The Taming of Ryder Cavanaugh (Cynster #20) - Stephanie Laurens Page 0,135
door made it difficult to shift; setting that aside, he continued his hunt.
The poker might come in handy. Hefting it, he dropped a set of metal skewers into his pocket, cast a last glance at the other utensils he’d uncovered.
As well as the knives, his opponents had removed all long, pointy implements, like the long-handled forks he was sure should have been there. As an afterthought, he tucked four ordinary forks into another pocket, then finally turned to the basement door.
They had to be watching him from outside, from the cover of the nearby woods. The kitchen faced west; the last of the fading light was probably sufficient to illuminate the room enough for them to follow his movements. So they would know he had the poker.
And from the fading glow of the lantern he carried they would know that he’d finally gone down the basement steps.
Reaching the bottom, he moved quickly, playing the lantern beam to either side as he strode down the aisle between the high shelves. There was an open area at the far end of the room. It was completely bare, but there the floor was wood, not stone, and the fine dust on the boards, drifting from bags of grain stacked along the back wall, showed evidence of footprints and the swishing of a woman’s skirts.
The marks circled a square trapdoor set in the floor.
He’d never been into the basement before, didn’t remember—had never heard—what lay beneath the trapdoor.
A heavy iron ring was set into the surface. Setting the lantern on the floor, he bent and hauled the trap—literally as well as figuratively, he feared—open. The door was heavy, weighted by a metal frame and bracing. Leaving it tilted back on its hinges, he crouched beside the opening and looked down, into a largely featureless void. Picking up the lantern, he directed the beam down, revealing a stone floor, not flagged but rough-hewn, more than ten feet below. There were no steps, not even a ladder.
The chamber was empty. He angled his head and the lantern, bent lower and peered, but all he saw was empty space leading to blank walls, also cut directly into the stone. The hole might have been part of a long-ago rock quarry, later built over. A tunnel, large enough for him to walk down, led off in one direction. He glanced briefly at it, his gaze passing over and on, but then he looked back. After a moment, he cursed and turned the lantern away—and yes, there was light, distant and faint, seeping out through that tunnel.
He hesitated, then with nothing to lose, called, “Mary?”
Instantly, distantly, he heard the drum of heels on stone. Even more faintly, he heard muffled sounds. She was there!
“Wait—I’m coming.”
The words unleashed a positive torrent of muffled protest; she wanted to warn him not to come down, that it was a trap.
He already knew that. Accepted it. He was still going down.
Even before he’d walked through the front door, he’d realized that leaving her there and returning to the abbey for help was not an option; if he did, when he returned with his men, she wouldn’t be there anymore. She was the bait to lure him to his doom; Lavinia and her henchmen now knew they had that right, that that would work, so they would keep her until he did as they wished and stepped into their trap. Putting it off would only prolong the drama and risk Mary’s health, and most likely shift the venue from which he had to rescue her to somewhere even less advantageous to him.
Yet if he dropped through the trapdoor—easy enough—there was no way he could see of getting back up. And if there was no other way out of what appeared to be a long-unused cellar . . .
He paused, thought again, but still could see no option. Even if he attempted to wait them out, they would come for him eventually—long before anyone from the abbey came looking for him—and he was unarmed. He doubted they were.
All he had to work with was his wits and his strength. Together, they would have to suffice.
And Mary was down there, alone, tied and gagged.
He hunted through the basement and found what he’d imagined had to be there somewhere—a rope. Tying one end to the iron ring, he threaded the rope through the gap beside the big hinges on the door and let the length fall; it reached nearly to the cellar floor.