“I followed one of the Lord Chancellor’s men.”
Ramsay was stabbed by a jolt of alarm. “Where are they now?”
“Lost them a few miles back,” Chandler said, abashed. “Fucking bog almost claimed my horse.”
“I have to get back and warn Cecelia.” Ramsay claimed his bow. “Can ye make yer way back to Elphinstone Croft even on yer leg?”
“You didn’t crack me that hard,” Chandler said defensively. “More surprised me, is all. Well done, by the way, it’s not often I’m taken down.”
“I meant when I shot ye with my arrow back in the glen.”
“What glen?” Chandler’s forehead furrowed. “I’ve never been shot by an arrow in my life.”
The stab of alarm turned into a knife of terror twisting in Ramsay’s guts. He had been a fool to leave her. The hope he hung his entire soul on was that he’d not yet heard a gunshot.
“Run,” he said as he bolted for home, desperation turning his feet into agents of Icarus. “They’ve already found us.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
Cecelia swam in a soupy fog, weightless and boneless. She might have been a blob of jelly for all she could tell. Was she awake? Locked in a dream?
Or a nightmare.
Every now and again, an image would be summoned from the miasma of darkness, adding to the primal scream locked wherever her chest belonged.
Were these images memories? Or were any of these strange things happening right now?
Glacial eyes melted into a lake of lust. Brutal hands caressed her gently as they made love beneath the stars.
We have not yet spoken of love.
Pain pierced where her heart should be. Tears leaked where her eyes should be. Her vision refused to clear.
Blood also leaked from a man’s leg as someone stitched it closed. Voices were harsh. Male. Excitable.
Fire. She remembered fire. She’d thrown pages into said fire and it had burned them all up. Pages with her handwriting. But the book? Had she burned the codex? Surely not.
Phoebe hid in the loft and locked the hatch as she’d bade her to.
Did they find her? The enemies she’d let in the house?
Why had she done such a stupid thing? Who had she let in the house? Why could she not remember?
Jean-Yves was on the floor at Elphinstone Croft. Still. So still. Had they killed him this time? Oh God!
The pain in Cecelia’s chest became a torturous flame. It singed her with shame. Her face hurt, too, this wound sharp and throbbing.
She’d been hit. Again.
Where was Ramsay?
Had she shot someone?
Is that who bled from the leg?
Awareness returned to her body incrementally, and she realized that the blood in her veins did not reach the arms tightly tied behind her. The ground below rocked softly, clack-clack-clacking in her ears.
A train. How had she gotten on a train?
Where was Ramsay?
“I do believe she’s awake.”
Cecelia knew that voice. She’d thought it belonged to a friend once. But who? Who? What was wrong with her?
“Should I give her another dose?”
Winston! Henrietta’s butler … Had he been an enemy this entire time?
“Better not. The Lord Chancellor said we needed her alive,” answered an unfamiliar man.
“Can’t have her waking up and screaming, though,” Winston said dispassionately.
“I’m more likely to scream if my bloody leg festers,” whined the stranger with a waspish voice. “We could gag her, I suppose.”
Winston made a heartless noise. “Just a small dose. If it’s too much and she doesn’t wake again, I don’t think it’ll be that much of a tragedy for anyone.”
Cecelia was screaming already, she just couldn’t seem to get her throat to work. She desperately wanted to struggle but hadn’t the strength. The needle pricked her arm and she could feel the liquid oblivion course through her. She struggled against it like a swimmer in a riptide. Quickly, as she was overtaken by the darkness, her last thought was of Ramsay. Could he be counted among those who would mourn her?
Or had the way she’d left things truly turned his heart back to stone?
* * *
When Cecelia next woke, she knew exactly where she was, in a manner of speaking.
The smell was unmistakable. Loamy and musty, but … this time mixed with an acrid char.
She was underground.
An acid wash of panic crawled down her flesh, biting like a thousand tiny insects. The fear anchored her in the moment, sent her heart pumping hard enough to wash out the vestiges of whatever venom swam within her blood.
If she didn’t give over to the terror and allow it to sweep her away, she could use the fear. Hone it to help her escape.
Testing her limbs, she found her feet free, but her hands were not. She swallowed another surge of panic, this one threatening to overwhelm her.
What she needed was information. Knowledge helped to combat fear.
What could she glean right away?
She lay on her side on the floor in a dim room. The only light filtered from somewhere behind her. The floor against her cheek was gritty with dirt or sand, but smooth and hard beneath. Her hands remained tied behind her back.
What did she remember?
She’d been reading by the fire at Elphinstone Croft.
Jean-Yves had rushed in, kicked something out the door, and slammed it shut.
“Someone is outside.” He’d pressed a pistol into her hand and then went to the bedroom where the rifle was kept. They’d sent Phoebe into the loft, gotten rid of the loft ladder, and then crouched in the bedroom with their guns.
“Who is out there?” Cecelia had whispered around the terror in her throat.
“I do not know. Lord Ramsay has gone after them.”
She’d felt safer, then. Surely Ramsay could take on the world. He was a mountain of a man with tireless reserves of fortitude. He was a soldier, a Scot, and a war hero.
She’d been so certain they were safe.
So how had she been captured? How did she end up beneath the earth?
Finding the ground untenable, Cecelia squirmed and maneuvered until she could roll to her knees. From there, she stood.
Oh God. This couldn’t be happening. She was underground. Beneath the earth. Trapped. Locked.
Again.
She fought a flare of breath-stealing panic, looking around for any clue that might help her. She found a source of light, a tiny window in the door of her prison. A tiny, lovely window.
The etched glass she recognized immediately. She wasn’t just beneath the ground; she was beneath her ground. Henrietta’s School for Cultured Young Ladies.
A sinister face appeared in the glass, and she jumped, letting out a cry of shock.
“She’s awake,” Winston called from the other side of the door.
“Thank you, Winston.”
With a cold wash of ice, Cecelia’s memory returned, flushing over her with absolute heart-rending betrayal.
She’d put her gun down at Elphinstone Croft. She’d let her enemy through the door. She’d been the architect of her own demise.
Because she’d trusted Genevieve Leveaux.
“Genny?” she whispered, unable to believe her own memories, even as they slammed back into her with bone-jarring force.