She felt tears sting her eyes. The wetness of her tears mixed with the grime about her eyes and burned. She lifted a corner of her skirt and rubbed it against her cheeks.
Suddenly she thought she heard movement from the other side of the fallen wall. She raised her head and peered into the blackness.
“Arabella? Can you hear me?”
“Justin!” She jumped to her feet, bruises and cuts forgotten. “I knew you would come. I’m trapped in here. Please, oh, please, get me out of here.” Again she heard his voice, calm and clear. “Listen to me, Bella. I want you to move to the far corner of the chamber and protect your head with your arms. This is a tricky business. The beams are unstable above the door. I want you far away from them in case there is more collapsing.”
“But, Justin, I can start pulling rocks away from this side. I’m not hurt and I’m strong, you know that. I can help—” She thought she heard a low chuckle. The voice that reached her but a moment later was irate. “Damn it, woman, do as I tell you. I am glad that you are quite unharmed, and I wish you to remain that way. Move to the far side of the chamber. Do it now. I want you out of there.” She groped her way back to the corner and slipped down to her knees and covered her head.
It seemed to Arabella that with each stone dislodged from its place, the walls and ceiling shuddered and groaned. She herself shuddered with their every movement. She felt it the most joyous sight imaginable when Justin pulled away enough rubble to ease his body through the opening.
Someone handed him a candle. The small cell was flooded with light. Light and life, she thought, and she was alive.
The earl called over his shoulder, “James, stay back. I shall bring her ladyship out.”
Arabella rose slowly to her feet. She walked straight into her husband’s arms. She pressed her face against his shoulder. “I am very glad you came to rescue me,” she said simply. She raised her face. “You are the most beautiful man in the whole world. Before I believed you only the most beautiful man in England, but no longer. The world, my lord, the whole world.”
“Am I now? Well, you never doubted, did you, that I would come and fetch you? Why, who would argue with me? Who would yell at me? Who would kiss me so sweetly?”
She buried her face again in his shoulder. “You believe me,” she whispered. “You believe me now. You know he was never my lover.” He was silent for a moment. She felt the slight stiffening of his body, and she wanted to weep. “It doesn’t matter.” Ah, but it did. It stood between them as the collapsed door had stood between them.
“But you came for me. I thank you for that.” He was rubbing his chin against her hair.
He drew back. “We have much to talk about, you and I. Come now, let’s get out of here. I have no great desire to further test your charmed existence.”
“A moment, Justin, I was not alone here.” She took the candle from his fingers and carefully moved its light to shine upon the skeleton.
He couldn’t believe his eyes. “Good God, I don’t believe this.” He looked at her and marveled at her steadiness. He dropped to his knees and briefly examined the skeleton. After a moment he rose and dusted off his breeches. “First let’s get you out of this place, then I’ll see that this poor fellow receives a proper burial. I don’t suppose you know who he is?
No, certainly not.”
He held the light for her as she slipped from her prison into freedom.
She thought of the letter now rubbing against the sole of her foot. She felt weighted down with unsought, damning knowledge. There was much to consider—her father’s name, and of course, Elsbeth. She determined at that moment to hold her tongue; no one must know what she had discovered, even Justin, until she had time to think, to sort through all that she now knew.
When she emerged into the bright sunlight, she looked about her, realizing for the first time in her eighteen years how very precious life was. She savored the hot sun beating down upon her face.
Like a small child awakening from a nightmare, she walked to her mother and threw her arms about her shoulders.
“My sweet girl,” Lady Ann said, stroking her daughter’s filthy hair. “My dearest heart, it’s all right, it’s quite all right. You’re safe now.
You’re with Mama. Goodness, you’ve cut your scalp, but no matter. We will take care of that.”
But she wasn’t safe, none of them were. Whether the threat was from the comte or from the letter in the sole of her shoe, she knew there would not be safety for a very long time.
“You’re a mess,” the earl said, his hands around his wife’s upper arms.
He realized he was afraid to let her go. “It was so damned close,” he said, pulling her against him, holding her hard against him. “Too damned close. You won’t do that to me again, will you, Arabella?” She shook her head against his shoulder. “It was awful. I didn’t think I’d ever see the sunlight again the way it slants over the house in the late afternoon.” She paused a moment, rubbing her nose against the soft material of his jacket. “I was afraid I would never see you again.”
“Ah,” he said. He lifted her chin with his finger, stared down at her for a very long time, then kissed her, very gently. “We both need to bathe.
Let me look at that cut in your
