Chapter 14 #2
Jane turned, opened the door, and paused. “I do this for the girls,” Jane said, as if she must remind herself why she was obeying. “I am leaving you under protest.”
“For the girls,” Elise echoed. “Make haste, then.”
“We will be gone within the hour.”
Elise stood still for a moment after the door had shut, listening to the household noises quickly turn into a frenzy of packing and purpose. The house would soon be cleared.
She drew a breath and walked out of the study.
The corridor to the hidden room was narrow and dim, the stone cooler here, the air carrying that faint scent of herbs.
Elise moved with quiet purpose, her skirts gathered slightly, her mind already shaping the questions she needed answered.
When she reached the concealed door, she paused because she heard a voice within which was not Blake’s.
It belonged to Mr. Leigh and was low, controlled and soothing. “You are safe,” he was saying. “You are within walls that hold. Save your breath for speaking.”
Elise’s fingers grasped onto the latch. It was absurd, she told herself firmly, to feel anything at hearing his voice. Relief was practical and gratitude sensible but anything else was folly. She opened the door.
Mr. Leigh looked up at once. Although his expression was composed, she caught the flicker of fatigue in his eyes and the faint shadow at his jaw where he had not shaved; the tautness of a man who had been holding a line through the night and had not yet allowed himself to rest.
“Mrs. Larkin,” he said quietly.
“Mr. Leigh,” she replied, going at once to the bed.
Blake lay pale against the pillow. There was sweat at his temple, and his breathing was shallow. His eyes were open but unfocused.
“Elise?” he rasped, and she felt her chest flutter at the sound—he never used her given name unless fear made him forget himself.
“I am here,” she said softly. “Do not try to move.”
Blake swallowed. His gaze went, not to Mr. Leigh, but away from him toward the wall.
“You may speak,” Elise said softly. “Mr. Leigh rescued you. He was sent by the Crown to assist us.” Elise said reassuringly although unsure if she was wholly correct in her assumptions. However, she needed Blake to talk.
Blake’s lips pursed. “Holt… is near,” he whispered.
Elise leaned closer. “Where?”
Blake’s eyes squeezed shut as if the answer hurt. “Tunnels.”
That much they had discovered for themselves.
Blake’s throat worked. “He comes… like tide. In, out.”
Mr. Leigh’s posture straightened, almost imperceptibly. “From where?”
Blake’s eyes snapped open and, for a moment, they were lucid—piercing and urgent.
“Belair,” Blake whispered.
Elise went very still. Belair—the house itself, or the land around it or beneath? The name carried weight here. It was their shelter, their school, their refuge—and now it sounded like a haven of danger.
Blake’s gaze fluttered and he spoke faster, breath hitching with effort. “He said… the key… here. He said… ‘Search her.’ Said… ‘Whatever it takes.’”
Elise’s blood went cold.
Mr. Leigh’s eyes narrowed. “Are there caves or tunnels beneath the house?”
Blake’s brow furrowed as he struggled to communicate. “Old… tunnels.” He coughed, a painful, rattling sound that made Elise’s stomach twist. “Charles… blocked…”
Elise pressed a hand to his shoulder. “Hush. Do not strain yourself.”
Blake swallowed again, his eyes distant. “He waits…”
Elise’s mind snapped to the places where hidden tunnels might reach the house and where there might be a place to listen, to watch, to hide.
Mr. Leigh’s gaze shifted to Elise. It was a look that asked a hundred questions without speaking one. Elise felt the prickling of danger return, as sharp as a needle.
“You have told us enough,” she murmured to Blake. “Rest now.”
Blake’s eyes closed, and his breathing steadied slightly.
Elise straightened slowly. In the confines of the room, Mr. Leigh’s presence felt larger than it had any right to feel. He had not moved, yet the air seemed to shift around him as if he carried weather in his wake.
“You see,” he said quietly, “you are not merely suspected. You are pursued.”
Elise bristled. “I know. ’Tis why I have sent the girls away.”
“You intend to face these men alone?” he asked, not unkindly, but with that vexing directness that made her want to argue even when he was right. “The girls were at least a facade of protection…”
A sudden sound cut him off. It came from upstairs. A muffled thud; then another. Then came the unmistakable scrape of a drawer being pulled too hard.
Elise’s blood turned to ice.
Mr. Leigh was already on his feet, as silent as a shadow.
Elise snatched the lamp as if to go. “They are in the house? So soon?”
Mr. Leigh’s gaze returned to Blake. “Stay with him,” he said to Elise, as if giving orders was the most natural thing in the world.
Elise’s eyes flashed. “I will not—”
Another crash sounded, louder now—wood striking wood. They had not merely entered. They were searching.
“They are destroying the house,” Elise whispered, her voice shaking despite her effort to control it.
He glanced at the concealed door, at the narrow corridor beyond. “If they find this room—”
“They will not,” Elise said fiercely, because she could not bear the thought.
Mr. Leigh moved toward the door, then paused, turning back.
“Mrs. Larkin,” he said, his voice low and urgent, “if you hear the latch above this room—if you hear them near—extinguish the lamp. Do not speak. Do not move. Whatever happens, do not open the door.”
Elise stared at him. “Where will you be?”
“I will draw them away,” he said simply.
The words struck something in her chest—an alarm, not of suspicion but of fear.
“You cannot,” she whispered. “You cannot—”
He held her gaze. Then he was gone.
Elise stood frozen for a heartbeat, the lamp trembling in her hand. Blake breathed shallowly behind her. The sound of rummaging above grew more frantic—she imagined drawers being pulled out, papers scattered, furniture upended and destroyed.
They were in her rooms; in her study; in the private corners where she kept what remained of her husband’s life—letters, accounts, the small relics of a marriage ended by the sea and treachery.
Yelling and running resounded like a ship being overtaken by pirates. Then, suddenly, all was quiet.
The violation of it struck hard enough that tears burned in her eyes. She blinked them back violently, because tears were most unhelpful. What had Mr. Leigh done?
She forced herself up the narrow stair, moving silently. Each step felt too loud, though she placed her feet with care. She reached the upper landing and stopped.
Her chamber door stood ajar.
Inside, the room was in disarray—drawer contents flung onto the floor, her writing desk upended and papers scattered like fallen leaves. Someone had pulled the coverlet off the bed, as if expecting a hidden compartment in the mattress. Her jewellery box lay open, its contents disturbed.
Elise’s throat constricted so fiercely she could scarcely breathe. The thought of strange hands touching her belongings—rifling through her linens, her letters, the private fragments of a life no one had the right to handle—filled her with a rage so fierce it steadied her more than fear ever could.
Elise’s hands trembled, but she did not move.
“They have been in my room,” she whispered.
“They knew precisely where to go,” Elise repeated, the horror and indignation rising together.
“They went straight to my desk, straight to my drawers, as if—” Her voice broke, anger giving way to something dangerously close to tears.
Mr. Leigh appeared, and his expression darkened as he placed himself directly in front of her, his hands on her shoulders. “Hush now. I will protect you with my life. They are gone for now.”
Elise pressed her hand to her mouth, forcing herself not to weep. She swallowed hard. “The thought of them touching my things—”
Mr. Leigh’s jaw clenched, and for a moment she saw something very fierce in him before it was carefully leashed.
“You need to trust me or I cannot protect you,” he said quietly.
Elise laughed once, a short, brittle sound. “You say that as if you care.”
His eyes met hers. “I say it as a man who has seen what happens when threats are permitted a second attempt.”
Elise turned away, her breath shaking. The room felt too small, the walls too close. “At least no one was hurt,” she said, forcing steadiness. “The girls—thank God—the girls were gone.” Thank God Jane had heeded her request.
“They knew the house was empty.” His grave words rang with truth, the fact of which meant someone was nearby, watching. She shivered.
“Where is it, Elise?” Mr. Leigh asked suddenly.
The use of her name—her given name—struck like a hand on a bruise. It was not intimacy; it was urgency. It unsettled her all the same.
She shook her head, because if she tried to speak the truth aloud in this room, she feared the walls would hear it.
“They will not stop until they find it,” he warned.
There was a choice to be made, and really there was no choice. Fighting Holt and his men might have been possible if Blake had not been incapacitated. Her only chance was Mr. Leigh.
It was infuriating. It was also—if she allowed herself to name it—something like relief.