She nodded again. “So regardless of Randolph’s wishes, Lavinia is intent on him inheriting the title, and if that’s the case . . .” Narrowing her eyes thoughtfully on Ryder, she asked, “How old were you when you inherited?”
“I was twenty-four when my father died . . .” He paused, then, his voice strengthening, continued, “But by the time everything was sorted out, I was twenty-five and inherited in my own right, without any guardianship.” He met her eyes, curtly nodded. “That’s it. Rand’s age is what’s brought this on.”
“Exactly. You inheriting from your father showed Lavinia how the process worked, and what the earliest age at which Randolph could cleanly inherit from you was—so she waited until the time was right. Am I correct in thinking that if you died now, by the time matters were sorted out, Randolph would be twenty-five?”
“Yes.” Ryder’s jaw clenched. “So she’s been waiting all this time, and then, when Rand was the right age, she arranged to have me killed—and damned near succeeded.”
“Oh, great heavens!” With her free hand, Mary gripped his arm. “That’s why she called at your house that morning. It was after eleven and she still hadn’t received word of your death, so she came to your house to see what was going on—”
“Bringing the ton’s two greatest gossipmongers with her to help spread the word—she must have thought my people were suppressing news of my death.” Ryder paused, then added, “I wish I’d known at the time so I could have better appreciated her reaction when she saw me so very much alive.”
Mary shivered. “You weren’t so alive—you were pale and weak and propped up with pillows!” Then she gave a short laugh, the sound cynically ironic. “It’s just occurred to me.” She looked at him. “The last thing Lavinia would have wanted at that point was for you to marry and father an heir. But if she hadn’t sent those men to kill you, would we have married, do you think?”
“Yes, we would have, although perhaps not so quickly.” When she arched a brow, he smiled gently and tightened his hold on her hand. “I’d already made up my mind it was you I wanted as my marchioness, and I wouldn’t have given up.”
She tipped her head, studied his eyes. “Why? I always wondered why you were so sure, so focused—because you were, virtually from the moment we ran into each other at Henrietta and James’s engagement ball.”
His smile deepened. “I wasn’t certain when we met there—I was afterward.”
“Good God—what did I say?”
“It wasn’t what you said so much as what you did.”
“Ah.” She nodded. “I remember. The challenge. I didn’t swoon at your feet.”
He grunted. “You’ve never swooned in your life.”
“True, but confess—it was that, wasn’t it?”
“No. It wasn’t.” He hesitated but felt compelled to admit, “That was part of it, I suppose, but it was more that I couldn’t control you, that you were unpredictable, and that fascinated me.” Death was coming; there was no reason not to tell her the rest. He drew breath and went on, “But that wasn’t the reason I thought to look your way in the first place—why I deliberately sought you out at the ball.”
Her gaze turned arrested, intrigued. “Why, then?”
“In a word, family.” He focused on their linked hands. “The Cavanaughs . . . I told you my half siblings and I are close, that we share a difficult to describe bond. That bond grew out of our common lack of anything like normal mothering. My mother died when I was three, and even though the others had Lavinia, I’ve described how she views them, how she’s always treated them. They’re little more than animated dolls to her. Our bond grew out of not having a normal family, not having the hub, the lynchpin a mother normally provides. Not having a mother to care for us was one thing all five of us shared. And as I was the oldest by six and more years, the others looked to me. We held together and cared for each other as best we could. My father did what he could, but with Lavinia constantly in his way, he didn’t get far. After he died, I helped Rand, and later Kit, get out from under Lavinia’s paw, but Stacie and Godfrey are still trapped, and I won’t . . .” He tipped his head. “Wouldn’t have been able to free them until they turned twenty-five.”
He paused, then, his gaze on their twined fingers, went on, “But the pertinent point is that since my grandparents’ generation, the Cavanaughs haven’t functioned as a family. I wanted to . . . make that better, to put it right, but I don’t, myself, know the ways. I haven’t experienced them. I saw other families in the ton—like the Cynsters, and some others—that are so . . . strong. That’s the only word I have for it—that structure where each branch supports the others to the extent that the entire tree is damned near invincible.”
Raising his head, he met her eyes. “I wanted that for the Cavanaughs, and there you were, the last Cynster girl unwed . . . and then you refused to swoon at my feet and our fates were sealed.”
Her eyes had narrowed slightly; her lips parted, but before she could speak, he held up a staying hand. “And yes, knowing that Cynsters only marry for love, I freely admit that I was perfectly prepared to cold-bloodedly pretend to fall in love with you if that was what it took to win you as my marchioness, to be the mother of my children and the matriarch of the Cavanaughs . . .” Eyes locking with hers, he drew in a massive breath, let it out with, “But then I discovered I didn’t need to pretend.”
Lost in the deepening cornflower-blue of her eyes, he raised her hand, pressed a kiss to her knuckles, then turned her hand and brushed a caress to her wrist while uncurling her fingers; lowering his head, eyes still locked with hers, he pressed an even more lingering kiss to her palm. And soft and low stated, “I discovered that, somewhere along the way, I’d fallen in love with you.”
She blinked rapidly, then rather mistily smiled. “Yes, I know. And if you don’t know that I love you as much as you love me, you haven’t been paying attention.”
He grinned, then let the expression turn rueful. “So I didn’t need to confess?”
Her smile deepened. “Don’t misunderstand—hearing you say the words is wonderful, and I used to think that was the pinnacle of my desire. But over the last weeks, I’ve realized that seeing the emotion, the sentiment, in action, feeling it and experiencing it every day in myriad little ways, is simply so much more. Feeling love, experiencing being loved, is priceless—it’s all I could ever want, and all I’ll ever ask of you, that you continue to love me as you already do.”
No longer smiling, he murmured, “That’s one thing you don’t need to ask—you’ve possessed my heart for weeks. It will be yours forever.”
They were both aware of time running out, of this possibly being the last private exchange they would ever share. Neither mentioned loving until death did them part; death hovered too close to bear.
Still, she found a soft smile. “Well, now that you’ve given me the words, you won’t need to confess again. I know how it is for noblemen like you—the violence it does to your feelings.”
He let his brows rise, after a moment said, “Strangely, I think not saying the words, not owning to loving you and trying instead to deny the feeling . . . the violence that would do would far outstrip any effect of admitting to said feeling.” He met her gaze. “Admitting to love.”
She laughed softly—and even he heard the effort she was making, trying to be brave. Ducking her head, she pressed into his arms. He closed them around her; the temperature underground was cool, and they’d both started losing heat.
Time ticked inexorably by.
And suddenly, sitting there in their underground prison with her warm and vital and so much his, so perfectly complementary, in his arms, full realization of what he’d succeeded in seizing—what together they’d succeeded in creating—and now stood on the brink of losing, welled up and overflowed.
She’d brought him all he’d ever wanted, and more. Combined, their potentia
l was beyond his wildest dreams. But their successes would go for naught; their potential would never be fulfilled.
Regret and helplessness, bitterness and sorrow, swamped him.
He couldn’t remember the last time he’d cried, but tears welled, and he bent his head. Laid his cheek against her hair. Moistened his lips and said, his voice low, rough, “My only regret will be that we didn’t have a chance to grow old together—to have our children, and laugh and cry and challenge each other.” His voice broke and he stopped.
She clutched him more tightly; he felt her gulp, felt her breath hitch, sensed the tightness in her chest that matched the constriction of his own.
He sighed and let his head sag lower. “I’m sorry.”
She lifted her head, raised her hands and framed his face. “No! This is not your fault. It’s hers.” Fierce and indomitable, she looked into his eyes. Her fingertips found his tears and brushed them away with no flicker in her gaze to show she’d even registered. She searched his eyes. “You—” She froze.
Then, very slowly, she drew one hand from his cheek and stared at her fingertips.
The look on her face brought him instantly alert. “What?” He glanced at the tunnel mouth, but there was no sound from there. He looked back at her and saw an expression of dawning wonder break across her face.
“There’s a breeze.” Pushing out of his arms, she sat up and held her hand to the wall between them, turning her palm and fingers around an inch from the surface. “I can feel it on my damp skin.”
Scrambling to her feet, she faced the wall. “It’s coming from around here.”
Getting up, he joined her. Had to ask, “Are you sure?”
The look she cast him told him not to be stupid. “Lick a finger—you should be able to feel it, too.” She was moving her hand, dampened with his tears, along the seam between two rows of stone blocks. “There!” Excitement rang in her voice. Stepping close to the wall, she squinted at the mortar, then turned to him, urgency and more in her eyes. “There’s a crack—and I can feel cool air on my face.” She stepped back and waved him forward. “Try it.”
He licked a finger, held it near the spot. And felt nothing. Inwardly sighing, he started to turn—a definite waft of air passed across his dampened skin. Hardly daring to breathe, he focused on the spot and saw the fracture in the mortar.
Stepping back, he studied the wall, then glanced over his shoulder. Looking down at the floor, he saw what from any other position was far less obvious—a slight trough worn in the stone. “Damn—the tunnel diverts, but goes on.” Following the line of the trough, he turned to the wall. “It goes on, but—”
“It’s been blocked up.” Mary rushed to pick up the poker. “If we can shift the stones, we might be able to escape.”
He took the poker from her, then remembered. “Here.” He fished in his pockets, pulled out the skewers from one, the forks from another. “Use these, and let’s try to loosen just this one stone.”
They fell to with a combined will born of inner strength and stubborn determination. She scraped along one side, he on the other. Between the forks and the skewers, they cleared the joints to a depth of four inches. The block was still stuck, but pressing both hands and throwing his weight onto it, he sensed it was only just holding.
“Step away.” He waved her back, then, holding the poker by the haft, he rammed the blunt end of the handle onto a corner of the block, then repeated the exercise down one side, then along the next, around the edge of the stone.
Mary glanced back at the tunnel. “How long do you think we have?”
“I checked a few minutes ago. It’s heading toward eleven o’clock.” He bashed at the stone and felt it jar. “We’ll know when they’re coming—they’ll have to shift those sacks. But if I was Lavinia, I wouldn’t get back here until midnight at least. Assuming Claude Potherby isn’t a party to this—and the more I consider it, the more I doubt he would be—then returning any earlier would risk raising his suspicions.”
“True.” Impatient, she jigged. “Is it moving?”
“Not yet.” He struck twice more with the poker, then handed it to her. “Now, let’s see.”
Settling his feet on the floor, he flattened his palms on the stone, braced his arms, his back, then drew in a massive breath, held it, and shoved.
The block shifted half an inch.
Mary softly cheered, literally danced.
He dragged in another breath, braced, and pushed again—this time leaning further, longer . . .
With Mary calling encouragement, he repeated the process three more times before the stone finally gave, yielding to the pressure, scraping slowly back, then with a last scritch the block suddenly fell, toppling back and down. They heard it thud on the ground beyond the wall.
Drawing his arms out of the hole, he stepped back as Mary rushed up with one of the lanterns. She played the light through the hole. “It is a passage! Thank God!” Then, “Ugh—cobwebs!”
He laughed. When she sent him a narrow-eyed look, he waved at the hole. “Freedom beckons and you’re worried about cobwebs?”
“No—I’m worried about what makes cobwebs. I told you I hate creepy crawlies, and spiders definitely qualify.”
“Somehow, I think you’ll bear it.” He examined the stone blocks above and below the hole they’d made. “We need these two blocks out, then I think I’ll be able to fit through.”
They set to work again. Conscious of the minutes ticking by, once they’d pushed the second block through he tried to insist that she squeeze through and work from the other side—from where, if their would-be killers came for them, she could still run off and escape—but she refused point-blank. “Spiders, remember. I’ll need you by my side to bear with them.”
One glance at her face, at the stubborn set of her lips and chin, warned him further argument would be a waste of breath. And they didn’t have time to waste, either.
Luckily, the third block came away more easily, gravity helping it fall from its moorings.
“All right.” Mary looked around. “What do we take?”
“The poker.” He hefted it. “And both lanterns.”
She picked up both lanterns; they’d turned one very low to conserve the oil.
Taking the brighter lantern, he leaned into the gap and used its light to scan the tunnel beyond. “No spiders.” And the tunnel walls and ceiling looked solid and stable, safe enough. Reaching as far as he could, he set the lantern down on the tunnel floor, then drew back and offered Mary his hand. He saw her debate urging him to go first, but she was starting to get nervous over the passing time; so was he. Gripping his hand, she gathered her skirts in the other and clambered through the opening.
Releasing her, he cast a last glance around their prison, so nearly, he suspected, their tomb, then he handed the second lantern and the poker through to her and, with much angling of his shoulders and a curse or two, climbed though.
They set out immediately, needing no urging to put distance between them and the cellar. Neither spoke for a good ten minutes, then Mary, walking at Ryder’s side, her fingers clutching his left sleeve, whispered, “Do you know where we’re going?”
“No, but the area is riddled with cave systems.”
After a moment, she murmured, “Aren’t there stories about people getting lost in such labyrinths and never being seen again?”
“Yes, but we’re not in just any tunnel. This one’s man-made—or rather it most likely started out as part of a natural system, but it’s been widened and worked on.” He nodded at the walls. “You can see the marks of chisels and picks.”
She looked and felt some of the fear that had wormed its way into her recede. “So . . . if this tunnel’s been worked on by people, then presumably it leads somewhere.”
“That’s my theory. And the air is moving, which means there’s an opening to outside
somewhere.”
They hurried on as fast as they could, that tantalizing waft of air in their faces the ultimate promise of survival. They came to branches, the opening to other passages, but those were natural, the floors and walls untouched by human tools. It was easy enough to stay on their path, one that, as far as Mary could tell, led them steadily away from the Dower House and its secret cellar.
Eventually, she whispered, “Do you have any idea in which direction we’re going?”
“It’s not easy to tell underground, but I think we’re heading toward Axford, which means the abbey is some way to our right.”
As the words left Ryder’s lips, the lantern beam he was playing ahead of them was suddenly swallowed by black. They both slowed; swinging the lantern beam in a wider arc, he realized they’d come to a cavern.
Stepping inside, they halted. He played the light up and could just discern the ceiling. The cavern was wide enough that only the section the lantern beam lit remained visible, but as he swept the beam across the floor, Mary gripped his arm. “There.” She pointed to their left.
He shone the lantern that way and saw what she had. A large stone block, roughly rectangular, higher than his waist and wider than he was tall . . . “It’s an altar.” As they neared, that became clearer. A glint of metal on the cavern wall had him lifting the lantern beam.
“A crucifix.”
Crude, rusty, but recognizable.
Mary glanced around. “This was a church. A secret chapel.”
He nodded. “Protestants or Catholics—could have been either.”
“Mary’s reign or Elizabeth’s. They came here to worship in secret.”