Chapter 19 #3
While a further thirty minutes of their allotted hour elapsed, Jude and Hannah managed to complete three more puzzles: a mathematical one, which Jude solved with characteristic speed, and then a geography question, which involved following visual clues that eventually led them to open up the globe on the head teacher’s desk.
Then, they faced another numerical challenge – but this was really an art-themed colour-matching exercise, which Jude would never have realised if Hannah hadn’t been with him.
They deduced that the final clue required them to identify a historic battle, and the year in which it had happened.
Guesswork wasn’t going to help them, Jude surmised; there were far too many battles and dates to choose from.
‘I think it’s something Tudor-ish,’ Hannah said.
‘We had the Shakespeare play, the artworks in the last clue were all from that sort of era. And the answer to the geography question was America—’
‘Where Tudor explorers tried to set up a colony,’ Jude finished. ‘And look – isn’t that a portrait of Henry VII?’ He pointed at the doorway, above which sat a gilt-framed image of a serene-looking man in a black hat.
Hannah moved closer and looked up at it. ‘No, I don’t think it is. But it might be Richard III . . .?’
‘Yeah? OK,’ Jude said. She’d always been better at history than him. ‘Which battle are we looking for, then? And is one of those textbooks likely to help us?’
‘Yes!’ Hannah said brightly, picking up a dishevelled old volume from the stack on the table beside her. ‘And I reckon it’s the Battle of Bosworth we’re after.’ She opened the back of the book and began poring over the index.
‘Fourteen eighty-five!’ she shouted. ‘That’s the code to get out. The year of the battle Richard III lost – the start of the Tudor era.’
Jude launched himself across the room and punched 1, 4, 8 and 5 into the keypad beside the door, which immediately unlocked.
The timer above the fireplace froze as they burst back into the corridor, which was entirely deserted.
They’d escaped from the room with nineteen minutes and forty-two seconds to spare – and they were definitely the first team out.
‘You are completely incredible,’ Jude heard himself say, as he swept Hannah into a hug he one hundred per cent had not thought through.
‘I couldn’t have done that with anyone else.
Never so well, or so fast.’ Forgetting himself entirely, he kissed the top of her head, greedily inhaled the fragrance of her hair and lifted her off her feet.
She was laughing, similarly unguarded, and buried her face in his neck. A second later, he felt the brush of her lips there – the slow, deliberate motion of her mouth on his skin – and thought he might die.
He set her back down but kept her close, encased in his arms, chasing her lips with his. They were kissing again, and it was everything: hot and hungry and too much and not enough.
Hannah sighed – almost moaned – and it made him want to press her into the wall and kiss her more, deeper and harder until—
She pulled her face away from his, flushed and panting, eyes wild.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said immediately, more than a little breathless himself. ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have – I know you said—’
‘It’s OK,’ Hannah said, placing a hand on his forearm. ‘That was all me.’
‘It wasn’t,’ he protested. ‘Hannah, I—’
Jude heard the sound of a door opening, then a throat clearing from a couple of metres away. Joe had just emerged from a room further down the corridor, and Ed was close behind him.
Hannah stepped away from Jude and shoved her hands in her pockets – seemingly keen to avoid awkward questions from her brother, whose view was currently blocked by his fiancé.
Joe’s expression was one of barely concealed triumph, which seemed odd given he’d just discovered that he and Ed had lost the escape room game.
‘How fast did you do it?’ he asked, wandering towards Jude and Hannah.
His eyes moved from one to the other and then back again.
As on so many other occasions, Jude wondered whether Joe had superpowers, or a sixth sense.
He felt like he might as well have the words ‘Hannah and I just tongue-kissed’ written in marker pen on his forehead.
‘Er . . .’ Hannah said, still pink of face. ‘We finished in just over forty minutes.’
‘Impressive,’ Ed said, moving closer to clap his sister on the shoulder. ‘Though we did say you two would probably win.’
‘You did?’ Hannah asked, as she put her arm through Ed’s and they began to stroll away – presumably in the direction of more drinks.
‘We did,’ Joe confirmed, answering her question even though she was out of earshot. ‘You’ve been a team for far longer than any of the rest of us – hiatus notwithstanding.’ The words hit Jude like a gut punch, but not in a bad way.
‘Based on the state of you both, I’d say we’ve confirmed something else this afternoon, too,’ Joe went on.
‘Which is . . .?’ Jude said, already annoyed with himself for giving Joe the satisfaction of asking.
‘That you were telling the truth earlier,’ Joe said. ‘You and Hannah are most certainly not friends.’