“I found it,” he called over his shoulder as he resumed his clearing with renewed vigor. It made him proud to have discovered this before anyone else, made him feel useful again because he hadn’t felt useful in quite some time.
Finley was the first one to his side and between the two of them they had the passage completely cleared by the time the other three joined them. Once again Griffin took point—always the leader, always in charge.
Finley was behind him, followed by Jasper, Emily and then Sam. Emily was farther back so she wouldn’t get hurt if a fight broke out, or be in the way if Jasper needed to take a shot. Sam brought up the rear in case they were attacked from behind. It was the way they’d always done it, except now Griff had Finley to watch his back— or stick a knife in it. He still wasn’t sure which one he thought her most likely to do.
They walked for a long time, single file, through the corridor of stone and dirt. It wasn’t so narrow that he felt confined, but it was still relatively cramped. They were underground, in a secret tunnel with no light and no ready means of escape.
How was Griffin? he wondered. His friend had always been better at mastering his fears than Sam had. Someday Sam would be able to look at an automaton without thinking it might be the one to kill him.
Finally, after what felt like forever, they came to a stop. The passageway was nothing more than a dead end.
“This doesn’t make sense,” Emily remarked, the beam from her hand torch traveling the dirt walls. “Why dig a tunnel to nowhere?”
Griffin pointed his light at the back wall. From where he stood, Sam could see holes in the earth as though something had been driven into it. He lifted his torch at the same time Griffin did, both of them shining light up that wall to the rough ceiling above.
“I think that’s a hatch,” Sam said, noticing a slight incision in the stone. Those punctures in the dirt wall had been from someone—or something—climbing. “Finley, climb up on my shoulders and see if you can lift it.”
The girl looked at him as though she didn’t trust him. He sighed. “Fine, come here and let me climb up on yours. We can’t be sure what’s up there, but I can be fairly certain that, whatever it is, you and I stand the best chance of surviving it.”
“Fair enough,” she replied. She managed to squeeze past Jasper and Emily to get to him. The two of them flattened themselves against the wall so she could get by. There wasn’t enough room for Sam to squat down, so he bent as far as he could and she climbed onto him using the wall for leverage. She was crouched on his shoulders as he slowly stood. The panel made a groaning sound as she lifted it, raining down dirt upon Sam’s head. He coughed.
“I’m beneath a carpet or something,” Finley told them. “I can’t see…”
There was a soft thump—the sound of a rug being tossed back—and then, “Oh, my God.”
“What is it?” Griffin demanded.
Sam tried to look up, but Finley blocked much of his view. He could see part of her face, however, as wherever she had popped up was well lit.
“Griffin King, is that you?” called an imperious female voice.
Griffin swore—very softly. “It is, ma’am.” Then he pushed his way back to where Sam was.
“Come up here this instant,” called the woman. “And, you, girl, get out of that hole.”
“Be right there!” Griffin called back, agitation and mortification raising his voice an octave. “Sam,” he hissed, “I need to get up there.”
“Climb on up,” Sam offered. Finley had done as she was told, so Griffin had a clear path.
Griffin climbed agilely onto Sam’s shoulders and quickly pulled himself up through the hole.
Sam heard him talking, but his voice was low and he couldn’t hear if he called the woman by name or not. He didn’t hear anything at all until Griffin called down to the rest of them. “Sam, Jasper, Emily? Please come up.”
Sam was beginning to feel like a stepstool, but he kept his mouth shut as he helped Emily, then Jasper up to the world above. Then, he managed to climb up a bit using the rocks jutting out of the wall to propel him a few feet up until he could get a hand on either side of the hole and pull himself up.
He emerged in a large sitting room, so richly appointed it made Greythorne House look like a humble cottage. Finley, Jasper and Emily stood huddled together, staring openmouthed at Griffin, who was talking to an elderly woman dressed in black.
Brushing dirt from his coat, Sam ignored the wild-eyed looks the other three gave him. Surely a house like this had enough staff to clean up a little dirt?
“And who is this young man?” the old lady demanded.
Sam opened his mouth to reply, but froze when he saw just who the old woman was.
“May I present Sam Morgan, Your Highness,” Griffin said.
Bloody hell. It was Queen Victoria. They’d just burrowed their way into Buckingham Palace.
“I can’t believe I met the queen!” Emily gushed on the walk from the palace to where they’d left their velocycles.
“I would have liked to meet her when I didn’t have dirt in my hair,” Finley remarked. The horror of popping up into the queen’s parlor like some kind of rodent was a humiliation she would carry with her for the rest of her days.
Still, it had been pretty amazing to meet the woman who ruled the entire British Empire. She had thought Victoria would be taller.
Griffin had been quiet during their walk. Her highness had offered them a carriage, but Griffin declined the generous offer, saying they had already imposed upon the queen enough.
Of course they’d been forced to tell her how they got there. You didn’t discover a secret passage into someone’s palace and not tell them everything you knew about it. Lord, Victoria could have tossed them all in gaol if she’d so chose. So Griffin had told her how they’d found the passage and what they were doing in the tunnels to begin with. The queen was very concerned, to put it lightly, especially when Griffin told her that now that they had found the passage, he was convinced it had been The Machinist who stole her hairbrush from the museum. He also asked the staff to alert him if they discovered anything missing, but in a place that size, who would notice?
By the time they left, workmen had already begun work on closing up the hole and repairing the floor. Finley didn’t doubt that the tunnel would be sealed by tomorrow. That was good—The Machinist would lose his way into the palace.
Now, after talking so much to the queen, Griffin was subdued, his brow furrowed as he walked, hands deep in the pockets of his long, gray greatcoat. It was a little stained from their adventure, but nothing a skilled maid couldn’t conquer. She couldn’t help but wonder what it was that had his mind so occupied.
She fell back to walk with him, leaving the other three talking about the palace. They were so amazed by what had just happened that none of them seemed to remember the tension between them. Sam actually laughed at something Jasper said! And of course, Emily walked between the two of them—a kitten between two toms.
“What are you thinking?” she asked.
Griffin glanced at her, as though surprised to see her beside him. “Something I’d rather not contemplate, but has taken hold of my mind and will not let go.”
In their brief acquaintance, she had never heard him speak with such gravity. Whatever plagued him, it also disturbed him very deeply.
She would have pushed further if they hadn’t arrived where they’d left the velocycles. She started hers and followed the rest of them back to Mayfair. The streets were busy with aristocrats heading to Hyde Park as they did every day at five o’clock to see and be seen. They rode horses there, or drove horse-drawn carriages. It was a place to be leisurely. Modern vehicles moved too fast, and the whole point of the outing was to show yourself off.
Griffin never did such things, but then he wasn’t like any other peer of the realm she’d ever met. Why didn’t he go to parties and balls like other young men his age? From what she had heard of him—and seen for herself— he wasn’t much for society at all. Wasn’t he expected to be out and about? Someday he’d marry a woman worthy of becoming his duchess and have a family of his own. And then she, Emily, Sam and Jasper would be out on the street.
