Twice Tempted by a Rogue (30 page)

No. No, she couldn’t. All she could see was the blackness outside reflecting their own image, like a mirror. Even in this imperfect, dark reflection, she could see the excitement in his expression, the spark in his eyes. All the emotion he’d been holding back—he’d poured it all into this house. Not only emotion, but hard work and good faith.

They’d built something too, between them. Just as he’d said from the first. In the course of all those conversations and kisses and time spent in one another’s company, they’d pieced together something wonderful—something with lace curtains and corner closets and an ocean view. Not just a house, but a loving home.

How would Rhys react when he learned it was all built on a foundation of misconceptions and needless guilt? Meredith didn’t want to find out, but she needed to.

She had to tell him everything. Tonight.

His grip tightened on her shoulders. “You deserve so much more, but this is only the beginning. I’m going to rebuild the whole estate in time, and you’re going to live in true luxury. The finest furnishings, a whole fleet of servants. I promise, you’ll never lift a finger again.”

“You needn’t promise me anything.”

“I want to. I owe it to you and your father both. You’ve suffered for years on my account, and now it’s—”

“No.” She turned to face him. “Please don’t speak to me of fate or fires or obligation.”

Frowning a little, he smoothed the hair from her brow. “Merry, I don’t know what more I can say. I’ve tried my best with the romance, but—”

She gasped.
Romance
. “Oh, no. Oh, God.”

“What is it?”

“Cora. We’re here to find Cora.”

Rhys swore viciously. How could he have forgotten their errand, for even one second? The guilt he felt was mirrored on Meredith’s face.

Shrugging away from him, she went for her lamp. “We’ve spent enough time here. We’ve got to go search the ruins.”

Together they scrambled up the bluff. Once they reached the ruins of Nethermoor Hall, they separated at what remained of the front entrance and circled in opposite directions. Rhys took the outer perimeter, and Meredith followed the inner wall. They each stumbled and shouted their way around the ruin, calling Cora’s name until they were hoarse. Nothing.

He reunited with Meredith at the crumbling arch. The glow of her lamp bobbed in the mist. The wind was picking up.

“Any sign of her?” he asked.

“No.”

Thunder rumbled in the distance. Perfect. Just what they needed, a storm. “I suppose we should be getting back to the village, then. Perhaps she’s turned up elsewhere.”

The bobbing glow stilled. “We haven’t checked every part of the ruin yet.”

“What do you mean?” he asked.

Though he knew damn well what she meant. Had he forgotten that place, truly? Or had he just wanted to forget it so fiercely that he’d managed to wipe it from his mind? But Meredith was right … if Cora had wandered up here, the cellar would have made a logical haven from the mist and cold. They would need to look.

“I’ll go alone,” she said.

“No,” he said. “No, you can’t go alone. It’s not safe.” That place wasn’t safe, not for anyone. It never had been. But he’d be damned if he’d let her think that he—who’d faced down Napoleon’s Imperial Guardsmen and hamfisted prizefighters alike—was afraid of a damned cellar, filled with nothing but cobwebs and shadow.

Her light swayed as she transferred it from one hand to the other, and for a moment, the features of her face were caressed by soft, smoky light. With her free hand, she reached through the mist to take his. “We’ll go together. And we’ll do it quickly.”

He allowed her to lead the way to the cellar entrance. She seemed to know the way better than he did. It was well-hidden now, obscured by haphazard piles of masonry. Hand in hand, they picked their way over the strewn boulders and found the stairway. The rocks teetered and clacked a bit as they scrambled over them.

The cellar must have been built from a natural cave that his ancestors had widened and deepened with time. Or perhaps they’d quarried the stone for the house, then built right over the empty pit? At any rate, it made an ideal place for storing food and spirits—protected from the elements, cool and dark. Silent. It made an ideal place to keep secrets, too.

As they descended into the dark pit, the sounds of the wind outside were muted. Meanwhile, their every step and sigh echoed off the walls. This place caught every sound, trapped it to rattle about and amplify. Each footfall, each spoken word … each crack or blow … seemed to have the strength of dozens.

“Cora?” Meredith called out into the darkness. The name volleyed around the room, losing a bit of its consonant edge with each echo, until all that remained was a round, hollow ball of “Oh” bouncing about the dark.

She called again. “Cora, are you here?”

No answer.

Rhys would have added his voice to hers, but his throat had gone dry. His jaw seemed locked in place.

“She’s not here,” she finally said. “Let’s go.”

“Wait.” The word creaked from his throat. He coughed and tried to master the emotions rising in his gorge. “We don’t know that she’s not here. We only know she hasn’t answered the call. She could be hurt, or asleep. We have to check the whole cellar, every corner.”

She was silent for a moment. Then finally said, “All right.”

Sweeping his light around, Rhys noticed a great many crates and casks filling the room. Odd. He would have expected to find it stone-empty, especially after all this time. Looted by the locals long ago. Perhaps the rumors of ghosts had kept them away.

He knew they’d descended to the bottom of the staircase when his final footfall hit the ground with a thud that shivered his hipbone. He stumbled over something that felt like a wire.

“Cora?” Meredith called. Her voice was a bright, clear beacon in the blackness. “Cora, are you in here?”

No answer from the girl.

There was, however, an answer from God … in the form of a low, menacing groan at the top of the stairs.

“Oh, Lord.”

Chapter Twenty-one

There was a crash of thunder.

A crash of stone.

And then a chorus of a hundred small collisions, each one bashing blindly into the next.

The difference was palpable, instantly. It had nothing to do with the lighting—pitch black was pitch black—but rather to do with the air. The cool, misty breeze was instantly sucked from the space, replaced with puffs of grit, and rank, ancient damp. The air was choked with earth and secrets, as if they’d been sealed in a tomb.

“Tell me,” said Meredith, “that sound wasn’t what I think it was.”

“It was,” he confirmed. “We’re trapped.”

Her fingers tightened around his.

“We’ll be all right,” he said.

At the same moment, she said, “We’ll be fine, you know.”

And after speaking over one another, they laughed a bit together. Fitting, that each of them should think of comforting the other. They were each of them so accustomed to being the stronger in any given pair.

Once the last bits of their echoed laughter had seeped into the cracks of the stones, Rhys took the lamp from her hand and held it aloft between them. Bravery aside, she was trembling a bit.

“Don’t be concerned. You’re with me. And I’m indestructible, remember?” It was this very place that had made him so. There was no way in hell he’d die here. Clearing his throat, he went on, “We need to look for something dry and wood. Something that will burn.”

“Do you mean to start a fire? It’s not that cold.”

“No, but this lamp won’t last all night. And once we have a bit more light, I’ll go up and assess the damage.” From the quality of the air, Rhys suspected the cave-in was complete, but he would check it himself to be certain.

Keeping her hand in his, he scouted the immediate area for wood. As his luck would have it, he stumbled into a crate almost instantly. He bent and began prying the boards apart with his bare hands. It was rough going. For a crate stored for more than a decade in a damp, underground room, the wood was surprisingly strong and dry.

Once he had the top of the crate pried off, Rhys waved the lamp over it to see what was inside. Brushing aside a thick layer of straw—again, remarkably fresh and dry—he uncovered several rows of bottles. Strange, that his father would have left this much of any spirit lying about, untouched.

Curling his fingers around a bottleneck, he lifted it to the torchlight. French brandy. And, judging by the rich amber color that swirled red in the flickering light, it was brandy of a fine quality.

Well, that sealed it. This hadn’t belonged to his father. The old man had always valued quantity over quality.

“At least we won’t die of thirst,” Meredith said, taking the bottle from his hand. “I’d wager he has some foodstuffs stored in here, too. I thought he mentioned a crate of olives, some weeks ago. Or was it dates? And I know he was very proud of seizing some silver flatware recently. We could make a right fine meal down here.”

“Myles,” Rhys breathed. “This all belongs to Gideon Myles. He’s been storing his smuggled goods
here?”

She nodded. “Amongst his associates, he specializes in the hard-to-place items. When they can’t find a buyer immediately, or none who’ll pay what the goods are worth … he brings the goods up here and stores them until he can find a market for them in one of the cities. Some things stay just a week. Others, months.”

“A tripwire. The bastard had this place rigged.”

“What?”

“It wasn’t lightning that caused that cave-in. I thought I’d stumbled over a cord, just before. It must have triggered a powder explosion somewhere.”

“Yes, well. That makes sense. Gideon is very protective of his goods.”

Rhys held the lamp aloft and blinked until the smoke stung his eyes, straining to make out more of the cavernous room. It was full to bursting with crates, casks … even furniture and rolled carpets.

“So,” he said. “This is the real reason no one wants me to rebuild Nethermoor Hall. You’re all living high off this trade.”

“Not living high. Surviving, just barely. Gideon has had to take a great many risks. Harold, Laurence, Skinner … they all work for him as lookouts, and they help him transport and unload his cargo.”

“And you hire out the ponies to him.”

“Yes.”

“And accept some of the goods in trade?”

She paused. “Yes, some. Stores for the inn.”

He swore softly. What else could he say? The entire village of Buckleigh-in-the-Moor, including his intended bride, was complicit in a vast smuggling ring. He’d known Myles was dealing in unlevied goods, but he’d never dreamed of an operation of this magnitude. Truly, he wouldn’t have believed the knave capable of it.

“It’s not something I’m proud of, Rhys. I know it’s unlawful, and I know it’s dangerous. That’s why I’ve been so determined to build up the inn and draw travelers to the district. If I’m ever going to convince Gideon to disentangle himself from this … this trade, the village needs another source of income to replace it.”

Rhys’s jaw tightened. “And the patronage of a new Lord Ashworth won’t serve that purpose?”

“I don’t know.” She sighed noisily. “Not indefinitely. You’ve said yourself, you don’t even intend to produce an heir. You know I’m barren. Unless you mean to marry another lady, but I don’t know how you’d convince her to come live in this place.” Her voice cracked. “I don’t even know how
you
can stand to live in this place. I know what you went through here, Rhys. I grew up watching it. I saw every bruise, every welt—”

He shoved the lamp into her hand and bent to pry a board off the crate. “I need to make a fire.”

He couldn’t talk about this now. He’d rather not talk about it, ever.

“Rhys—”

Crack
. He braced a board between his hand and the ground, then broke it in two with his boot. After throwing the splintered pieces into a pile, he wrenched another plank free and prepared to repeat the process. “Look at the smoke,” he told her, determined to change the subject.

Her eyes went to the swirl of black soot coiling away from the lamp, rising into the air.

“It’s drawing upward,” he said. “That means there’s ventilation someplace. A crack—either in the caved-in entrance, or above us somewhere. Once daylight comes, I’ll be able to make us a way out of here. We just have to wait for dawn.”

“And pray for poor Cora.” She sniffed. “What can I do?”

“Gather some straw for tinder,” he said. “And I don’t suppose you’ve a screw for uncorking that brandy?”

“No, I haven’t a screw. But I have my ways.”

“I’m certain you do.” If he was going to spend a night in this hole, at the least he was going to do so while warm to the marrow and drunk out of his skull.

They cleared a small depression in the ground to use as a firepit. Rhys arranged the broken planks, propping them against one another, and Meredith stuffed the gaps with straw. Then she cracked the top off a bottle of brandy with a stone and dashed a liberal amount of spirits over the kindling. One spark from the lamp, and …

Whoosh
.

They had a fire.

For a moment, the flames blazed so high, so bright, that Rhys stood frozen, accosted by memories of the last time Nethermoor had seen roaring flames. His heart kicked into a gallop, and sweat broke out on his brow. But the brandy quickly flamed out, and the fire settled down to a small, respectable, unthreatening size. One might have called it cozy. Even romantic.

Adding to the effect, Meredith unrolled a fantastically expensive-looking Afghan carpet and arranged it alongside the fire. “Oh look,” she said, prying open a newly revealed trunk. “Furs.” A pile of sable and ermine soon graced the carpet’s geometric design.

Good God. A small fortune was stored in this cellar.

While she dug about for cups, Rhys took the dying lamp and went to inspect the entrance. As he’d suspected, rocks had shifted and fallen, covering the opening completely. They might be movable, if he could wedge a board or bar in just the right place. But until he had some daylight shining through, he’d have little way of knowing whether his efforts were making matters better or worse.

When he scrambled back down to the cellar floor, he found Meredith brushing the packing straw from a silver tea service. Lifting her skirt, she reached beneath for a fold of clean petticoat to wipe the cups clean.

“There you are,” she said, pouring brandy into a teacup and holding it out to him. “Is it hopeless?”

“No. But it’s not worth trying to dig our way out tonight.”

“Then come be comfortable, and save your strength for the morning.”

They nestled into the furs side by side, but not embracing. A long, empty night together stretched out before them. It didn’t seem possible to him that they’d get through it without having a certain conversation, so he decided to confront it head-on.

“So what is it, then? Your answer.” In the ensuing silence, he took an anxious, overlarge swallow of his brandy. It burned all the way down.

She drank, too. Finally she whispered, “I’m still not sure.”

Shaking his head, he quietly swore. This time, he tossed back an even larger draught of brandy. Because he knew it would burn, and he welcomed it.

“Are you angry?”

“Why should I be angry?”

“You have every reason in the world to be angry, Rhys. I don’t know how you can even sit in this place and remain so calm.”

He wasn’t too sure himself. Brandy had something to do with it. He took another drink, then let his head roll back against the clammy surface of the wall.

“Do you want to talk about it?” she asked.

“Talk about what? Marriage, or lack thereof? I think we’ve talked that out.”

“Not marriage. About … the past. About this place.”

He kept quiet, hoping she would be clever enough to take his silence as a sign that no, he did not want to talk about it.

“I know he beat you here.”

He tensed his jaw, to keep from growling at her to shut hers. She hadn’t accepted him. She didn’t have the right to keep poking at his wounds, tracing his scars …

“Everyone in service at Nethermoor knew.”

“This pit is soundproof,” he bit out. “No one knew what went on down here.”

“Well, I suppose no one did know, not precisely. But it was impossible not to notice the evidence after the fact. And what do you think he did when you went off to school? Do you suppose he gave up violence for the winter term?”

A hot coal lodged in his chest. He could barely manage to form the words. “Did he hit you?”

“No. No, not me.”

A drop of sweat rolled from his brow to his ear. Thank God. If he found out his father had hurt Meredith, Rhys truly would have lost control.

“My father was very careful,” she said. “He never let me run about the Hall, never would have allowed me to work for the man. But there were others who didn’t have a father looking out for them.”

“And then there was me, whose father
was
the problem. No escape.”

“Tell me what happened. Just have out with it, and you’ll feel better.”