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If he found her. If he ever escaped this hell.
She is brave.
Jamie’s quiet confidence, the ease of slipping into sleep because Jo is brave, gnawed at him as much as this beast inside him.
They are only stairs. Only stairs. He knew where they began and where they ended. Had been up and down them dozens, hundreds of times before that horrible day and night. They would eventually end. They could not go on for ever, no matter how much every inch of his body was convinced he would never escape their stone belly.
He leaned his hand on the wall—cold and damp and rough—he could feel his heartbeat in his palm—thudding like a hammer trying to break through this prison. He pressed harder and took another step, and another, counting them.
He was pathetic, weak, unfit to be a Duke, a father. He could not even go down a stairwell without his heart thudding in his ears as if he had run ten miles. Even if he survived this hell, how would he find the strength to follow her into the tunnels?
Damn her, damn her, damn her...
The doorway. Thank God.
He stumbled through it, the lamp swinging, but his heart hardly had time to sing its relief when it shrivelled again. Even after close to thirty years he recognised everything. Not that there was much to recognise—the passage was broad but ended in darkness, making it look a mile long. He could not even see the indentation of the passage to the Sea Gate, though with it locked for the night she could hardly have exited that way.
He tried to focus on the tunnel itself, on how ordinary it was—merely a corridor like all the corridors in the castle. Darker and danker, certainly, but just a corridor. He kept his eyes on the floor and listened. Nothing.
She has probably returned already. Turn back. It will be easier going up than down. In a few moments you can be back in your room, safe and warm.
What if she is in here somewhere? What if she took one of the other tunnels to the cellars and is lost...? What if she has fallen?
The crypt steps were narrow and uneven. He knew that all too well. She might find herself as he had, at the bottom, unconscious...alone...afraid...in the dark.
He moved forward, his throat tight. He had no idea how long he searched or how far he descended into his own personal hell. Thirty years ago it had been cavernous, echoing, but now it was narrow and tight and every step he took felt like the walls were closing on him, would finally crush him.
But he had to find her.
Some sensible flicker in his mind finally lit into a spark and he stopped. In the silence, sound would carry far, even with these thick walls. He was a fool for not calling out her name from the beginning.
‘Jo!’
The word exploded against the walls, tossed back and forth, taunting him.
‘Benneit? Benneit! Here!’
He surged forward, almost dropping the lamp.
‘Jo?’ His voice was hoarse and he cleared his throat. ‘Call out again!’
‘Benneit!’ Her voice shook. ‘It is so foolish, I went to look at the effigies in the alcove and I tripped over the stones from the old wall and the candle fell and I couldn’t find the exit and... Oh, I can see your light. This way! Oh, thank goodness, I was beginning to think I would have to spend the night here until someone realised I was missing and it is dreadfully chilly and I kept hearing things and even though I knew it was only my imagination it was terrifying. I know you will be angry at me and truly it was foolish...’
The light entered the crypt and with a little cry she moved towards him and stopped at the bottom of the steps leading down, her hands clasped at her chest in an unconscious mirror of the effigies lying on the tombs in the alcoves along the walls. Behind her he caught a glimpse of his own hell—the effigies of his ancestors, the cracked lid of the empty tomb, and the shimmering glint of the clan brooch resting on the breast of the other, inhabited tomb. He looked away, fixing his gaze on her as she moved towards him.
‘I’m so sorry, Benneit. Please don’t be angry, at least not until we are above ground and in front of a fire. I’m freezing.’
He placed the lamp on the floor very carefully and took off his coat, focusing on placing it on her shoulders. Her hands rose to hold it around her and his own hand grazed hers; her fingers were frozen and his were clammy and shaking. He leaned back against the stone doorjamb.
