Dust filled Barnaby’s eyes, filled his mouth and nose, and noise filled his ears—booms and cracks—rebounding and echoing until it sounded as if the entire cave system were collapsing around them.
Gradually the noise died to a clatter of rolling stones. Barnaby found himself on hands and knees, blind, half-deaf. Each inhalation brought more dust, choking him.
He coughed, blinked, and lurched to his feet. No, not blind. He saw candlelight, and air thick with dust, and another lurching shape: Marcus.
Barnaby blinked again. Before, he’d been standing in the entrance to the cave where he’d found the coin, empty of Lady Cosgrove and Miss Merryweather, with a dark opening gaping on the far side; now, he was standing in the entrance to . . . disaster. Half the cave’s roof had come down, and the dark opening was gone.
“Christ.” Horror held him frozen for a moment—and then panic took over. He began frantically heaving chunks of limestone aside. “Miss Merryweather! Lady Cosgrove!” Dust rose from the rubble, as if the rocks were smoking.
Marcus joined him, flinging rocks aside. They worked silently, frantically.
A sound caught Barnaby’s attention. He grabbed Marcus’s arm. “Listen.”
Marcus froze, his head up, questing.
The sound came again, faint and far away. “Marcus?”
“Charlotte?” Marcus bellowed. He began scrambling up the pile of rubble. Another chunk of rock detached itself from the ceiling, almost hitting him.
Barnaby caught Marcus’s arm and hauled him back. “Quiet!” he choked out. “If you shout, you’ll bring it down on our heads.”
He saw the struggle on Marcus’s face—panic versus self-control. Self-control won. Marcus inhaled a shuddering breath. He turned back to the rubble. He didn’t shake Barnaby’s hand from his arm. “Charlotte?” His voice was pitched low, as quiet as if they were in church. “Can you hear me?”
“Yes,” came the faint answer.
Barnaby tilted his head, trying to catch where her voice was coming from.
“Are you and Merry all right?” Marcus asked in the same, low voice.
“We’re fine. Just a little . . . alarmed.”
High up to the right, a hole gaped between the ceiling and the rockfall. Barnaby released Marcus’s arm and pointed. “Up there.” Dust caught in his throat and made him cough. “Her voice is coming from there.”
Marcus nodded. He examined the rubble, examined the ceiling. “I’m going up.”
“No, I’m going up. You get back out there.” Barnaby jerked his thumb at the larger cavern behind them.
Breath hissed between Marcus’s teeth. “She’s my wife—”
“You have a son, Marcus! If the rest of the roof comes down, one of you needs to survive, else Charles will grow up an orphan.”
When Marcus was angry, his face became bony. It became bony now. Very bony. “Damn you for being right!” He swung away and strode out to the larger cavern, hands clenched.
Barnaby turned back to the rockfall. “Lady Cosgrove? Miss Merryweather? Stand as far back as you can. I’m going to see if that hole’s big enough to get you out.”
He waited several seconds, then began to climb the rubble. Chunks of rock rolled and shifted beneath his boots, rattling to the ground. When he was nearly at the top, he dislodged a huge slab. It slid down the pile like a toboggan, slamming heavily into the cave floor, sending echoes reverberating.
Barnaby continued warily, creeping on hands and knees, on his belly, his head almost brushing the crumbling roof. The hole was about a foot and a half high and nearly three feet wide. He wriggled carefully forward, and peered into the cave beyond.
Half the ceiling had detached in one large chunk that sloped steeply away from him to bury itself in the chamber floor. It looked like a giant’s tombstone. Beyond it, on the farthest side of the chamber, stood Miss Merryweather and Lady Cosgrove.
His gaze skipped over Lady Cosgrove, and settled on Miss Merryweather. She stood gripping her cousin’s hand. His eyes made the same mistake they’d made the very first time he’d seen her, telling him she was a child. A small, dusty, waiflike child. And then he blinked, and saw her for who she truly was. Small and dusty, yes, but not waiflike. Strong. Self-possessed. Resolute. Her posture was ramrod straight, her chin slightly up, as if defying anyone to call her scared.
Barnaby released the breath he’d been holding. She’s unhurt. “Are you all right?” he asked, quietly.
“Perfectly,” Lady Cosgrove said, her voice cool and calm.
Barnaby tore his gaze from Miss Merryweather and examined the slab of rock. He touched it cautiously, and then less cautiously, and then pressed as hard as he could. It didn’t shift so much as an inch. To his eyes it seemed safer than the sliding pile of rubble on his side—but its sheerness made it impossible for the women to climb, and the floor of the chamber was a good fifteen feet below the hole. “We need some kind of ladder to get you out. It’ll take us a while to fetch it. Um . . . try not to make any noise.”
“There’s a small grotto behind this cave,” Lady Cosgrove said. “It looks quite safe. We’ll wait there.”
“Do you have spare candles?” Both ladies, he was pleased to see, still had their lanterns.
“I brought six candles and a tinderbox,” Miss Merryweather said, and then she smiled wryly. “Just in case.”
Courage and common sense, and a sense of humor. Barnaby felt his heart give a little stutter. I think I love you, Miss Merryweather. He cleared his throat. “I’ll fetch some blankets. Try not to worry too much. We’ll get you out.”
He climbed back down the rockfall and went out into the cavern where they’d found the tooth. Marcus pounced on him. “Well?”
Barnaby described the second chamber. “We’ll need a rope ladder to get them out.”
“I’ll fetch one.” Marcus spun on his heel.
“And send the groom in with those blankets for the picnic. And the candles we had left over. We need more light—and so do they.”
“Will do.” Marcus ran from the cavern. Barnaby heard the tap-tap-tap of his boots and then that sound faded. He went back into the smaller chamber and stared at the pile of rubble.
Fifteen minutes later, the groom arrived, a bulky picnic hamper in his arms, two blankets over one shoulder, and a rope wound around his waist.
Barnaby hastily relieved him of the hamper. “Thank you, Sawyer,” he whispered. “Keep your voice down.”
The groom glanced warily into the small chamber. “His lordship said to give the hamper to the ladies, if we can.”
“We’ll try. The candles?”
Sawyer dug into his pockets and produced four candles. “I put the rest of ’em in the hamper.”
Barnaby placed the hamper on the floor and opened it. It had been hurriedly repacked. “I left in the food,” Sawyer whispered. “But I took out most of the glasses and plates, so’s I could fit in all the lemonade. Thought they’d need something to drink.”
“Good thinking.”
Barnaby lit the four extra candles and placed them around the small chamber. Then he and Sawyer climbed the rockfall, lugging the hamper and the blankets. There wasn’t enough space for them both at the top. Sawyer, the ex-pugilist, was a hulking man; it was easy to imagine him jamming fast in the hole. “Stay here,” Barnaby breathed. “Pass the stuff to me.”
He inched forward on his belly and stared into the next cave. The huge slab hadn’t moved. It still looked like a giant’s gravestone, its foot buried in the cave floor, its head resting just below his chin. Opposite him, low in the cave wall, was a hole shaped like a small doorway; the entrance to the grotto Lady Cosgrove had spoken of.
The blankets unrolled as they slid down the slab, arriving at the bottom with a faint, sighing swooop. The hamper was more difficult; it took their combined efforts to shove it through the gap. Several chunks of rock dislodged, rattling to the floor.
Barnaby lowered the hamper on the end of the rope. The gritty, sliding sound it made brought both ladies from the grotto. He beckoned them forward.
They untied the hamper, gathered up the blankets, and retreated to the far side of the chamber, where they stood, looking up at him.
Barnaby stared down at Miss Merryweather, at her dusty, disheveled ringlets and pale, heart-shaped face and determined composure. “Shouldn’t be more than an hour or two,” he said, in a low voice.
Both ladies nodded.
Barnaby hesitated. Should he try to haul them up now, using the rope? Between him and Sawyer, they ought to be strong enough. But it would be like a wrestling match at the top, and the gap wasn’t big enough for him and someone else, and more rock would come down.
No, it was safer to wait for a ladder.
Barnaby coiled up the rope. “We’ll get you out. I give you my word.”
By the time Marcus returned, Barnaby and Sawyer had enlarged the gap as much as they dared. With every movement they made, rubble shifted beneath them. Twice, large chunks tobogganed to the floor, striking with great cracks of sound. The second time this happened, a shower of stones fell from the ceiling, making them both duck. The clatter from that was just dying—and Barnaby’s heartbeat returning to something approaching normal—when Marcus arrived. He brought three gardeners and two stablemen with him, and shovels, ropes, and a rope ladder that had been hastily cobbled together.
Barnaby and Sawyer scrambled down to meet them.
“How are they?” Marcus asked, his eyes fierce with anxiety.
“In good spirits. That roof’s damned fragile, though.”
They attached a rope to one end of the ladder and looped it around a stalagmite. “I’ll go through and help them climb,” Barnaby said. “We need a man at the top, to help them, and one about halfway down. Not your biggest men; the ones who can move the most stealthily.”
Marcus ran his eye over the assembled men, and selected a gardener and one of the grooms. “Noake . . . and Rudkin.” Both men were young and wiry.
“Everyone else needs to stay well back.”
Marcus nodded.
Barnaby turned to Sawyer. “Sawyer, if that roof does come down, get him out of here—even if you have to put him in a headlock to do it—and don’t let him back in.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Damn it, Bee—”
“Think about Charles.”
“I am thinking about Charles,” Marcus snarled. “Or it would be me climbing through, not you!”
Barnaby met his eyes, and nodded. He picked up the rope ladder and turned away. Marcus followed. “For God’s sake, Bee, be careful.”
“I will.”
Marcus caught his arm, and said in a whisper, “Tell Charlotte to use her gift if she thinks it will help.”
“What?”
“She’ll understand.” Marcus released his arm. “Be careful.”
Barnaby climbed the rockfall for the third time that afternoon, the anchor rope trailing behind him. He stationed the stableman halfway up, and the gardener at the top, then crept through the gap. Nothing had changed on the other side.
He released the rope ladder. It unrolled with a gritty slithering sound, the bottom two rungs slapping on the ground.
“Tell them to tie off the rope,” he whispered to the gardener.
The anchor rope pulled taut.
Barnaby began his descent. When he reached the third rung, the great slab shifted, settling several inches with a grating noise.
He froze, clinging to the ladder, his heart beating triple time in his chest.
The echoes died into silence. Barnaby released his breath in a slow trickle, and descended another rung. The giant’s gravestone dropped two feet with a sudden, jolting jerk. He lost his grip and slid down the slab amid an avalanche of stones, hit the floor hard enough to knock the breath from his lungs, and curled himself in a helpless ball. Stones thudded into him like dozens of bony fists.
When the clatter of falling rocks had faded, Barnaby uncurled fractionally. God, I hope Noake and Rudkin are all right.
He rolled over on his back, blinked gritty eyes, and gazed up at the gap. It had shrunk to the size of a rabbit hole.
“Sir Barnaby!” Someone leaned over him. “Sir Barnaby! Are you all right?”
Barnaby blinked, and focused on Miss Merryweather’s face. Anxiety shone in her eyes as brightly as tears.
He reached out to lay his hand on her cheek, remembered himself in time, and changed the movement into a general uncurling of his body. “I’m fine.” He pushed up to sit, and coughed twice. “I’m fine,” he repeated. “But we have a slight problem.”