The Viscount's Dangerous Liaison: Regency romantic mystery (Dangerous Deceptions Book 3) Page 11

  ‘Oh, this is one of the main smugglers’ routes up from the beach,’ Laura said as Waggett helped Will down from the curricle and offered his arm.

  ‘Where do you want to be, Reverend?’

  ‘In the porch, if you please. I can sit there and watch what you are all doing at the tomb. But how do you know about the smugglers’ route, Laura?’

  ‘Yes, how do you?’ Theo demanded.

  She shrugged. ‘I thought everyone did, it is common knowledge. Certainly the brandy that Uncle Swinburn acquires comes this way. I heard him talking about it to Giles once. The path goes up past the church.’ She gestured vaguely.

  ‘That probably explains why Swinburn is so prickly about me asking questions,’ Theo said. ‘Jed, you go and stand watch on the north side, there’s the best view of the surrounding country from there. Let us know immediately if you see anyone.’ He prowled around the tomb, peering under the overhang of the lid as the groom disappeared around the west end of the church. ‘No wonder we couldn’t shift this. It has some kind of iron bolts securing it. The ends show here and here.’ Perry came and crouched down beside him to look. ‘And they are all rusted solid. See?’

  Perry said something short and vehement under his breath.

  ‘Quite. So if there is any way into this, it must be from the side.’

  ‘With that wide stone plinth under it there would be no marks of stones being dragged back over the turf.’ Laura joined them and knelt at one end. ‘Have you noticed how close the turf is scythed all round the tomb, not just on the side nearest the path?’

  ‘Which means that someone wanted to get at the back.’ Theo got up and moved round. ‘And the plinth slopes slightly away from the tomb on this side. Again, no drag-marks would be left if the side panel was pulled out.’

  ‘Seems as though someone was thinking this out carefully,’ Perry remarked. ‘Unless it is all a fairy tale we’re telling ourselves.’ Despite his dubious tone he removed his hat and coat and laid them on top of the tomb then stood back, cracking his knuckles. ‘Pity we can’t just hit it with a sledgehammer.’

  Theo was crawling along the sloping plinth, tapping at the side with his gloved knuckles. ‘It sounds hollow, but then it would, even if it was perfectly genuine.’

  The irritable fat cherubs on the corner seemed to glower at Laura and she stuck out her tongue in childish retaliation, then leaned in closer, her attention caught by a detail. ‘The cherub at the top has eyes, but this one only has holes.’ She pushed one finger into the staring eye socket and then the other. ‘Perry, see if it is the same your end and if it is, put your fingers in the holes. Something shifted when I pushed.’

  He bent down. ‘Yes, holes here. I’ll just… Watch out!’

  There was a grating sound and the entire long back panel of the tomb tilted out. Theo gave a startled yell, rolled away from underneath but managed to twist around to get both hands to it as Perry grabbed for the other end.

  They laid it down on the grass and there was a jostling rush to peer inside, followed by Will who had the sense to fetch a lantern before walking cautiously down to join them.

  ‘It is empty,’ Laura said. ‘Thank goodness.’ She had not been looking forward to seeing a skull grinning back at them.

  Then Will lit the lantern and handed it to Theo who held it at arm’s length into the cobwebbed interior. ‘It might not be unoccupied.’ A line of stone slabs edged the floor of the tomb, but in the centre was a grave-sized hole vanishing down into the darkness. ‘A vault,’ he said, his voice echoing back as he leaned in.

  ‘Riders coming,’ Jed called, coming round the corner of the church at a run. ‘Six of ’em and one’s Sir Walter.’ He skidded to a halt, panting. ‘They’re almost here, came up from some track I couldn’t see on the side of the hill.’

  ‘Hell, that must be the smugglers’ path,’ Theo said. They could hear voices, quite close now. He caught her by the shoulders, looked around. ‘Laura, inside the tomb, quickly.’

  She scrambled in, too anxious about being seen to think about what she was doing, where she was going. The slab went back into place with a muffled thud at either end and she was alone in the dark with only four little circles of light from the cherubs’ empty eyes.

  I won’t suffocate, she told herself as the realisation dawned that she was actually entombed, overtaking the panic at the thought of her uncle laying hands on her again. Entombed. With what?

  All around her the dead of centuries mouldered peacefully under the turf. They can’t hurt you, she told herself. It was not much help, not with a yawning open grave right beside her. Laura shifted a little so she was lying flat on her back. The edging slabs were just wide enough to support her if she crossed her arms over her chest. Like a copse. Stop it. Theo’s out there, he’ll get me out as soon as it is safe. I can breathe, five capable men know exactly where I am.

  She made herself relax, let her shoulders lie flat, her legs go limp. Breathing became easier and she could hear a little of what was happening outside. There was the heavy tread of hooves, the exchange of greetings. Two new voices, her uncle and Giles. No, three and that one a woman, her voice deeper than her Aunt Swinburn. It must be Aunt Finch, she realised.

  That was Perry’s voice, then Theo’s. She couldn’t hear what they were saying beyond the odd word, but they seemed to be explaining that they were taking Will out for some fresh air and a change of scene and that they were still intrigued by the inscriptions on the tomb.

  It all seemed to be going well and the tone, if not the words, sounded casual and friendly. Laura relaxed a little more: they’d be gone in a moment and meanwhile her right foot was going to sleep. She gave it an experimental wiggle just as something scuttled across her nose, making her jump. With the change in weight the stone under her left shoulder blade shifted, the slab tilted. Laura jerked upright and two more moved under her hips, then she was sliding, tipped sideways into the blackness of the vault below.

  Somehow she managed not to scream as she landed in total darkness on a flat, hard surface, the breath almost knocked out of her. Nothing shifted, no stones followed her down. Tentatively she put out a hand, her fingertips brushed something that was not earth or stone and she closed her hand around it. Something slightly rough, but not rock. Something slender and long and – Bone.

  Laura dropped it, recoiling backwards in the narrow slot, fighting the urge to shriek. Her scrabbling hand closed around something hard and round and she flailed out wildly, then froze. Somewhere close at hand there was a soft trickle, tiny clinks, a rustle of dried soil. Earth and stones were falling.

  Chapter Eleven

  Just go away! Theo wanted to yell it at the riders. Laura was in that tomb along with goodness knows what and he and Perry were lounging about up here in the light and air making fatuous conversation about parish history and Will’s health.

  Sir Walter and Giles were out checking their coverts with their head gamekeeper, they said. The rider on the neat brown cob, keeping a respectful distance, raised his hat to Theo when he looked across and he recognised him as the man with the spaniel in the Mermaid inn. Beside him another rider waited, the dark, silent man who had walked out of the inn when he’d entered. His gaze was on Mrs Finch. Her groom perhaps.

  ‘Ran across Jenner here, he’s having the same problems with the scoundrels,’ Sir Walter said, gesturing towards the Squire. ‘You losing much game, Manners?’

  ‘Not that I’m aware of, but I have to admit to not keeping a close eye on it for the last month or so,’ Perry admitted. ‘My keeper’s been laid up with a broken leg, which doesn’t help.’

  ‘We should set man traps,’ Jenner blustered. ‘Then hang the scum.’

  Mrs Finch turned her head to regard him. She cut an imposing figure, mounted on a strapping Roman-nosed grey and Theo thought she had the gravitas and self-control that her brother Sir Walter sadly lacked. ‘If the common people were better fed we would not have a problem with poaching,’ she pronounced. ‘The gov
ernment should look to the Corn Laws if they truly have the interests of the people at heart.’

  ‘Hah! You’re bound to say that, being a clergyman’s wife,’ Jenner retorted. ‘You just have to look across the Channel to see what that kind of softness leads to – bloody revolution, that’s what!’

  Mrs Finch’s nostrils flared and the horse shifted uneasily as though she had jabbed the reins. ‘A warning, certainly,’ was all the response that she gave him. After a moment she turned back to look down at Perry who was leaning against the tomb. ‘I see you are assisting Lord Northam with his antiquarian interests, Lord Manners.’

  Perry grinned. ‘Got to keep my guest happy, ma’am. Besides, I have to admit to being intrigued as to who this Flyte fellow was.’

  ‘You’d do better getting a new keeper and harrying these confounded poachers, Manners,’ Sir Walter snapped. ‘Good day to you.’

  ‘Wait, I must see how Mr Thwaite does.’ Mrs Finch turned her horse and rode up to the porch where Will, supported by Jed, was just standing up. The groom turned his horse’s head and moved up, keeping the same distance behind her.

  ‘Should you be out of your bed, Mr Thwaite?’

  ‘The doctor recommended light exercise to prevent muscle stiffness, Mrs Finch. But I must confess, sitting is about all I feel able to manage at the moment. Even standing for more than a few minutes is exhausting. The change of scene, however, is refreshing. I must thank you for your offer to take me in after the incident.’

  ‘The least we can do. The Rector will not hear of you exerting yourself about your duties for at least another week.’ She nodded majestically and rode back. ‘Come, Walter.’

  At least another week! Very generous, Theo thought as the riding party made its way down to the gate Waggett was holding open for them.

  Jed strolled after them and vanished into the lane. He reappeared a few minutes later. ‘They are all cantering across that pasture towards Smoker’s Hole.’

  Theo and Perry were already on their knees, triggering the release on the tomb. The side fell away to reveal empty space and misplaced slabs.

  ‘Laura!’

  Perry handed him the lighted lantern and he held it inside. There was a scuffling noise and Laura stood up, the top of her head just below the edge of the shelf around the inside of the tomb.

  ‘Oh, thank goodness.’ Her face as she tipped it up to look at him was white and her eyes wide. He reached in and she took his hand and clung for a long moment before she let go. ‘It is horrible in here. There are bones.’

  Theo leaned over. ‘No there aren’t.’

  Laura looked down. ‘So there aren’t – it’s a ladder! Oh, how foolish, I put out my hand and it closed over a rung and it felt just like a long bone must do.’ She shivered. ‘I could hear earth and stones falling, but they’ve stopped now.’

  Theo leaned over further. ‘That ladder looks sound. Quite new, in fact. If you set it upright, can you climb out?’ She had cobwebs in her hair and a dusty smudge across her nose and he just wanted to reach in and haul her up into his arms.

  ‘You climb down,’ she said. ‘Now I can see and I know I’m not sharing this with a skeleton, I want to explore.’

  ‘If you go down, Theo, then so do I,’ Perry announced. When they were all three in the trench he peered into the darkness. ‘You first, Theo, then Laura – if you must,’ he added darkly. ‘If Waggett keeps watch and Jed stays here with one end of the rope and we take the other, then he can haul us out if there’s any problem.’

  ‘What about me?’ Will had made his way painfully down the path and was on his knees looking into the tomb.

  ‘You stay there,’ Theo said. ‘And offer up prayers that no-one else sees Laura in this rig-out.’

  As he hoped, that startled an indignant laugh out of her. He hadn’t liked the paleness of her face when he had looked down at her in that grave cut. He tied one end of the rope around his waist and wriggled past her. It was a tight fit and the feeling of her body in its male clothing was both strange and disturbing. ‘Keep at least two feet behind me,’ he ordered brusquely to cover up his reaction. ‘If more earth starts to fall, turn round and get out immediately, do you understand?’

  ‘Yes, Theo,’ she said with a meekness that was clearly meant to mock. ‘You had better have the lantern, don’t you think?’

  ‘Of course.’ Pressing past her had put the damned thing out of his mind. He took it from her and held it up. ‘There’s definitely a tunnel.’

  ‘How far does it go?’ Perry asked from behind Laura.

  ‘Not very far at all. Three or four yards, perhaps. I think I can see stone.’ He bent and edged forward, listening every few steps for the sound of the walls or roof giving way. Then the earth around him became cut stonework and the edge of the tunnel finished abruptly. One step ahead was nothing but a dark, echoing space.

  ‘I’ve found the crypt,’ he called back as he swung the lantern out into the void. ‘The tunnel cuts through the wall of the church.’

  ‘Can you get down?’ Laura asked.

  ‘There’s another ladder. I’ll try it if you stop pushing me and I don’t go in head first.’

  ‘I can’t help it,’ Laura protested. ‘It’s Perry treading on my heels.’

  ‘Change places then.’ Theo knelt down and gave the head of the ladder a firm shake. It seemed sound enough.

  Behind him he heard a spirited argument going on, then scuffling, then Perry spoke right behind him. ‘Is it safe?’

  ‘I think so. You hold the top, I’ll go down.’ The ladder was solid under his feet and he landed safely about eight feet down on a stone floor. ‘Pass me the lantern.’

  Perry handed it down and he looked around.

  ‘Nothing here – some broken wood here by my feet – looks like an old ladder, a damaged cask over there. That newer stonework must be what blocks the steps up to the aisle. No coffins, thank goodness. The air smells fairly fresh which seems strange.’

  ‘There’ll be pierced stones somewhere to ventilate it,’ Perry said, surprising him with his knowledge. ‘There was a problem with them getting blocked by earth at Fellingham church and we had to get stonemasons in because of the damp. Does the crypt go right under the church? I can’t see.’

  ‘I think so.’ Theo peered past some pillars. ‘Yes, it is the same plan as the church above, I think. Nothing exciting – just more rubbish in one corner.’

  ‘I’m coming down. Laura wants to see and she’ll push me off in a moment.’ He joined Theo and Laura appeared at the edge, knelt down and pulled a face.

  ‘I was expecting piles of casks or chests of gold. How disappointing.’

  Theo walked over and kicked the scattered cask staves. ‘This looks like a brandy cask, it was small. But there are no marks on it. What’s under that old tarpaulin, Perry?’

  It covered a low mound about six feet in length that ran away from the wall just below the opening they had come through. Perry took hold of a corner, flipped it back and swore, one violent, vehement word.

  Laura tried to scream but no sound came out. She tried to look away, but found she could not. The body lay staring up at her, the skin yellow and tight to the skull, the mouth open in an obscene laugh, greyish hair straggling from the peeling scalp. What made it almost worse was that this was clearly a clergyman. His dusty black garments still clung in tatters to the skeletal limbs, a grey wig of the style of half a century before had fallen to one side and once-white clerical neckbands lay on his chest.

  Theo shot up the ladder, pulled her to her feet and away from the entrance and pushed her unceremoniously back along the tunnel, into the cut beneath the tomb. Somehow, she found herself out in the light and the air, secure in Theo’s arms as he knelt on the grass, holding her tight. She clutched him, too shaken to try and be brave.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Will was on his knees beside them, his voice cracking. ‘Are you hurt?’

  ‘We found the missing Rector,’ Theo said grimly. ‘It… he… is
not a pleasant sight.’

  ‘Dear Lord.’ Will rocked back on his heels as Perry scrambled out of the side of the tomb.

  ‘Laura?’ He frowned at her in Theo’s arms and Theo made a sound surprisingly like a growl. Perry blinked, then said mildly, ‘I suspect you have the wrong pig by the tail, my friend.’

  ‘Are you calling me a – ’

  ‘I must go down there,’ Will said.

  ‘But – ’ Perry began, then shrugged. ‘Don’t tear your stitches when you bend. I’ll go down first and give you a hand.’

  ‘You go too,’ Laura said as she wriggled out of Theo’s embrace. It was far too safe in his arms, she could pretend nothing was wrong. But everything was wrong and there was real life to be faced. ‘Perry needs help to make certain Will doesn’t hurt himself.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ Theo knelt beside her, watching her face with a peculiar intensity.

  He is looking at me so strangely. I must be white as a sheet where I’m not filthy dirty and covered in cobwebs. ‘Go, I will be fine here with Jed and Tom Waggett.’

  She sat there staring rather blankly at the cherubs until Jed offered her a flask containing something apparently concocted from fire, pepper and lamp oil. Two swigs of it left her feeling warmer and less shaky, even if the churchyard did have a tendency to swim in and out of focus.

  The men emerged eventually, all looking rather grim and, in Will’s case, distressed. Perry and Theo closed the tomb and loaded the tools back into the curricle and helped Will up to the seat.

  Laura made to climb in too, but Theo took her arm. ‘You ride back with me,’ he said and, before she could protest, tossed her up into the saddle of his hack, then swung up behind her.

  ‘I’m – ’

  ‘Shocked and shivering and I’m not having you jolted all the way under a rug on the floor of the curricle,’ he finished as he guided the big gelding down to the gate.