Page 71 of The Book of Lost Stories
‘But I’m coming with you. Just let me get my boots and—’
‘There’s no time to waste, Harry. Follow me in the curricle as quickly as you can. We will need a carriage to bring Miss Weston back if … if we are in time.’
The door slammed behind him and he was gone.
‘I’ll go in the curricle with you, sir,’ Jarvis said. ‘But first, what am I to do with the horse I stole?’
‘Damn the horse,’ Harry said, with unusual violence.
26
Stone Cold
Reliant on Sir Lemuel even for the very bread she ate, Drusilla had no means of leaving other than through his good offices in finding her another position.
This he seemed reluctant to do, although his proposal of marriage sprang, she thought, more from a desire to protect her good name than from any warmer feeling.
Death or DishonourbyORLANDO BROWNE
Alys opened her eyes on the total, stifling darkness of the tomb and thought herself in the grip of a nightmare.
Then the discomfort of her pounding head and bruised body lying on cold, clammy stone, brought her to the realization that she really was entombed in what felt like some dark cellar or cave. Her hands were tied behind her and were numbed to useless marble.
There was no glint of light, but somewhere far off she couldhear the faint, musical trickle of water, making her realize how dry her lips were. With an effort she managed to sit up, then shuffled across the floor until she came up against a wall, where she stayed, feeling sick from the ache in her head.
Some feeling slowly began to return to her hands and she could detect strange irregularities and hard protuberances in the wall behind her. Her fingers traced a large, ridged scallop shape, then another, smaller one, then the smooth curves of an oyster shell …
Shells? Could she possibly be imprisoned in agrotto? Who had mentioned a grotto recently …?
Then she remembered that it had been Nell, describing Lord Chase’s house. Her mind began to clear, and she recalled perfectly well that she and Bella had come to Templeshore to rescue Sarah, only she could not remember any more than getting out of the carriage and walking through a gate. After that, it was all blackness.
If it was Lord Chase who had knocked her senseless and carried her off, then he was fit only for Bedlam.
There was a faint whimpering and a curiously muffled scrabbling in the darkness somewhere nearby.
‘Bella?’ Alys whispered, then louder: ‘Bella, is that you?’
But the small sounds went on without pause, and Alys reflected that a weaker woman would have imagined it to be a ghost and been quite beside herself by now. She bit her lip and, ignoring the muzziness in her head, tried to think what the more enterprising of her heroines might do in such a situation: one of her earlier heroines, such as Malvina, for Cicely had shown all too much dependence on Simon in the end, even though she had resisted his dark charms until he had proved himself worthy of her.
Butshecould count on no such hero to ride to her rescue unless … surely Nat had been tricked too, and could have no notion that she and Bella were prisoners here, for who knew what purpose? Or – horrid thought – perhaps the letter was a ruse thought up by Lord Chase to bring them there. But then, surely Bella knew her own brother’s handwriting, and the very horses that brought them here were his.
Oh,howshe wished her head did not still ache so much, so that she could, with her usual acuity, make some sense of what had happened, and what she was to do.
‘Hello?’ she said again into the darkness. ‘Bella, is that you? Can you hear me? Where are you?’
She became aware of a light slowly outlining a door in one wall and spilling through a small metal grille, allowing her to see that she was indeed sitting in a small, domed chamber, the walls intricately and outlandishly patterned in shells. Of Bella there was no sign, only the massive shape of a stone sarcophagus lying against one wall.
Then the door swung open with a groan of rusty hinges and a tall figure, garbed in hooded black, stood before her. Where his face should have been was a black mask, eyes glittering through the slits with an expression quite unlike Lady Malvina’s gentle and monkish saviour.
‘Lord Chase?’ she demanded, more boldly than she felt. ‘What is the meaning of this outrage? Why have you brought me to this place?’
‘Not Chase. Haven’t you guessed yet?’ said a familiar voice, but in accents far removed from their usual languid tones, and, pushing back his hood, he removed the mask to reveal a smiling and angelically fair face.
‘Nat!’ exclaimed Alys. ‘But what does this mean? Have you come to rescue me?’
‘On the contrary, Cousin.’
A faint whimper reached them, and this time Alys was certain that it came from within the stone coffin. ‘There is someone here with me, but that surely cannot be Bella, your own sister!’
