Glittering Promises (30 page)

Cora was screaming.

CHAPTER 27

~Cora~

I knew I was disobeying Will’s request, wandering off. But I couldn’t help it. I was agitated and needing space again. From him. From everyone. These rocks had stood for thousands of years; what could happen? I slipped around the wall and then scurried down a short hall and turned another corner, looking up at the glorious arena rising above, thinking about how it all would’ve worked together as an amazing theater back in the day.

I was about to take a step when I hesitated, sensing an abyss, and glanced down. My arms windmilled as I tried to regain my balance, and I narrowly caught it. Heart pounding, I took a breath, relieved I hadn’t fallen into the hole, and it was then that I felt the shove at my lower back.

There was no time to see who had pushed me. I screamed as I fell, reaching out to desperately grasp at roots and bits of rotten timber. But nothing abated my descent, not until I hit the ground. I heard the crack of breaking bone, saw my arm turn at a terrible angle, and then a second later felt the resulting pain. I would’ve screamed again if the air hadn’t been stolen from my lungs. I rolled to my side, dimly aware that my lovely hat was pulling away, most of my pins lost.

I blinked slowly as I lay on my side on the stone floor, watching as a cloud of dust mites flew through the air around me, swirled, settled. Reminded myself to breathe. Tried to tell myself the pain wasn’t as bad as all that.

Until it was.

~William~

“Everyone, get up top and outside,” Will told Felix, Hugh, and Pascal, gesturing to the remaining women. “Make sure everyone’s accounted for,” he growled to Antonio.

He turned and shoved through several groups who had arrived after them, trying to find where he’d heard Cora scream. It had been her, right? She wasn’t in sight…

The two detectives and he ran down the corridor he’d last glimpsed her enter, then split up as they made their way through the various hallways. Will turned around at a dead end. “Cora?” he called. “Cora!”

He hated that it was so quiet, that he’d heard nothing but her initial scream. He turned to his right and ran down the next corridor, noting how overgrown it was.

“Will, over here!” called a voice from what sounded like two corridors away. It was Stephen, the lanky detective. Was he with Cora now? The place was like a maze, and Will had to guess at the fastest route. “Over here!” Stephen called again.

“Keep yelling!” Will responded. He ran to his left, cut across two corridors, and looked left and right. “Stephen?”

“Right here!” he called.

He was close. Will rounded another corner, and there he was, far closer to the entrance of the Hypogeum than he’d thought. She hadn’t wandered far…

Will stopped beside him, at the edge of a pit that had probably once been covered by wooden beams and a thin layer of stone but was now a yawning chasm. Fifteen feet below, she lay unmoving. “Get some rope and some help,” he said to Stephen.

He knelt in the damp grass and quickly pulled off his jacket, then eyed the overgrown walls—a living tapestry of plants—looking for anything that might hold his weight. There. A tree root, thin, emerging about a foot down on the right-hand wall. It wasn’t much, but it was something. Without further thought, he leaped and grabbed hold of it, swinging to a stop and trying to gain purchase with his boots against the wall. Then he began lowering himself down. “Cora,” he grunted. “Talk to me.”

But she still didn’t move. Her ivory hat lay beneath her head, the pins having ripped out much of her bun and sending her hair in a lush, golden wave over her shoulder.

Will had made it a couple more feet when he felt the root give way and fell to the ground. He hit hard and stumbled to his knees, panting, but his eyes were only on Cora. “Cora,” he said, scrambling over to her. He hesitated, frightened out of his wits that she was dead. She was so pale.

The bottom of the pit was littered with old stones, which had obviously fallen from above. Had one of those hit her on the head?

He dared to stroke her face. “Cora,” he said. “Can you hear me?” He moved his filthy fingers down to her neck to check for a pulse. “Cora!”

She blinked slowly just as he noted her heartbeat, and he let out a sigh of relief. “Oh, Cora!” he said. “Are you all right?”

She lifted her hand to her forehead, as if it were too bright in the dank pit. “Will…” she said, her voice raspy. “I’m such an idiot. I’m sorry I—”

“Shh,” he said. “Don’t worry about that now. Can you move your feet? Wiggle your toes? Is your other arm okay?”

The other men arrived up top. “Will!”

He waved at them, his eyes still only on Cora.

“I-I think so.” She shifted more fully to her back and winced, and Will held his breath. “Oh,” she said, her face draining of blood. “My left arm hurts.”

“Let me see,” Will said, moving to her other side. Gingerly, he picked up her hand. “Any of your fingers hurt?”

Her eyes, wide and blue, blinked several times. Then she shook her head, seeming to brace herself for what was to come. “It’s higher up.”

He moved his fingers up to her wrist and gently twisted it. “Anything?”

“No,” she whispered.

He ran both hands up to her elbow and again, she shook her head, but her face was growing more pale. Carefully, he moved his fingers across her arm and felt the bump just before she let out a stifled scream.

Will immediately let go of her arm. “Broken,” he said. “You must’ve done it in your fall. And you were out for a couple of minutes. I wager you have a pretty good concussion.”

“Oh, Will,” she groaned. “I’m sorry. If only I hadn’t been such a dolt—”

“Shh, don’t think more about it.”

“I’ll be thinking about it every day this arm is healing.”

“True,” he said, sharing a rueful smile with her.

“And now I’ve delayed the group’s plans to—”

“Shh. Enough.” He rose and waved for the men to toss the rope to them. As soon as the coils came flying through the air and then straightened into a line, he reached for the end and began tying knots, remembering Uncle Stuart teaching him various ones.

He quickly fashioned a harness for Cora, then knelt beside her. “Can you sit up?”

She swallowed hard. “I-I think so.”

He took hold of her right shoulder and said, “If you can move your left arm at all, lay it across your belly so we can wrap it.”

She gave him a horrified look.

“I’m sorry, sweetheart, but if we’re to get you back up, there will be some jostling. I’d rather it be as controlled as possible. Just look at me, concentrate on me, while you do it,” he said, taking her small right hand in his.

She bit her lip and nodded, her eyebrows pulled together in a frightened frown. Then she let go of his hand and reached across her torso for her left hand. Taking a deep breath, she pulled her left arm across until it rested on her belly, her lips parting in an agonizing cry that sent every hair on Will’s neck on end.

He tried to swallow but found his mouth dry. “Let’s get you upright,” he said, repositioning his hand beneath her right shoulder. “Slowly,” he cautioned.

She rose as instructed, letting out a slow “oh,” as she did so. Then he stood to pull off his tie, setting it on a rock to his side, and unbuttoning his collar.

“Wh-what are you doing?” she asked, still panting from the pain.

“We need something to wrap your arm against you,” he said, working down the buttons. Rapidly, he finished and shrugged out of his shirt, leaving only his Balbriggan undershirt tucked into the waistline of his trousers. Her blue eyes belatedly moved away as he caught her gaze. He smiled as he knelt again, winding the shirt into a thick coil.

“Oh, your fine new shirt,” she moaned.

“It’s the least of our worries.” He leaned forward and wrapped the shirt around her back, then fastened it gently under her arm. She winced at the pain.

“How’s your head?” he asked, sitting back on his haunches. “Are you seeing double? Feeling faint?”

“No,” she said, shaking her head. More of her hair pulled from her pins and fell around her shoulders. “Is it bad?” she asked, glancing down at her arm. “It’s throbbing.”

“That’s for the doctors to tell us,” he said. “Let’s get you up top.” He bent and lifted her, trying not to jostle her, then set her on her feet beside the wall. “All right?” he asked, waiting for her to affirm she wasn’t going to pass out on him again. When he saw that she was standing on her own, he grabbed hold of the rope and looked up. “I’m sending her up in a minute. Pull it taut!”

Stephen did so, and Pascal moved behind him, each taking a span of rope to keep it steady, Pascal wrapping it around his own waist. Will bent and pulled it around Cora. “Just like on the glacier,” he said with a smile.

She gave him a pained smile, clearly remembering their narrow escape from the crevasse in Switzerland. “If I were a suspicious person, I’d wonder if someone was trying to kill…me.”

His eyes narrowed as she seemed to weigh her own words. “Cora?” he asked, tying the first knot, then the second, securing her in the makeshift seat.

“It’s nothing,” she said, giving her head a small shake.

“Are you certain?”

“Yes, yes,” she said tiredly.

“Give it your full weight,” he said.

She forced a small smile to her lips as he backed away to look at his handiwork. “Remember you’re getting paid to bring me home in one piece. Even if,” she said, pausing to wince as she sat down, “I keep getting myself into trouble.”

“This is the first time you’ve gotten
yourself
into trouble,” he said.

“I’ve done my best,” she said. She frowned again at that, glancing up to the edge, as if thinking.

“Take her up!” Will called. “Slowly.”

The men did as he asked, and Cora rose before him. “You all right?” he asked.

She nodded. “Will?” she said, three feet above him.

“What?”

“I wonder if…” She paused, frowning. “I think that…”

“What?”

“I didn’t fall, Will. I think someone pushed me,” she said just as she disappeared over the edge above him.

CHAPTER 28

~Cora~

It was with great relief that I saw Will come up over the edge soon after I’d reached it, especially once I decided that someone had pushed me. He moved over to me and began untying the knots that had held me in place, and then lifted me in his arms. “Let’s get you to a hospital,” he murmured.

I closed my eyes, my head now tilting and spinning in response to the pain.

Will began walking, with Pascal in front and Stephen behind us. “Cora,” Will said lowly.

I looked up at him.

“Did you see anyone? I mean, someone who might’ve…pushed you?”

I shook my head, and then immediately decided that was a bad idea. Any movement of my head sent me into a whirlpool. I bit my cheek and breathed rapidly through my nose, fighting the wave of nausea that threatened to engulf me.

“Another…” I paused, trying to look around me. Seeing no one else, I said, “Another reporter? Trying to add spice to our story?”

I took a deep breath. The whole idea of another ferret like Arthur Stapleton in our midst made me weary. Was life not trying enough without having to dodge lowlifes with nefarious plans?

“I don’t know,” Will whispered, frowning. “At the risk of your life?” He shook his head. “That seems foolish to me.”

I tried to smile at him. “I’m of more value alive than dead?”

He returned my smile and arched a brow. “In more ways than one,” he said, now climbing the tight spiral staircase that led out. I tucked my legs, but he still had to hold me partially over the rail to allow us room to move upward. “I’m so sorry, Cora. For bringing you here.”

“It’s not your fault, Will.” I concentrated on his face rather than the growing height beneath us.

“I should have insisted…” he said, panting, “that you all stay close.”

“We are stubborn charges with minds of our own,” I said. “I should’ve stayed close on my own. I knew better.” We reached the top, both sighing in relief. We didn’t even make it all the way out the entrance tunnel before the rest of our group flooded in, surrounding us, all asking questions at once. As Will fielded them, and as my vision faded into a faint again, I saw two reporters taking our photograph, each with a clear view of Will holding me in his arms.

I knew how it would look. Will without a shirt, me with an impromptu sling, in his arms, our well-dressed cohorts all about us.
That will sell some papers
, I thought.

And the last thought, before I gave into the faint…
At least Father’s not here to see it…

The next morning, I awakened in a tidy, spare hospital room, my head groggy, my arm throbbing but neatly bandaged, my body in a crisp white gown. I turned and felt my pain like it wasn’t quite my own. Drugs, I decided.
They’ve medicated me
.

I suppose there was much to be grateful for in that. I remembered coming to briefly, Will and Viv’s faces above me, but then not much more afterward. Perhaps they’d administered some laudanum or the like at that point.