They both jumped back as the iron grille hit the floor, though not as quickly or as far as they ought. Reflexes and strength were ebbing. The only blessing of the cold was that it dulled the pain in her arm, though a gunshot wound seemed a trivial fact in the face of a greater horror should they fail to escape.
Colleen rubbed her arms, mindful that she wore Nick’s coat, leaving him exposed to the chill radiating from the walls. His larger size could only keep him so warm for so long. Overcome by the cold, they were bound to be helpless to resist when Mr. Glover and Dr. Farquhar returned.
Fear and anxiety kept rearing their heads. Trapped, her mind repeated, over and over. As her parents had been when the wind blew their train carriage off the bridge, plunging it into the river below. Had they been killed instantly? Or had there been a frantic scramble to escape before the icy water rushed in? She’d never know.
But here, beneath The Three-Eyed Bat, she had the benefit of time.
And now, the possibility of escape. She dragged in a deep breath and squared her shoulders. Nick loved her. Her. A sentiment he’d demonstrated in both words and actions. And, though her heart insisted she felt the same, her mind resisted speaking the words in such a cold, dank space.
Directing the fading light of the decilamp inward, Nick stuck his head into the hole.
“Please,” Colleen whispered on a breath of fog and ice. “Tell me there’s an ‘off’ switch.”
“Sadly, no. I see shadows of pipes to either side, but even if we managed to break one of them, we’d likely only flood the floor and worsen our sorry state.” He stepped back and held out the decilamp. “As to the coal chute, I can make out the original brick wall of the cellars, but the light is too faint for my eyes as it disappears into the darkness above.”
Afraid she might drop it, she gripped the light with more force than strictly necessary as she stuck her head into the void. Coal dust stained the narrowing ascent of the shaft. Easy enough to climb, but disappointment waited at the top. “A twelve-inch coal hole.” Not an escape route. But still an opening onto a street. Buoyed by hope, her heart lifted. Men, women or children might—or might not—pass by, and might or might not be induced to summon help. She backed out. “I’ll climb up and try to pass a message.”
“Not to the managers of The Three-Eyed Bat,” he warned. “At least not until all other options are exhausted. They saw me descend and haven’t bothered to come looking. I expect Glover has ensured they’ve been paid well for the use of this space and their silence. Alerting them would likely only result in our captors’ swift return.”
“So noted.” She shoved her hands deep into the pockets of Nick’s coat. They’d stripped her of her belt and with it, all her supplies. “Please tell me you’ve paper and a pencil somewhere on your person.”
With a half-smile, he produced said items from the cuff of his sleeve and the hem of his trousers. The slip of paper was damp, but serviceable. “At your service.”
She lifted an eyebrow. “I don’t suppose they conveniently overlooked a skeet pigeon you’ve tucked inside a boot?”
A ghost of a smile touched his lips. “A small mechanical assistant would be quite handy at the moment. Alas, we will need to depend upon the goodwill of drunkards and street urchins. Send as many as you can. Promise them the moon.” He blew on his hands and flexed his fingers before tearing the paper into thin strips. “What shall I write and to whom?”
“Begin with a message addressed to my aunt,” she directed. “Sorcha might be hanging about in the shadows.”
His hand stilled, and Nick lifted his gaze. “Really? Your familiar followed you?”
“She’ll sometimes take to the streets on her own business, but when we’re out working, not once has she ever left my side. She leapt out the window first, but would have waited. Despite the laudanum forced upon me before they rolled me inside that carpet, I caught glimpses of her trailing behind the crank hack.”
“You’ll pardon my disbelief, but Sorcha is mostly wild. And a feline. They’re not known for being the most cooperative—or trainable—of creatures.”
“Agreed.” Colleen tore strips of cloth from her damaged sleeve, braiding them together to form a collar, twisting a wider length of the material to form a pouch. “But neither is she a fat house cat accustomed to a life of pampered indulgence. Which is why the promise of a tin of sardines never fails.”
Nick made an amused noise.
A small smile twitched her lips. “Isabella and I trained Sorcha to carry messages home to warn my aunt of inevitable delays, so that she might conceal my absence.” For all the good that had done. All that time her uncle had known what she was about. “We always knew there might come a day I found myself trapped. This situation certainly qualifies.”
Colleen certainly wouldn’t suggest they reach out to Mr. Witherspoon. Not after he’d hired her to work an obfuscation chain that helped her own uncle to double-cross his traitorous colleagues in a tangled web of betrayal. If—when—they survived this, she was of a mind to bang on his door and set his ears on fire with a few choice words.
“Worth a try.” Nick began to scratch out a message. “I’m asking her to contact my father who, given the dead body dropped upon his stoop, will have noticed our sudden, and now prolonged, absence.”
“We only have to pray Isabella is not overly beleaguered with the consequences of her husband’s arrival upon the doorstep.” By the arrival of constables and Runners. By the morbidly curious. But mostly, by relief. They needed Isabella to retreat to her room and find the cat sìth waiting in time to send help before Dr. Farquhar and Mr. Glover returned with plans for Colleen’s death and resurrection.
Nick handed her the slip of paper, then began to compose a few more general pleas for help. Rolling the message into a tight tube, she tucked it into the cloth pouch and knotted it into place. Minutes later, the notes were written, addressed and stashed securely into her cincher.
She caught Nick by the lapel of his waistcoat and rose up on to her toes to press a kiss to his lips. “Thoughts of sitting hearthside with you have never been so appealing.” Where she might find the courage to whisper her words of love.
“Sitting?” He forced levity into his tight voice as he caught her waist and let his gaze slide slowly over her ruined shirt and torn cincher. “There’ll be no sitting. Not until we’re old and gray. But the sooner we’ve a fire before us the better. Let me give you a boost.”
The opening into the coal chute posed not the slightest problem. Nor—though her cold, raw and much-abused fingers smarted and her arm ached—did the passageway itself. As suspected from the gentle movement of air into the chamber below, the iron plate of the coal hole cover was perforated. Working the latch with frigid fingers proved a challenge, but after a few fumbles, she managed to pop it open. Like a fox emerging from its den, she lifted her head.
Fifty feet away lay the entrance to the pub. Over its dark, wooden door a sign flapped gently in the wind. Inky shadows clung to the street, but the wavy glass of the pub’s windows gave off a soft yellow glow despite the hour. She could hear the soft clatter of late night traffic, but The Three-Eye Bat was at the end of a long alleyway, close yet removed from nearby busier streets, and foot traffic was regrettably light. “Sorcha!” she called softly, clicking her tongue against her teeth. “Are ye here?” A shadow detached itself from the gloom, wending its way along the buildings, padding cautiously in her direction upon silent feet. “Div nae worry.” Do not worry. “It’s me, Colleen.”
In true feline form, the cat sìth approached in a cautious, roundabout manner. Sorcha sniffed at Colleen’s mussed hair with disapproval.
“I’m in need o yer services, fairy cat. Grant me a boon?”
Sorcha sat back upon her haunches, as if contemplating Colleen’s quandary. Slowly, she lowered herself back into the hole, hoping the cat sìth’s curiosity would draw her closer. It did. The cat sìth peered down into the coal hole, whiskers twitching.
Colleen lifted the braided collar. “Might I?” When Sorcha did not back away, she tied the twisted neckband about the cat sìth’s neck, an indignity suffered without complaint. “Ging hame,” she said. Go home. “Tae Isabella.” To Isabella.
The cat sìth blinked at Colleen, then turned about and darted across the cobblestones, melting into the shadows.
When she was certain Sorcha was beyond hearing, Colleen began to call for help. “Is anyone there?”
Long minutes passed while she shivered. So close to freedom, yet so very, very far. A drunkard or two staggered from the doors of the pub, oblivious to her beckoning calls. Not until an old, hunch-backed woman turned down the alleyway did a soul turn a face in her direction.
“What’s this?” The old woman altered course and crept forward to peer down at Colleen. “In a bit of a pickle are you, young lady?”
“Quite.” Colleen lifted a slip of paper beside her face. “I’m trapped inside The Three-Eyed Bat’s cellars and desperately in need of help.”
“I’d say,” the old woman agreed, stroking her hairy chin.
“Please, will you carry a message for me?” Colleen pleaded. “The recipient will pay ten pounds.”
“One hundred,” she demanded, cackling.
Unease swirled in Colleen’s stomach. “Done.”
“And what guarantee have I that it will be paid?” The woman made no attempt to reach for the message.
“The recipient will be desperate for news. He holds a seat in Parliament.”
“A lord?”
Colleen nodded. “He is.”
The old woman took a step back. “What kind of fool do you take me for? A thousand pounds is no use to a dead woman. No one trapped in cellars beneath The Three-Eyed Bat is worth paying the price of drawing the attention of a peer.” She straightened. “Now, they do pay their informants well, and that is an effort worth making.” The old woman padded to the door of the pub and banged.
“No!” Colleen called. “Please! I’m begging you.”
But as the door to the pub cracked open, Colleen ducked beneath the surface, pulling the iron coal hole cover closed and praying those inside The Three-Eyed Bat would dismiss the old woman’s tale.
“What is it?” Nick called.
Heart pounding, she slid down the brick shaft. “No amount of money—or so I am informed—is sufficient to purchase assistance. I managed to send a message with Sorcha, but an old woman declined my offer in favor of alerting those inside the pub.”
Nick’s curses echoed her own thoughts.
She crouched at the bottom of the shaft beside the opening. “What do—”
Bang. Bang. Bang. The sound of a booted foot stomping upon the coal hole, her silent plea denied. “Is that you, Mrs. Glover? I gather the worm has brought about no ill-effects, though by now you ought to be feeling the cold. No? Shimmy back my way so that we might have a word.”
“It’s Mr. Glover,” she hissed. Had he not left the pub? Or had he only just returned?
“Stay still,” Nick whispered. “Let him wonder if the old woman lied.”
“Quite a lot of trouble you’ve caused me of late,” Mr. Glover called. “Perhaps we shouldn’t have skipped so lightly over the marriage vows. I would enjoy hearing you promise obedience.” There was a long pause. “Last chance, wife. My patience has grown thinner than a French whore’s negligee.”
Hatred burned in her chest. She refused to answer him.
“No witty reply?” Mr. Glover said. “Has the chill addled your mind? Excellent. Time to hasten our little experiment. Dr. Farquhar is most anxious to escape to Scotland. Between a burned house and an eviscerated wife, the Metropolitan Police are all too eager to speak with him.”
A faint clang sounded above her, the sound of tin scrapping across stone. A second later a deluge of cold water poured down upon her, drenching her hair, her shirt and splashed off the brick, soaking through her trousers and pooling inside her boots. Her lungs dragged in a deep, shuddering breath, but the resulting scream froze in her throat as the entirety of her body began to shake uncontrollably.
“Colleen!” Nick yelled. His hands reached through the metal wall, tugging at her as a second bucket of water rained down.
She slid back into the frigid prison, as Mr. Glover called, his voice twisted by malice. “We won’t be much longer, my dear. Inform your lover that if there is any resistance on his part, Lady Anna will not be granted the privilege of a cure while supervised by her most dedicated brother. We will instead dispose of him and consider a more compliant patient with more appreciative family members.”
“Bastard!” Nick yelled.
Evil laughter filtered down. “Only a third son, like yourself, looking to secure a future.”