India Black and the Widow of Windsor (22 page)

I needed a word with French. I paused at his door, looked left and right, and seeing that I was alone in the hall, knocked gently. There was no answer. I turned the knob cautiously, but the door was locked. Probably breakfasting on deviled kidneys and nursing a hangover from last night. I’d have to run him to earth later.

Then a strange thing happened. I was facing French’s door, with the tapestry of the battle scene hanging from an iron rod to the right of the door frame. Suddenly the tapestry billowed gently away from the wall and settled back into place. It spooked the hell out of me, being the tapestrial equivalent of the eyes in a painting following you around the room. I sucked in a breath and waited for my heart to stop fluttering. My nerves were clearly shot from long nights reading to the marchioness. There had to be an obvious explanation for the tapestry moving. I hadn’t felt a breeze through the hallway, and I had been standing at French’s door, so my passage along the corridor clearly hadn’t created a draught of air that could stir the wall hanging. I inserted my hand behind the tapestry, pulled it gently away from the stone wall and peered behind it. I had no idea what I would say if I was discovered rummaging around behind the ornamentation, but I excel at the blarney and knew I’d think of something if the necessity arose.

Surely whatever force had made the tapestry balloon outward had come from behind the hanging. I probed the mortar between the stones, inching my way farther behind the tapestry as I did so. If anyone came down the hall now, I was buggered, as even the marchioness with her eyesight couldn’t fail to decry the great lump moving about beneath the embroidery. My fingers traced the rough pattern of the stonework, exploring for cracks or openings of any kind. I had nearly exhausted my search of the area of wall that I could reach (and was ruminating on how to get a ladder behind the tapestry to complete the section I couldn’t), when I heard the faintest susurration of air and felt a cool zephyr caress my fingertips. I probed the interstice between the stones where I had felt the breath of wind and discovered a slight irregularity in the mortar, a hairline crack running from the floor to just above my head. My fingers inched sideways and down, tracing the fracture in the mortar until I had outlined a door in the wall. Now, to locate the means of opening said door. This necessitated a great deal of pushing and pulling on damned near every stone in the vicinity, while trying to be as inconspicuous as possible, a feat nearly impossible to accomplish while rooting around behind a tapestry. But my luck held, and I finally stumbled onto the right stone, an irregularly shaped one at waist level that receded an inch into the wall when I prodded it. There was a satisfying click, and a section of the wall swung slowly open, revealing a dark passage.

“Open sesame,” I murmured, before ducking inside. It was black as pitch in there and musky as a badger’s den. I weighed the merits of looking for a means of closing the door (and perhaps thereby consigning myself to die a lingering death of starvation if I couldn’t get out again) or leaving the door open to provide a ready escape. Predictably, I opted for the latter option. If the tapestry flapped about like a sail in a hurricane, that was just too bloody bad.

I waited for a moment as my eyes adjusted to the darkness. Those long Balmoral corridors were dim, and the tapestry had blocked out what little light might have come in from the hall. While I paused, I contemplated the uncharacteristic whimsicality of the secret passage. Dear departed Albert had been a bit of a stick, always blathering on about science, learning and progress, and certainly not a bloke given to flights of romance. Who’d have thought the old boy would have commissioned a hidden tunnel in his Scottish home? Perhaps he’d been inspired by the decidedly anti-Teutonic sentiment expressed in the English papers when he’d married Vicky; a concealed route to freedom might have seemed like a good idea in the event the natives took an intense dislike to German accents and attacked the castle with torches and pitchforks in hand. But I digress.

I had delayed my exploration long enough. I took a tentative step, my hand scraping the wall of the tunnel, and using it as a guide, I inched my way forward. I hoped there weren’t rats. Or spiders. God, I hate spiders. The wall felt gritty under my fingers, and my feet scraped over the stone floor. I put one foot in front of the other, moving slowly and counting my footsteps as I went. Just as I reached thirty-three, the wall fell away from my hand and the passage took a sharp left turn. I tottered for a moment, having lost my balance when the wall disappeared, then my outstretched fingers found stone again and I regained my feet. I did a cautious survey of the area around me, to be sure that the tunnel had not branched into more than one direction, but it followed a single line. I moved forward counting steps.

At fifty-six, the wall again vanished from beneath my hand. This time, I turned right, took three steps forward and banged my forehead into the wall. I reeled backward, clutching my temple and moaning. Bloody hell. No doubt a qualified government agent would have come prepared for anything, with matches and a bull’s-eye lantern tucked into her maid’s cap, but I had plunged into the darkness without a second thought. There was no need, I thought, to mention my absence of forethought to French when I told him about the tunnel. I massaged my head and then pressed on. I felt my way around the wall, discovering as I did so that I had entered a small room, empty of furniture or adornment, whose purpose I could not discern. I did locate an opening opposite the one by which I had entered the room, and I groped my way through it and into the passage beyond. I had lost track of time by now and wondered if it might be getting on toward luncheon. My stomach rumbled at the thought of food.

At eighty-seven steps, the tunnel turned once more, but as I rounded the corner, my spirits lifted. Ahead of me I could see a faint luminescence. I must be nearing the end of the hidden passage. Fresh air (even bloody cold Scottish winter air) sounded wonderful. I picked up my pace a bit, not bothering to cover the ground as slowly and prudently as when I had been deprived of light. The radiance ahead of me in the tunnel grew steadily brighter as I moved forward, eagerly anticipating a release into the thin sunlight of a Balmoral morning. I blame myself for what happened next.

I was steaming along, not paying much heed to my surroundings, just anticipating the pleasure of emerging from this damp passageway, when it occurred to me that the illumination before me was more yellow than white, more akin to a lamp or candle than the natural light of day. I halted and stood warily, straining to see down the tunnel. I listened intently . . . and heard a muttered oath. The candle flame (for such it was: I could see it clearly now) oscillated, and a dark figure loomed.

I am not a fanciful person. I don’t believe in ghosts or phantoms or any other kind of spirits, save those I can drink. But even I must admit that my knees quavered a tad as I surveyed the form in the tunnel. There was a shadowy, brooding intensity to it that made me instantly and distinctly wary. Thank God I’d been wise enough to leave the door open behind me. Discretion being the better part of valor, it would be best, I thought, to leave my exploration to another time, when the Stygian figure before me had returned to his lair, and I had a candle (and some sort of weapon) in my hand. Stealthily as a fox leaving the henhouse, I reversed direction and headed back the way I’d come. I tiptoed along at a glacial pace, fingertips grazing the wall, and trying to remember how many steps to the first turn. Was it fifty-six or eighty-seven? Was the first turn to the right or to the left? With that kind of memory, it was going to be deuced difficult for me to earn my official espionage credentials.

At least I’d had the presence of mind not to run right into the fellow holding the candle. My navigational skills in the darkness might leave something to be desired, but my instincts had kicked in when needed and disaster had been averted. I glanced over my shoulder, expecting to see the pale yellow light growing fainter. What I saw sent an icy current down my spine. The glow from the candle had not receded into the distance. Instead, it had grown brighter. Even in my present state of befuddlement (damn the marchioness and her insomnia), I recognized the significance of that fact: the sinister figure with the candle was following me.

I’m not easily frightened; I’ve had too many experiences fending off muggers and cutpurses and the occasional bloke whose tastes I didn’t care to accommodate. True, I’d have felt better with the heavy weight of my Bulldog in my hand, but I would have to rely on my native skill and cunning in dispatching the gent now bearing down on me like the devil searching for stray souls to shanghai off to the abode of the damned. The thought of Hades spurred me to action. I wasn’t entirely sure my ticket was punched for that destination, despite what the local curate might think, but why take the chance?

I wheeled round, intending to be as soft-footed as a monkey, but damned if I didn’t catch my toe on the slightest protuberance in the stone floor. I pitched forward, crashing over with a noise akin to a yew tree being felled on a quiet summer day. There was a muffled shout from the passageway as the fellow with the candle realized he was not alone, then the sound of footsteps ringing on stone as he rushed toward me. I scrambled to my feet and fled, using my right hand on the wall as a guide and my left stretched out in front of me to cushion the blow if I missed a turn and crashed into the wall.

The candlelight danced on the walls as my pursuer gave chase, and my shadow jittered wildly, like a drunken sailor just out of the tavern. The cove behind was gaining on me; his footsteps thundered down the passage, and I could hear him snorting as he ran. Then the flame went out. It had proved impossible to run with a lighted candle, and my heart leapt at the unexpected reprieve. Except it wasn’t much of a reprieve, if you thought about it, as all the fellow had to do was follow the tunnel and he’d eventually find me, unless I moved with dispatch, which I proceeded to do. I set off on tiptoe, determined not to make a sound that would reveal my position to the ruffian in the tunnel. It was damned hard going, moving so slowly and cautiously, not to mention that I was blowing like a cavalry mount that had survived the Charge of the Light Brigade. If the fellow with the candle stopped and listened, he’d have no trouble finding me in the dark. I resolutely put that thought from my mind and carried on.

It has always seemed most unfair to me that the Maker of Men sees fit to punish you just when you’re doing your damnedest to avoid trouble. So it was in this instance. I was shuffling along rather well, putting some ground between the brigand and me, when my right hand fell into empty space and I yawed dramatically, floundering around and making an ungodly amount of noise as I tried to retain my balance. I had stumbled upon (literally) the small room I’d passed through earlier.

The cove was on me like a jaguar, throwing an arm round my neck and pressing his forearm into my windpipe while he dragged me to the ground. I twisted as I fell, but I still managed to plant one side of my face into the stone floor with a shocking jolt. This did not improve my state of mind, but it did have the salubrious effect of making me mad as hell. One does not trifle with India Black’s appearance without repercussions. I’d been lying quietly, stunned by the blow to my face, which had caused my attacker to relax his hold round my throat by a fraction. More fool, he. I put up my hands and groped until I found his, then dipped my chin and sank my teeth into his hand with the energy and devotion of a she wolf protecting her young. There was an infernally loud roar, which, being loosed directly into my tympanic membrane, was deafening. Then the chap compounded the problem by boxing me on the ear with his unbitten hand. Constellations danced at the edge of my vision. I tried to stagger to my feet, but I was felled by another blow.

“Help!” I shouted, but it came out as a croak.

At the sound of my voice, my assailant stopped pummeling me about the head and paused. “India? Is that you?”

“French,” I rasped.

“What are you doing here?”

“The same thing you are; following the secret passage to see where it goes.”

“You should have told me you planned to do this.”

“I stumbled across the tunnel,” I said irritably. “I hadn’t planned to go exploring today. How did
you
know about the passage?”

“I found the castle building plans in the library.”

He was still lying on top of me.

“Get up, will you? I can’t breathe.”

“Oh, I beg your pardon.”

He rolled off me and I sat up tentatively, nursing my jaw where it had hit the floor and fingering my ear where French had landed a blow.

“You’ve bunged me up, you bastard.”

“You bit my hand. No, you bloody well mutilated it.” He sounded hurt.

“Well, you attacked me first.” I had him there; he had instigated the whole affair.

“I thought you were the Marischal.”

“I thought
you
were the Marischal.”

A match scraped on the stones and a flame danced between us. French pulled the stub of a candle from his pocket and lit it. He let a few drops of wax fall to the floor and set the candle upright in the wax. He gazed at me across the light and his brow wrinkled.

“Damnation. You look like you’ve been in the wars.”

“I feel it.” I touched the side of my face and winced. “Is my cheek scratched?”

He leaned forward and put his fingers under my chin, turning my face this way and that.

“A little,” he said. “I’m so damnably sorry, India. You’re going to have a hell of bruise, not to mention a bad scrape.”

His hand lingered on my skin. His fingers were cool, and his breath caressed my cheek. I felt the startling urge to forgive the bastard.

His thumb moved along the line of my jaw. His mouth opened slightly. He had very white teeth. A good feature in a man, I thought. I admire a man with excellent choppers. And his lips. He had fine lips, did French. Not thin, like so many men seem to have, but proper lips. One might even call them feminine, they were so soft and inviting. I swallowed hard. I admit that I imagined (if only for the briefest of moments) what it would be like to kiss . . .