A Rake's Midnight Kiss (37 page)

“… no jewel, no dog, I’m afraid.”

Lord Neville’s oily tones made her skin itch with loathing. Just seeing him took her back to those suffocating moments when he’d crushed her beneath him. She sneaked nearer, crouching behind a pile of stones.

“I haven’t got the jewel.” Richard sounded careless and confident. “It belongs to Miss Barrett.”

She chanced a peek. Richard stood with his back to her while Lord Neville lounged against a lichened tomb, gun in hand. The scratches on his face stood out vividly, she noted with bloodthirsty satisfaction.

“Not for much longer.” Lord Neville’s other hand held Sirius on a short rope leash. Coarse twine bound the dog’s muzzle shut. Even from yards away, Genevieve saw dried blood marking his hide. Pity welled in her throat.

“Just what have we here?”

Rough hands seized her from behind and hauled her to her feet. Greengrass shook her like Sirius would shake a rabbit. She struggled to aim her pistol, but he plucked it from her with a painful wrench to her wrist.

Self-disgust held her mute. She was so cursed stupid. She should have guessed Lord Neville’s henchman would be on guard.

“Genevieve!” Through her horror, she heard the despairing anger in Richard’s voice. Why, oh, why had she come? He’d warned her to stay away.

Lord Neville regarded her with a complete lack of surprise as Greengrass dragged her kicking and fighting into the clearing.

“Ah, I thought you might join us,” Lord Neville said archly.

“Be still, you little bitch.” Greengrass flung her down. She cried out as she crashed into the grass. Just beyond reach, she saw Richard’s guns on the ground.

Richard helped her up. “Are you all right?”

“Careful,” Greengrass grunted, his face a rainbow of bruises.

“Don’t touch your weapons, Evans,” Lord Neville said behind her. “That would be very unwise. Especially now that I have two hostages.”

Genevieve stared at Richard, despising her impulsiveness. “I’m so sorry.”

“We’ll be fine,” he said softly, his grip on her hand firming.

Genevieve found her balance and turned to Lord Neville. Sirius strained choking at the rope. “I’ll give you the jewel. Let Sirius go.”

“Here, hold the mongrel.” Lord Neville thrust the leash at Greengrass.

“Genevieve, don’t do this.” Richard shifted to stop her approaching Lord Neville.

Evading him, she fumbled in her pocket. When all was said and done, the jewel was only metal and glass. It wasn’t worth blood. “I have to.”

“I knew you were a sensible woman.” With sickening greed, Lord Neville’s eyes fastened on the object in her palm.

“You won’t have it for long,” she retorted. “I’ll report the theft.”

He sniffed contemptuously. “I’m a Fairbrother. Nobody will believe I stole it.”

“They will when you display your ill-gotten gains.”

“You mistake the collector’s passion. The joy is in ownership.” He grabbed the jewel as if afraid she still meant to keep it. “This perfect object belongs with me. Unlike its slut of a custodian.”

“Mind your tongue, sir,” Richard said sharply, shifting toward Genevieve. His protection sparked a tiny ember of warmth, even in this fraught moment. “Last night you wanted to marry the lady.”

“Marry that round-heeled trull?” Lord Neville’s eyes glittered with malice, while Greengrass’s snicker made her gorge rise. “The trollop fucked a scoundrel instead of accepting my honorable offer.”

“Abduction and assault don’t count as an honorable offer,” she snapped, even as shame speared her.

Lord Neville’s expression settled into a smugness that made her wish she’d clawed his eyes out, not merely bloodied his cheek. “It’s more of a proposal than you’ve received from this knave, I’ll warrant.”

Her heart leaped to think that Richard might claim her. Although surely the magnificent Sir Richard Harmsworth would never stoop to wed a dowdy vicar’s daughter with an unfeminine interest in people dead before 1600.

“Enough.” Richard’s voice was a whiplash. “You’ve got the jewel. I want my dog and I want you away from Little Derrick.”

Genevieve’s surge of illogical, irresistible hope shriveled. How stupid to expect a declaration. Especially at such a time.

Mesmerized, Lord Neville studied the jewel. “It’s exquisite.”

“A fine example,” she said coldly.

He looked up, eyes gleaming with triumph. “Better you’d taken the money.”

She ignored his jeering. “Untie Sirius and let us go.”

Lord Neville’s hand closed around the jewel. “That’s not convenient.”

“Not convenient?” A quick glance at Richard revealed no shock on his face. He’d expected double dealing. She was a fool that she hadn’t.

Suddenly Lord Neville’s cool response to her threats of exposure struck her as ominous. Fairbrother or not, if she alerted the law, he couldn’t be sure of emerging with reputation intact. A premonition of disaster pressed down and she edged closer to Richard.

“As you pointed out, you and your lover can cause me a deal of trouble. Easier by far to dispose of you.”

“What… what do you mean?” she asked shakily. Richard’s hand gripped hers. While she knew he couldn’t save them, the contact was welcome.

“Genevieve, Genevieve, I really will consider your cleverness overrated if you can’t work out that it’s better for me if you two are dead.”

“You mean to kill us?”

Disbelief overwhelmed her. She realized that Lord Neville was base. Good heavens, hadn’t he attacked her last night? But staring into his self-satisfied face, she couldn’t help remembering how he’d been a guest in her house, eaten at her table, praised her work. The idea that someone she knew planned to shoot her left her staggering.

“Not in so many words.” He waved the gun at them. “If you please?”

Richard’s hold firmed in silent reassurance. Because she couldn’t think how to defy the fate bearing down upon them,
she walked with him toward the chapel’s east end. Ahead rose empty stone tracery that had once contained glorious stained glass.

Genevieve stopped, astonished. The stone altar, worn and covered in lichen, had shifted to reveal a gaping hole beneath.

“Move.” Lord Neville’s gun poked her in the kidneys.

“How—”

“You never guessed that the altar covered the crypt’s entrance, did you?” he scoffed. “I found the abbey papers in my nephew’s library.”

“You’re not going to shoot us?” Richard asked steadily.

Lord Neville shook his head. “Too quick and easy. The altar can only be moved from above. Once down there, you’re caged like rats until you starve or suffocate.”

“People will look for us.” Blind terror overcame Genevieve at the prospect of being buried alive.

Lord Neville smiled. “No, they won’t. You two are the talk of the village. When I announce that I saw you eloping on the north road, nobody will doubt my story.”

“Aye.” Greengrass dragged a stiff-legged Sirius toward the crypt. “Every bugger knows you’re gagging for it.”

Genevieve muffled a sound of distress. Lying in Richard’s arms, she’d felt brave and strong. Listening to Lord Neville and Greengrass, she felt dirty.

“You have no need to be ashamed, Genevieve,” Richard said softly.

But the truth was that she did. She’d given herself to a man outside wedlock. She’d die at Lord Neville’s hands with that stain on her name.

Pride bolstered failing defiance. “I regret nothing.”

Lord Neville laughed. “You will before you’re done.”

“What about Sirius?” Richard asked.

Lord Neville shrugged. “I could shoot him here. Seems kinder.”

“Don’t,” Richard snapped.

“For you, dear sir, I make the concession.” He pointed the gun toward the descending staircase. “Pray take your places.”

As if his thoughts were written on a parchment, she watched Richard consider throwing himself at Lord Neville. But with him unarmed, Genevieve’s presence made heroics too risky. Again she berated herself for following him.

With a grace that made her heart dip in admiration, he stepped over the stone rim and onto the descending staircase. As calmly as if he asked her to dance, he extended his hand. “Come, Genevieve.”

“With pleasure,” she responded steadily.

Surprisingly she meant it. While her response to Lord Neville had been pure bravado, she realized that at this moment, she didn’t regret a second of what she’d done with Richard. She’d acted out of love.

There were worse epitaphs.

Perhaps they’d win through. It was impossible to see Richard standing tall and steadfast, staring at her as if she carried the moon in her hands, and accept that Lord Neville had prevailed.

No, they weren’t beaten yet. And something in Richard’s eyes told her that right now, he considered her the best companion a man could have in adversity. His unconditional belief made her straighten and step forward. She couldn’t disappoint him by playing the coward.

His hand closed around hers and he helped her onto the worn stone steps, letting her enter the crypt first. She had a second to take in a cavernous space lined with stone tombs. Then with a scrabble of paws, Sirius tumbled after her.

“I wish you peaceful rest,” Lord Neville taunted from above.

The sharp report of a pistol made her jump. Greengrass marking his triumph, she guessed. With a loud scrape, the stone shifted, narrowing the light to nothing. Thick darkness slammed down, heavy with the stink of dust and ancient misery.

A
bove them, warm autumn lingered. Down here in the dark, it was permanent winter. From the base of the stairs, Genevieve heard Richard murmuring reassurance to a whimpering Sirius. The mere sound of his voice rescued her plummeting spirits. Her crippling horror of suffocation receded. Panic constricted her lungs, not lack of air.

She fumbled toward the nearest tomb. The stone she sat on was cold and she shifted, seeking a more forgiving position. There wasn’t one. The blackness seemed infinite, beyond possibility of light, like a living, malevolent entity. Something brushed her nape and she shivered. It was probably only a stray drift of air, but she felt as jumpy as a cat in a thunderstorm. She was a scholar and a skeptic, yet in this charnel house, malicious ghosts seemed to ogle her.

She shuddered. She didn’t want to die in the cold and dark.

“I sent George to the duke with a note.” Guilt stabbed her anew. She shouldn’t have come. Alone, Richard might have escaped.

“Cam will look for us, then.” His voice sounded odd. Thin. A trick of acoustics, she supposed.

But the duke didn’t know about the crypt beneath the altar. Nobody did. Fear wedged in her belly, along with bleak awareness that this underground chamber would likely become their grave. Air seemed short again.

She shook her head to banish discomfiting thoughts and fiddled in her pocket. Within moments, frail light bloomed. Choking dread receded into the endless emptiness surrounding them.

“Good God, Genevieve. You’re an enchantress indeed.”

She smiled at Richard where he kneeled on the stairs. “I always carry candles and a tinderbox in my pinafore.”

“For exploring underground passages?”

She struggled to pretend that this was a normal conversation in normal circumstances. “You’d be astonished how often I need light. I do practical research as well as read musty documents, you know.”

“I beg your pardon, Madam Adventurer.”

She rose and approached Richard, who struggled to remove Sirius’s bonds. One of Richard’s elegant hands smoothed the tangled fur, calming the shivering dog. He’d succeed, she knew. Richard Harmsworth’s touch held magic.

“Madam Adventurer has a knife. Would you like it?”

His gallant smile set her heart thumping with love and crazy hope that they’d survive. “If you’ve got a knife, I’ll ask you to marry me.”

She ignored his teasing. Odd to recall that mere minutes ago, she’d regretted the lack of a proposal. Right now, all that mattered was that they were alive. And together. She dug into a pocket. “Here.”