started counting over. At forty steps she paused.“Stop pouting. Shouldn’t we have hit a passage by now?”

“I am not sulking. I am working on producing a light. Can you see anything yet?”

“No.” She continued walking. Suddenly, her hand moved into thin air, surprising her so that she stumbled to her knees. She
felt around with her hands, almost afraid to believe. “Steps! Uneven, rough-hewn real stone steps.” She blinked away tears
and stifled the urge to rush up them.“We did it.We found a passage.”

“Where do you suppose it goes?”

“Like I care?” She climbed, careful with her footing and keeping her hand on the wall for balance. No way did she want to
repeat her earlier tumble down the steps. “It’s not the passage to the library, because those steps were made of wood.

These are very uneven and feel like solid rock.”

The passage suddenly narrowed. “Something’s different. This wall doesn’t feel like stone. Plaster maybe.Why would anyone build...”

“By Jove, I think I’ve got it!”

She automatically turned toward his voice. After the stygian darkness, the tiny pinprick of light Deverell produced blinded
Josie like the sun. She quickly raised her arm to cover her squinting eyes and stepped back. Her foot slipped.

Terrified of falling again, she shoved her back up against the wall. The old plaster and lathe construction disintegrated
under her weight. Leaving her sitting in an alcove. Next to a skeleton.The gruesome bones were clad in a dingy white wig and
the tattered shreds of what was once a green brocade gown.

Josie screamed and struggled to stand, but her knees were draped over the remains of the wall. In her attempt to get away,
she elbowed the skeleton in the ribs and the skull fell into her lap. With another scream, she batted it aside and crawled
out of the alcove. She scrambled on hands and knees to the other side of the passage. Shaking too much to run, she pulled
her legs up, covered her face, and cowered against the other wall.

“Would you look at that.”

“No.”

“But you must. It must be Robert’s mistress.

Look.”

“No. I don’t want to.”

“Or for heaven’s sake, it’s just old bones.Where’s that scientific bravado?”

Past her first shock, her breathing retuned almost to normal. She peeked through her fingers.

“Ohmigod.” She dropped her hands and stared.

The now headless skeleton wore an elaborate necklace, a huge square-cut emerald surrounded by diamonds hung between the rib
bones. Smaller emeralds, similarly set and linked together, looped up and around the top of the backbone.The unfortunate mistress
also wore the matching bracelet and ring—a bit dusty, but still obviously a fortune.

“No wonder they never found her,” Deverell said. “Do you suppose Robert killed her and then put her there, or did he wall
her up alive?”

“Don’t be macabre.”

“I’m a ghost. It comes naturally.”

Josie stood and tentatively crossed the width of the passage. “Can you give me a little more light?

Look at her leg.That’s a nasty break.”

Josie examined the inside of what was left of the wall.“No bloodstains on the wood or plaster. And her fingernails aren’t
broken as they probably would be if she’d been walled up alive and tried to claw her way out.”

“Oh.” He sounded disappointed.

“I’m no detective, but logically, it appears she fell down the stairs and broke her leg.” Josie was doubly thankful for her
own good luck. “If that shattered bone broke through her skin or punctured a major vein, she probably bled to death while
crawling up the stairs to get help.”

“What about the wall?”

“I’d say Robert found her body sometime later and interred her remains. Say he was already married to the fair Rowena. He
would hardly want to produce his mistress, even dead.”

“But why leave the emeralds?”

“Since everyone knew she’d stolen them, if he produced the distinctive jewelry, it would be the same as producing the mistress.
He was willing to give up the emeralds to save his marriage. Sort of romantic.”

“Only a woman could twist a mistress walled up in the dungeon into something romantic.”

Josie stepped back. “We don’t even know her name.”

A knocking sound came from the head of the stairs far above them. “Hello? Is anybody there?” a voice called, faint but understandable.

“Dev.” Josie turned and ran up three steps before Deverell called for her to stop.

“Take the emeralds,” he commanded.“They will save Amelia.”

“Ohhh.” Josie returned and whispered an apology to the hapless mistress.With a squeamish wince, she gingerly lifted off the
necklace and removed the bracelet and ring without actually touching the skeleton. The earrings had fallen to the floor and
were easy to pick up. Josie hiked up her skirt and knotted everything into a makeshift pouch.

“Don’t forget the tiara,” Dev said, as she made to ascend the stairs. “It’s probably still attached to the wig.”

Josie shook her hands, not wanting to pick up the skull.“Why didn’t the wig disintegrate like her hair?”

“Probably made of horsehair. More durable.”

She made a face and picked up the skull. After disentangling the tiara, she started to drop the skull, but something stopped
her. Josie had had a small taste of what the mistress had gone through in the dungeon, and the other woman had not even had
the comfort of a ghostly presence.

Josie plopped the tiara on her head to have both hands free. She leaned over the remaining wall and placed the skull gently
on the floor next to the hipbone, facing outward. More knocking from above urged her up the stairs.“I’m sorry about taking
your emeralds, but at least you’ll get a proper burial now.”

Josie turned away and climbed steadily toward Dev, the going made easier by Deverell’s light.

At the top of the stairs, Josie encountered a solid wall, no door, no handle. “Dev! Open the secret panel.”

“Josie? What are you...”

“Never mind that now. Just get me out.” She ran her fingers over the surface and around the edges, searching for a button
or a dial or a loose board or anything to indicate an opening device. “There must be a way to open the panel.”

“What panel? Where’s the release?”

“Look around. There should be a hidden lever or some such mechanism.”

“Don’t worry, Josie-love. I’ll get you out,” he promised.

And she knew he would. Relief engulfed her.

The stress of the morning overwhelmed her, and she sank, shivering and shaking, to the floor of the small landing.

On the other side of the wall, Dev searched desperately for the mechanism to open the unknown secret panel.How had she got
behind the door? First, he’d been told by Estelle that Josie had gone into town with a relative.That in itself should have
tipped him off to a problem because he hadn’t passed her on the road, but he’d been too occupied setting up his big surprise
for their luncheon meeting.