“Let’s continue the tour of the house,” she said as the fire consumed the last bit of paper. “I am more determined than ever now to show the Duke how much I appreciate him. He might not be perfect, but I am very grateful that he is not Lord Cain.”
And because I know he will always protect me from Lord Cain, she added to herself.
They continued on with the tour of the castle, wandering farther and farther away from the center. Rosalie was hardly paying attention to where she was going. Her mind was still fixated on the letter and her fury at Lord Cain. Howdarehe write her here at her husband’s ancestral home, asking to be her lover. He had no shame, no respect, and all after trying to shame her for what had happened in the library at Violet’s ball!
She felt her hands curl into fists, and without thinking, she pushed open a door that had turned black with rot only to find herself standing in a gutted room she had never been in before.
Slowly, she stepped into the room and looked around. The walls and stone floors were black, and there was a horrible acrid smell in the place as if it had been burned.
Burned. Was there a fire in here?
She looked around more closely. There seemed to be scorch marks on the wall, and the curtains were completely gone from the windows. All that remained were a few burned wooden rings that looked as if they had once held fabric. The windows themselves were smudged with black. Ash and smoke, she would guess.
“What is this place?” she said out loud as she stepped farther into the room. “And what happened here?”
She looked to her right and gasped. The wall of the room had been completely burned away, and she could see from this room into the corridor beyond and the room after that. Walls and floors were torn away, exposing rotting, charred beams. She felt as if she were in the remains of a fireplace, looking up at the leftover sticks from the perspective of a bug.
And then it hit her:I’m in the West Wing!
It wasn’t mold that had made this wing of the castle black from the outside. It was a fire! The West Wing of Carramere Castle had been burned almost to the ground!
“Your Grace, are you all right?” Clara’s voice sounded from the doorway, and Rosalie jumped. She had completely forgotten that Clara was with her. But as she turned, a terrible sound filled the room, like something cracking. At the same time, the stones beneath Rosalie’s feet began to move, and she felt the whole ground jolt backward, taking her with it.
“Ahhhh!”Her scream filled her ears, reverberating off the stones as she fell backwards, hitting her knee hard against the stone beneath her.
But the floor was caving in. She could feel it rolling underneath her feet, pulling her back toward the center where stones were beginning to fall downward, as if the floor beneath them had completely collapsed.
“Your Grace! Rosalie!” She heard Clara scream from the door.
“Help!” Rosalie shouted, but she was too far away to reach Clara, whose hand was outstretched toward her. She was sliding toward the hole in the ground where stones were falling through, and if she didn’t move now, the whole floor might cave in.
The window was just a few feet away, so she threw herself at it and gripped the windowsill as hard as she could. Seconds later, the middle of the floor gave out, and Rosalie screamed again. Only moments before, she had been standing right where therewas now a gaping hole that stones were falling through. The rest of the floor tilted toward it, and she knew that if she let go of the windowsill, she would slide forward and fall.
“Your Grace!”
Rosalie looked up to see Clara standing across the now destroyed room, in the doorway, staring at her in horror. “Your Grace, are you all right?”
“I’m all right for now,” Rosalie said, “but I can’t hold onto this forever. Clara, you have to get help!”
She was trying not to look at the hole in front of her. It seemed to go several stories down, and she knew that if she let go, she would plunge down into its dark, inky depths. Her stomach was churning with nausea, and she had to stare straight ahead at Clara in order not to feel the panic seizing her.
“Clara, you have to get the Duke!”
Chapter Nineteen
“Please, let him come quickly,” Rosalie prayed out loud.
The minutes were ticking by. She didn’t know how long Clara had been gone for, but it felt like hours.
“It can’t have been hours,” she reminded herself. “It’s only been a few minutes. She’ll be back soon, and then Nathan will save me.”
It was the first time she had called the Duke by his first name since he had come back into her life, but she barely even noticed. Her body was too tense; fear was crowding out any other feeling, and she was sure, as the minutes slipped by, that if he didn’t come soon, she would fall to her death.
Her legs were beginning to scream in pain. She was standing on her tiptoes on the slanted floor, trying to keep from slipping forward and falling down into the hole. The effort to keep herself from sliding forward was beginning to strain her muscles. Herthighs were full of pins and needles, and her calves were inflamed with pain.
Meanwhile, her fingers were beginning to slip on the windowsill. There wasn’t much for her to grab onto, and with every passing second, it grew harder and harder to hold on.
What if something has happened to Clara, and she isn’t able to alert Nathan of what’s happened? What if he’s out riding, and she can’t find him? What if no one comes and…
