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“Rhys?”
Her call echoed through the cellar, unanswered. Meredith’s heart began to race. Her skirts had tangled about her legs, and she tried to shake them out as she came to a sitting position.
Then, from the stairway, she heard a low, masculine grunt of effort.
Followed by a mighty crash.
“Rhys!”
Dust choked the air, but she clawed her way through it to reach the staircase. As the clouds of grit settled, she saw him silhouetted in the newly cleared entryway, hunched as he prepared to roll back one final stone. Wedging a length of iron beneath the boulder, he pried and heaved with all his strength. Certainly, they could have scrambled over the rock the way it was. The opening was already large enough. But she didn’t interrupt. He was clever enough to have realized the same. For whatever reason, it was important to him to clear the entire way.
With one last straining effort, he managed to rock the boulder onto its narrow end. A final shove with his boot, and the thing rolled clear.
“There,” he said, wiping the perspiration from his brow. His knuckles were skinned and bloodied. “I’m done with this place.”
His words had the edge of finality. She wondered what they meant. Was he done with this horrible cellar? Or with Nethermoor completely?
What about her? Was he done with her?
They descended back to the village, trudging along in silence. He seemed disinclined to converse, to put it mildly, so Meredith gratefully dropped a few steps behind. She ached all over. Her muscles complained about their night spent on cold, rocky ground, her head pounded, and her stomach demanded food. Worst of all was the wrenching pain in her chest.
The pain eased considerably when they entered the tavern of the Three Hounds to find the room filled to bursting with people.
“They’re back!” Darryl called out over the room. “Mrs. Maddox and his lordship, they’ve returned!”
Stumbling his way through the cheering crowd, her father carved a path to her and all but fell into her arms. “Merry,” he rasped, drawing her into a tight embrace and stroking her hair. “I was so concerned. I mean, I knew you were with Rhys and he’d look out for you, but still …”
“I’m well, Father.” She hugged him in return. “I’m so sorry to have worried you. Is everyone else returned?” Craning her neck, she looked over his shoulder into the crowd. So many people—every resident of the village, it seemed—but no sign of the one person she sought.
Until she spied a basket of fresh yeast rolls, and her breath caught in her throat. She pulled out of her father’s embrace.
“I’m here, Mrs. Maddox.” Cora rushed out from the kitchen, clapping flour from her hands. “I’m here. I’m back to work. I’m ever so sorry, ma’am. And I don’t know if you can ever forgive me, but I swear I’ll never let—”
Meredith cut off the girl’s speech by grabbing her into a tight hug. Cora immediately dissolved into tears. Meredith threw a glance of relief in Rhys’s direction, but he’d moved into the crowd. She couldn’t see him anymore.
She turned her attention back to the sobbing girl in her arms. “Poor dear girl. You had us all so worried.” The layer of dirt and grit she wore mingled with Cora’s dusting of flour. Regardless, Meredith stroked the girl’s hair.
Cora twisted in her arms. “The rolls will burn.”
“Never mind it.” She quietly gestured to Darryl, directing him to rescue the bread. Then she directed Cora to the nearest table and helped her into a chair. “Where were you, dear?”
Cora bit her lip and turned her eyes to the flagstones. The room went very quiet.
“Don’t be frightened,” Meredith urged. “You can tell me.”
“She was with me.” A heavy, masculine hand landed on the girl’s shoulder.
Meredith’s gaze swept from hand to arm, from arm to shoulder, and straight up to the face she should have been expecting all along. Damn it, she ought to have known.
“She was with me,” Gideon Myles repeated. “All night.”
As she glared at him, red waves of anger swam before Meredith’s eyes. She could only manage one word. “Where?”
“Someplace private. Someplace safe.”
“We only went out for a walk,” Cora said, sniffing earnestly. “But the mist came up, and Gi … and Mr. Myles said we ought to wait it out. That it wasn’t safe to go home.” Her grip tightened over Meredith’s hand. “Ma’am, I swear to you. It weren’t my intention. We only went out for a walk, and once the mist came up …”
“It wasn’t safe to come home. I know.” Meredith swallowed hard and turned to Gideon, confronting his unrepentant gaze. “It wasn’t safe foryou, who’ve called this moor home for more years than this girl’s been alive, to walk home. But it was safe for everyone else in the village to go searching valley, tor, river, and bog for her? Someone could have been killed.”
