Page 36 of Wedded to the Beastly Duke
The signs of restoration diminished as she crept through the old passageways. Here there was a tapestry covering what she suspected to be bare stone. A few locked doors that she did not dare to rattle too hard in case it attracted attention.
She trailed her fingers along the tapestry, feeling the old fabric under her fingers, wondering who had made it, who had put it there, and whether the Duke even remembered its existence.
The material swayed unexpectedly, space between it that she hadn’t anticipated. She pushed and finally encountered something solid. A door, perhaps. Fizzing with sudden excitement, she drew the tapestry aside so she could slide behind it. The darkness was sudden and absolute, but she felt along the rough stone wall until she came to the door again. It was small, barely large enough for her to step through, and she traced along the smooth wood until she came to the ring handle. Gripping it firmly, she gave it a vicious twist, and to her surprise, the door clicked open.
Stale air greeted her. This passageway clearly hadn’t been explored in a long time. Perhaps even as long as the Duke had been in the castle.
Had the lady in the portraits below known about this? The tapestry had been old and sun-damaged. It was entirely plausible that some previous owner of the castle had built this passageway and never told anyone about it.
A shiver went through her. Perhaps she was the first one in hundreds of years to come across something like this. Her imagination went wild, playing all sorts of tricks on her. Perhaps this was a scenario where she would discover that the castle and all its inhabitants were under some terrible curse.
Or perhaps a witch lived in these darkened rooms, bound to the Dukes of Kant and forced to do their bidding. Perhaps all dukes had a witch.
She laughed under her breath at the lunacy of her thoughts and ventured another step into the darkened passageway. The lack of light made it almost impossible to see where she was going, and she was operating almost entirely on touch alone.
Step.
Step.
Step.
Her toes brushed against another uneven flag on the floor, and she settled more firmly on it. It shifted and gave way under her feet.
Click.
There was a whooshing sound, and something grazed her cheek, hitting the opposite wall with a crash. Emmeline shrieked, throwing herself backwards and landing heavily on the floor. She screamed again, putting a hand to her cheek and feeling it come away wet.
Get away, she needed to get away.
Picking herself up, she turned in the direction of the door and the tiny glimmer of light that filtered through it. This passageway didn’t just potentially contain secrets—it was dangerous.
There was another crash behind her, and she screamed again, half sobbing as she stumbled toward the light.
“What’s going on?”
Light flared, and Adam’s blessedly familiar figure emerged from the darkness. He was holding a lamp, and she didn’t think before throwing herself in his arms.
Immediately, one arm curled around her, holding her against his chest as he raised the lamp to take in the destruction behind her. She didn’t dare investigate, didn’t look, just pressed her face to his silken waistcoat and wished she had imagined the entire affair.
“Are you hurt?” Adam’s voice was gruff, and he pulled back, raising her chin and examining her face with eyes that seemed dark with worry. “Emmeline, what happened? What are youdoinghere?”
She shook her head, not wanting to remain in this passageway a moment longer. Nor in the dark. She was a creature of light, and what had seemed like a fun, innocent adventure had turned into something terrifying.
Adam’s finger swiped under the burning wet line on her cheek, and his face hardened.
“Come with me,” he said, his arm still around her shoulders as he led her out of the room and back into the light.
Emmeline could have wept. Traces of tears were still on her cheeks, stinging her cut as she turned her face toward the window. The sun was shining, making her fears seem silly and unnecessary, and she took a deep breath of fresh air. Her head was still spinning, and her chest was tight.
“I’m cold,” she said, suddenly realizing it was true. She wrapped her arms around herself. “Why is it so cold?”
“Shock,” Adam said grimly.
Without hesitating for a moment, he led her back the way she had come and out of the east wing altogether. She thought he was taking her back to her bedchamber, and she was about to protest the idea of being left alone, but instead, he led her to his.
Like in her bedchamber, his enormous four-poster bed dominated the space, although his was significantly less piled high with pillows than hers. There was no fire in the hearth, but the armchair before it made Emmeline suspect he had spent a great deal of time there.
That was the chair to which he led her, and she sat without thinking, her mind a jumbled mess of thoughts and questions and that awful moment when the stone had given way beneath her foot.
