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Consciousness came back with a rush. She was sitting on something cold and hard and her hands were at full stretch over her head, which ached abominably. She was in a small stone chamber lit by guttering candles set side by side against the far wall and she wanted, rather badly, a drink, a privy and to ease the desperate ache in her arms.
‘Nell!’ It was Theo. Somehow she managed to turn her head and found he was chained beside her, his arms shackled as hers were, although as he was on his feet he was able to lower them so his elbows were bent.
‘What happened?’ she managed and saw raw relief on his face as she spoke.
‘Someone hit us over the head—two people, it must have been.’ So, it hadn’t been her imagination or the ghosts of the past she had heard behind her after all. ‘Are you all right?’
‘My head hurts and I would kill for a drink, but otherwise I’ll feel better if I can just stand up.’ The relief when she scrambled to her feet, pushing up against the rough wall to help her shaky legs, was enormous. The chains sagged and she could clasp her hands together in front of her. ‘Oh, that’s better, my arms were coming out of their sockets. How are you?’ Theo looked very white and there was blood on the shoulder of his shirt.
‘I’ll do,’ Theo said, his mouth grim. ‘At least they didn’t want us dead.’
That was true. ‘And we’ll see who they are when they come back,’ Elinor pointed out, nodding towards the candles. ‘Two people—does that mean it is the Traceys after all?’
‘Or Leon with a servant. Or Ana, with John, her groom, who has been noticeably absent from sight.’
‘Even if we knew, it doesn’t get us much further forwards, and it doesn’t help us get out of here. What I don’t understand is why they didn’t just knock us out, take the Chalice and leave.’ Elinor lifted her hands and peered at the heavy metal cuffs around her wrists. ‘Where are your picklocks?’
‘In my coat pocket.’ And the coat was lying beside the candles.
‘Oh.’ Elinor reached out for him, finding that the chain ran freely through whatever it was secured to, high on the wall above. If she let one arm rise, she could straighten the other, almost as far as Theo. ‘Can we hold hands for a little while? I’m feeling a bit shaky.’ His hand clasping hers was warm, the fingers reassuringly strong and steady. ‘Mama will want to know where we are.’
‘That’s true. And Hythe. He knows we are searching. I wish now I’d risked having him help me, but it would have been even harder to explain him if we were found than it was with you.’ Theo’s smile was obviously meant to be reassuring, but she was not at all sure he placed much confidence on his aunt thinking to search the dungeons, which was where they must be. ‘It will take a while, though, for Aunt Louisa to start to worry and then to think of speaking to him. Plenty of time for you to tell me all the family news.’
It was a good attempt to keep her spirits up, although nothing was going to happen for a few hours, she was certain. Meanwhile, given the number of Ravenhursts, telling the news was a task that would take some time.
‘And both Bel and Eva were expecting when we left England—the babies may even have been born by now,’ Elinor was saying when Theo stiffened.
‘Listen!’
Someone was coming. A key grated in the lock and the door swung open. ‘Madame, Julie—thank goodness!’ Elinor slumped back against the wall in relief. ‘You’ve found us. Someone hit us, dragged us in here…’ Her voice tailed away as she saw them more clearly. Both looked grim, both were clad in old, dark clothes and neither made any move to approach them. ‘Please, let us out of here.’
‘You will be going nowhere, Mademoiselle Ravenhurst,’ the countess said harshly. ‘You have chosen to pry into my business, now you pay for that.’
‘You took the Chalice from Theo?’ Beside her he was silent, but she could feel the tension running through him as though he had touched her. If they came close enough…
‘I did.’ It was Julie. ‘I had been following him ever since Paris. He did not know me, even if he had seen me. And, of course, he did not expect me.’
‘Then what happened to the late count?’ It was hard to believe these two elegant Frenchwomen could be responsible for this, but there seemed no denying the evidence of her own eyes and ears.
‘My late husband would have dragged us into notoriety and scandal again, releasing that dreadful, sinful, object on to the world. My son Leon is the first de Beaumartin for decades about whom one hears no sniggers, no repetition of the gossip. At last the past was buried, we could hold our heads up once more—and then Charles drags it out into the open again.’
‘Scarcely, Madame,’ Theo spoke at last. ‘The Chalice was to go to a private collector.’
‘Who would brag to his select friends, I have no doubt.’ The countess took an angry pace closer, still a wary distance from their reach. ‘Charles would not listen, would not hear my plans for a suitable marriage for Leon.’
‘To Mademoiselle Julie, no doubt?’ Theo waited until the younger woman nodded, her thin face intent and tense. ‘No doubt he wanted a better match for his son?’
‘She is like a daughter to me and she will make him a good wife—and one who will work to restore the family name. Charles would have him marry some society girl with no backbone, no commitment.’
‘And your husband sold the Chalice to restore the family fortunes despite your objections and fear of scandal?’ Elinor stared at the countess’s implacable face. ‘Did you kill him?’
‘It was an accident,’ Julie said passionately. ‘We were arguing in Paris, when I was trying to help her convince him it was wrong to sell the Chalice. He shouted that I was a nobody, that Leon should marry someone worthy, someone with a title and wealth to bring to the match. But I love Leon,’ she said in a whisper, ‘God help me, I love him.’
‘So who killed the count?’ Theo asked. Elinor was beyond words, staring at the two women in disbelief.
‘It was an accident,’ the countess said, her voice harsh. ‘We struggled over the receipts, over the money. He tripped. When we saw he was dead, Julie followed you and took back the Chalice.’
‘And where is it now?’
