Page 21 of The Dare Before Christmas

“Yes, you are, but I distracted you,” Barnaby said, reaching for her hand. “Show me.”

Victoria raised her palm, and Barnaby took it in his. It was not a severe burn, but there was a small angry red patch on her fair skin.

“Here,” he said, reaching for his handkerchief and wrapping it around her hand. “Do you think you can go five minutes without hurting yourself? You’re going to clean me out of handkerchiefs if you keep this up,” he added, tying a neat knot with the ends. Then he made the mistake of turning his attention from her hand to her eyes.

“Thank you, Barnaby,” she said softly, and oh, it sounded wonderful, the way she said his given name, the intimate way she spoke it, just the two of them together in this hidden place, lost in the woods. His heart kicked behind his ribs.

“You’re welcome,” he replied, disconcerted to discover he felt breathless, and sounded it too.

Barnaby swallowed, but found he could not look away from her, nor let go of her hand. The moment stretched out and everything they could be together, how it would feel to call her his own, became a weight, bearing down on him, making his lungs tighter and tighter. He could love her so easily, he realised, and with such a depth and breadth of feeling it felt like standing on the edge of a cliff. Beneath him lay a sheer drop, and falling would be disastrous. If she came to her senses and changed her mind, he would never recover. No, far safer to take a step back, to keep away from the edge, from danger, and yet he could not make himself move.

“Perhaps we ought to investigate before the oil runs out,” she suggested.

“Oh, er… yes. Yes, best had.” Barnaby shook himself out of his stupor and nodded, reaching for the lamp, though he could feel the blasted thing was at least half full. Plenty of time for poking around dead bodies, he thought with a grimace. “Here, hold it for a moment and let me see if I can push the altar back farther,” he said, passing the lamp into her unbandaged hand.

Victoria held it aloft, illuminating the dark hole in the stone floor with steps leading down into the ground as Barnaby shoved at the heavy wooden altar. The damn thing weighed a ton and screeched against the stone flags as he put his shoulder to it and heaved. Finally, it gave way, leaving a gap wide enough for them to get through.

“There,” he said, breathing hard. He turned to see Victoria staring at him.

“You’re very strong,” she said, and then bit her lip, her cheeks turning a becoming shade of pink in the lamplight.

“Oh. Um. I suppose,” he said, feeling the back of his neck grow hot. “Best let me go first and check it’s safe,” he added, taking the lamp from her again.

He turned back to the hole, repressing a shudder of distaste as he held the lamp up and made his way down the rough stone steps. It was not far to go; the lamplight illuminating not a crypt, but a passageway. It was well made, if crude, not quite high enough for Barnaby to stand upright, and only wide enough to walk single file.

“Barnaby?” Victoria called.

“It’s a tunnel,” he shouted back up, more than relieved that there were no dead bodies to contend with, though the dark damp of the tunnel was quite horrifying enough in his opinion.

“Oh! See? I told you!” she exclaimed and, before he could say another word, he saw a dainty foot and slender ankle appear above him.

“Dash it all, Victoria, wait until… oh, here…” he said, as it became obvious she would not wait for him to help her down. Instead, he reached up to grasp her hand, keeping the lamp held high for her as she made her way down.

“This is so exciting! Let’s see where it goes.”

Barnaby was so close to denying her, to telling her it wasn’t safe—and that it was foolish beyond measure to go poking about in tunnels as old as this one—but… but she was alight with pleasure, vibrating with anticipation, and he did not want to keep telling her no, did not want to be the man who kept her from doing all the things she wanted. So, he smothered a sigh and nodded.

“But you stay behind me, you hear?” he ordered her.

“Yes, Barnaby,” she said meekly, clearly too delighted to do anything but agree with him. He still held her hand in his, and so he firmed his grip, holding the lantern aloft, and set out along the tunnel.

Chapter 6

My Lord Wrexham,

You are in grave danger.

Come to Lewes Railway station alone at two in the afternoon of the eighteenth, and I will reveal more.

―Excerpt of a letter to Leander Steyning, The Most Hon’ble Marquess of Wrexham from an anonymous correspondent.

18th December 1844, Lewes, East Sussex.

Leander Steyning, Marquess of Wrexham, or Rex to his intimates, was an idiot. A dim-witted, pigheaded idiot, because once again, his father had bested him, using his suspicions to lure him out of the safety of the small world he had created for himself and plunging him into the kind of nightmare that woke him in the middle of the night, sweating and breathless.

Humboldt had begged Rex to allow him to accompany him, but Rex had been adamant that only his coachman and two footmen come along. He had instructed the footmen, who were new to his aunt’s employ, to return for him in an hour’s time, which he deemed long enough for the mystery letter writer to hand over whatever information they had and depart. Only now, three hours later, and still with no concerned correspondent, nor returning footman having approached him, he could no longer deny the reality of his position. He had been duped.

His father, the duke, had employed those footmen, and no doubt bribed the coachman too. He had also written that letter—or more likely, paid someone else to write the letter—luring Rex outside of the safety of the small world he inhabited, knowing he would be helpless once he was sitting here alone, in a busy public space. Rex did not know why exactly his father loathed him as deeply as he did—though the feeling was certainly mutual by now—but he always had. Even when he’d been a boy, before Rex had realised the futility of his efforts, he had tried so damn hard to please him, to be the best, to study hard, be good at everything, to be popular… but the harder he tried, the more his father hated him. Once Rex had accepted that, they had mostly avoided each other. It was fine. It was just the way things were. But then he had lost his sight, and now his father not only loathed him, but Rex very much feared he wanted him dead. If he were dead, his half-brother, Cecil, would be next in line for the title, and the duke and Cecil were as thick as bloody thieves.