Page 88 of Go, Rogue

She smiles at that description as the two climb the steps to the enormous manor house and Rogers reaches for the bell pull.

Nerves explode through her, and her stomach becomes very, very queasy.

“You’ve never met the duke,” Rogers asks as they stand there, “correct?”

“No,” Catherine says. “Though it strikes me as a bit late for that que—”

The front door swings open, and they stand for a moment staring at the man on the other side of the threshold. Catherine’s queasy stomach drops all the way to her toes and Rogers, gathering himself after a moment, yells, “Run!”

It isn’t the Duke of Barclay or his butler who answers the door. It’s James.

“Run!” Rogers screams at her again, and she doesn’t need to be told a third time—not after she clocks the malicious grin spreading across James’s face.

She hesitates for just a moment more while Rogers launches himself forward. She wants to help but she can’t. The two are entwined and grappling. Could she help? Not that way—not physically.

Go get Childers and McNeil, she thinks, and with one last look at the fighting men, Catherine turns and speeds off down the main drive.

She runs as fast as she can in her damnably soft-soled, borrowed slippers. She was delighting in their smooth satin covers just this morning, but now she curses them for their inadequacy as serviceable footwear.

Drat it, she thinks, as every pebble in the road announces itself to the undersides of her feet.

She should have known better than to be taken in by something pretty but useless. She should have worn her shoes—the ones Andrew made for her—and her own clothes, too: her trousers and linen shirt. Not this gown whose fabric catches between her legs and slows her down. She picks it up with one hand and keeps running.

“McNeil!” she yells as she goes. “Childers!”

No answer, but she pushes on, calling their names until a painful stitch in her side forces her to slow her pace. She presses a hand to her ribs and tries to massage the cramp beneath her corset.

McNeil!” she calls again when she can breathe. “Childers!”

Still no answer.

She stops only when she reaches the ruined carriage and surveys the area. The horses are still tied up, so the men are likely still out there, somewhere. She brushes the sweaty hair off her forehead and neck and waves away the cloud of gnats that has encircled her face.

Well then, she thinks and makes her way into the underbrush. Here we go.

McGann hears her. Catherine’s footsteps are slow and unsteady as she picks her way through the vegetation, but loud enough—thank Elphame—to carry over the call of birds and other animals.

He knows it’s her—he can hear her calling out for McNeil and someone named Childers.

He’d recognize her anywhere. If he were blinded, he’d know her voice. If he were deaf, he’d know her scent. He could pick her out of any crowd by the cadence and weight of her footsteps or the shape of the water she displaces in a rainstorm. She is that singular to him, that unique, that there are a million ways for him to know her.

“Menace!” he calls out, but there’s no answer. “Lass!”

He tries again every few minutes until he’s hoarse, but she can’t hear him. The insects are whining loudly and sound doesn’t carry well, up and out of the root cellar.

For a moment, he worries the fever has gotten hold of his mind and she’s nothing but an apparition. But, he reminds himself, those in the feverish throes of insanity don’t stop to question whether they’re in the feverish throes of insanity.

It must be her.

“Menace!” he calls again and glares at the grate above his head as if he can will her face into existence. But all he sees is the same sliver of bright blue sky bordered by the green overhang of vegetation he always sees.

“Lass!”

But it’s no use. She can’t hear him.

Once more, man, he thinks, pressing his weight onto his throbbing leg. Climb it. She’s out there somewhere.

He moves to the wall of the cellar and searches it with his fingertips, looking for a new and better place to scale the damnable thing. When his fingers find a series of heretofore unexplored crevices, he presses them in and begins to climb.