The Taming of Ryder Cavanaugh (The Cynster Sisters Duo 2)

She clutched him more tightly; he felt her gulp, felt her breath hitch, sensed the tightness in her chest that matched the constriction of his own.

He sighed and let his head sag lower. “I’m sorry.”

She lifted her head, raised her hands and framed his face. “No! This is not your fault. It’s hers.” Fierce and indomitable, she looked into his eyes. Her fingertips found his tears and brushed them away with no flicker in her gaze to show she’d even registered. She searched his eyes. “You—” She froze.

Then, very slowly, she drew one hand from his cheek and stared at her fingertips.

The look on her face brought him instantly alert. “What?” He glanced at the tunnel mouth, but there was no sound from there. He looked back at her and saw an expression of dawning wonder break across her face.

“There’s a breeze.” Pushing out of his arms, she sat up and held her hand to the wall between them, turning her palm and fingers around an inch from the surface. “I can feel it on my damp skin.”

Scrambling to her feet, she faced the wall. “It’s coming from around here.”

Getting up, he joined her. Had to ask, “Are you sure?”

The look she cast him told him not to be stupid. “Lick a finger—you should be able to feel it, too.” She was moving her hand, dampened with his tears, along the seam between two rows of stone blocks. “There!” Excitement rang in her voice. Stepping close to the wall, she squinted at the mortar, then turned to him, urgency and more in her eyes. “There’s a crack—and I can feel cool air on my face.” She stepped back and waved him forward. “Try it.”

He licked a finger, held it near the spot. And felt nothing. Inwardly sighing, he started to turn—a definite waft of air passed across his dampened skin. Hardly daring to breathe, he focused on the spot and saw the fracture in the mortar.

Stepping back, he studied the wall, then glanced over his shoulder. Looking down at the floor, he saw what from any other position was far less obvious—a slight trough worn in the stone. “Damn—the tunnel diverts, but goes on.” Following the line of the trough, he turned to the wall. “It goes on, but—”

“It’s been blocked up.” Mary rushed to pick up the poker. “If we can shift the stones, we might be able to escape.”

He took the poker from her, then remembered. “Here.” He fished in his pockets, pulled out the skewers from one, the forks from another. “Use these, and let’s try to loosen just this one stone.”

They fell to with a combined will born of inner strength and stubborn determination. She scraped along one side, he on the other. Between the forks and the skewers, they cleared the joints to a depth of four inches. The block was still stuck, but pressing both hands and throwing his weight onto it, he sensed it was only just holding.

“Step away.” He waved her back, then, holding the poker by the haft, he rammed the blunt end of the handle onto a corner of the block, then repeated the exercise down one side, then along the next, around the edge of the stone.

Mary glanced back at the tunnel. “How long do you think we have?”

“I checked a few minutes ago. It’s heading toward eleven o’clock.” He bashed at the stone and felt it jar. “We’ll know when they’re coming—they’ll have to shift those sacks. But if I was Lavinia, I wouldn’t get back here until midnight at least. Assuming Claude Potherby isn’t a party to this—and the more I consider it, the more I doubt he would be—then returning any earlier would risk raising his suspicions.”

“True.” Impatient, she jigged. “Is it moving?”

“Not yet.” He struck twice more with the poker, then handed it to her. “Now, let’s see.”

Settling his feet on the floor, he flattened his palms on the stone, braced his arms, his back, then drew in a massive breath, held it, and shoved.

The block shifted half an inch.

Mary softly cheered, literally danced.

He dragged in another breath, braced, and pushed again—this time leaning further, longer . . .

With Mary calling encouragement, he repeated the process three more times before the stone finally gave, yielding to the pressure, scraping slowly back, then with a last scritch the block suddenly fell, toppling back and down. They heard it thud on the ground beyond the wall.

Drawing his arms out of the hole, he stepped back as Mary rushed up with one of the lanterns. She played the light through the hole. “It is a passage! Thank God!” Then, “Ugh—cobwebs!”

He laughed. When she sent him a narrow-eyed look, he waved at the hole. “Freedom beckons and you’re worried about cobwebs?”

“No—I’m worried about what makes cobwebs. I told you I hate creepy crawlies, and spiders definitely qualify.”

“Somehow, I think you’ll bear it.” He examined the stone blocks above and below the hole they’d made. “We need these two blocks out, then I think I’ll be able to fit through.”

They set to work again. Conscious of the minutes ticking by, once they’d pushed the second block through he tried to insist that she squeeze through and work from the other side—from where, if their would-be killers came for them, she could still run off and escape—but she refused point-blank. “Spiders, remember. I’ll need you by my side to bear with them.”

One glance at her face, at the stubborn set of her lips and chin, warned him further argument would be a waste of breath. And they didn’t have time to waste, either.