Chapter 18 #2
Encouraged by the information, Claire pushed forward, probing the darkness with the light from the lantern.
She came to a step, then another, and put her hand against the wall to help guide her way.
How deep into the earth did this tunnel go?
Perhaps she had chosen the wrong opening to explore.
Common sense told her to turn around and go back.
Then she heard a noise. It was low, rumbling, like the sound of voices.
She signaled Penelope to be silent and set the lantern down.
It would not do for the light to give them away.
Scarcely daring to breathe, she crept forward.
In one hand she gripped Penelope’s injured hand. In the other she clutched the dagger.
“Are you afraid?” Penelope whispered.
Claire swallowed. “Of course, but fear cannot stop us. We must press on and find the girls.” And Jules. She sent up a silent prayer that nothing would happen to Jules or to David.
In the inky light, Claire crept toward the sound. Suddenly, without warning, the floor slanted sharply down. Claire cried out, slipping and sliding into the void. The last thing she heard was Penelope’s scream. Then her vision went black.
A woman’s scream echoed through the tunnel. Sheer terror tore through Jules.
“Penelope.” David breathed beside him.
They both started running, lanterns swinging, painting the black walls with a kaleidoscope of orange and yellow.
The sound of their footsteps echoed through the tunnel, matching the beat of Jules’s heart.
Why did the sound of Penelope’s voice come from below them when the girls were aboveground? Unless . . .
Jules clamped back a moment’s fear. They had taken one of the tunnels, and not the one in the middle like he and David had.
They rounded a curve in the tunnel and entered a chamber carved into the stone. Bright light spilled through the open space, revealing three people in hooded cloaks with their backs turned.
Jules drew his sword, poised to strike, when the hooded figure in the middle turned around. “Welcome, Lord Kildare.” Beady eyes peered out from beneath the hood. “If you know what is good for you, you’ll put that weapon down.”
A female voice.
The two hooded figures on either side of her turned to reveal Claire and Penelope both tied and bound, on their knees, with a knife at each of their throats. Penelope’s blue eyes glittered with tears. Claire’s golden eyes sparked with defiance.
“Look what dropped into my lair?” the woman said, stepping toward Claire, stroking the side of her face with the back of her hand.
Claire pulled away despite the danger. “Leave me. Find the girls.”
“You’ll never find them, at least not before it’s too late.” The cloaked figure turned her hand around and dug her nails into the side of Claire’s face, leaving three long, bloodied scratches.
Jules took a deep breath as he fought the fury building inside. He and David could easily take the three of them if it weren’t for the women. He had no doubt that if either of them made a move, Claire and Penelope would be killed. Jules set down his sword, and David followed his lead.
The woman lunged forward and grabbed both weapons, hurling them behind her. A sinister laugh erupted from her. “I have been waiting for this moment for the last six years.”
“Who are you?” Jules demanded. Six years ago he had been summoned home from his position as Lord Lennox’s squire by his father.
“You actually have no idea, do you?” The woman came closer. “Oh, this is delicious—better than I could ever have hoped for.”
Her voice sounded familiar, but such a thing would be impossible. His mind was playing tricks on him. “Reveal yourself.”
“Not before I reveal my purpose.”
“Revenge?” Jules ground out. “What else could this be?”
The woman came to a stop just out of his reach. If only he could grab her and the dagger in his boot before they slit Claire’s throat. He shifted his weight to the balls of his feet, ready to strike.
The hooded figure must have seen his subtle movement because she took a step back. “But is that revenge against you? David? Claire?”
“Without knowing who you are, it makes it hard to tell,” David growled, earning a glare from those beady eyes.
“Would you like to know?” The woman’s voice changed; became less strained, as though she had been modulating it before to hide something.
A shiver raced down his back. He recognized that voice—the new one.
He could only stare as the woman reached up and gripped the edges of her hood.
Slowly, she slid the dark wool back to reveal a head of darker hair streaked with gray and an age-lined face.
A familiar face.
“You.” Jules’s voice remained steady and did not betray the shock tearing his gut.
“Me.” She smiled, the look sinister.
He remembered that smile—the one that always marked her as a little bit mad. “You are supposed to be dead, stepmother.”
“Your stepmother?” Claire whispered.
Jules’s heart hammered against his ribs as he tethered his shock and his rage. He had spent sixteen months and twenty-seven days in gaol for a murder he had never committed. Undeniable proof now stood before him as his brain scrambled back to the past. “You staged your own death, Agatha. Why?”
“You refused to give me the one thing I wanted. The thing I longed for most in this world. You made me suffer, and I wanted your death.” An angry flush touched her cheeks. “But you didn’t die. So now it is my turn to make you suffer as I have through the years.”
She reached beneath her cloak and pulled out a coiled length of rope. She held it out to David. “Form a loop in the rope and slide it around your wrists.”
David didn’t move.
“If you do not do as I say . . .” she let the words trail off as she looked at the man who held Penelope, “the young one dies.”
Penelope whimpered.
David took the rope, formed a loop, and slid it over his wrists.
“Good.” She nodded to the man holding Penelope. He forced her away as he reached to grab David. He tightened the noose around David’s arms, then twisted it around his torso, tying it in a knot behind his back.
“That should keep you subdued for a while,” the lackey said.
“Don’t do this, please let him go,” Penelope sobbed.
“Shut her up,” Agatha demanded.
The lackey gripped a sword.
David, despite his bindings, hurled himself forward, taking the man down before he could strike. The man’s head hit the stone wall with a sickening thud, and he went limp. The sword clattered to the floor.
Agatha started toward the sword.
“You are a coward, Agatha.” Jules lashed out with the only weapon he had available. He had to keep Agatha distracted while David struggled to his feet. “You’re a spineless coward who has to kidnap little girls in order to feel powerful.”
Agatha’s face turned red as her focus returned to Jules. “Watch what you say.”
“If you wanted revenge,” Jules continued as David’s hands edged down to his boot and the dagger hidden inside, “you should have come after me. Instead you went after children. That is as spineless as they come.”
Agatha’s eyes sparked. “Bastard!”
Yes, get mad at me, leave the others alone. “What did I do to you, Agatha? Was it that I refused your perverted advances?”
“I offered you a world of pleasure.”
“You were married to my father.”
“He wasn’t enough for me. Neither was your brother.” Jules startled at the revelation before he could catch his response.
“You didn’t know?” She laughed. “He wouldn’t touch me at first, but good old Kildare whiskey weakened his resolve.” Her features turned hard again. “But you were never one for the spirits, so I found something else that would bring you to heel.”
“Your vile plans won’t work, Agatha.”
“They already have. You should thank your father,” she said with a villainous smile that made Jules’s blood run cold.
“He came to see Grayson and begged him to reveal your whereabouts. He had discovered the truth about my death, and feared for your safety once you were released from gaol seven months ago. However, Grayson knew the rift between you and your father went deep. Your solicitor’s strong sense of loyalty to you went on for months.
But your father’s pleas wore Grayson down, eventually.
I’ll give the man credit for holding out as long as he did. ”
Jules stiffened as though struck by a sword. “Why should I believe anything you say?”
“I have no reason to lie, not now when I am about to get everything I ever wanted from you.”
“And what did you want?”
“To watch you suffer as I suffered. You gave me the means to my revenge when you created Claire. All I had to do was wait your father out and blackmail your solicitor. Both were easy enough to do. Your father wrestled the truth behind your false bride out of Grayson, and that was when I took over. I let your father find you a bride, then I stole her away. I forced her to play the game my way.”
Agatha turned to Claire. “You always had a soft spot for a damsel in distress. I figured she would be an easy way to seize your attention and your heart. Her little wards were an added bonus, and the perfect blackmail to use against her if she failed to cooperate.”
“Where are the girls?” Claire demanded, fighting against the ropes at her wrists.
“Close and yet so far away,” she said, smiling confidently. “You should be less worried about the girls and more worried about yourself.” Agatha turned back to Jules. “I can see why your father chose this one. She has courage. That courage will make her more interesting to try and break.”
“She means nothing to me,” Jules said, his tone sharp.
Claire froze.
“You don’t fool me, Jules,” Agatha said through narrowed eyes. “I watched you from afar for days. You gave her things you refused to give me.”
“I will not deny that I enjoyed the pleasure she brought me, but that was all we had between us. She means nothing to me. Nothing.” His voice was sharp.