Page 78 of The Mad Baron's Bride
As long as Bertram’s so-called heir died with him.
A string of curses exploded behind her, Eustace’s voice a bit muffled. “That ties it. I’m coming in after you. And you’re not going to like what happens to you if you don’t meet me halfway.”
That was a laugh. She wouldn’t like what he would do to her in any circumstances. She had thought Bertram’s use of hersomething to endure. Eustace would hurt her and delight in her pain. He was that way.
She bit off a cry as she collided with something, a hard jab of wood against her shoulder. She felt along the surface with her hand, the light too dim to make out much. A plank of wood propped up the ceiling. Perhaps the roof of the tunnel was weaker here. She squirmed around the brace and kept going.
Behind her another curse ricocheted, an echoing quality to it. Eustace was in the tunnel.
Leda pushed herself on, keeping her breath shallow and remembering to pick up her feet so a stumble or pant didn’t tell Eustace where she was. She’d said goodbye to her parents ten years ago, when they married her to Bertram despite her tears. She’d said goodbye to her sister when the locked door closed on her in the madhouse and she knew her family would try to bury the shame. There were only a few others she’d miss.
There would be no one to tell Mrs. Blake and Betsey and Ives, unless Jack eventually learned of her fate, buried in this hill, perhaps if a stoat or a polecat found and ferreted out her bones. The women would protect Ives to adulthood and set him on the best path they could, she had to die believing that, but she would never live to see fruition of her plan.
And Jack. She would never be able to tell Jack she loved him.
She would never see him repair his relationship with Muriel, or see Ellinore and Nanette flourish in his protective care. She would never know if he succeeded with his dratted bricks. Lady Plume would find a replacement companion, of course. The social round of Bath would go on. So would life at Holme Hall and in the Smithdon Hundred, and they might speak of Leda Wroth once in a while as that West Country foreigner who visited for a time.
Would Jack fall in love with someone else? Marry and be happy with her? Would he ever find a governess who would suit Muriel and teach her aright?
The tunnel forked, and Leda paused. To one side, her left, lay a faint sliver of light: daylight. She could head that way, escape. Take Eustace’s horse and Pontus and ride—where? Anywhere. Back to the farm she had passed on the way. Could she escape outside without his hearing her? He blundered behind her, swearing, trying she guessed to worm his bulk through the small tunnels. If he saw her leave, he could follow and catch her. She was safe in here.
Right it was. She kept her hand along the wall, wincing when her palm grazed a sharp outcropping. She was shredding her gloves. She wished she could tell Jack: she wasn’t a murderer. She wasn’t mad, perhaps never had been. If she could escape, if she could tell a magistrate what had happened, Eustace would be tried and hanged for a murderer, and the house—what would happen to the estate? Could she persuade the justice to give it to Ives?
She would try. She would live, and she would try. She had to find a way to outwit Eustace.
“Leda? Leda! Where are you?”
Her knees went weak at the sound of Jack’s voice. Jack was in the chalk pit. An intense joy flooded her chest and, for a moment, overswept her good sense. “Jack!” she screamed. “I’m in the tunnels!”
“Caledonia!” Eustace roared from behind her.
Leda whirled and scurried deeper, away from him. She tripped over another wooden plank holding up the ceiling, recovered herself, moved on. She could not go back that way. There was air in here, dank, ripe with earthen smell, and these tunnels would not have pockets of poison, not like a mine. Buther breath grew short nonetheless, panic using her air. She must escape Eustace and get to Jack.
“Who is that? Who’s there?” Jack called.
Leda shrieked as a sudden shower of pebbles rained on her. “Don’t come in here!” she screamed to Jack.
“Time to come out, come out of the hill, Caledonia!” Eustace shouted behind her. “Run to your lover’s arms. See what he thinks when he sees the thing you truly are.”
“At least I’m not a killer!”
“Then you didn’t murder the boy.I knew it.Where is he, Leda?”
She pressed a fist to her mouth to keep herself from screaming, wasting more air. He could not hurt Ives. She would not let him. The tunnel kept curving—she could tell by the tilt of the surface—and she had no sense of direction. She couldn’t go back; Eustace was coming. And she couldn’t get out.
He could get out first, get his horse, escape. And find Ives.
“You have to stop him, Jack!” Leda called.
“I will. Come out of there, darling. Those tunnels are—there’s good reason they stopped digging. Leda, please. Come to me now.”
The wall fell away and she groped in darkness. She was lost in blank space, teetering. She put her arms out, afraid to fall, more afraid to stay where she was. Another groaning sound, then the creak and crack of wood. Eustace was blundering his way toward her, pushing down the wooden supports as he went, as unstoppable as a maddened bull.
You must get out of here. But how?
She wanted to sob, to scream, fall to her knees and beat the earth. She couldn’t lose her mind, not here, though everything was so dark it robbed her breath, dulled her hearing. It seemed a great echo rose about her, the earth itself growling.
Think, Leda.You escaped a madhouse. Think.
