The Sapphire Heiress (The Silver Order #1)

15 The Cave

Chapter Fifteen

The Cave

M ae knew they were close when the cawing of seagulls and the salty smell of sea intensified. She was glad she hadn’t bothered to braid her hair that morning. It felt so freeing letting the wind take it in every direction.

There was a certain freshness in the air, too, as if with summer, the earth had become new and young again.

When the ever-expanding ripples of blue came into view, she could practically taste her freedom. They’d had to travel all afternoon to get there, but it had been worth it. They were finally here.

Flanked by tall grasses and a scarcity of trees, they followed a dirt road. Everything was just as she remembered. All except for one thing.

Inland from the coastal cliff, the building that had once been Crow’s Nest, her family’s old summer cottage, was boarded shut. Cast in the shadow of a drifting cloud, it appeared isolated and abandoned. The roof had caved in and its shutters hung crooked. Several large cracks ran up the plaster from the foundation. At one of the corners gapped a jagged hole. She winced at the thought of the vermin living inside.

In the garden, not a single vibrant flower had managed to survive. The jasmine and fuchsias lost forever. Instead of a shock of colors, leaves and dead foliage piled high, overtaking the front gate and the stone path that led to a now-gray door.

All of it a reminder that her childhood and its happy memories were no more. The life that had once been hers some strange, half-remembered dream.

She closed her eyes, hoping the wild sounds of the waves and the hard thrust of the spring wind would bring her back to happier times. Instead, only painful memories surfaced.

They reached the edge of the cliff. The birds looked as they always did, sailing, drifting—

“Mae?” Locke jolted her. “The vault…”

“Of course.” Mae turned her thoughts to the present. There was really only one place she could imagine it being hidden.

“That way.” Still tucked in front of him, she pulled forward and pointed toward the steepest cliff overlooking the ocean. She hoped she was right. Otherwise, who knew how long they’d be searching? Then again, maybe a long search wouldn’t be so bad. Miles ago, she had given in and decided to savor their closeness for however long it lasted. Getting comfortable in his arms was just too easy. “Toward the cliff?”

Mae turned over her shoulder and met his gaze. “I can show you better from there.”

Gambit ambled forward, but the path did not prove easy. Jutting rocks forced them to take to their feet. With no trees nearby, Locke anchored a rope between two stones and left enough length to allow Gambit to graze.

“Careful,” Locke reached out to grasp and ungrasp Mae’s hand as they navigated the rocks. “You don’t want to twist an ankle.”

The closer they got, the harder the wind pushed, almost as if to force them back.

Locke stood tall to take in the dark, turbulent sea, the surrounding boulders and the pale grass. “There’s nothing here.”

“We have to climb down. ”

“Down there?” His eyes widened.

“Yes.” Mae jabbed her boot into a break in the stone. “Don’t tell me you’re afraid.”

William had managed to climb the cliff at age eleven, no less. Looking back now, perhaps it had been a bit of training so that one day, he’d be ready to find their inheritance she was sure lay somewhere below.

Locke wiped the sweat from his forehead. “I’m fearful for you is all.”

Mae laughed, the sound of it washed away by the roaring waves. Killed countless men but nervous at a little climb? The thought amused her. There was nothing to be fearful of. With so many protruding stones and a gentle slope, Mae found the descent rather easy.

At the bottom, she wiped her hands and began to loosen and pull off her boots.

“What are you doing?” Locke jumped down from the cliff face.

She pointed to a small bay enclosed by a series of boulders. Then, undoing her buttons, she removed her bodice. “We have to swim. There’s an underwater cave. You’ll see.”

When she moved her hand up her thigh to untie the ribbons of her stockings, Locke cleared his throat and turned around.

“Almost done,” she reassured him. With her fortune and freedom in sight, now was no time for modesty. Finally, she pushed her skirts and petticoats past her hips.

Wearing nothing but her chemise, corset, and drawers, she bid him to turn around.

“Are you sure about this?” he cautioned. “It’s chilly and it’ll be pitch—”

Mae dove in, feeling the rush of icy water prick at her skin. She did her best to ignore the pain and swam with more force. In the sunless cave, the water became cooler and somehow thicker, darker, denser. But after a few more tense strides, she popped her head up above the surface. She shivered in the cold, the sight sending an even stronger chill down her body.

Just as Mae remembered, the cave ceiling shimmered with the blue illumination of tiny, worm-like creatures—their numbers well into the thousands. On the surface, the water shone sharp blue from a kind of glowing algae. The unearthly glow was so strong, it reached every corner of the cavern.

She could still imagine William sitting on the rocky shore, his eyes wide with wonder as he marveled at the biology of the strange yet magnificent worms. Somehow, being in that cave made her feel closer to him. As though in this cave seemingly made of magic, a part of him still lived on.

Disrupting the silence, Locke broke through the water. He opened his mouth not to speak, but in complete awe.

“Beautiful, is it not?”

“I’ve seen these creatures before. At night, they roll along the waves lighting up the darkness with color.” He slicked his hair back from his eyes. “But I’ve never seen them in a cave.”

Locke swam forward and lifted himself onto a wide ledge of the stone. Stripped down to nothing but his breeches, every hard line of his body gleamed in the blue glow. The bottle that hung at his chest, usually hidden beneath his clothes, stood out most of all, the brightest blue she’d ever seen.

“The place looks empty.” He studied the stone walls. “There has to be a hidden door.”

Mae climbed onto the ledge and began searching too. But in the small space, there was no sign of anything. Not even rocks that might have covered a clue.

“It has to be here.” She searched along the ground, her bare feet scraping away at the sand. They went on like this for some time. Then, finally, Mae saw a glitter of blue in the sand .

“Here!” She motioned, excitement rushing through her veins. Locke was at her side in a moment, throwing back heaps of sand to reveal a reflective, metal latch. He tugged, but to no avail.

“I’ll need to retrieve my tools.”

“Where are they?” Mae asked.

“In Gambit’s saddlebags—”

“Then I shall retrieve them.”

“No, it’s too dangerous. Ellsworth is still out there—”

“Exactly, and I can climb faster than you can.” Mae turned around and began to twist back her hair.

“No,” he said flatly. “You’re under my protection and I say no .”

“I will only be a second.”

“Mae, wait—” Locke yelled after her in protest, but before he could reach out and stop her, she’d taken the plunge once more. This time, the water felt colder. Even in the warm, afternoon sun, she continued to shiver in her sopping-wet underthings.

As Mae began her ascent up the cliff, her limbs ached too. While she had expected agility, her arms, her legs—her entire body—had gone stiff. Overpowered by exhaustion, her strength was finally fading.

She had expected it. They had spent too long riding without so much as a second’s pause. She could sleep standing if she wanted to. But somehow, she pressed on. Perhaps it was pure optimism fueling her.

Half-undressed as she was, she didn’t even feel the slightest bit cold. Dropping her heavy bodice and skirts had actually been quite freeing.

With Pierce and his men nowhere in sight, she couldn’t help considering more of what the future held. Locke’s words still rang in her head. “The point is that you have to see it for yourself.” Maybe she would take his advice.

But in addition to excitement, she felt a sense of longing too. If she survived this, she would be alone again and of all the people she should miss, she thought only of Locke.

He had been right about so much. At the estate, she’d had nothing to hold on to. Any honor her family had held had been falsehoods. She couldn’t continue to live within that lie and in that home. The pride she had once felt as a Blackthorne had all but disappeared. She could see no honor in the deaths her father had handed out for the sake of gold. In the end, William had died because of it. His downfall had started at the sea, where he’d plundered in the name of greed. Even if he hadn’t died due to his own greed, he’d died due to another man’s—Ellsworth’s.

She still could not understand why her brother hadn’t told her the truth about their family’s profession in the first place. At the same time, maybe it was obvious. Hadn’t he always treated her like a blissfully ignorant girl unknowing in the ways of men? Her only hope for success a marriage that might enhance the family connection? She hadn’t even succeeded at that.

She could imagine what they might say about her going against the family and pairing with Locke. How it was just like her to defy them.

How it was just like her not to care.

She struggled her fingers into another stone, the climb far more difficult than the descent. She would not give up, though. She fought harder, at last pulling herself over the edge.

She fell onto the sandy stone, heart thumping, struggling to catch her breath. She dared not rest long. Between the grasses, she caught a flicker of Gambit’s coat. Some yards out from the cliff’s edge, he was well hidden. They both were. How clever of her family, indeed. The tall grasses that surrounded her kept away any onlookers. She wondered how long these plans went back, if they—

Breathless, she stopped in her tracks. A twig had snapped in close proximity. Just as she was hidden, so was the intruder. She was too tired to run, too far from Locke. How long might it be before he came looking? Before he realized something was amiss?

Someone called her name. The voice sounded familiar and so strangely harsh.

Then a hand seized her wrist, and out of the tall grasses, Miss Clarissa Rosewood stepped into view.

*

Locke cleared away more of the sand. Barely able to see, he felt along the hard metal. The trap door wasn’t the same as the one they had encountered in the cellar. It wouldn’t reveal a vault below. This was the vault. And it had a keyhole. He need only…

Locke stopped himself. His partnership with Mae demanded he wait, but after all his years on the run, he could not. He had become overwrought with impatience.

He pulled the key out from his jacket and twisted it hard in the lock. Sealed with rust and grime, the hatch opened with a crack, a puff of stale air rising in its wake.

The fog cleared slowly, revealing an even more glittering blue. The light seemed to mesmerize, beckoning him down a rusty ladder and deep within the underground cavern.

The stored-up fortune that encompassed nearly two centuries of successful piracy held true to every expectation.

Twinkling in the glow of the blue creatures, piles upon piles of Spanish gold hadn’t lost their luster. Overwhelmed by a scattering of silver coins, the floor—whether stone or sand—hadn’t been visible.

He counted forty crates, most of them stacked to form leaning, precarious towers. Others lay on their sides, the stones spilling out as abundant and haphazard as dirt from a wheelbarrow.

Though none of it seemed arranged at first, he was sure a small valley down the center marked a pathway. As he walked along, various stones crunched beneath his feet. He recognized a gold-and- ivory pistol he had recovered during the War. Years later, he had given it to Alastair as a birthday present, only to find it here discarded. The bastard.

A short distance down, he passed a whole pile of granulated gold jewelry. He remembered Nathaniel, the man who had been as good as a father to him, carrying it by the armful, a burning ship at his back.

Locke was walking through time, it seemed, toward the very beginning of the Blackthornes’ reign at sea. The cave had been set up that way. There was no doubt in his mind. On the cavern’s walls, distinct, white lines marked the generations to which the spoils belonged. Toward the back, the piles were shorter, though bricks of gold, emeralds, and uncut diamonds were by far the largest.

Finding the sapphire would not take days, as he had feared. As with a long hall of carefully organized shelves, he need only search for Alastair’s loot and focus his efforts there.

He stepped between the proper white lines and combed through whole crates of gems, overturning each one he crossed. Chests of every size littered the area as big as a sitting room—all of them disappointments. Then, buried beneath a glittering of coins, he saw the smallest yet. Although it was wooden like all the others, this one had a lock.

He didn’t have time to dawdle. Without thinking, he slammed it against the stone wall. Amidst the explosion of wooden shards, he caught a tiny square of velvet. He picked off a few wood shards and unfolded it. At once, he recognized the sapphire’s deep-blue hue and unique silver encasing. Amongst all the others, its brilliance had no rival.

Blue like the deepest ocean, the stone looked the same as it had the day he’d discovered it. And like that fateful day, his life had taken a dangerous turn. The thing was bad luck.

Damn it, was it beautiful, though.

Despite all the gems, pearls, and other treasures that cluttered the cavern, he wanted nothing more. Save for the sapphire, he was happy to leave it all behind.

*

Mae yelped, her exhaustion a part of the past as she embraced Miss Rosewood. But Mae felt no warmth in it, no grip pulling her in.

“How did you get here?” Mae looked around for her horse and spotted none. She must have come with someone, then. But whom? She couldn’t imagine Mr. or Mrs. Rosewood indulging their daughter on such a wild goose chase.

Miss Rosewood’s face soured. “I should ask you the same.”

Mae had no answer, no explanation. Stupefied, she stood silent.

“You’re here with him , aren’t you?”

“Miss Rosewood—”

“It’s true.” Her words seemed to condemn. “I didn’t believe it at first. I said Ethan would never hurt me thus, but Mr. Ellsworth insisted. He said he saw you.”

How could she have mistaken him for this slip of a young lady? He had been the figure in the window watching their departure.

“Ellsworth?” Mae grabbed Miss Rosewood’s arm. “Where is he?”

“We tried to get you alone,” Miss Rosewood said, unaffected. “When you reached this place we had no choice. We waited for you two to separate, but not once was Ethan out of your sight. Not once were you left vulnerable and alone, as I was.”

“Miss Rosewood—”

A set of footsteps closed in behind her. Locke. She wished he had stayed away. The fact that, like herself, he was scantily dressed—and soaked—only seemed to cement their crimes. To any outsider, it would seem as though they were on holiday.

Miss Rosewood looked back and forth between them, her face paling. Though the silence seemed an eternity, it still wasn’t long enough to explain.

“All this time,” Miss Rosewood said, befuddled. “You were with a governess?”

Not my governess, Mae noted. Merely a governess.

“Miss Rosewood…” Mae struggled to take control.

“How?” she demanded. “How could you do this?”

“You should not have followed us.”

“Because I’d see the truth in all your lies. Because I’d finally realize your treachery!”

“No, Miss Rosewood. Think of your reputation. Your parents must be terrified for you. Running off with some man…”

Save for the tears swimming beyond her lashes, Miss Rosewood gave no reaction. In Miss Rosewood’s mind, Mae had betrayed her in every sense of the word. And there was little hope of undoing this. Despite all her hopes and plans, Mae wished she could give it all back. She didn’t want to earn her fortune in sin.

“This isn’t safe. Ellsworth isn’t safe,” Mae went on. “He’s deceiving you.”

“It is you who has been deceiving me. Mr. Ellsworth… He has been nothing but kind.”

“You must believe me.” She could not let Miss Rosewood fall into Ellsworth’s trap, not as her brother had.

Before Mae could think to offer an apology, Miss Rosewood was off into the grasses.

Mae started after her, but Locke pulled her back. He seemed to sense that danger was near. Mae knew it with certainty. Ellsworth had followed them, as they both had feared. Like Miss Rosewood, he was hiding somewhere in the grasses. Their carriage and horses had to be somewhere out of sight too. Wherever he was, Ellsworth already knew they were there.

Wasting no time, Locke untied his horse and swung his leg over. Mae grabbed his outstretched hand .

Together once more, they seemed safe. Gambit had already begun to gallop away. They had even managed to make it inside of a clearing. Then came the sound of a gunshot. Startled, Gambit reared, his forelegs kicking circles in the air as they flew backward.

Only minutes ago, she had felt so determined, her climb up that cliff both arduous and worthwhile. Now her body flew airborne.

Landing took the breath from her lungs. White stars whirled across her vision. When they cleared, her worst fears materialized. Some distance away, Ellsworth came nearer.

She was a fool to think she could one day leave England. In truth, she might never escape.