She sucked in a quick breath when he drew them to a halt at the edge of a five-foot-deep pit. Far deeper than one could dig in most places on Gugh, where the soil was but a thin layer over the granite. But he’d found granite, to be sure. Straight, perpendicular lines of it. A wall, and a barely dug out corner at its end. “A cairn.”
Sheridan would be delirious with joy if he were here. A cairn, previously undiscovered, unexplored. Known to no one else on the islands. He could set up an official excavation and see what could be found inside it, what mysteries of the Druids it could reveal.
Except that Scofield had gotten here first.
She darted a look up at him and found him staring down into the pit he’d dug as if it had already revealed mounds of treasure.
Maybe it had. She swallowed and eased her hand away from his arm, a bit surprised when he let her go. “Have you found anything of interest yet?”
“Perhaps. I am rather glad you came by, in all honesty. I could use a pair of educated eyes. Do you mind?”
For the first time in their albeit brief acquaintance, he sounded perfectly earnest. No façade of either charm or sneer. Just a man interested in something but not quite certain what he’d found.
And she was here already. She might as well gather as much information as she could to tell the others when she got home. “What is it?”
His answer was to crouch down and then jump into the hole, landing with a splash in the puddle that formed its bottom. He held a hand up for her, but she ignored it.
She could jump into a hole no deeper than her own height without a man’s assistance, thank you very much. Even when encumbered by skirts. She did so in the next second, only wincing slightly at the sound of water and mud greeting her, no doubt painting the hem of her dress. Oh well—she’d soaked her own clothes before, to avoid Mrs. Dawe’s ire, and she could do it again.
Her pulse rocketed once more as she looked around. He’d dug out quite a bit of dirt, proving he’d been here awhile. The hole was about as big in circumference as it was deep, making for tight quarters for the two of them. “You’ve been busy.”
“I’ve had a few days to do it. Carefully. And covertly.” He nodded toward the mounds of muddy soil he’d dug out, which weren’t just piled helter-skelter above him as one would expect, but which he’d taken care to shape in such a way that it didn’t look odd from a distance.
He must have been working in the rain, which didn’t seem quite safe. Her brows knit. What exactly had that arrested pirate said was buried here, to make it worth the risk of digging in these conditions? “I suppose you didn’t want the neighbors poking about.”
Scofield laughed. “Preferably not—and the rain has been helpful in that goal, I must say. No one has ventured to Gugh in the last week that I know of, and if there were any danger of my noises reaching all the way to St. Agnes, it’s covered it up.”
A week? He’d been here a whole week? He must have been slow and precise in his excavations, then—not surprising for a trained archaeologist, but she hadn’t honestly expected him to bow to anyone else’s wisdom. He seemed more the type to plow hard and fast into whatever he wanted, consequences be hanged.
Her gaze traced the lines of the granite slabs he’d found—the main one, and that corner, set at right angles to each other. That was more indicative of this being a burial chamber meant to be underground rather than a standing stone that had sunken or fallen over. Probably—though it wasn’t her area of expertise. She’d need Sheridan’s opinion on that.
But the question more pertinent to their situation—had Mucknell discovered this same chamber and buried something not-so-Druid within it? “Quite a discovery, my lord.” It was easy to inject admiration into her voice this time—for the discovery if not the discoverer. “Any idea what we’re looking for in here?” The we was deliberate.
“Hard to say exactly, though we can be sure that if Mucknell ferreted something away, it was worthwhile and not given to rot. Precious metals, jewels maybe. Not quite as interesting as Queen Elizabeth’s silverware . . .” He angled a playful look at her that was likely masking anger, though she couldn’t detect it in his eyes. “But perhaps you’d be willing to work out a trade with me, to at least share that set. No reason for Sheridan to take home the whole prize, is there?”
“No.” She had, in fact, wasted hours’ worth of breath arguing with him at the start about why he had no right to claim or even to purchase the silverware. It had no direct link to Prince Rupert, and it would be more suited for a museum. Its historical value far outweighed even the pure worth of the silver, which was quite high on its own. But add in the story of it being first a gift for Queen Elizabeth and then stolen by pirates, and that made it virtually priceless.
She wasn’t about to say she wouldn’t ever put any of it into his hands either.
A bit of mud gave way and slipped down into the hole. Beth watched it sag to a halt and then examined the sides of the excavation more closely. Where he’d hit granite slabs seemed secure enough, but the other two sides looked as though they could go the way of that stray clump any moment. She edged a bit closer to the granite. “So, what is it you wanted my opinion on?”
“I’m wondering if I’ve discovered the wrong side of the cairn and should begin digging over there instead—if this is the outside instead of the inside of the chamber wall. See here?” He pointed at something in the granite slab. A large crack, one that traced the entire height of the stone. It looked deep, too—deep enough to mean the whole slab was split in two.
She sloshed over to his side. Two steps, that was all. But the bedrock must not be entirely even here, because the second step was a deeper puddle than she anticipated, and she stumbled, sank to a knee, and bumped into the granite.
It shouldn’t have mattered. The granite should have been well anchored in place, held there by the soil on the other side if nothing else. But she felt it give, shift, move away from her at the base.
“No!” A thousand thoughts crashed through her mind like surf on sand. Part of the slab was falling. She had to get out of the way. She lunged toward Scofield—or where he’d been a second ago, anyway—out of the granite’s path, but the mud and water sucked at her, slipped away from her when she tried to find purchase. “Help me!”
Weight. Groaning. Mud and muck and water and a desperate stretching, scratching. She couldn’t even process the sensations for a long moment. “Mr. Scofield!”
“Tut tut. What a shame.” His voice came from what seemed a great height. “How fortunate it hasn’t crushed you already—though I daresay if that little ledge of dirt it’s stuck to on the opposite wall gives way . . . Well, I’d better go for help.”
He was calm. Too calm. That’s what sliced through the panic in one moment, though it only managed to multiply it in the next, rather than subtract from it. Had he planned this? Deliberately dug out around part of the broken slab so that it would fall? Measured the opposite wall’s distance so that it would just barely catch it? Pinning her without killing her outright?
Was he that devious? Surely not . . . and yet here she was, trapped in the mud and water, untold pounds of rock holding her there as effectively as a giant hand. She strove to match his calm, but her very soul was quaking. “Sir, please. If you but get the shovel . . . use it as a lever . . . I’m certain I can scoot out.”