The Notorious Lord Read online

  ‘Cory!’ she said. ‘What are you doing here? I thought that you were at Saltires?’

  ‘I came to check on the site,’ Cory said. His tawny hair was plastered against his head with the rain and he wiped the water droplets from his eyes. ‘I promised your parents that I would do what I could. They cannot get through, Rae. The road is already flooded.’

  He pushed the soaking hair back from his forehead. ‘This is worse than I had thought, for soon the river will burst its banks. Come away, Rae. There is nothing that we can do here.’

  ‘But the dig!’ Rachel said hopelessly. ‘All your work! Mama and Papa will be utterly bereft if it is all swept away.’

  ‘There is nothing that you can do,’ Cory said again. ‘It is dangerous to stay out here, Rachel. Come along.’

  He took her arm and they retraced their steps along the edge of the bank. The soil felt strange and unsteady, both clinging and shifting at the same time.

  ‘Mind the edge!’ Cory said sharply. ‘The sand is unstable here-’

  But even as he spoke, Rachel felt a strange sucking sensation beneath her feet, like the tide pulling at her heels. There was a rumble and the grating of shingle on stone, and the sensation of falling down and down into darkness. She heard Cory shout, but her eyes were blinded by rain and sand, and though she put out a desperate hand, her fingers slid helplessly through his grasp. And then she hit something hard and flat, and lay winded and still, staring into the dark.

  Rachel was not sure how long she lay there, her thoughts tumbling in shock, her eyes wide and staring through the darkness for a glimmer of light or a clue as to what had happened. The sliding sound of sand and pebbles had ceased and beneath her the rock felt smooth, hard and dry, but she could see nothing at all. She was lying on her back, but now rolled cautiously on to her knees and from there tried to stand. It was fortunate that she did so slowly, for she hit the back of her head on stone and stifled a groan.

  She sat down again, drawing her knees up to her chin and curling up as much for comfort as warmth. Her clothes were unpleasantly damp and encrusted with sand, and she could neither see nor hear anything but the rapid breath of her own panic. The air smelled stale. It seemed that the ground above her-the very river bank itself-had collapsed in upon itself and plunged her into a burial chamber that they had not even realised was there.

  Rachel tried to breathe more slowly and calm herself, remembering at last all the things that she had learned over the years.

  ‘If you are trapped underground, do not panic,’ Sir Arthur Odell had once told her when as a child she had become locked in the cellar of a house and had roused the entire neighbourhood with her screams, ‘for you will only use up all the air and achieve absolutely nothing at all.’

  Keeping calm was more easily said than done, however, for Rachel had always had a sneaking fear of the dark. She bit her lip and thought of Cory trying to catch her before she fell, and reassured herself that he would dig her out soon, just as together they had dug out Sir Arthur and Lady Odell when a trench had collapsed on them in Wiltshire. The memory made Rachel feel a tiny bit better, until she thought that perhaps Cory had also been injured in the landslide and was even now lying unconscious, or buried like she, or washed away by the Winter Race as it burst its banks…

  Rachel gave a little sob and stifled it furiously. Action, not thought, was the key to helping herself now. Cautiously, she started to feel about her, running her hands over the rocks beneath and to the side of her in order to ascertain the dimensions of her trap. That she was in some sort of cave seemed certain, and also that it had opened up as a result of the torrential rains, only to be sealed like all the tombs about it when the fall of mud and sand had swept away the bank. She started to crawl forwards gingerly, feeling her way, each inch seeming a mile, each fresh brush of sand against rock making her heart beat faster in case it presaged another landslide. The air was heavy and warm and Rachel felt light-headed, with panic only a heartbeat away.

  She had no notion how far she had crawled before her hands came up against a lip of rock that seemed to stretch upwards, and then another beyond it, rising up in the darkness. Rachel’s fingers clutched at the steps and her heart clutched at the hope, for steps led upwards, towards the light and the fresh air. Towards escape.

  She stood up. The roof was high enough to stand here and slowly, following the line of the wall, she slowly followed the line of shallow steps upward. Was it her imagination, or did the stifling air become a little fresher here? And was that not a faint sliver of light that she could see ahead of her, as though down the end of a long, dark passage?

  When she finally reached it, it was disappointing enough. She was in another, larger chamber and the light came fitfully through what looked like tiny cracks in the earthen walls. Rachel tried to visualise where she could be, but she had lost her sense of direction almost immediately and could not guess which of the many barrows she had come up into. It was one that Sir Arthur and Lady Odell had not yet started to work upon, for there was no evidence of digging or disturbance here. Nor, to Rachel’s immense relief, could she see any bones or burials, nor smell the unmistakable scent of decay. In the dim light the chamber seemed completely bare.

  Rachel went over to the earthen wall and put her face up to the nearest chink of light. She could see nothing, but she felt the chill of the fresh air against her skin and the stray coldness of rain against her lips. She scrabbled at the wall with her fingers, but it was more sturdy that it looked. It would take her hours to dig herself out.

  There was a sudden rush of air and a rumbling sound as the whole of the tomb shifted behind her and another wall of mud and sand pressed down, closing the steps up which she had so recently come. Rachel caught her breath and pressed more closely to the wall. And as she opened her mouth to shout for help, she heard the scrape of movement and felt the shift of the walls, and drew back in fear again in case the whole edifice was about to collapse.

  A moment later, when she heard the scrape of a shovel on stone, she realised that it was not another landslide that had caused the noise, but human hand. Cory had come for her, as she had known he would. Suddenly Rachel felt as though all the stuffing had been knocked out of her. She sat down heavily on the earthen floor and tried to quell the trembling in her limbs.

  ‘Rachel?’ Cory’s voice echoed about the tomb, bouncing off the roof. ‘Are you there?’

  ‘Cory!’ It came out as a rather pitiful squeak. Rachel tried again. This time it was a high-pitched shriek. ‘Cory! Help! The chamber is filling with sand.’

  The movement stilled.

  ‘Rachel? Thank God! I’ll get you out of there soon. Stand back.’

  Just to hear his voice was reassuring. She could see him now, a darker shadow against the slim sliver of light. The spade bit into the earth, sending a shower of soil tumbling into the tomb.

  ‘Rachel?’ She scrambled across to the widening gap. ‘Are you hurt?’

  ‘No,’ Rachel said. ‘Just a little bruised and shaken. Please be quick, Cory.’ Her voice shook a little. ‘I think the whole tomb is going to collapse!’

  ‘The entire riverbank is washing away,’ Cory said. ‘I am doing what I can, Rae, but I cannot work too quickly for fear the roof will come down on you.’

  Rachel stifled a sob. ‘I understand. Just be as quick as you can…’

  It was another couple of minutes before the gap was large enough to pass the lantern through.

  ‘Take the light,’ Cory said, pushing it through the space.

  The brightness made Rachel feel much better in some ways and worse in others. She could see her prison now, with its two sturdy walls to the south and west, where Cory was digging. On the northern side, where the river ran, the sand had completely blocked the steps down to the lower chamber and the roof sagged perilously low. The rest of the tomb was as bare as she had initially thought, but for what looked like a small, empty ledge on the eastern wall that looked as though it was intended as a shelf
for a vase or chalice. There were no bones or offerings, or artefacts of long-dead kings, for which Rachel thanked God. She pressed herself to the western wall and prayed for Cory to be quick.

  The gap widened and Cory’s face appeared, lit from beneath by the lantern. It was dirty, creased with worry, his hair tumbled across his brow.

  ‘Rae-another few moments only…’

  There was an ominous rumble of sound from below, then a swirl of water swept across Rachel’s feet. The steady thud of the spade filled the tomb above.

  ‘Cory! The water is coming through!’

  ‘Hold on, Rae.’ Cory’s voice was a little out of breath but remarkably calm. ‘I am nearly there. Pass me the lantern-’

  What happened next was quick and confusing. As Rachel held the lantern up there was a grating roar and the back wall gave way. In the lantern light, Rachel saw the little shelf appear to slip and slide sideways, revealing a large cavity beyond. It was full of wooden brandy casks. In the lamplight they appeared ghostly white with cobwebs clinging like glue. They were tumbled on the floor and stacked against the wall. A few were broken and the jagged wooden edges showed in the light.

  Rachel stared, transfixed. Then icy water swept up to her waist and clinging mud dragged on her skirts. Cory was pulling her through the gap, but the whole roof was coming down and it threatened to take him with it. Rachel scrambled to safety and turned desperately to see Cory fighting for his footing as the ground gave way beneath him. With a superhuman effort she caught his flailing arm and pulled so hard she was afraid she would dislocate his shoulder. They rolled over, Cory dragging Rachel beneath him, his body arched over hers for protection and her cheek against his chest. They fell over and over in a tumble of limbs and brackish water, finally to lie still.

  Rachel uncurled herself slowly. Her hands were spread against Cory’s chest and she could feel the beat of his heart, slowing now to its normal pace. Her mouth and nose were buried against the wet material of his jacket. She could feel the rain still falling in sheets, running down her face, but she lay still, clinging to Cory as though she never wanted to let him go.

  ‘Rachel?’ Cory shifted, his mouth pressing against her temple.

  ‘I am all right,’ Rachel said. She reluctantly moved a little away. ‘You?’

  Cory nodded.

  ‘Thank you,’ Rachel said, her voice breaking a little. ‘Thank you for rescuing me.’

  Cory smiled. ‘Any time, Rae. And thank you. I rather think I would have been washed away by now without you.’

  Rachel raised a hand and rubbed it against his lean cheek. ‘You have mud on your face…’

  They stared at each other for a second and then Cory’s arms went around her again. Their lips met in a tingle of rainswept cold, and it was heaven, and then Cory had crushed her close and Rachel gasped in pleasure against his mouth. They could have been standing at the gates of hell itself and neither of them would have paid the slightest notice.

  Eventually Rachel freed herself from Cory’s embrace slightly, grabbing his arm again as her knees threatened to give way. ‘Come inside the house,’ she said. ‘Quickly, before we are both drowned.’

  Clasping the lantern, and staggering like a pair of drunken sailors, they wended their way towards the house. Though it was barely four o’clock the sky was completely dark and heavy with unshed rain and the house had a shuttered, quiet air that felt very different from the atmosphere of suppressed tension between them. It seemed to Cory that Rachel was burning up like a torch with the relief and the release of tension. There was high colour along her cheekbones and a hectic sparkle in her eyes. All the passion and excitement that he had known was latent within her was awake and burning and it was demanding a response from him.

  ‘You should get out of your wet clothes and take a hot bath,’ he said, trying to control the most inappropriate images of lust and desire that tormented him. ‘I will heat you some water and fetch you a drink-’

  He got no further. Rachel put a hand around the back of his head and pulled it down, touching her lips to his. Cory gasped. He felt her tongue slide along his lower lip, a little hesitant, seductively innocent. He grabbed her and kissed her back with no half-measures.

  Five minutes later they were both panting, but Cory still held on to his self-control. His body was burning up with need but there were a thousand and one reasons why to take Rachel to bed now was the worst idea in the whole world.

  ‘Rachel,’ he said, ‘we must stop this. You will only regret it later.’

  Rachel placed her hand against his chest. ‘I think not. I love you, Cory. You saved my life today.’

  Cory closed his eyes in an agony of denial. ‘Please, Rae-there is no need for you to express your gratitude in this particular way.’

  ‘Don’t joke,’ Rachel whispered. ‘Not now.’

  Once again she placed her arms about his neck and drew his head down to hers, pressing the whole length of her body against his. Cory shook with suppressed passion. He knew that this was in part a natural reaction to the release from death and the need to celebrate that escape by celebrating life. The same force that drove Rachel possessed him too. When he thought that he might lose her his entire being had cried out against it. Rachel had been a part of his life for so long that he could not bear to lose her now. Not now, not ever.

  She was kissing him again, teasing his lips with hers, driving him to wildness. The scent of her hair and her skin sent sanity spinning from his mind.

  ‘Rae,’ he said, ‘if we do not stop this now, then you will end in my bed-or rather, I shall end in yours.’

  Rachel eased back and looked into his face. ‘It is the second door on the left upstairs,’ she whispered.

  Cory looked down at her, his eyes blazing. Then he picked her up and carried her up the stairs, sending the bedroom door crashing open and kicking it shut behind them.

  Their clothes were sodden but quickly shed. Cory ripped off his jacket and shirt whilst Rachel knelt behind him on the bed, nipping his collarbone, nibbling his earlobe and pressing her lips to the soft skin of his neck. He could scarce believe that this was Rachel, the prim young lady who had spoken of passion as though it were an unwanted encumbrance in life. And when he turned to her, maddened by her caresses, she giggled and pulled him down with her into the billows of the big four-poster bed. She made a soft sound and rubbed against him, their bodies separated now by nothing other than her soaked chemise and his pantaloons. She ran her hands over his bare chest and back, arching against him and exulting in the contact.

  Cory freed himself sufficiently to find the fastenings of her chemise, but the saturated material failed to co-operate.

  ‘Tear it,’ Rachel said. Then, when he stared, she set her hands to the material and simply pulled it apart. It separated with a ripping sound and Rachel wriggled out of it. Her shoulders were pink and stung with cold. Before Cory’s fascinated gaze she dropped the scrap of material over the side of the bed to lie discarded on the floor. If he had not seen the shaking of her fingers, Cory would have thought her completely composed as she half-sat, half-lay before him in her nakedness.

  It was just like his most fevered imaginings, only more so. Her breasts were big, but they were high and round with small, pink nipples already tight from cold. Her stomach was flat and her legs long and lissom. Cory’s body felt so rigid that he thought he must explode there and then. He reached instinctively for her, saw the tiniest hint of anxiety in her face, and remembered in a rush that she was a virgin.

  He forced himself to patience, wrapping his arms about her and holding her close. He ran his fingers very lightly over the skin of her back and upper arms, feeling her shiver under his touch. He brushed his hands over the rounded softness of her buttocks and the sweet curve of her breasts, sucking her nipples and licking the pulse at the base of her throat. He heard her make a small mewing sound of pleasure. Rachel’s eyes were closed now, her head thrown back, her eyelashes dark against the pink-staining of her cheeks, an
d her breath coming in little gasps. Cory lowered his head to her breast, and slid his hand gently up the silken softness of Rachel’s inner thigh. She moaned and her legs parted for him, and he touched her tentatively, feeling her body tense against his fingers. She opened her eyes. They were drowned with passion and they smiled at him.

  ‘Are you not going to take off your trousers?’ she asked.

  It was agony to leave her even for a moment, but Cory followed her example, ripping the pantaloons and casting them aside on the floor before pressing the full, hard length of his naked body against hers.

  She shifted her body to accommodate his, soft and willing, and Cory brought his lips back to hers, kissing her deeply, possessively.

  ‘I love you, Rachel…’ It was true. He felt a huge exultation sweep through him. Rachel was here in his arms, just as she was always meant to be, and she was his, only his, now and always.

  Rachel made a little sound of pure pleasure and pulled him to her, and Cory grasped her hips, easing himself gently inside her. She was hot and tight, and within a few seconds he had forgotten all about gentleness, and had caught her fiercely to him thrusting powerfully, until he was swiftly overcome. Through the explosion of rapture he felt like groaning. This was not what he had intended for Rachel, this callow selfishness. He had been overwhelmed by his need for her and the frustration of abstinence. And now Rachel would be severely disappointed.

  He could see by the small frown on her face that she was dissatisfied. He rolled away from her and propped himself on an elbow, kissing her brow, stroking the soft skin of her shoulder.

  ‘Sweetheart, I am so sorry…I could not help myself…’

  Rachel smiled uncertainly. ‘Was it my fault?’

  Cory’s heart swelled with tenderness. ‘Of course not. Only for being so utterly desirable. In fact, it was my fault. I have wanted you for so long. You see now what I have been trying to tell you all along-my rake’s reputation is completely unjustified.’