“Alex!” she screamed, shaking him. “Alex, get up!”
But the limp figure didn’t move. From the corner of her eye, Katherine caught sight of the shovel as it swiftly sliced the air and whizzed past her head. The shovel barely missed her shoulder and plunged deep into the dirt. She heard Brice curse as she darted into the darkened shadows behind one of the wine racks. There she awaited the blast of the firearm, figuring that once he had fired the weapon and before he could reload, she could run for the door and make her escape. But the shot never came. So her only other choice was to hide in the darkness of the cellar. With her skirt tightly wrapped about her, Katherine crawled beneath a wine-rack where she waited for Brice’s voice to fill the eerie silence before trying to move again.
The wait wasn’t long. A harsh demented laugh broke the uneasy stillness and raised the hairs on the back of her neck.
“’Tis useless ta hide. Ye have nowhere ta go. Ye know o’ the fortune that I be seekin’. It be Lady Edythe’s emeralds. I were here workin’ twenty year ago as stable boy when the mistress died.” He continued to speak as he moved stealthily along the aisles between the wine racks looking for her. “Everyone knew aboot the emeralds, but when she died, they werena’ found. I been searchin’ for ‘um ever since. Emeralds there be, the size o’ yer eye and worth more than the life o’ that old fool Charles, or the life o’ a laird an’ his harlots.”
His voice echoed around the room and drowned out the unsteady thump of Katherine’s heart. When she realized that his booted foot stepped on the edge of her skirt, a scream pushed to her throat, and she bit her lips to stop it from coming forth.
Brice moved on past her.
“’Twere I who killed old Charles.” He spoke slower as if listening between his words for any movement she might make. “The old fool said he dinna have Selina’s papers, papers that proved her the rightful mistress o’ this manor an’ owner of the stones. Charles said she run away from him an’ dinna deserve to be mistress. But ‘twas I that hid her. Found her oot in the rain that first night an’ she swore I’d be master o’ this manor if I helped her. She give me the poison an’ I helped her right enough. I had given up hope o’ findin’ the jewels ‘til she coom along. She be wantin’ the treasure, too, an’ got me heart afired agin to search for the wealth of Wistmere.”
The earth’s dampness filtered through Katherine’s thin blouse. Her teeth chattered. She bit into her hand to stay the noise. The stableman walked up the other aisle beside her. It seemed to her that he was taking delight from his torment of her, knowing that she couldn’t escape him for long.
“Ta think that she be wed to Sir Robert! Wha’ would he be sayin’ if he knew I be beddin’ his wife? That his babe be buried among the heather? Charles saw to that an’ I saw to Charles!”
Bile rose in Katherine’s throat. Panic tried to push her into action. But she knew if she moved too soon that all would be lost. She prayed that Alex would awaken.
“And ‘twere easy to win Selina o’er, a wee, foreign thing like she. But smart, oh aye, that she be. We had ta kill the old man for he knew too much. A bit o’ poison an’ the job be done.”
Katherine heard the pride in his voice, and it sickened her.
“But I dinna need poison for Sir Robert ta go to his grave.”
Katherine fought to stave the blackness that nudged her toward unconsciousness as his words filtered through her mind. Suddenly she was fully aware of what he had just confessed. Brice had killed her father! Even Mr. Jameson thought it had been an accident. How did Brice manage it with the ship having a full crew and someone always about keeping watch? Her mind was in turmoil as she lay shivering. Brice continued to taunt her as he moved softly never far from where she lay hidden.
“Aye, ‘twere I,” he said proudly, as if reading her mind. “What were I ta do after he found me in the colonies when he thought I were here watchin’ Wistmere in his stead? I be thinkin’ he had given the jewels ta his whore in America an’ I set fire ta her room to drive her to their hidin’ place. She dinna have them though. More’s the pity. On the return voyage, Sir Robert came at me like a mad man when he heard what I had done. But he were a beakless old peacock without much thrust. The captain thought t’were the rough seas that made Sir Robert fall an’ hit his head. ‘Twas I that clouted him! They packed him in a barrel o’ rum ta keep him fine and proper then.” His laughter, empty and cruel, invaded the racks. “They couldna’ throw a man o’ his title ta the sharks, now could they? No, they had to bring his carcass ta home.” He moved closer once more.
Terror rose to Katherine’s mouth, sour and powerful as she thought of Sir Robert’s horrible end. She fought to control the retching spasms of nausea that threatened to overcome her.
Brice’s hand suddenly stabbed through the darkness and savagely pulled Katherine from her hiding place. Then he dragged her kicking and struggling to the center of the cavern and threw her down in the dirt. With agonizing slowness, he raised the shovel.
Katherine, her eyes clouded with tears and her heart wildly beating with terror, looked to Alex. But he remained motionless just as
