Lord Deverill's Heir (31 page)

“Ah, very romantic, that. Elsbeth was telling me of a subterranean passageway. There are chambers still intact down there?”

“At least four or five chambers stand as they did seven hundred years ago. They are in a row off the only passage that remains uncollapsed.” His interest seemed to kindle, his eyes shining. “We must make haste, my dear Arabella. I must see these chambers. I will never have another chance.”

Arabella hesitated. “It isn’t safe, Gervaise. I have seen some of the stone crumble just in the past ten years. Indeed, some nearly fell on me.” He drew himself up. “I would not dare to ask you to submit your person to any hazard, dear Arabella. I insist that you remain here in safety. I shall explore the old rooms.” Masculine authority rang in his voice.

Well, damn, she thought. She couldn’t very well let him go down there alone, despite his peacock’s preening. “Oh, all right, one last time then. Let’s go.”

He looked pleased. She didn’t understand it. “I of course will do as you ask.” He gave her a flourishing bow and stepped back.

“Follow me and stay close,” she said over her shoulder, and hunched down.

Arabella skirted the massive stones to the far side of the ruins. Here all larger stones had been rolled away to preserve the passage below for as long as possible. In some places the ceiling was so thin that tiny shafts of light could be seen filtering down into the darkness below. She turned to where crooked slabs of stone still framed the stairway leading downward to the lower chambers. She peered inside.

“I forgot to bring candles. It is too dark for us to see well enough if we go down there. Sorry, comte.” There, now she could get rid of him. She wanted to find Justin. She wanted to kiss him until they were both out of breath. She wanted to ask him when he had finally realized the truth, when he had finally realized she had not betrayed him, when . . .

The comte drew two candles and matches from his waistcoat pockets.

“Voilà, dear Arabella. As you see, I have come prepared to explore.” She couldn’t believe it. She was surely cursed. She took a candle from his outstretched hand. They lit the candles, Arabella saying, “It is wretchedly dark down there at the bottom of the steps. Take care and go slowly.”

They made their way carefully down the jagged rock steps into the subterranean passage. But for the flickering of their candles, the darkness was complete. Arabella stepped gingerly over fallen stones. She wished he would fall and break his neck, but she said, “Be careful where you step, Gervaise.” Her voice sounded eerie. She paused a moment and lifted her candle above her head. “Look, it is always so.” She pointed to the walls. “They are always clammy with moisture. Isn’t that strange when the sun shines so brightly above us?”

Gervaise obediently stepped nearer to the wall and ran his fingers over the rough wet surface. “It is fascinating. Where are the monks’ cells, Arabella?”

Odd, but he sounded abstracted, impatient. It had been his damned idea to explore the ruins. It was even his damned candles. Where had all his fervor fled to? “The passage forks to the left just ahead. The passage to the right crumbled many years ago. It is too bad that the chambers are empty. There is really not much to see.”

“It doesn’t matter,” he said behind her. “It is the marvelous atmosphere, the menacing romance of it all. I wish to have it seep into my bones.” The passage ended abruptly, and Arabella raised her candle. “This is the only corridor that is still standing. The rooms are in a straight row along the left.”

She slipped through the narrow doorway into the first cell. “Don’t put any weight against the door frame. You can see that the stones are already working themselves loose from the oak beams.” They stood side by side in the small stone room, their candles casting shifting dark shapes on the damp walls. The air was musty and close. “I hope it was more pleasant seven hundred years ago.” Arabella stooped and ran her fingers through the soft sand that covered the floor.

“I wish to see the other cells,” Gervaise said, moving away from her as he spoke. “Stay here, Arabella, I shall be back soon.” She nodded, quite content to stay where she was. It was very peaceful, and she didn’t mind at all being alone. She saw his candle flicker outside the cell, then disappear.

She looked about the chamber, thinking how large it had appeared to her as a small child. She pictured a rude wooden cot along one wall and perhaps a small table along the other. Certainly the room was too tiny for anything else.

Suddenly there was a loud thumping noise overhead, just above the oak-beamed doorway. She clutched her candle close to her and stepped forward, only to hurl herself back when stones above the doorway tumbled to the floor in front of her.

She wanted to scream, but didn’t. Oh God, she was stupid to have brought him down here. She had known it wasn’t safe.

“Gervaise! Where are you? Are you all right?” There was dead silence.

The silence didn’t last. More stones fell, very close now. Arabella watched in horror as larger and larger stones worked themselves free of their ancient molding and crashed to the floor, blocking the open doorway, spewing dust and dirt into the air.

She screamed, falling back, choking, her nostrils clogged and her eyes burning from gritty dust and sand that swirled about her. Her candle flickered. She whipped about, cupping her hand about the precious flame.

A rock struck her shoulder, and she cried out more in surprise than in pain. She scurried to the corner of the cell and huddled down against the wall, her legs drawn up to her chest.

The walls began to tremble around her. She tensed her body for the inevitable pain. She knew it must be just moments away. She’d brought this on herself. She was a fool. But, Justin, she didn’t want to leave Justin. Dear God, she was only eighteen years old. She didn’t want to die. She sobbed aloud, tears burning her eyes. Then she shook herself.

Fool, one hundred times a fool, and now she was crying like a ninny. She got herself together. She raised her candle. In the dim candlelight she saw the far wall of the cell gently collapse forward, strewing more stone and rubble toward her. She closed her eyes tightly, fighting the swirling dust, and buried her face against the wall.

The oak beams overhead gave a final groan and fell silent. She raised her head and knew a moment of surprise that she was still alive. She raised her candle again. She swallowed another sob. Alive, yes, but buried amid a tomb of rubble.

She surged to her feet and screamed, “Gervaise? Gervaise, are you all right? Where are you?”

She waited many long agonizing moments before she heard his voice on the other side of the crumbled doorway, muffled by the thick pile of stone between them. “Arabella? Is that you? Thank God you are alive. Are you safe?”

Safe? Was he perfectly mad? Still, she felt better hearing his voice.

“Yes, I am all right. There is much fallen stone and dust is clogging the air, but I am as yet unharmed.”

His voice came clearer now, confident and sure. “Do not worry, Arabella.

The passage still seems safe. I am going to fetch help. I swear that I will not be long. You must be brave. I shall return soon.” He would get Justin. Thank God the passage had not caved in. She thought of her husband and calmed. She must be patient. She wiped her hands across her forehead and saw in the flickering candlelight traces of smeared blood. How odd, she thought, for she hadn’t felt any pain at all.

A falling stone had cut into her scalp, and now her hair was matted with blood. Better her hair than dripping off her nose. She laughed. That was better. Justin would come. Everything would be all right.

The silence was a heavy weight. The minutes stretched out endlessly.

Slowly she crawled to the center of the small cell. The sand floor was strewn with jagged pieces of stone, each positioned, it seemed, to poke and cut her palms and knees. She gritted her teeth against the sharp jabs. Carefully she cleared a small space and sat up, lifting the candle to look about her. The doorway looked as if it had vomited stone, leaving only a small space at the very top. She remembered the sound of collapse from the wall beside her, and carefully brought the candle about.

The breath caught in her throat, then spurted free. She screamed, a piercing, horrified sound that echoed back to her. Amid the fallen stone, stretched out toward her like death beckoning from hell, was a skeleton’s hand. The bony fingers nearly touched her skirt. She scrambled back on her heels and closed her eyes, fighting down another scream. The image of a cowled monk, his head and face covered in a rough woolen robe, filled her mind.

She forced her eyes open and gazed again at the grotesque curling fingers. Slowly she raised the candle and forced herself to look into the hollow created by the collapsing wall. The skeleton’s outstretched arm was attached to a body. It lay on its side, facing away from her, yet the head was twisted nearly backward, its eye sockets staring at her, but there were no eyes to see her. Broken teeth hung loosely in the gaping mouth. A white peruke was askew atop its fleshless head.

Arabella shuddered, gooseflesh rising on her arms. The remains of a long-dead monk would have been less terrifying. She felt a ghastly chill, the formless cold sweep of death.

For several moments she fought silently to force her courage to the forefront. As if to prove to herself that she wasn’t a coward, she reached out her fingers and touched the filthy worm-eaten velvet sleeve that covered the skeleton’s arm. How strange, she thought, it was still soft to the touch. She looked more closely. It was the skeleton of a man, dressed in a dark green coat and velvet breeches that fitted below the knees. She remembered as a child that her father had worn such a style.

The man could not have been buried more than twenty years in his ancient tomb. She leaned closer and saw a gaping hole over the man’s chest. It gave witness to his manner of death. At least he’d been dead before he’d been entombed.

It required a great effort of will for Arabella to slip her fingers into the coat pockets. Perhaps the man must have had some paper, some document to tell who he was. The pockets were empty. She drew a deep breath and plunged her hand into his breeches pocket. Her fingers closed around a small square of folded paper. Slowly she drew it out and sat back on her heels.

She unfolded the paper and saw that it was a letter. The ink was so faded with age that she had to hold the candle dangerously close to its yellowed edges.

She managed to make out the date—1789. The month had become illegible over the years. She looked down at the body of the letter and wanted to cry out in vexation, for it was written in French. With frustrating slowness she translated the letter word by word. She read: My beloved Charles, even though he knows of the growing unrest, the now violent revolts of the rabble against us, he forces me to come. He keeps my baby here to ensure my return to England. You know he is furious over what he believes to be my family’s treachery. He wants the remainder of my promised dowry. Listen, my love, do not worry, for I have a plan that will free us forever from him. Once in France, I shall travel to the château . . .

Try as she might, Arabella could not make out the next few lines. They blurred into shadowy shapes. Who was this Charles, anyway? And this woman? She shook her head and skipped the smudged lines.

Though our little Gervaise cannot escape with us, I have learned to bear the pain of separation. At least he will know safety with my brother.

Josette will post this, my last letter to you. Soon, my love, we will be together again. I know that we can escape him and rescue Elsbeth. We shall be rich, my darling, rich from his greed. A new life. Freedom. I trust in God and in you. Magdalaine.

Arabella sat quietly with the letter laying loosely in her fingers. She felt as if Magdalaine had come to her and unraveled the tangled, poignant threads of her short life. This man, Charles, was Magdalaine’s lover.

Gervaise was their child. He was not the Comte de Trécassis, but a bastard. She reeled back then as it struck her. Magdalaine was also Elsbeth’s mother. Dear God. Elsbeth was his half-sister. Oh God, did he know? Surely not, even he could not be so evil. Of course, she was aware of the likeness of their features. But now she no longer saw it as the mere resemblance of cousins, but the deep inherited traits of brother and sister.

Poor Elsbeth. Dear God, she had to protect her sister. She couldn’t let her ever find out that she had made love with her own brother. It would destroy her.

Arabella jerked as the truth hit her. Her father’s first wife had been unfaithful to him. Indeed, she had borne a child before her marriage to him. Had the Trécassis family bribed her father with some fantastic sum to marry Magdalaine to save themselves from scandal? She looked down again at the letter. If only she could make out those yellowed blurred lines. She read once again.

“We shall be rich, my darling, rich from his greed.” She sat silently for a long while, sorting through what she knew and what she could only guess at. She looked back at the skeleton, her eyes fastening on the bullet hole in his chest. She thought of the times her father had expressly forbidden her to explore the ruins. Was it simply because he had feared for her safety?

No.

Her father must have killed this man, Charles. A duel of honor—yes, it must have been a duel of honor. Her father was no murderer, no matter what, no.

She suddenly remembered that Magdalaine had died suddenly after her return from France. She felt her blood freeze in her veins. A hoarse sob broke from her throat. “No, God, please no. He did not kill her, too. He would not have. No, please.”

Yet the faded passionate words from so long ago were damning. Hate, pain, and suffering clutched at her from every word. Her only thought now was to protect her father’s name, to destroy this wretched letter. She jerked it up and with quivering fingers drew it near to the slender candle flame. She was not certain what stopped her, but she pulled the paper back, folded it again into a small square, and slipped it into the sole of her shoe.

The candle was burning low. It could not be much longer now. Gervaise said he would fetch help. Gervaise. An impostor, a liar. She remembered the strange thudding sound just before the stones over the doorway collapsed. Had he trapped her in here on purpose? Had he tried to kill her? If so, why? What in heaven’s name did he want?