Savage Deception (Liberty's Ladies) (33 page)

Diana came alert to the pounding of rain outside, but what truly roused her was the dampness on her back and legs. She adjusted her eyes to the dim light of the cellar and realized with a start that water was coming in from beneath the tunnel door. Evidently, the tunnel was flooding, and now the water seeped slowly in the cellar. What was worse than the flooding was the horrible, achy way she felt. She knew she burned with a fever. Getting up, she dragged her damp blanket with her, wrapping herself inside of it. Making her way laboriously up the cellar steps, she found she couldn’t go any further than half the distance before she was forced to sit down from exhaustion. She took deep, aching breaths but was unable to summon even the strength to move and bang upon the door in the hope that someone would hear her. Somehow she knew no one would.

“Oh, Tanner,” she sobbed. “You can’t be dead. I don’t believe it. But if you aren’t, then why haven’t you come for me? Why? Why?”

Despair sliced away at her heart like a sharp-edged sword. She had no idea if what Kingsley told her about Tanner was true; she wondered if Kingsley even knew the truth sometimes. He seemed to speak in riddles and he frightened her with his threats. If only she could make it into the tunnel, somehow force the door open — but in her present, weak condition she could barely hold up her head. Her fate was crystal clear to her; she would die in the cellar.

“Miss Diana, Miss Diana, is you down there?”

For more than a few seconds, Diana thought she might be dreaming. But it came again, and she recognized Jackie’s childish tones. “Jackie, I’m … here,” she managed to cry feebly, but Jackie heard her.

“You need help?” he called through the door.

“Yes, yes. Get Hattie … or Clay.” God, she was losing her breath and could barely speak.

“I will, Miss Diana, never you worry.”

Jackie knew she was down here. He was going to get help for her. “We’re going to be all right,” she whispered to the baby that kicked in her abdomen. “Jackie’s going to help us.” A sense of peace washed over her as she waited on the stairs for Hattie or someone to free her.

~ ~ ~

When Kingsley awakened the house was in an uproar. Voices filtered up to his room and he heard the thumping sound of something being dragged up the stairs. Getting out of bed, he went into the hallway to complain about all the noise. Clay Sinclair pushed a heavy chair with Marisa’s help, and Diana’s Aunt Frances fluttered busily about the landing amid a group of chairs and small end tables.

“The bottom floor is flooding,” Frances told him, not hiding her contempt. “The water’s coming into the house and we’re trying to save whatever we can, unlike
some
people I could name.”

“I’d appreciate a hand with this, Kingsley, if you can tear yourself away from your bottle,” was Clay’s less-than-subtle comment. “Marisa isn’t strong enough to help with moving the heavier pieces of furniture.”

“Let the slaves do it,” Kingsley retorted, his head throbbing from his hangover.

“Cousin Kingsley, I should remind you that there are no slaves here now who might conceivably be able to lend a hand but Hattie, and she’s down with a dreadful fever. The slaves who are left are too old or too young to help. So that leaves you!” That was Marisa’s scornful retort. Her face expressed her utter disdain for him.

Kingsley sighed his exasperation. Oh, why didn’t these people just leave him alone so he could think what to do about Diana?

“Give me a chance to dress,” he snapped and headed into his room to pull on his boots. Catching sight of himself in the mirror, he realized he looked awful, but then he’d probably looked worse than this months back. Yet the face that stared back at him didn’t seem to belong to him. Gone were the handsome features that all the ladies had adored. All except Diana that is, and the thought of how much she truly hated him ate away at his pride. He’d tended to the ungrateful bitch for weeks now, but not once had she thanked him for the food he brought her. Didn’t Diana realize that he could have kept her hidden in the swamps? But Kingsley didn’t care for the watery swamps himself, never having learned to swim, or did he like the abundant animal population.

As it was, he needed to fill his own stomach and get breakfast for Diana, but first he’d been volunteered to help with the furniture.

Before leaving his room, he leaned against the window frame and gazed out at the torrential downpour. The rain fell in steady sheets, and from where he stood he saw that the fields were already overrun with water. The water extended outward in all directions, even now lapping at the porch to enter the house. “Good grief, what next?” he mumbled under his breath.

But he nearly strangled on his own breath when he suddenly saw the answer to his question. There in the rain rode Tanner, resembling a sodden black eagle in his dark cape. David Richmond was beside him, looking equally wet. Kingsley felt hot then cold, then both sensations mingled within him at once and he thought he might die from the pain of it. And there was a damned good chance he would, if the determination he noticed in Tanner’s bearing was any indication.

“The bastard’s alive!” he shouted and grabbed for his coat. He ran into the hallway, oblivious to the three people who stared and called after him. By all accounts, Kingsley had less than five minutes, the amount of time it would take Tanner to make his way through the mire and get into the house, to move Diana from the cellar. He couldn’t take her with him into the swamps, but he’d place her in the tunnel, where she’d be safe until he could escape with her. And he
would
take Diana away. Never would he allow Tanner to have her.

Rushing headlong down the back staircase, he arrived at the cellar door and took the key from his pocket. Clicking open the lock, he nearly stumbled upon Diana, who sat on the stairs leaning against the wall. Without looking up she asked, “Jackie, is that you?”

He didn’t answer her. Instead, he scooped her up into his arms and hurriedly retraced his steps, leaving by way of the back door. With Diana in his arms, he ran the distance to the barn and pulled Diana up with him onto one of the horses he’d taken from Tanner’s carriage. She leaned like a rag doll against him, and Kingsley doubted she even knew where she was or who held her. Just as well, he decided. He didn’t need a screaming female now. If only he hadn’t locked the door from the cellar into the tunnel as a precaution against Diana’s escape, this mad dash could have been avoided.

Spurring the horse along, he was more than surprised to discover that the animal didn’t balk at the flood water. The trip to the cemetery was made in less time than Kingsley had anticipated. His only problem was the rain that beat mercilessly down upon him and Diana. Within minutes he had entered through the tomb and found a spot for her to sit in the tunnel. The ground was wet, but he had no other alternative. Tanner would never find her in here. Kingsley would rather Diana died than be claimed by his half-breed brother, but Kingsley vowed that Diana wouldn’t die and neither would he. Before this day is over he told himself, Tanner would be dead once and for all.

25

Tanner rushed into the house and David ran behind him, only to discover that the main floor was no drier than outside. “Where is everybody?” Tanner yelled, oblivious to his soaking wet state.

“Goodness gracious, Tanner, you gave us a start,” came Frances’s voice as she waddled down the stairs. “And David, too. Marisa, Clay,” she called up to the landing, “Tanner is here with David. What a surprise.”

Tanner didn’t think Frances was pleased by his abrupt appearance. She stood on the stairs, one side of her gown bunched in her hand to keep it from becoming wet and the other pressed against her pale face. When Clay and Marisa started down the steps, Frances clutched at her daughter’s hand. “Do you think there will be unpleasantness?”

“Mother, please,” Marisa mouthed lowly.

Before Clay could say anything, Tanner had bounded up the stairs to face him. “Where’s Diana? Where’s Kingsley? I swear I’m going to kill the bastard.”

“Tanner, I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Clay admitted with a baffled demeanor.

“Tanner, you’re dripping all over the carpet,” Frances wailed at him.

Tanner ignored Frances, keeping his attention on Clay. “Kingsley kidnapped Diana,” he briskly explained. “I’ve reason to believe that he’s brought her here.”

“To Briarhaven? No, he hasn’t. Kingsley has been here for a few weeks, but Diana isn’t with him. Why do you think he kidnapped her? What is going on?” Clay asked.

Backed up by David, Tanner quickly explained what had happened to him and Diana. He finished by saying, “Diana must be here. I’ve got to find her!”

“Kingsley was upstairs,” Marisa piped in.

Bounding up the stairs, Tanner stalked from room to room, but Kingsley wasn’t to be found. “The bastard probably saw me coming and took off,” he growled at David and Clay.

“I’ll help you find him,” Clay volunteered, his face hardening. “If he’s hurt her, he’ll answer to me.”

“No, my friend,” Tanner interjected coldly. “He’s going to answer to me alone.”

When Tanner and the two men rushed out onto the porch, little Jackie came running toward them. “Mr. Tanner! Mr. Tanner! I’ve got to tell you somethin’.’’

“Not now, Jackie,” Clay warned. “Go check on your Granny Hattie like a good boy.”

Jackie stopped in his tracks, tears welling up in his eyes. “I was just talkin’ to Granny Hattie and she ain’t feelin’ too good today yet. She told me to stop spinnin’ tales, but I ain’t lyin’. I swear I ain’t. Nobody ever listens to me.”

Something in the urgency and pain behind Jackie’s statement caused Tanner to bend down to him. “What have you got to say to me, Jackie?”

Jackie wiped his eyes with tiny fists. “I got to get help for Miss Diana. Mr. Kingsley done locked her in the cellar and she needs to get out.”

Patting Jackie on the back in gratitude, Tanner and the others practically flew into the house. They were down the cellar steps in seconds. Though her wet pallet and a plate of uneaten food sat on the floor, Diana wasn’t there.

“He must have taken her away somewhere,” was David’s assessment.

“But where?” Clay asked.

Tanner didn’t say anything to either of them. His stormy black eyes were enough to convince anyone that he was so angry and disappointed he probably couldn’t speak. Tanner suddenly stalled in his steps, remembering the tunnel.

On the night he’d warned Clay, he went into the swamps by way of the tunnel. He knew how to open the hidden doorway, and this he now did while Clay and David looked on. But the spring that released the door panel wouldn’t budge, and when Tanner leaned against the door to force it open, he found it impossible to move.

“The panel’s locked from the other side,” he said aloud with a grunt. “I believe I was the last one to open it, and I didn’t lock it, unless Diana has. Or Kingsley.” Somehow Tanner knew that Kingsley had placed Diana inside the tunnel. A cold shiver of fear slid over him as he looked down at the six inches of water that covered his boots. The water had risen rapidly since they’d been down here, and this part of the house, with the tunnel behind it, was the lowest point. Tanner remembered as a boy how the Santee had flooded out the cellar, though he hadn’t known about the tunnel then. Four feet of water appeared almost overnight, but the flooding had been low because they’d had slaves to reinforce the river’s banks. Now, there was no one to help, and if the water kept rising as steadily and as swiftly as Tanner feared, then if Diana was in the tunnel with no way out, she just might not survive.

Tanner gave up pushing at the heavy door panel. Instead, he left the cellar with instructions to Clay and David to fan out in search of Kingsley. He was going to the cemetery to rescue Diana. David flashed him an odd look but Clay understood, and the two men moved in opposite directions, sloshing through the rising water.

Because the water was rising so quickly, Tanner’s horse was skittish and easily spooked. He took a longer time than normal to traverse the distance. Tanner couldn’t help but curse under his breath. With every minute that passed, Diana’s life was in greater and greater danger. He couldn’t believe that Kingsley had harmed her, but if he’d placed her in a tunnel that gave every indication of already being flooded, then she might fall ill. Their baby, too, might suffer from Kingsley’s vengeance.

“Diana, please be all right,” Tanner mumbled. “Please, God, let her be safe.”

So intent was Tanner on saving Diana that he failed to notice Kingsley standing behind a nearby tree with musket aimed, until the ball whined past his head, missing him by scant inches. Tanner threw himself from his horse and landed in a watery ditch. He heard Kingsley’s diabolical laugh.

“The great overseer doesn’t look so high and mighty now!” Kingsley crowed.

“I want Diana!” Tanner shot back and pulled his pistol from his waistband.

“Diana’s buried to you, half-breed! You’ll never have her. She belongs to me.”

Tanner now knew for certain that Kingsley had placed her in the tunnel. The only way to enter it now was through the tomb. “If you cared anything about her, Kingsley, you’d never have put her in the tunnel.”

There was a long pause before Kingsley shouted, “She’s still my wife. Diana was never yours.”

For a brief instant, Tanner lifted his head. Once more, Kingsley took a shot at him. “Bastard,” Tanner lowly hissed, and would have returned the fire but Kingsley ran the short distance to a clump of bushes that shielded the river from view.

Crawling on his hands and knees through the water, Tanner managed to remain low in the ditch. He remembered that the ditch ran the circumference of the fields, ending near the bluff on which Kingsley had taken refuge. It might take him a few minutes longer this way, but he reasoned that Kingsley wanted him to come out in the open so he could shoot him in the fields. But the ditch led directly behind where Kingsley now squatted, thus Tanner could take him by surprise.

Tanner hadn’t realized how slow and laborious the whole process would be. The soft, sodden earth sucked at his knees and he was tempted to crouch low and run on his feet, but he feared Kingsley would see the top of his head. By the time he was halfway, his knees felt numb and his hands were bleeding from constantly pushing and falling upon them. More than once he’d gotten a mouthful of dirty water.

When he did reach the end of the ditch, he saw Kingsley with his back to him. God! it was too good an opportunity to miss. He’d fire his pistol at his target and Kingsley would be dead. How simple it was. Tanner felt that he’d been handed a gift by the fates or whoever decreed such moments in life. But though he stood up and aimed the gun at Kingsley’s back, Tanner couldn’t kill him.

No matter how despicable Kingsley was, and there was no doubt in Tanner’s mind that he’d be doing the world a favor by killing him, Kingsley was his half-brother. They shared the same father, a father who had been unjust by favoring one son over the other, but a man who had loved both of them in his own way. Tanner had no idea what he was going to do with Kingsley, but he wasn’t going to kill him.

Tanner made a slight noise, and Kingsley turned, his eyes wide with fear, but he held the musket away at an angle. When Tanner didn’t make a move to pull the trigger of his pistol, Kingsley smirked.

“So, Harlan Sheridan’s bastard is a coward. I should have known you didn’t have the guts to shoot me. But then, you can’t shoot the master of Briarhaven, can you?”

“You’re my brother.”

“Yes, but don’t let that stop you. You never thought anything about taking Diana from me, so you shouldn’t feel guilty about killing me.”

“I don’t want to kill you.” A muscle twitched in Tanner’s face. Rain dripped down his cheeks, but he didn’t take his gaze from Kingsley, not even when a piece of the bluff crumbled and fell into the Santee. “Come back to the house and we’ll discuss this, find some sort of a solution.”

“Do you mean that, Tanner?”

Tanner nodded and Kingsley mumbled that he agreed. As Tanner started to lift himself from the ditch, he was prepared for Kingsley’s assault. The musket roared deafeningly near his ear, but Tanner had already decided that Kingsley had given in too easily and couldn’t be trusted. Tanner’s shot found its mark in Kingsley’s shoulder.

Despite the fact that he was bleeding, Kingsley lunged at his brother and pushed Tanner to the ground with the butt of his musket. For a second, Tanner felt the wind rush from him, but he knew now that Kingsley intended to kill him. Still weak from his ordeal, Tanner wrestled with him but dropped his gun. He realized Kingsley was stronger, though the blood flowed freely from his wound.

“Arrogant half-breed. I’m going to kill you.”

Kingsley withdrew a knife from a scabbard on his waist, but Tanner kicked out at him before he did any damage and Kingsley lost his own wind and the knife. But Kingsley was wild and crazed and wouldn’t admit defeat. The two men wrestled until they were near the edge of the bluff. It was only Tanner’s will that fueled his strength. The river rushed and swirled like a yellow pinwheel beneath them, clumps of bluff falling away in the onslaught.

Somehow Kingsley was on top and Tanner was pinned beneath him, but he feigned defeat. “Diana is mine, half-breed,” Kingsley reminded him in a ragged whisper. Tanner watched Kingsley through hooded lids as he got up to make a move for the knife. But in that moment Tanner stretched out a long leg and Kingsley instantly faltered, losing his balance on the bluff.

“Why, you bastard …’’ Kingsley shouted, and would have tackled Tanner again, but suddenly the bluff gave way beneath his feet and Kingsley fell into the river.

Tanner swiftly rose at Kingsley’s screams. “Tan … ner, save … me. I can’t swim.” He held out his hand, imploring Tanner to take it. Fear swam in Kingsley’s eyes. He went under once only to surface again, sputtering and choking.

Holding out his hand, Tanner leaned forward as far as he could while bracing himself against a pine tree. “Grab on!” he shouted.

Kingsley strained to catch Tanner’s fingers but was unable to reach them as he was swept out of Tanner’s reach. Tanner watched as his brother flailed helplessly about, gulping water as he was carried down the river. Finally Tanner lost sight of him. The Santee had claimed Kingsley as her victim.

Unable to waste any more time, Tanner traversed the distance from the river to the cemetery. The water was now up to his knees and he feared that Diana might already be dead. Approaching the tomb, he saw that the opening had crumbled and water freely poured inside.

The door gave way under his weight. Upon entering, he discovered that the torch was wet, so he meandered along the tunnel without light. He found himself thrust into a hellish black pit as he felt his way along by touching the walls, wading through the flood waters. “Diana!” he yelled her name until he was hoarse. “Answer me, dammit! Where are you?”

By the time he was halfway through the tunnel, Tanner felt tears on his cheeks. Dark despair surrounded him, for he feared that Diana was dead. He’d lost his precious, beautiful Diana — the scarlet temptress on the river bluff. Without her, his life had little meaning. He knew that he’d be unable to live without her. He thought he was making the tiny, sobbing sounds he heard, but suddenly he realized that the sounds weren’t coming from him but from five or ten feet away.

“Diana, are you here?”

“Tanner.”

Her voice sounded so pitifully weak that Tanner had to strain to hear it. It was her! And she was alive! Pushing through the water, he found her by touch. Somehow she was sitting on a sort of ledge, not out of the water but at least not inundated by it. Tanner picked her up in his arms, immediately feeling the heat of her body and knowing she ran a high fever.