Chapter 34
Chapter
“Where are we going?” Catherine asks as they travel a long way across the island on a dusty, hot road.
“Barclay’s estate,” Rogers says, as the carriage turns onto another winding drive. This one is less potholed, at least, and the vegetation grows high and bright along its sides.
“I beg your pardon?” Catherine’s eyebrows shoot skyward and even that little movement makes her sweat. Every movement does. “We’re going to see the duke?”
“We are.”
They slow to a stop and Rogers and McNeil alight from the carriage, helping Catherine down. The coachman, a short, ginger-headed man, joins them from the bench. Rogers introduces him as Childers.
“One of mine,” he adds.
“It’s nice to meet you,” Catherine says, giving the man a brisk nod while eyeing the enormous mallet he holds in his hands. “Shall I ask what that’s for?”
“The wheel, Miss,” Childers replies and leans over to swing the mallet against the wooden spokes of the hind carriage wheel with a great deal of force.
Catherine watches silently as Childers works, hitting the wheel over and over again until the wood splinters. The sun is hot on the top of her bonnet, and there are, she thinks, a great many more bugs residing in Jamaica than in England.
McNeil, meanwhile, has unbuckled the horses from their harnesses and tied them both to a nearby tree, while Rogers scatters the debris from Childers’s work across the drive.
She looks from one man to the other, waiting impatiently for one of them to explain to her what they’re doing. When none of them do, she finally has to ask, “Will someone please explain to me what is happening?”
“Carriage accident,” Rogers says. “You and I will go to the nearest estate, which just happens to be Barclay’s, for help. Meanwhile, Childers and McNeil will have a look around the grounds. Quickly now, muss up your hair and pat a little dirt onto your dress and we’ll be ready.”
Catherine glances down at the white muslin concoction she’s borrowed. It’s too lovely by half to destroy with dirt, but she does it anyway.
Only for you, Andrew, she thinks as she smears the hem and adds a bit of dust to her sleeves.
She hates destroying beautiful things, but she will. Of course she will. And after the wreckage she created of her wedding gown, a little dust on muslin frankly isn’t much to be concerned over.
She leans down and picks up her hem, giving it a hard tug so the fabric tears, then nods in satisfaction.
“There,” she says to Rogers. “Ready.”
He peruses her work and then returns her nod.
“Discretion, please,” he says to McNeil and Childers. “I don’t need to remind you whose land we stand on.”
“Aye,” McNeil agrees as the two men make their way into the thick underbrush that lines both sides of the road. “No making a ruckus unless we must.”
“Exactly.” Rogers turns to Catherine. “Are you ready, Miss Hope?”
“I suppose so, Mr. Hawthorne,” she says, and the two begin to walk down the long drive.
It’s only mid-morning and already the heat is blazing.
Sweat—there’s certainly no other word for it than that—is running down her back and after only a few steps, pooling between her thighs and gathering in the crooks of her knees as well.
Her bonnet, a dark navy that she chose to match the sash of her dress, acts as a kind of magnifier for the heat on top of her head, trapping the dampness along her brow and hairline.
Sweat films her upper lip, and when she tries to discreetly wipe it off, she manages to swipe dirt across her face.
She is, all in all, irritated and uncomfortable and sticky and worried. She glances back down the road to where they left McNeil and Childers, hoping to see how they’re faring—but they are long gone, swallowed up by the unruly vegetation growing high on both sides of the drive.
“Almost there,” Rogers mutters after a few more minutes. “Let me look at you.” He stops and turns her toward him. “Yes, very good. The dirt on your face is a nice touch.”
She glares at him while he loosens his own cravat and grinds dirt into his coat and trousers too.
“Scruff up your boots,” she says. If she’s going to have dirt on her face, he’s not getting out of this with pristine boots on his feet.
He does as instructed and says, “Now then, we certainly look the part. Benevolently disheveled.”
She smiles at that description as the two climb the steps to the enormous manor house and Rogers reaches for the bell pull.
Nerves explode through her, and her stomach becomes very, very queasy.
“You’ve never met the duke,” Rogers asks as they stand there, “correct?”
“No,” Catherine says. “Though it strikes me as a bit late for that que—”
The front door swings open, and they stand for a moment staring at the man on the other side of the threshold. Catherine’s queasy stomach drops all the way to her toes and Rogers, gathering himself after a moment, yells, “Run!”
It isn’t the Duke of Barclay or his butler who answers the door. It’s James.
“Run!” Rogers screams at her again, and she doesn’t need to be told a third time—not after she clocks the malicious grin spreading across James’s face.
She hesitates for just a moment more while Rogers launches himself forward. She wants to help but she can’t. The two are entwined and grappling. Could she help? Not that way—not physically.
Go get Childers and McNeil, she thinks, and with one last look at the fighting men, Catherine turns and speeds off down the main drive.
She runs as fast as she can in her damnably soft-soled, borrowed slippers. She was delighting in their smooth satin covers just this morning, but now she curses them for their inadequacy as serviceable footwear.
Drat it, she thinks, as every pebble in the road announces itself to the undersides of her feet.
She should have known better than to be taken in by something pretty but useless.
She should have worn her shoes—the ones Andrew made for her—and her own clothes, too: her trousers and linen shirt.
Not this gown whose fabric catches between her legs and slows her down.
She picks it up with one hand and keeps running.
“McNeil!” she yells as she goes. “Childers!”
No answer, but she pushes on, calling their names until a painful stitch in her side forces her to slow her pace. She presses a hand to her ribs and tries to massage the cramp beneath her corset.
McNeil!” she calls again when she can breathe. “Childers!”
Still no answer.
She stops only when she reaches the ruined carriage and surveys the area. The horses are still tied up, so the men are likely still out there, somewhere. She brushes the sweaty hair off her forehead and neck and waves away the cloud of gnats that has encircled her face.
Well then, she thinks and makes her way into the underbrush. Here we go.
McGann hears her. Catherine’s footsteps are slow and unsteady as she picks her way through the vegetation, but loud enough—thank Elphame—to carry over the call of birds and other animals.
He knows it’s her—he can hear her calling out for McNeil and someone named Childers.
He’d recognize her anywhere. If he were blinded, he’d know her voice.
If he were deaf, he’d know her scent. He could pick her out of any crowd by the cadence and weight of her footsteps or the shape of the water she displaces in a rainstorm.
She is that singular to him, that unique, that there are a million ways for him to know her.
“Menace!” he calls out, but there’s no answer. “Lass!”
He tries again every few minutes until he’s hoarse, but she can’t hear him. The insects are whining loudly and sound doesn’t carry well, up and out of the root cellar.
For a moment, he worries the fever has gotten hold of his mind and she’s nothing but an apparition. But, he reminds himself, those in the feverish throes of insanity don’t stop to question whether they’re in the feverish throes of insanity.
It must be her.
“Menace!” he calls again and glares at the grate above his head as if he can will her face into existence. But all he sees is the same sliver of bright blue sky bordered by the green overhang of vegetation he always sees.
“Lass!”
But it’s no use. She can’t hear him.
Once more, man, he thinks, pressing his weight onto his throbbing leg. Climb it. She’s out there somewhere.
He moves to the wall of the cellar and searches it with his fingertips, looking for a new and better place to scale the damnable thing. When his fingers find a series of heretofore unexplored crevices, he presses them in and begins to climb.
Slowly.
Steadily.
He ignores the screaming pain in his thigh and the unsteadiness of his ankle and the slick of blood now covering his fingertips from the small nicks and cuts the stones give him.
They may be smooth on the outside, but the insides of the crevices are sharp and jagged, cutting into the soft pads of his fingertips mercilessly.
He ignores all of it. He will find a way out because he has to. Catherine is out there. Somehow, she’s done it—she’s come for him. And he’s not about to let her go again without him.
He heaves himself up even though his body is soaked in sweat and shaking.
He’s undernourished from days of wormy biscuits and moldy carrots.
He’s drunk only the water he can get by pressing his tongue to the stone walls for the morning condensation.
His weakness doesn’t really matter though—not now.
He doesn’t need endurance; he needs to get out of this root cellar.
And if he has to use every last ounce of strength to do it, he will.
This is the last chapter. The final stand.
He inches higher.
His fingers ache. His shoulders and back throb. He’s short of breath and his injured leg screams at him for every excruciating ounce of pressure he puts on it. He’s dizzy and feverish and prone to disorientation—but he keeps moving.
Up a little higher, and then a little higher again. He can see the top of the wall. He’s so close now.
“Elphame, help me,” he whispers.
Please.
He scratches his way up another inch and then slots his hand into a small opening. He grasps hard at the rock—but recoils as something in that dark hole moves beneath his fingertips and sinks its fangs into his skin.
“Arrgh!”
The pain is instant, flooding his hand. And then he’s falling. Screaming as he hits the cellar floor.
No, he thinks. God fucking damnit no!
He’d been so close.
He closes his eyes and lies on his back, dazed by the impact.
No.
He doesn’t have the strength to try again. That was it—the last of it.
“Andrew! Is that you?”
And then a moment later—
“Andrew, can you hear me?”
He opens his eyes slowly. Catherine? Or an apparition of her. One he’s loath to let go.
“Andrew! Hold on. I’m coming down.”
He blinks.
There she is.
A mass of blonde hair falling out of a navy bonnet, dirt and sweat lining her features. Her blue eyes are intent on him and her face has a new smile. He adds it to his catalog as he stares up at her.
It really is her. His Catherine. Her head bent over the grate opening.
“Don’t worry,” she says. “I’ll get you out.”