Chapter Twelve
Darcy paused as footsteps sounded above him.
It was in the middle of the night. Guards did not typically walk this corridor after eleven.
The sound was faint at first—no more than a dull echo carried through stone and distance—but it was enough.
In a place where every noise bore meaning, where routine governed survival, even the slightest deviation demanded notice.
His body stilled instinctively, every sense sharpening at once.
“Do you hear that?” Lucien’s voice came from behind, pitched low but urgent.
“I do. Should we retreat?”
“I think it best.”
Darcy did not hesitate. The caution was warranted.
He heard his friend shuffling backwards and followed at once, careful of his footing in the narrow tunnel they had carved inch by painstaking inch.
The confined space pressed close about them, the stale air thick with dust and the faint, ever-present scent of damp stone.
Their progress was not swift, but it was practiced.
Each movement had been learned, refined, repeated until even in darkness and tension, they could move without misstep.
They moved as quickly as they could, reaching Darcy’s cell in minutes.
Lucien immediately retreated into the tunnel that led to his own cell and Darcy secured the stone behind him, easing it into place with care so that no sign of disturbance remained.
His hands lingered there, feeling the rough surface beneath his fingertips, as though confirming that their secret remained intact.
Darcy crossed to the door and, after a brief pause to calm himself, peeked out the bars.
There were two guards standing a little down the corridor, their heads bent together in conversation.
The torchlight cast uneven shadows along the walls, flickering across their uniforms and glinting faintly off metal.
Lucien’s cell was in the opposite direction.
There did not seem to be an air of alarm or urgency about the soldiers, no indication that they suspected anything amiss, but Darcy wished to err on the side of caution.
He watched them closely, his breath slow and restrained, his body held in stillness so complete that he might have been mistaken for one of the stones themselves. Time stretched in such moments. Each second seemed to lengthen, to press upon him with insistence.
After ten minutes, the guards left the corridor, shutting the heavy wooden door that separated this section of the prison from the rest. The sound of it closing echoed faintly, followed by the distinct scrape of a bolt being drawn into place.
Silence returned—thick, familiar, and almost oppressive in its completeness.
A few minutes later, Lucien appeared.
“They are gone,” Darcy said as his friend climbed through the hole, his voice scarcely more than a whisper.
“Good. I would hate to lose a night of progress because two sentries wished to dither about in our part of the prison.” Lucien climbed to his feet, brushing dust from his worn clothing and pushing his hair out of his face.
His movements carried a restless energy, though beneath it lay the same fatigue Darcy knew in himself.
“We must be close now.” Darcy sat on his pallet, legs crossed, his posture composed though his mind remained alert.
“I would say another seven days should do it. It is nicely timed; it will be a new moon to help disguise our escape.”
Darcy kept his voice low, though there was no one to overhear them but the sea beyond the stone.
“Once we are through, we do not linger,” he said, tracing the rough line of the shoreline in the dust with his finger.
The motion steadied him, gave form to what might otherwise remain abstract and uncertain.
“By my reckoning, the path runs west from the wall. It will be narrow, but passable in the dark. It will take us down to the water just beyond the reach of the sentry’s usual circuit.
” He glanced up, meeting Lucien’s gaze to ensure he followed.
“It is my hope that if we follow the coast, we shall find transportation. The Isle of Wight has a modest fishing community. We might find a small boat—fishermen’s craft, nothing more.
We take the first that will float.” His hand stilled, hovering over the crude map, weighing each possibility.
“We must wait for the tide to turn. If we go too soon, it will drag us back toward the island. Too late, and we lose the advantage of the current.” A brief pause followed, then more intently, “We cross for the mainland—north and west. Lymington, if we are fortunate. Hurst, if we are not. Once ashore, we leave the boat and do not look back. By daylight, we must be inland, on separate roads if necessary.” He drew back his hand, the plan laid bare between them.
“There can be no hesitation. Once we begin, we are committed.”
Lucien watched him with keen interest, his expression sharpening with something that bordered on anticipation. “What of the treasure?” he asked, leaning forward eagerly.
“That will come later. We must ensure we are not caught. We will require a change of clothes, among other things. Goodness, neither of us have had a proper shave or hair cut in years. That will require money.” And how were they to get that?
The thought lingered, unwelcome but unavoidable.
Darcy still had difficulty believing Lucien’s account, told while they dug their tunnel, of a fortune hidden just off the Isle of Wight.
“Our escape may require…borrowing some things.” Lucien shifted, his tone lightening with a hint of mischief that seemed almost out of place in such surroundings. “We can make sure to compensate the…donors…fairly.”
Darcy did not like the idea of taking what was not his, but Lucien had a point.
Necessity, it seemed, would not consult his preferences.
“We have the knife you fashioned, along with the chisel.” Unlike Darcy, Lucien had a cot in his cell.
He had taken some of the metal fittings from beneath it and fashioned them into tools.
They had fashioned another for Darcy soon after their initial encounter.
“Yes, what about them?”
“On the night we are to leave, we can trim each other’s beards and hair.
We will look less…vagabond-like.” Darcy’s mouth curved faintly, though there was little true amusement in it.
“As we follow the coast, perhaps we might find somewhere to wash.” Lucien gestured to the dirt and grime on his hands.
“Yes, it will be no easy thing to wash away years of filth.” Darcy could scarcely remember what it was like to be clean. The memory seemed almost unreal, like something belonging to another life. “When shall we go for the treasure?”
“If fortune favors us, we might secure some of it soon after we leave Yarmouth. The treasure is secreted just past the Needles in Alum Bay.”
The Needles were chalky stacks of rock that formed a small, nearly unreachable area to the west of the Isle of Wight.
They would be required to pass through to reach the place on Alum Bay where the treasure was hidden.
The location was treacherous enough that smugglers would not use it and most disregarded it completely.
“And you managed to anchor a boat there? Incredible.”
“It was difficult. The waters are rough, and one must be careful not to capsize. However, I know a path through the stacks to where the treasure was hidden. We might secure enough coins to begin.”
Darcy nodded slowly, considering. “Is that how you were caught as a spy?”
“Yes. I was leaving the stacks when a boat filled with soldiers being ferried to Yarmouth came upon me. They did not believe I was merely fishing. The few coins I had taken with me were confiscated.” Lucien shook his head, frustration flickering briefly across his features.
“We will need to be more cautious than I was that first time. Perhaps we might hire someone to help us retrieve everything.”
“There seems to be less activity here at Yarmouth in the last year. Perhaps the area is less populated now.” Darcy wondered if England was still at war with Napoleon.
My cousin may very well be dead. He did not wish to consider it.
The thought came unbidden and unwelcome, pressing against the fragile control he maintained over his mind.
For a moment, neither spoke. The silence between them was not uncomfortable, but heavy, filled with all that remained uncertain, all that could still go wrong.
They dug a bit more that night, Lucien reciting his lessons and Darcy telling stories of his childhood.
The rhythm of it had become familiar, almost necessary.
Lucien’s voice, steady and instructive, offered a structure to their labor, while Darcy’s recollections—Pemberley’s grounds in the spring, Georgiana at the pianoforte, Elizabeth’s laughter carried on a sea breeze—gave it purpose.
He spoke of home as though describing a place he might reach again, though some part of him feared it had already slipped beyond his grasp.
They returned to their cells in the early hours of the morning, both sinking onto their beds, exhausted.
Darcy knew the moment they broke through.
The final stone shifted beneath his hands with a resistance that had become familiar over weeks of labor, and then, at last, it yielded.
Not fully, not enough to free them, but enough.
A breath of air, cold and sharp, slipped through the narrow gap, carrying with it a scent so distinct, so achingly familiar, that it struck him motionless.
Salt. The ocean lay beyond.