The Taming of Ryder Cavanaugh (35 page)

He found a few other items he could use.

One of the fire irons did a nice job of breaking the bolt off the basement door. A long spatula wedged under the lower edge of the door made it difficult to shift; setting that aside, he continued his hunt.

The poker might come in handy. Hefting it, he dropped a set of metal skewers into his pocket, cast a last glance at the other utensils he’d uncovered.

As well as the knives, his opponents had removed all long, pointy implements, like the long-handled forks he was sure should have been there. As an afterthought, he tucked four ordinary forks into another pocket, then finally turned to the basement door.

They had to be watching him from outside, from the cover of the nearby woods. The kitchen faced west; the last of the fading light was probably sufficient to illuminate the room enough for them to follow his movements. So they would know he had the poker.

And from the fading glow of the lantern he carried they would know that he’d finally gone down the basement steps.

Reaching the bottom, he moved quickly, playing the lantern beam to either side as he strode down the aisle between the high shelves. There was an open area at the far end of the room. It was completely bare, but there the floor was wood, not stone, and the fine dust on the boards, drifting from bags of grain stacked along the back wall, showed evidence of footprints and the swishing of a woman’s skirts.

The marks circled a square trapdoor set in the floor.

He’d never been into the basement before, didn’t remember—had never heard—what lay beneath the trapdoor.

A heavy iron ring was set into the surface. Setting the lantern on the floor, he bent and hauled the trap—literally as well as figuratively, he feared—open. The door was heavy, weighted by a metal frame and bracing. Leaving it tilted back on its hinges, he crouched beside the opening and looked down, into a largely featureless void. Picking up the lantern, he directed the beam down, revealing a stone floor, not flagged but rough-hewn, more than ten feet below. There were no steps, not even a ladder.

The chamber was empty. He angled his head and the lantern, bent lower and peered, but all he saw was empty space leading to blank walls, also cut directly into the stone. The hole might have been part of a long-ago rock quarry, later built over. A tunnel, large enough for him to walk down, led off in one direction. He glanced briefly at it, his gaze passing over and on, but then he looked back. After a moment, he cursed and turned the lantern away—and yes, there was light, distant and faint, seeping out through that tunnel.

He hesitated, then with nothing to lose, called, “Mary?”

Instantly, distantly, he heard the drum of heels on stone. Even more faintly, he heard muffled sounds. She was there!

“Wait—I’m coming.”

The words unleashed a positive torrent of muffled protest; she wanted to warn him not to come down, that it was a trap.

He already knew that. Accepted it. He was still going down.

Even before he’d walked through the front door, he’d realized that leaving her there and returning to the abbey for help was not an option; if he did, when he returned with his men, she wouldn’t be there anymore. She was the bait to lure him to his doom; Lavinia and her henchmen now knew they had that right, that that would work, so they would keep her until he did as they wished and stepped into their trap. Putting it off would only prolong the drama and risk Mary’s health, and most likely shift the venue from which he had to rescue her to somewhere even less advantageous to him.

Yet if he dropped through the trapdoor—easy enough—there was no way he could see of getting back up. And if there was no other way out of what appeared to be a long-unused cellar . . .

He paused, thought again, but still could see no option. Even if he attempted to wait them out, they would come for him eventually—long before anyone from the abbey came looking for him—and he was unarmed. He doubted they were.

All he had to work with was his wits and his strength. Together, they would have to suffice.

And Mary was down there, alone, tied and gagged.

He hunted through the basement and found what he’d imagined had to be there somewhere—a rope. Tying one end to the iron ring, he threaded the rope through the gap beside the big hinges on the door and let the length fall; it reached nearly to the cellar floor.

He thought for a moment, then hauled the free end of the rope up, tied it around the handle of his lantern, then lowered the lantern down into the cellar.

Glancing back at the basement door, now barely visible, he hesitated, then stalked back toward the steps, along the way gathering as many of the glass jars as he could carry and two empty metal pails.

Pausing at the bottom of the steps, he set the jars and pails down, then went up, into the kitchen, and lit three more lamps. He played the beams around, warning the wary watchers that he was still in the kitchen and hadn’t yet dropped down into their trap.

Then he left the lanterns before the basement door, their beams shining outward so there was no easy way for his would-be attackers to know if he was in the basement or lower by the amount of light. After that he quickly shut the basement door and wedged it closed with the spatula, then he went down and arranged the glass jars across the steps and set the metal pails strategically—his makeshift alarm—then without further thought, he ran to the trapdoor, kicked the poker through the hole, sat on the edge, grasped the sides, and swung himself down.

And let go.

The instant his boots hit the stone floor, he caught up the poker and ran full tilt down the tunnel. It was wide enough for two men abreast, and curved away from the house for a good twenty yards. Ahead he saw an old stone wall; a lamp sat at the base of the wall, shining back down the tunnel—the light set to lure him. He erupted into the roomlike space before it, another rough-hewn chamber about four yards across, and running for five or so yards on either side.

A muffled wailing rose from his left. Whirling, he saw Mary seated on a chair at that end of the chamber. She was lashed to the chair, a black cloth hood over her head.

Why the latter should make him so furious, he wasn’t sure—but had they asked if she was frightened of the dark first? Striding across, dropping the poker, he grasped the offending hood and gently eased it off.

Furious blue eyes met his. Through the gag fastened over her lips, she growled at him.

Despite his prevailing grimness, he grinned. “Good evening, Mary.”

Her eyes spat sparks, then she twisted her head to the side. He obediently went to work on the gag. “I know it’s a trap. I’ve done what I could to try to get us out of it, but they left me no option”—the knot loosened—“other than to come down after you.” She jerked her head and the gag fell.

“There’s always a choice!” Mary moistened her lips, shocked by the hoarseness of her voice.

“Indeed.” Ryder met her eyes as he shifted to start on the knots holding her to the chair. “And I’ve made mine.”

What could she say? She growled low in her throat and waited, more than impatient, urgent and concerned and
frightened
—for him more than her—as he worked at her bonds. “They’ll come back—there’s three of them. Three largish men. Where are we?”

“The Dower House. You haven’t been here before.”

She glanced around, tried to glimpse his face. “Where your stepmother lives?”

“Yes.” His tone was flat and hard.

The ropes fell and she rose, stumbled, but he caught her. Steadied her. “We have to hurry.”

“Yes—please let’s.”

He bent and picked up a poker, then with her hand locked in his, they ran as fast as she was able toward the opening to the passageway he must have come down. She hadn’t seen anything of her prison before; she’d been hooded when they’d carried her down.

They turned into the passage—and glass crashed, smashed, and metal clanged, the sounds coming from somewhere above.

Ryder swore, swept her up in his arms, and charged down the passage.

More curses exploded over their heads. Pounding feet thundered on floorboards.

They burst into another chamber at the end of the passage—just in time to see a rope that had been dangling from a hole high above, along with the lantern swinging wildly from its end, fall with a small crash and a slithering thump to the floor.

Holding her in his arms, Ryder stared up at the hole, then calmly stated, “You bastards will die.”

There was enough icy certainty in his tone to make Mary shiver.

Silence greeted his pronouncement, then she heard a click.

Ryder swore and whirled back into the passage.

Sound exploded behind them; rock shattered and shards flew.

With her clutched in his arms, his body curled over hers, Ryder halted, leaning against the passage wall out of sight of the men above.

Rough laughter fell, echoing in the chamber. “Aint us who’s slated to die, me fine lord. Just you and your missus, too.”

A percussive thud followed hard on the words.

Ryder didn’t need to look to know they’d shut the trapdoor.

Mary wriggled. He straightened and released her legs, allowing her to swing them down and stand, but he kept one arm around her. With her leaning into him and him holding onto her, they leaned back against the tunnel wall and took stock.

The men were still moving around above; Ryder and Mary heard muffled words, then a few seconds later shuffling footsteps, then a solid thump.

The first was followed by others, increasingly muffled.

Mary frowned. “What’s that?”

Ryder realized. Letting his head fall back against the rock wall, he closed his eyes and swore. “Damn!” He listened again, then sighed. “I saw bags of grain or flour by one wall. They’ve shifted the bags over the trapdoor.”

“Why? It’s not as if we were about to climb up and push it open.”

“No, but the bags will hide the trapdoor.” Opening his eyes, he looked down at her.

She frowned back. “But surely those working here will know it’s there.”

He grimaced. “Possibly, but”—he glanced at the empty chambers to either side—“this place is clearly not used for anything, and as I didn’t know it existed, it’s possible few others do.”

He could see her working it out, then she met his eyes. “Does anyone at the abbey know you came here?”

“Yes, but I didn’t know you were here. We’d only just learned Lavinia was in residence and I came to check if anyone here had seen you. I didn’t imagine that you’d been trapped here—I said that after asking here I’d scout through the woods.”

“So if you don’t return, no one will raise the alarm?”

“Probably not until morning.” He pulled a face. “And even then, there’s no reason for anyone to believe I’m here. I left Julius loose—he’ll find his way back to the stables, but there’s nothing to say we parted company here, rather than in the depths of the woods.”

For a long moment, they stood in silence, drawing strength from each other, from simply having the other there, then Mary pulled out of his arms and he let her go.

“Well, in that case”—she marched out into the chamber—“we may as well take this lantern and search to see if there’s another way out.”

Her dogged optimism struck him as bittersweet; he seriously doubted there was another exit. Why seal them down here if there was?

He watched while she retrieved the fallen lantern; it had only dropped a few inches and was undamaged. Straightening, she played the lantern beam over the walls. Still carrying the poker, he joined her; together they checked the roughly round chamber, but it was nothing more than a pit cut directly out of the rock, with only the tunnel leading out of it. Walking back down the tunnel, scanning the solid walls as they went, they emerged into the rectangular space at the other end.

Slowly pirouetting, Mary surveyed the chamber. The passageway entered midway down one long side. The floor, ceiling, and three walls were solid, roughly hewn stone, but the side facing the passage was an old wall of large stone blocks. The chair she’d been tied to sat to the left of the passage entrance, facing down the room; to the right of the passage, at the other end of the rectangular space, stood a table, a jug of water, and two glasses on a tray sitting atop the scarred surface.

Ryder had also noticed the table. He walked to it.

She followed more slowly, trying to remember when the tray had been placed there—before or after . . . “How long have I been down here?”

Reaching for the jug, Ryder glanced at her. “When did they take you?”

“Not that long after luncheon. I went for a stroll in the gardens. I’d left the shrubbery and decided to take a quick look at the kitchen garden. I was walking along the rhododendron walk when they sprang through the bushes and grabbed me. One caught my arms, another gagged me, the other pulled the hood over my head, and that was it. They tied my hands, my ankles, and carried me off like a sack of potatoes.”

“So two o’clock or just after, and”—pulling out his fob watch, he checked—“it’s now after eight.”

“Six hours.” She grimaced. “It felt much longer.” She watched him pour water into both glasses, wondering at what was bothering her, a nebulous niggle at the back of her brain.

Ryder handed her one glass. She took it, watched him raise the other to his lips—

“
No
!” She shoved his hand, the one with the glass, down and away. Then she stared at the glass in her hand. “Why is this here?”

Ryder frowned, then his face cleared and he looked at the glass he held. “Poison?”

She glanced back at the chair. “They tie me up, hooded and gagged. Then”—she glanced at the passage—“they shoot at us.” Turning back, she looked at the jug. “But they leave water and two glasses?” Lips firming, she set her glass down.

Ryder stared at the water jug, then with one violent swipe, he swept it off the table. Tray, glasses, and all went flying; the jug and the glasses shattered on the stone.

Closing his eyes, he drew in a deep breath, drew his temper back, in, under his control. He felt Mary grip his arm, grimaced. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be. I thought of doing exactly that but could never have managed quite the same effect.”