The sight of the mine made her feel sick. She still reeled from discovering that her stepbrothers kept her husband in an underground tunnel. When the searchers returned to Penrhyn with the news, she’d barely been able to control her rising gorge. Fear remained a sour, bilious taste in her mouth.
In such a place, memories of Rangapindhi would be inevitable. Was it also inevitable that Gideon must succumb to his ghosts? Perhaps they’d steal him forever this time. With horror, she remembered his shaking, debilitating illness after Portsmouth. This fresh torture must test his limits, no matter how strong he was.
Let him be all right.
She bit back rising panic. She’d promised herself she’d be brave for Gideon’s sake. But, sweet God, it was difficult when she imagined her husband trapped in suffocating darkness.
What if she managed to save his body yet couldn’t save his sanity? The prospect didn’t bear contemplation. Although her mind did nothing but play grim scenarios.
Courage, Charis.
She tightened her grip on her pearl-handled pistol. Her eyes were scratchy from lack of sleep, and her pulse thundered in her ears. The hairs on the back of her neck prickled. She knew Gideon was close. She felt it in her blood, the way an animal recognized the approach of its mate.
“Gideon will have my guts for garters when he finds out I brought you on this escapade,” Akash muttered in a voice so low only she heard it.
“I gave you no choice.”
The only way he could have kept her away was by locking her in the attics. Even then, she’d have done her best to climb out. Akash had been determined to leave her safely at the manor, but her obstinacy had outlasted all argument. If Gideon’s demons had conquered him, she needed to be there to fight them.
“He still won’t like it,” Akash said gloomily.
She prayed Gideon was alive not to like it. Strangely, Akash hadn’t been overly concerned when she laid the whole story of the ambush before him last night. Yet surely Akash more than anyone knew what imprisonment meant to Gideon.
Tulliver appeared on top of the bank overhanging the entrance and waved before dropping out of sight. It was the arranged sign for movement within.
Purpose flowed through Charis in a reviving flood, and her heart took on a surer, steadier rhythm. She would save Gideon, no matter what forces ranged against her.
Not long now, my love. Wait for me…
Akash gestured behind him. With surreptitious rustling, the men crawled forward. Charis was aware of the movement, but she didn’t shift her attention from the mine.
Hubert emerged into the daylight, leading two horses. She immediately recognized the homely pony Gideon had hired to draw the gig.
Her stepbrother yawned and stretched, his lack of self-consciousness indicating he had no inkling he was observed. Hatred flared in Charis’s belly as she watched him. He was about ten yards away, close enough for her to see he looked even worse than yesterday. Impossible to believe he held one of the kingdom’s oldest titles. In his dirty, ragged clothes and with his greasy, overlong hair, he’d pass for a beggar.
Soundlessly, a wiry Cornishman rose from the bracken that grew toward the entrance. Another joined him. Using the undergrowth for cover, they’d circled behind Hubert, who stepped into the watery sun. A few silent steps, and one man covered Hubert’s mouth to muffle any shout of warning. The other man quickly overpowered him.
The struggle was over in seconds. Hubert lay gagged and bound. He writhed as the men dragged him away from the cave. His muffled grunts of protest ceased abruptly when one of his assailants kicked him hard in the ribs.
There was no sign of Felix. A charged silence fell. Charis’s gloved hand curled with painful force around her pistol. At her side, Akash tensed and raised his guns.
“Hubert? What the devil are you playing at?”
Felix’s irritated question emerged as an eerie echo from inside the mine. One of the ponies snorted nervously and trotted toward the bracken, trailing its halter rope.
“For God’s sake, stop messing about.” Felix appeared at the entrance. Then, just as quickly, slipped back under cover.
Like a deadweight, foreboding settled in Charis’s stomach. Any chance of another surprise attack was lost. And still she’d seen nothing of Gideon. Over and over, her mind chanted her desperate prayer. Please, God, let him be all right.
“Come out, man. The game’s up.” Akash stood, and his voice rang across the open area in front of the mine. “You don’t have a hope of getting away with this.”
Tulliver jumped down from his hiding place above the mine and hid from Felix’s view beside the entrance. A wicked-looking knife jutted from his belt, and he held a pistol. For a heavyset man, he moved with incredible smoothness.
Felix called out from inside. “You forget—I have Trevithick.”
Charis was sickeningly familiar with her stepbrother’s defiant tone. For one surreal moment, it transported her back to their first meeting. He’d expressed his contempt for his new stepsister in just such a voice. And received a cuff from his hulking father in return. A cuff he’d returned with interest when he got Charis to himself.
He’d always been a sneaking, sadistic little bully. Bile filled her mouth as she imagined what state Gideon was in, bound and at Felix’s mercy.