Run Wild (Escape with a Scoundrel) - By Shelly Thacker Page 0,49
it made him uneasy.
“But I... I suppose I should thank you for saving me,” she continued quietly, wringing some of the water out of her skirt. “I would’ve drowned out there.”
“If you die, I die, remember?” he tossed back.
“Yes, of course,” she replied, meeting his eyes and matching his sharp tone. “And that brings up another question. Now that we’re in here...” She looked around the dark cave. “How on earth are we going to get out?”
Chapter 11
Their cautious footsteps sounded louder than a hundred pairs of shoes dancing across a marble floor. Sam stared ahead, eyes wide, afraid that her next step might carry them straight down some bottomless pit. Or into an impassable wall of solid rock.
The rogue followed behind her, silent but for his labored breathing.
They had yet to find the rear of the cave. Or a way out. Even though they had been walking for over an hour.
The damp, confined space seemed to play tricks with every sound, every drip of water, every skittering of pebbles beneath their feet. Sam practically jumped out of her slippers each time the chain caught on a rock or stalagmite. She had thought herself used to the metallic jangling of the shackles by now, but in here it seemed eerie, ghostlike.
Ominous.
Leading the way, she held her torch high—if a whiskey-soaked petticoat stuffed into an empty biscuit tin dangling on a hastily woven net of fishing wire could be called a torch. The flame cast a glimmer of light that barely penetrated the crush of darkness around them.
She kept coughing, felt as if she had inhaled so much of the river that she must’ve grown gills. She edged forward, feeling her way across the uneven ground, her slippers encountering rocks, sand, sticky mud, sharp pebbles.
She shifted the heavy fishing creel on her shoulder, her bruised muscles protesting at the motion. Cuts and scrapes on her arms and legs stung like the devil, adding to her misery. The waterfall and the rocks had left their mark on her... in more ways than one.
The passage narrowed so tightly in some spots that they could barely squeeze past. In others it became more like a tunnel, forcing them to stoop down or crawl through on their hands and knees. For the last several yards, it had broadened into what felt like a vast cavern.
But it didn’t end.
Now and then she could feel a gust of wind, a hint of fresh air that made her feel certain there must be an opening somewhere ahead. She strained her eyes for any speck of daylight. Prayed that they would find an exit that would spare them another encounter with the falls and the whirlpool. Neither of them wanted to risk that again.
So they kept going, deeper and deeper. Didn’t dare stop. They’d lost their pursuers for the moment. But for how long? When the lawmen didn’t find them downstream, they would double back to search the forest above. She didn’t relish the idea of exiting the cave only to find themselves in the middle of a swarm of hounds and marshalmen.
The sooner they found a way out of here, the better. Time was not on their side.
Please, she thought, looking around her as the flames painted flickering orange shadows on the craggy walls of rock. Please, there must be a way out. Please, God, help me find it.
“Let’s take a rest.”
Startled by the rogue’s deep voice, Sam almost dropped the biscuit tin. She stopped and looked behind her. It was the first time he had asked to stop. Ever. She was usually the one who didn’t want to go on.
Then again, he had given her a number of surprises today. Including his request that she take the lead as they explored. And the fact that he hadn’t protested or made any mocking comment when she offered to carry the heavy pack of supplies.
“Are you all right?” she asked, wishing her heart would stop pounding so hard.
He sank down to the cave floor, leaned his good shoulder against the rough wall, nodded. But he was breathing hard, as if they’d been running for an hour instead of walking at a snail’s pace.
The chain rattled as Sam sat across from him, her stomach knotted with worry. Sliding the fishing creel from her shoulder, she set her makeshift torch-in-a-box on the ground between them.
Looking at her invention through slitted eyes, the rogue grinned for a fleeting second. “At times, your ladyship, you amaze me.”