Read Online My Scandalous Viscount by Gaelen Foley - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Gaelen Foley
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she thought, for beneath the mighty wood timbers, she now saw stone.
The hole appeared to burrow straight down into the limestone. But why? If they wanted to put a simple cellar beneath the house, why make it accessible only by a treacherous rope ladder? It was too intriguing.
She held her lantern out over the hole, trying to see down. There must be something down there that the men of the Inferno Club did not want anyone else discovering.
Her spine tingled. She hoped it wasn’t something sinister. But if it were ordinary or harmless, then why take all these precautions to keep it hidden? She remembered how the Home Office had been speaking to Lord Beauchamp about something . . .
Oh, God. What if there was something criminal going on here? What if there are, I don’t know, she thought, dead bodies or something down there? She swallowed hard.
It suddenly struck her that she must have been completely out of her head to attempt this. There was harmless, ordinary snooping into gossip, then there was serious, wish-you-never-found-out-about-it prying into matters that were better left alone.
Indeed, not even her outsized curiosity streak was strong enough to make her consider risking a leap onto that rope-ladder to see what was below. Especially since she would have to put down her lantern even to try it. Without light, she could get lost inside this labyrinth forever, she thought—and at that moment, right on cue, an uprush of clammy air suddenly snuffed out her lantern’s flame.
She lurched back from the hole with a horrified gasp, lost her grip on the lantern in the process, and dropped it. She heard it clatter to a stone floor many feet below. Her heart pounding, she found herself staring blindly into utter darkness. Oh, dear Lord. How am I going to find my way back?
She could not see anything, but at least she had the sense to back away from that hole. When she felt the solid wall behind her, she breathed a shaky sigh of relief. Right.
Her first task was to find her way back to the ladder. Turning ever so cautiously, she felt her way to the corner of the passageway down which she had come.
Panic snagged at the edges of her mind, but she managed to keep it in check as she groped along down the narrow passageway and found the ladder at last. Willing herself to stay calm, she started climbing, rung by rung.
This, at least, was easily done.
At the top, she now had another choice to make: right, left, straight. Well, she had come from the passage straight ahead and had not located any exits that way. She stared in one direction, then the other. With a shrug, she decided to try going to the right.
As she made her way along the narrow passage, this had all become a lot less entertaining. The darkness closing in on her felt oppressive; the stuffy air choked her. Her head began to throb again. Her stitches burned.
Worst of all, the darkness began to play tricks on her mind, filling her imagination with dire thoughts.
She almost felt as though the house were alive; it did not want her there, an intruder. She had the sense of countless crawly things all around her in the darkness, and the absurd fear whispered through her mind that once in, she was never getting out . . .
Just when panic welled up into her throat, she turned a corner—and saw a light ahead. Oh, thank God. She approached silently, drawn to it like a moth.
The dim light ahead became a softly glowing oval on the wall of the dark passageway.
It did not look large enough to be a door of any kind. Indeed, she did not know quite what it was until she reached it and looked at it . . . through it . . . into a dining room.
Fascinated, she realized she was staring through what appeared to be a typical convex wall-mirror, with twin candle sconces attached to either side. Every upper-class home had them; the curve of the glass helped amplify the light. But you could not normally see through them!
She marveled at the brilliant invention with no idea
The hole appeared to burrow straight down into the limestone. But why? If they wanted to put a simple cellar beneath the house, why make it accessible only by a treacherous rope ladder? It was too intriguing.
She held her lantern out over the hole, trying to see down. There must be something down there that the men of the Inferno Club did not want anyone else discovering.
Her spine tingled. She hoped it wasn’t something sinister. But if it were ordinary or harmless, then why take all these precautions to keep it hidden? She remembered how the Home Office had been speaking to Lord Beauchamp about something . . .
Oh, God. What if there was something criminal going on here? What if there are, I don’t know, she thought, dead bodies or something down there? She swallowed hard.
It suddenly struck her that she must have been completely out of her head to attempt this. There was harmless, ordinary snooping into gossip, then there was serious, wish-you-never-found-out-about-it prying into matters that were better left alone.
Indeed, not even her outsized curiosity streak was strong enough to make her consider risking a leap onto that rope-ladder to see what was below. Especially since she would have to put down her lantern even to try it. Without light, she could get lost inside this labyrinth forever, she thought—and at that moment, right on cue, an uprush of clammy air suddenly snuffed out her lantern’s flame.
She lurched back from the hole with a horrified gasp, lost her grip on the lantern in the process, and dropped it. She heard it clatter to a stone floor many feet below. Her heart pounding, she found herself staring blindly into utter darkness. Oh, dear Lord. How am I going to find my way back?
She could not see anything, but at least she had the sense to back away from that hole. When she felt the solid wall behind her, she breathed a shaky sigh of relief. Right.
Her first task was to find her way back to the ladder. Turning ever so cautiously, she felt her way to the corner of the passageway down which she had come.
Panic snagged at the edges of her mind, but she managed to keep it in check as she groped along down the narrow passageway and found the ladder at last. Willing herself to stay calm, she started climbing, rung by rung.
This, at least, was easily done.
At the top, she now had another choice to make: right, left, straight. Well, she had come from the passage straight ahead and had not located any exits that way. She stared in one direction, then the other. With a shrug, she decided to try going to the right.
As she made her way along the narrow passage, this had all become a lot less entertaining. The darkness closing in on her felt oppressive; the stuffy air choked her. Her head began to throb again. Her stitches burned.
Worst of all, the darkness began to play tricks on her mind, filling her imagination with dire thoughts.
She almost felt as though the house were alive; it did not want her there, an intruder. She had the sense of countless crawly things all around her in the darkness, and the absurd fear whispered through her mind that once in, she was never getting out . . .
Just when panic welled up into her throat, she turned a corner—and saw a light ahead. Oh, thank God. She approached silently, drawn to it like a moth.
The dim light ahead became a softly glowing oval on the wall of the dark passageway.
It did not look large enough to be a door of any kind. Indeed, she did not know quite what it was until she reached it and looked at it . . . through it . . . into a dining room.
Fascinated, she realized she was staring through what appeared to be a typical convex wall-mirror, with twin candle sconces attached to either side. Every upper-class home had them; the curve of the glass helped amplify the light. But you could not normally see through them!
She marveled at the brilliant invention with no idea
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