Through the Smoke

She banged her shoulder on impact and, as the cage swung wildly away from him, tumbled onto the hard-packed earth. Maybe she had been in too much of a hurry to escape the confines of that metal bucket, but she knew if he grabbed her while she was still inside it, there would be nothing she could do to gain her freedom.

“Bloody hell!” he swore as he staggered to his feet.

The energy behind that curse gave her hope that he was suffering at least as much as she was. She could feel the sticky wetness of her own blood. But what scrapes and bruises she had sustained would be the least of her problems if she couldn’t rally quickly enough.

Get the pick, she reminded herself as she struggled to shake off the effects of that bone-jarring collision.

Fortunately, she could see the outline of that tool in the dim glow of her Davy lamp, which was still burning—and dove for it.

Wythe seemed to comprehend her intent about the same time she got her brain working well enough to execute such action. He tried to kick the handle out of her reach, but he hadn’t quite recovered from having the lift fly out of the darkness to nearly flatten him. He only managed to kick some dirt in her eyes before falling again, but that made it almost impossible to see.

Grabbing two handfuls of dirt herself, she threw them in his face before grabbing hold of the pick. But once she had it, she could hardly lift it. How had it gotten so blasted heavy in the last fifteen minutes?

“Get back, or I will put this through your skull,” she warned as he found his feet, cursing and spitting and wiping dirt from his eyes.

Her eyes were watering, too, which helped clean away the grainy particles, but she had to blink rapidly in order to keep him in focus.

“Rachel, what luck,” he said. “I was merely planning to turn you out when I become earl, but I can’t promise such leniency now. I’m afraid this ending will be far more permanent.”

It wasn’t only the dirt in her eyes that made it difficult to see. The light from the lamp didn’t carry far. When he’d come barreling out of the tunnel to stop her from escaping, he hadn’t been carrying any light with him. There was just the single lamp, so they stood mostly in shadow.

Fleetingly, Rachel considered running for her life. Her heart was pounding so hard she could barely breathe, and her arms felt as if every muscle had been wrung out, like water from a damp cloth. She doubted she could make much of a stand. She wanted to believe she could somehow evade him long enough to hide until the miners arrived for work. But he was cutting her off from the section of the mine that contained all the tunnels. There wasn’t much at her back, except a couple of storage rooms. She wouldn’t last long heading in that direction.

“You killed the others,” she whispered, still barely able to comprehend what she had heard earlier and the fact that none of those men—none of four—had come out to see what was going on.

He didn’t argue. “How did you find me?” he asked instead. “I wasn’t followed. I made certain of it.”

Linley should’ve been there.…

“I came in search of Truman,” she said. “What did you do to him?” Fearful of what she might hear next, she swallowed hard. “Did you and Cutberth kill him at the office and toss his body down here?”

“Why would we bother? The Abbotts will see to him soon enough. Why not let it be someone else’s doing?”

He edged around the small clearing, trying to get close enough to gain some advantage over her. She maintained her distance, stepping to the left every time he took a step to the right. It gave her hope that he would eventually move out of the path she longed to take. “If you wanted him dead, why didn’t you let him burn?” she asked.

“Ah, the question that has nearly driven him mad.” He laughed as if he took great pleasure in knowing how deeply conflicted Truman had been. “Two years ago I was still trying to curry his favor. I wanted him to approve of me at last. A childish hope, when I think of it. Anyway, I would have taken the blame. No one else had any reason to murder him. Then I would be heading to the gallows myself, which would make it quite difficult to enjoy my inheritance.”

Her hands were growing sweaty on the handle of the pick. He was obviously trying to decide how he would disarm her; she could see the way he studied her. “Then… where is he?”

“How should I know?” he responded. “Maybe the Abbotts decided they were tired of waiting for the slow wheels of justice and decided to dispatch him to the next world straightaway.”

She shook her head. “I don’t think it had anything to do with the Abbotts. But I wouldn’t put it past Cutberth.”

“Cutberth doesn’t have the nerve for murder.”

He crouched slightly as if he was getting ready to spring. She needed to stall, keep him talking. “He’s got the nerve to risk his job by starting a union!”

When he stepped more directly into the light, she could see that he had a knife. “A bunch of hot air. A way to gain favor among the men.”

“Stay back,” she breathed.

“Or what?” he taunted with a threatening jab.

“Or you will be the one who gets ‘dispatched’ next.”

He chuckled softly. “You think you can kill me, Rachel? With a pick? As soon as you take your first swing, you’re dead.”

“Then I had better make that swing count.”

The determination in her voice seemed to convince him that she intended to do all she could. “You have no chance,” he said.

He was right. If only she had more time. Dawn had to be near. It seemed like an eternity since she had left Blackmoor House. “So you were sitting back the whole time, laughing while Truman searched for the person who tried to hire my father? You were behind it? You killed Katherine?”

His lips curved into a self-satisfied smile. “No, I merely impregnated her. We had quite the debauched affair, the two of us,” he bragged. “I had her in the earl’s own bed while he was traveling. She came to me even when he was home.” His voice grew husky. “She said I was big as a horse. Does that excite you, Rachel?”

“It makes me want to vomit. How could you, or anyone else, murder their unborn child, not to mention the mother of that child?”

His face grew hard. “You’re not listening. I told you, I didn’t kill her! Why would I? As far as I’m concerned, it would have been a grand joke to watch the earl raise my bastard.”