Page 59 of This Laird of Mine

“Don’t leave me . . . in darkness.” Agatha stretched out her hand, an appeal for mercy, despite all she had done.

A cold, blessed numbness settled inside him where his heart should have been. “From experience, I know you can survive in darkness far longer than it will take the authorities to arrive.”

She scowled. “You’ll pay . . . for this.”

“I already have.”

A howl of rage followed him down the passageway as Jules made his way to the others.

Claire hardly dared to hope as they raced down the tunnel. The girls were alive? Her stomach knotted in panic. Her heart pounded in her ears. They had to be alive. There was no other outcome that she would allow herself to imagine.

They would be well. Unharmed. Whole. The wish filled her thoughts and echoed in her steps as she held back a sob and ran faster. She was dimly aware of Jules behind her.

She reached the main part of the cavern and turned toward the left, heading down the right tunnel, where Arthur had said he’d seen the girls.

It wasn’t too late. It couldn’t be.

They were alive.

She held on to the thought as she ran into the glow of the light ahead. Inside the chamber, similar to the one they just left, sat a large sarcophagus. David was on one side of the lid, while Arthur and Penelope were on the other, straining to shift the heavy stone off its base.

“We’ve only moved it the slightest bit,” David informed her as she joined them in the center.

Claire pushed against the solid limestone with all her might. Still it refused to budge.

“Let me help,” Jules said beside her, joining her in the effort. The five of them strained and pushed, until finally the lid shifted, scraping along the limestone base with a grinding whine. Slowly, it inched back, revealing more and more of the darkness inside, until finally half of the grave was exposed.

Claire swallowed and gazed dully into the darkened space. No sound came from within. There was nothing but stillness in the chamber. Beside her Jules bent, he reached inside the deep stone tomb.

Her heart thundered in her ears.

“I see them,” Jules said, the sound muffled by the heavy stone. He straightened and motioned for David to join him. One more time he delved into the dark tomb and came back with first a blonde-haired girl, then a brunette. Anna and Eloise.

They were both limp and pale as the men set them on the floor. And yet . . .

“They are breathing, Claire. Both of them,” Jules said, his face grim in the light of the lanterns.

Claire could feel tears of profound thankfulness running down her cheeks. The girls were alive. She knelt beside fourteen-year-old Anna and smoothed a finger across her cheek. “Anna? Can you hear me?” She reached for thirteen-year-old Eloise and smoothed the young girl’s hair back from her face. “You are safe now. I’m here.”

When neither girl responded, she turned to look at Jules. “Why are they like this?”

They both turned to Arthur. “I did not see what they did to the girls, only where they put them before the henchman came looking for me.”

“They might have been drugged,” Jules offered, his voice rough. “Agatha did always like her potions.”

“Or they could have shut down to protect themselves from the terror of being closed off in total darkness in a tomb with its original occupant,” David offered.

Claire shuddered. “How could she be so cruel?”

At Jules’s stark look, Claire wanted to go to him, to comfort him. It must have been terrible living with such an evil woman during his youth. A mother was supposed to provide love and support to her children, not stage her own death and send her child, even a stepchild, to suffer in his own private hell.

Fighting her instincts, Claire turned back to the girls. She balled her fists at her sides with the effort it cost her to hold back her sympathies. What was once between her and Jules was over. He had said so himself. She would not make a fool of herself and press her unwanted emotions upon him. “We have to get them out of here. Perhaps the fresh air outside will bring them around.”

Jules bent and picked up Anna, while David drew Eloise into his arms. Claire put her arm around Penelope’s shoulders, and they all made their way back to the moonlit night. They walked in silence through the streets of Edinburgh until they returned to Claire’s studio.

In the mausoleum, Agatha heard a scurrying sound and panic flared. Rats. Creatures of darkness. They were coming to get her.

She tried to pull herself upright, then screamed in agony at the effort. Sweat broke out on her forehead. Her breathing came in short, sharp gasps. Blood flowed from the wound in her side, teasing the rats with the promise of a meal. They wouldn’t care that she was still alive. They would crawl in her hair and gnaw at her flesh, until they finished what Jules had started.