The Marriage Bargain (32 page)

He cradled her again, his arms tightening around her. “I have many regrets, Emma. So many regrets.”

“Remember, you rescued me from your uncle and gave me your home.” She wrapped her arms around his neck. “Besides, if you had not left me, how would I ever have discovered I could raise pigs?”

He found her lips again and kissed her with a desperation only exceeded by their desperate circumstances.

His arms were strong, and they sat quietly until he began to speak. “Emma, I know why I never wanted to return to Kellworth.”

“Why?” She liked listening to him. It made the darkness brighter.

“It was filled with memories of Stephen, my brother.” His voice was hushed and sad.

“The one who died in an accident?”

“The brother I killed by my recklessness,” he responded more harshly. “When my parents died, it was somehow bearable to be at Kellworth because Stephen was there. He was three years older and looked after me.” He became quiet for a moment. “Stephen is buried here. You would think his ghost would haunt me here, now, instead of around every corner of Kellworth.”

“Haunt you?”

He gave a soft laugh. “The memories haunted me, I should say. The worst was driving by the same stretch of road where Stephen died. Then to have you thrown from the curricle just as he had been—”

She placed her fingers on his lips. “Reuben said it was the groom who cut through the curricle wheel. He said no one would discover it now because that man was dead, too.” Reuben’s voice had been cold as he held her wrists and told her everything. She’d been unable to twist out of his grasp. “It was not your doing at all.”

“I know that now.” He expelled a breath. “No matter what happens, one thing I want you to believe, if you believe nothing else.”

“What?”

He bent his head down so his lips touched her ear. “I was coming back, Emma. And I was coming back to stay.”

She thought she’d shed enough tears in this place of horror, but more sprang to her eyes.

“I believe you,” she whispered.

The claws of the mice skittered noisily on the stone floor. Spence must have heard them as well, because he tightened his arms around her.

Emma refused to think what they might be doing, but the harder she tried to forget them, the louder they became, scampering and squeaking and scuffling. Even though she could not see them, she squeezed her eyes shut and wished they would go away, just go away, from wherever they came.

Suddenly Spence released her. Her eyes flew open.

“Emma!” His voice was breathless. “They come from the outside. The mice come from the outside. From a hole somewhere in this structure.”

“Yes?” she said, puzzled.

“If they can get in, we can get out!”

Chapter
TWENTY

T
he hole would be tiny,” she said. “A little crack.”

Spence did not care. “Holes can be made bigger.”

He forced himself to think, to plan. “There might be a place where the mortar is crumbling, like the loose stones at Kellworth. If we could remove a stone or two here . . .” He vaulted off the sarcophagus.

“What are you doing?”

He heard her move as if to follow him. “Stay where you are. I’m going to look for my pistol. I dropped it when Reuben locked me in.”

He crawled around on the stone floor, trying to remember where the groom’s body was and hoping his pistol had not landed in the man’s blood.

“What are you going to do with the pistol?” she asked.

It helped to hear her voice, giving him an idea of where he was in the room. “I need something to serve as a torch. Something to burn.”

“I could tear cloth from my shift,” she suggested.

“That will do.” He inched his way, crawling on the floor, sweeping his hands ahead of him. “Long strips, Emma.”

He heard the sound of fabric tearing.

Tiny, clawed feet scampered over his gloved hand, squeaking as he reflexively shook it away. He paused a moment for his heartbeat to return to normal.

“Keep talking to me, Emma,” he said. “It helps me keep my bearings.”
And my sanity,
he added silently.

She talked. Talked of how she had fallen in love with him all those years ago. Talked of her girlish fears and how, because of all that happened to her, she now felt she could face anything. She talked of wanting a baby, of wanting to keep a piece of him with her always.

Her words both filled him with melancholy and with hope. He still deeply regretted causing her suffering by not being with her. He supposed he would regret leaving her for as long as he lived.

Which might not be very many more days unless he could find the pistol. He inched his way across the floor, hoping he would not just miss it in his blind sweep.

Finally his hand hit something solid. “Got it!” he cried, stuffing it into a pocket.

“Bravo!” She clapped.

He groped his way back to Emma, feeling for her. “The cloth.”

Her hand cast about for him and finally put the cloth in his hand. He stood and walked several paces from her to what he thought was the center of the room.

“Now what are you doing?” she asked.

“I am going to make a torch,” he responded. “Or try to.”

Working by feel alone, he laid the cloth on the floor and bit off the end of one cartridge, scattering the gunpowder onto the cloth by feel. He unsheathed the dagger and wrapped the cloth around its blade, carefully laying it on the floor nearby. Then he fumbled in the coat pocket for the pistol. Tapping the barrel to remove the ball, he heard it clink against the stone floor and roll away. Breaking open another cartridge, he poured more gunpowder into the barrel, and took the patch from the ball, packing it alone against the powder. Feeling the floor for the dagger, he pointed the barrel of the pistol right near the cloth.

“Emma, take heed,” he said. “I have to fire my pistol to light the cloth. I am afraid it will be loud.” He also hoped he would not set fire to himself in the process.

He squeezed the trigger and the pistol created a flash of light that illuminated the room for a scant moment before the pistol’s report bounced off the walls. The mice screeched, and in the brief moment of illumination, he caught a glimpse of them scampering toward the wall to his right. Blinking his eyes to recover from the flash, he checked his makeshift torch. It burned, igniting small patches of gunpowder scattered on the floor. Smoke wafted toward the ceiling.

Spence pulled off one of his gloves and wrapped it around the enameled handle for extra insulation. He could already feel the metal growing hotter. He lifted the torch and turned toward Emma.

“It worked,” she said. He could see her smile.

He stole a moment to gaze at her, to see she was truly in one piece, to savor the sight of her perched on one of four sarcophaguses lining one end of the room. He turned slowly. One wall was honeycombed with six empty compartments, waiting for some Keenan to die to fill them. Two were checkered with the sealed markings of those already deceased Keenans. The last contained the bodies of his aunt, the baby who had died with her, and Stephen. Next to the space where his brother rested was the space intended for him.

“Spence! There are rushlights!” Emma slipped off her perch and hurried over to him, pointing to the corners.

He strode to one corner and lit the thin rush poking out of its wrought-iron holder. “I’ll not light them all,” he said. “We may need them later.”

His hand felt seared from the torch handle’s heat even through his glove. The cloth was burning rapidly. He had little time left, but took a few moments to examine the body of the groom. Emma remained at a distance, her hand covering her mouth. As best he could with one hand, he searched the man’s pockets, but found nothing of use to them. He then walked to the wall where the mice had run, the wall where he would have been buried next to his brother. There was nothing to see but blackness.

“I can see nothing. We had better wait until morning. With luck some sunlight will peek through.” If there was enough light. If the hole led directly to the outside.

The torch sputtered and went out, leaving only the dim illumination of the rushlight. Spence scraped the remains of the cloth from the dagger and returned it to its sheath, feeling the still-hot metal warm him where it lay against his hip. He led Emma to the wall where the light burned, and sat on the stone floor with his back resting against the wall, nestling her against him so his coat and his arms could keep her warm.

He relished the feel of her against his chest, vowing he would tear the building down, stone by stone, with his fingernails, if necessary to get her out.

She was very quiet, but he suspected she did not sleep. “Emma?”

“Mmm-hmm,” she murmured.

“I will get you out.”

“I know.” She snuggled closer.

He soon heard the even sounds of her breathing and was glad she slept. He meant to stay awake, to tend the light and chase off any mice brave enough to return, but his eyes, too, became heavy.

He dreamed of light, of a brightness that enveloped like a blanket, familiar, a place he had been before. From the light a figure emerged.

Stephen.

His brother approached, that aura of peace encircling him, emanating from him. Spence remembered then, the other dream when he begged Stephen to take him with him into the light.

This time Spence called out, “Do not take me, Stephen. I’m not ready to go with you.”

His brother smiled, the whiteness of his teeth as bright as the light. Stephen’s voice came to him like a soft echo. “I know. I will come for you later, little brother. Much later.”

Stephen began to fade, and Spence already felt the wrenching ache of missing him.

As Stephen disappeared, his voice wafted through the light reaching Spence’s ear. “Name your son for me.”

Spence jolted awake, his heart pounding. No more light. Only darkness. The rushlight had gone out while he slept.

“Spence?” He’d woken Emma. “Did I sleep long?”

He swore to himself. “I dozed off. I let the rushlight burn out. Who knows how long we slept?”

“Maybe it is morning.” She sounded hopeful.

With luck, maybe it was morning. “Stay here. I’m going to look for light.” Removing his greatcoat, he wrapped it around her and felt his way down the wall toward where the mice had run, the wall where Stephen was buried.

He hoped the mice entered through one of the three empty compartments he remembered seeing there. By feel, he climbed inside the first one, examining the wall up close, but there was no break in the relentless darkness, just the choking feeling of being entombed in stone. He edged out as quickly as he could. Fighting the vestiges of panic, his brother’s words came back to him:
I will come for you later. Much later.

He would live a long life and he would have a son.

In the second compartment there was nothing but blackness as well, not even a crack to feel under his fingertips. Only one more to try, the one beside his brother,
his
compartment. He prayed he would not be forced to break into those that were sealed.

He propelled himself forward with his elbows, the stone walls closing around him.

Emma’s voice echoed behind him. “You will find it this time.”

He forced his eyes to examine the black void.

At first there was nothing; then a mere pinprick of light so small, he thought his eyes played tricks on him. When he blinked, the light was still there.

“Emma, I have found it.” He pulled out his dagger and poked at the crack of light. It suddenly grew larger, about the size of a ha’penny.

Emma’s voice sounded closer, as if she stood next to him. “I can see it!”

As he hoped, the mortar was crumbling. He scraped and chopped at it, pushing against the stone, which was about a foot square. When he felt it loosen, he crawled out of the space and went back in, feetfirst. He kicked at the stone until it fell away. Light streamed in, along with the fresh-scented air of a spring morning.

“We can do it, Emma.”

He climbed out again, and she stood in the glow of sunlight. He enveloped her in a joyous embrace.

When he went back in to hack at another stone, she called after him, “I’ll fetch your greatcoat.”

The mortar on the adjacent stone above the other one gave away equally as well, and Spence kicked it out making a bigger hole. “Two more and we are free.”

He turned around to hack at the other two stones. These were more stubborn. He chipped away at the mortar until his arm ached with the effort. When he finally felt he’d weakened the stones, he kicked at them with strength that increased with the promise of escape. The two stones fell away.

“Now, Emma.” He climbed back into the mausoleum and helped her into the compartment. She scrambled toward the light and he stuffed his greatcoat out behind her. A moment later he, too, was outside, gulping in the fresh air.

Emma raised her arms and face to the sun. The sky was dotted with clouds, but blue. The grass and trees were bright green. He caught Emma and together they twirled around, laughing.

He picked his greatcoat off the ground, taking the pistol from its pocket, wrapped the coat around her. “I am taking you back to Kellworth. I’ll deal with Reuben later.” He tucked the pistol in the waist of his trousers.

She looked as if she were about to protest, but she said, “Very well.”

They crossed the cemetery and hurried out the gate to the path Reuben had taken Spence down the night before. The path led around to the front of the church, passed the vicarage, then to the road, to the place where they could cross the fields, muddy as they were, the quickest way to Kellworth. To home.

As they started down the road in front of the church, Spence heard a sound behind him. He whirled around, his hand closing on the barrel of the pistol. He had not reloaded it.

“Spence!” called Reuben from the doorway of the church. Spence pushed Emma behind him.

“Do not think you can escape me a second time.” Reuben lifted a pistol from behind his back as he advanced on them.

Spence pulled out his own pistol and aimed it at his cousin. “I did not know vicars wore firearms, Reuben.”