Through the Smoke(85)
Author: Brenda Novak

He thought he heard a slight whimper, but there was water dripping not far away, and that made it difficult to tell. “It must be a frightening prospect for you. Your brother died in a cave-in.” He made a clicking sound. “What a terrible way to go. Straining to breathe. Unable to get air. Depending on how much damage my explosion causes, you could go the same way. I have heard it can take several minutes to suffocate. Imagine the panic.” He lightened his voice. “Or, if you’re lucky, you could be blown to bits. Either way doesn’t matter to me, as long as you’re dead in the end.”

Had his gruesome description of her death caused a response?

Not that he could tell. There was just the water, continuing to drip. Plink. Plink. Plink…

“Rachel?”

Something scrabbled past him. He reached out, hoping to grab her, but it was just a rat or some other noxious animal. Damn it. If only he could get his hands around her slim neck.

“Come on, Rachel. Don’t make this any harder than it has to be. I don’t want to destroy the mine but you are giving me no choice. Think of how many lives that will impact.”

He felt his way along the wall, sliding his foot out at the same time to make sure he didn’t miss her on the other side. “You deserve what you are about to get, you know that?” he finally bit out. “And it won’t hurt me one bit to lose the mine. Not really. You might not be aware of this, but Truman has so many other holdings. Maybe this will be for the best. When they find Thornick, Collingood, Henderson and Greenley in pieces, they won’t know they died before the blast. They will assume they brought you down here for a little revenge.”

He was starting to get excited about his newest idea. Could she see how perfect it was?

“Do you hear that, Rachel?” he said, hoping to reiterate. “Everyone will think Collingood and the others dragged you down here. Maybe you fought back and got a little reckless with the lamp and… pow!… firedamp did the rest.”

The more he spoke, the more convinced he became that he had hit upon the ideal solution. Losing some of what he would inherit was better than losing everything. An explosion would solve all his problems at once. Then he could hurry home and pretend he’d had nothing to do with it.

Pivoting abruptly, he felt his way to the cage and started hoisting himself up. The black powder, used for blasting new tunnels, was locked up.

But, as steward, he happened to know right where Tyndale kept the key.

Wythe was rolling a keg of gunpowder around the corner of the office toward the pithead when a horse bearing a rider stepped out of the shadows. Shocked to find that he had company, he almost let the slope of the ground carry the keg away from him.

“What are you doing here?” Cutberth asked, his horse rearing up at the sudden encounter.

Wythe wasn’t happy to see the clerk, but at least it wasn’t the earl. “I could ask you the same thing. Isn’t it a little early for you to be starting your day?”

“I’m not starting my day. I’m looking for Thornick.”

The knowledge that Thornick lay in the mine, dead, made Wythe begin to sweat. “I would imagine he is in bed this time of night.”

“Apparently not. His wife came to my house thirty minutes or so ago, frantic because he hasn’t come home.”

Wythe managed a shrug while keeping one hand on the powder barrel. “I haven’t seen him. You might try Elspeth’s.”

The rain had stopped but Cutberth’s hat was still dripping. He removed it long enough to fling off the water. “He told her he was coming here. For a union meeting. That’s why she sought me out.”

The smell of wet horse made Wythe wish he had his own animal. He had left it in the stables at Cosgrove House so he could move without alerting anyone, but he feared that would prove to be a mistake. He felt so immobile.

Putting a knee on the barrel, he straightened. “This is where you have been holding your meetings? At my own bloody mine?” He laughed as if he could appreciate the irony, but promised himself he wouldn’t let that go on in the future.

Instead of laughing with him, Cutberth gave him a funny look. “Don’t you mean the earl’s mine?”

“Of course. Didn’t I say that?” He tried not to glance toward the pithead, even though he was desperate to get back there before Rachel could do anything else to thwart him. “Anyway, you might find Thornick at Elspeth’s, like I said. The poor bloke had to tell his wife something in order to get out of the house, didn’t he?” He grinned as if that had to be the answer and hoped Cutberth would accept it. But the clerk didn’t leave. He lowered his gaze to the keg.

“Planning on doing some blasting?”

“When the men arrive. I couldn’t sleep so I thought I would come over and get ready for the day.”

Cutberth’s horse neighed and pranced to one side as if it was tired of standing in the same spot, but Cutberth brought it around again. “That’s a bit out of the ordinary, isn’t it? For you to get involved in this type of work?”

Wythe propped his hands on his hips and jutted his chin forward. “What are you saying?” He used a tone that suggested Cutberth had no right to question him, that he had no right to judge his actions no matter what they might be. He would soon be the Earl of Druridge and he expected people to remember that. But the clerk didn’t back off as he always had in the past.

“I’m saying that’s a bit out of the ordinary.” His voice was firm.

When their gazes locked, Wythe cursed silently to himself. Cutberth knew something wasn’t right, and that created yet another complication.

But there was still hope. The explosion Wythe had planned could take two lives as easily as one. He just had to get Cutberth into the mine.

“Not necessarily. Not if you knew what I was up to. Come on, I will show you. You can give me a hand.”

Cutberth shook the water off his hat again. “A hand with… what?”

“Getting this into the pit. I will hook up the machine on the lift, and you can lower me down. It will make it much easier. This thing weighs a ton.”

“I’m afraid you’re on your own with that, Mr. Stanhope,” he said. “I’m going to keep looking for Thornick.”

Wythe stood the barrel on its end so it could no longer roll. He had his knife in his belt. He wanted to use it, but it wouldn’t do him any good to try unless he could get Cutberth to climb down off that damned horse. “If you value your position here, you will take a minute and help me,” he said.