Alexander glanced at her. Her expression told him that she didn’t wonder; she knew.
He looked back at the hole. His body gave an involuntary shudder. I can’t.
Mr. Dowrey returned, out of breath, three candles and a tinderbox clutched to his chest. He was as excited as his wife. His hands shook when he tried to light the candles.
Dalrymple took over, striking the tinder, lighting the candles. Alexander was grateful for the viscount’s calmness, his competence. It was good that someone was calm here, because he certainly wasn’t.
The viscount took one of the candles and ventured into the hole alone—to check it was safe, he said. He reappeared a minute later without the candle.
“What’s in there?” Georgiana asked eagerly.
“Nothing at this end,” Dalrymple said, on hands and knees, peering out of the hole. “But there are shelves at the far end with a great many things on them. Possibly Miss Menhennick’s fortune. Pass me those last two candles, will you?” He disappeared again.
Mrs. Dowrey was as animated as a young girl, cheeks flushed, eyes sparkling. “To think that we should find it after all these years!”
Dalrymple returned without the candles. “Who wants to come and see? Mrs. Dowrey?”
“Oh, yes,” the old lady said eagerly. “Come, John!”
Alexander helped them both to their knees and watched them vanish into the hole with Lord Dalrymple. His stomach was tight, his chest tight, his throat tight. God, how could he be so frightened when the Dowreys—frail and elderly—had no fear crawling into that dark space?
“Vic . . .” Georgiana came to stand in front of him. She took his hands and held them in both of hers, his palms pressed together as if he was praying. “It’s all right that you don’t like the dark.”
He shook his head.
“No one thinks any less of you. I don’t. Father doesn’t.”
He squeezed his eyes shut and turned his head away from her.
“And if you think less of yourself, then you’re a fool!”
Of course he thought less of himself. How could he not?
“Vic, you idiot,” Georgiana said softly. “You saved someone’s life this morning. Or have you forgotten?”
Memory took a moment to come. That cliff seemed a world away and a lifetime ago. Alexander opened his eyes and reluctantly looked back at Georgiana.
She clasped his hands more tightly between hers and stepped closer so that his fingertips touched her collarbone. “I love you, Vic.”
Alexander sighed, and felt some of his tension ease. “I love you, too.”
Georgiana smiled up at him. She released his hands and reached up, pulling his head down, kissing him gently, her lips warm and soft and reassuring, and then stepped back. “There are some things of your parents in there. I’ll bring them out for you. Wait here.”
He stood, frozen, as she crouched. A flash of her smile, a whisper of muslin, and she was gone, swallowed up by darkness.
Alexander squeezed his eyes shut, turned his head away . . . turned it back, and reluctantly opened his eyes again. He stared at the hole. Small. Dark. He felt the familiar terror clenching in his belly, clenching in his throat, and listened to the loud, fast beating of his heart.
“Fuck,” he said under his breath. He forced himself to take a step forward, two steps, three, until he was close enough to the wall to touch it.
The hole in the wainscoting gaped at his feet. Faintly, he heard voices. Excited, happy, unafraid voices. Why can’t I do this?
He knelt as stiffly as old Mr. Dowrey had done, counted to ten, and then stuck his head into the hole.
It was dark. Very dark. Very dark and very small.
He wanted to rear back and scramble away on hands and knees; he gritted his teeth and forced himself to stay where he was. “Look, John! Eliza’s jewelry box,” he heard Mrs. Dowrey exclaim. “It wasn’t stolen.”
His eyes were telling him that it wasn’t quite as dark as he’d first thought. Daylight leaked in around him. Candlelight flickered to his right.
“She must have hidden it from Polglaze,” old Mr. Dowrey said.
His ears told him that the space extended high above him and that it was narrow, not much wider than a chimney.
Alexander inhaled a shallow breath, and another one, waiting for his courage. It didn’t come.
I can do this, he told himself, and he crawled into the hole and climbed to his feet, clumsy and hasty, panic leaping in his chest.
There was a moment when he knew he was in a chimney, blind and trapped and suffocating to death. He felt bricks pressing close all around him, tasted soot on his tongue—and then he heard Mr. Dowrey say, “Open it, Mariah. See what’s inside.”
Alexander braced his hands against the walls on either side of him. He fastened on the old man’s voice, clinging to it with all his concentration, his breath wheezing in his throat. It’s not a chimney. It’s not a chimney.
“Oh!” Mrs. Dowrey said. “Her amethysts!”
The taste of soot faded. It became a little easier to breathe.
Yes, it was narrow, yes, it was dark, but there were candlelight and people. He heard Georgiana say, “What a pretty necklace. How lucky she hid it,” and then the low murmur of Lord Dalrymple’s voice, his words too quietly spoken for Alexander to catch.
He fixed his gaze on the pale blur of Georgiana’s muslin gown, inhaled a shallow breath, and took hold of his courage. I can do this. One step. A second step. As slow and shuffling as old Mr. Dowrey, sweating and trembling, his breath coming fast and shallow, his hands braced on the walls on either side of him. It’s not a chimney. It’s not a chimney.
The Dalrymples and the Dowreys were clustered together, their heads bent over an object he couldn’t see.
“Her mother’s pearls,” Mrs. Dowrey said. “See, John?”
Georgiana looked up. He saw her shock. “Vic!” She came to him swiftly and slid her arms around his waist. “What are you doing in here?”
Alexander let go of the walls and hugged her close, trying not to squeeze too tightly. “I want to see,” he said. He was still trembling, and he knew she must be able to feel it, but it was much easier to breathe now that he was holding her. The walls seemed to push back slightly, the candles to burn a little more brightly. He looked around and saw that the space wasn’t like a chimney at all, or even a tunnel. In fact, it was more like a pantry. A very long, narrow, dark pantry. Shelves lined the walls at this end, crowded with objects. He saw a cluster of tarnished silver candlesticks and row upon row of small stoneware pitchers with pewter lids.
The Dowreys were going through a jewelry box, murmuring excitedly. “Her rings,” Mrs. Dowrey said. “Do you remember this one, John?”
He looked past the Dowreys and found Lord Dalrymple watching him. Dalrymple didn’t appear to mind that Alexander was hugging his daughter; he smiled at him.
Alexander managed to smile back.
“Come, I want to show you something,” Georgiana said. She slipped from his embrace and took his hand. “Over here. On this shelf.”
The shelf she led him to held only three items, each wrapped in cloth. Two were very small, one a little larger.
Georgie picked up the smallest object and unwrapped it. A pocket watch. “Your father’s,” she said, holding it out to him.