Dangerous Diana (Brambridge Novel 3) (31 page)

CHAPTER 30

Melissa stood frozen to her standing position for two hours. Outside, a dog set up barking, on and off, persistent, distracting, but enough to keep her alert.

And then her feet went to sleep.

It was her knees that were first to start, they quivered and shook as she tried desperately to stop from moving whilst waking up her now red-hot feet. She wanted to clench her fists that were still tied in front of her, but was too afraid that that might attract the snakes’ attention.

Those two hours had given her too much time to think. To regret not bringing the henbane with her. For not being bloodthirsty enough to have attacked first. If the Viper had come back she would have gladly scratched his eyes and taken a stake to his heart.

Despite her feet now feeling more like two inanimate plates attached to her legs, Melissa became aware of a soft slithering against the inside of her left foot. With a muffled squeak she leapt into action, unthinkingly taking five strides across the floor forwards and one giant step to the left. Unerringly, she reached out with her bound hands and touched the door handle to the room. She pulled and pulled, but the door wouldn’t open. It was locked from the outside.

A faint slithering across the stone floor behind her made her freeze again. But her mind still worked. All those games of hide and seek with her father when she was small came back to her. It was those games that had allowed her to race blind folded to where she was now. She knew the house top to bottom and back to front, even in the dark. What were the characteristics of the room that she was in now? It had been her father’s orchid room. He had had workbenches installed around the room for the orchids to be potted and composted; this was where the snake tanks stood now. There had been a sink for washing down plants and roots, a space for hanging garden tools, and a cupboard underneath one of the benches for storing compost.

The slithering was coming closer.

There was no way she was going to get out from the locked door where she was now. And there were no other rooms to go to. She would have to hide in the compost cupboard. Taking a large gulp of air, Melissa swiveled her head. The slithering had stopped, but started again suddenly. It came from over her left shoulder and just to the right. Wishing she had had the chance to take more dance lessons, Melissa took a deep breath, leapt and turned, stumbling slightly as she landed on her toes, her tied hands restricting her ability to balance. Without pausing, she danced slightly to the right away from where she thought the snake was, and dived unerringly underneath the work bench.

Her nose pressed against cold wall, and her hands scrabbled in spider’s webs. Barely registering the dirt, she patted her hands against the wall. Where had the cupboard gone? She knew it was there. It wasn’t something that many people had noticed, so surely it wouldn’t have been filled in?

Melissa patted her hands further to the right on the wall and with a sigh of relief found the wooden surround to the cupboard. She had forgotten that she was larger now than she was when she was a child. A child’s steps were different to an adult’s. It had been by chance that she had reached the door handle the first time. She ran her hands around the door surround and found the little hole that would allow her to pull the cupboard open. It was no bigger than two of her fingers. Bending low to avoid hitting her head on the iron supports to the work benches, she wriggled into the cupboard on her elbows. Rolling onto her back and sitting up in one movement, she shuffled backwards into the cupboard until her toes touched the wall. Reaching out blindly, she found the door and pulled it closed again with a finger.

Once in she took stock. The snakes could still get in through the hole. She pulled her skirts up, cursing at her bound hands, and ripped at the hem of her dress. She pulled off a substantial piece of material, and stuffed it in the hole in the door. She repeated her actions and plugged the gap where the cupboard just touched the floor. Sitting back against the wall, she stopped to moderate her breathing. Her breath was coming out in long pants, and she could feel her pulse pounding in her head. ‘
You are just suffering from overexertion.
’ How many times had she said that to a hapless individual in her queue for medicine?

Melissa took a deep breath in and let the air come siphoning out slowly. She was safe in the cupboard for a bit. At least, that was until the Viper discovered her gone and tried to look for her. She hoped he hadn’t noticed the small recess under the work bench when he had put the tanks in the orchid room, otherwise she would be discovered immediately.

Once her head had stopped pounding violently it was easier to take stock of the situation. It was as if she was in a rather deadly Russian doll. She could not get out of the cupboard without encountering deadly snakes. She could not get out of the locked room at all, and if she did she would encounter the deadly Viper again—Professor Lisle.

Melissa cursed involuntarily but stopped. In the small cupboard her voice had sounded lower and more masculine, the stress of the situation forcing her throat into producing an unnatural hoarseness. She coughed as quietly as she could and spoke quietly again. It was uncanny. She fell silent. It was as if a man was in the room with her.

CHAPTER 31

Hades set out for Chalfont St. Peter before the others. He could not wait for the carriage to be made ready—nor for so many horses to be found. Cloud carried him faithfully for two hours at a steady fast pace, out of London, through Shepherd’s Bush, Uxbridge, a small village called Denham and then straight across open countryside to the small village of Chalfont St. Peter. The village was set around a small triangular green, with a duck pond and a coaching inn. He stopped there first, asking directions for a big house. He was told to follow the street up the hill, past the shops and then turn left at the next inn.

Vaulting onto his horse which he had left loose on the green outside, Hades galloped up the hill. Time was of the essence now, and he didn’t have time to spare. Cloud responded to his urging with a burst of energy, eating up the yards. Soon he reached the next inn, and pulling the reins to the left, urged Cloud to bank sharply. Here, large gates came into view. It was clear that he was in the right place. Large blooms of flowers lined the walls of the property, and Hades could see huge clumps of carefully tended shrubs crowding what would have been normally a lawn laid to grass.

The drive led straight up to a large house that Hades could see standing behind mature trees. The drive itself was rutted again, as though recent large activity had passed that way. He hoped that he would not be too late to find the Viper gone.

It wouldn’t be long before someone observed him lurking outside the gates with his horse. Hades retreated back, round the bend and tied Cloud quickly to a post in front of the inn. Pulling at his sleeves, he shed his tight jacket filled with pistols and tied it loosely to Cloud’s saddle. He wasn’t comfortable with the guns at all. Plus they had made it hard to move. What he was about to do next, needed maximum movement.

Dressed only in his breeches, boots, shirt and waistcoat, Hades loped back to the front gates and assessed them for height and hand holds. Fortunately an ornate crest in the middle meant that halfway up he would be able to get a good perch. Without wasting time thinking about how long he normally spent sitting in a chair reading books rather than running and climbing, Hades hooked his hands around the middle of the crest and swung his boot firmly onto an iron perch. He missed the first time, cursing in a low voice as his arms were slowly wrenched out of his shoulder sockets. But the second time he was successful, pushing his boot into the small curl of an ornate iron scroll effect.

Flexing his thigh muscles, Hades pushed himself upwards towards the top of the gate. It was smooth, with no spikes on which to fall. He grasped the top with his fingers and, gritting his teeth, pulled his weight further up and swung his free leg over. It was an easy roll of his stomach to pull his other leg over and a short drop down the other side to the grass.

He remained prostrate on the grass for two minutes, recovering his breath and making sure that he hadn’t been seen. There was no movement from the house, however.

After a few moments, Hades raised himself to his elbows, wincing as his shoulder muscles pulsed. Pulling his arms into his sides, he crawled through the long grass, around large shrubs and up towards the large house.

An open cart stood outside, but the door to the house remained closed. On the cart stood several large trunks with holes drilled in the sides.

Staying low, Hades ran to the cart and peered at the step where the driver would sit. A highwayman’s cloak and hat lay waiting for an occupant. Hades leapt back as the cart rolled forward slightly, the pony drawing the cart sensing his presence with an eagerness to be going.

Tiptoeing towards the back of the cart, Hades climbed onto the rear lower step and looked in at the trunks, and through the holes drilled inside. The trunks contained many wicker baskets, of the sort that Hades had seen once before. Shuddering, Hades recoiled, falling back with a crunch onto the gravel.

Suddenly his already bruised arms were twisted and wrenched behind his back.

“Ah, Earl Harding. I thought I told you to stay away.” A voice murmured into Hades’ ear.

“Professor Lisle,” Hades said coolly, trying to turn but finding the pressure on his arms made it impossible to move.

“So you found out who I was, did you?” The Viper gripped Hades’ arm more securely and wound a rope unhesitatingly around his hands. “I suspect it was my old friend, Trump, who gave me away. I’ll deal with him next after I have got rid of you.”

“Mm. It does rather seem to be your modus operandi doesn’t it, getting rid of people who are inconvenient.” Hades hadn’t expected to be captured so early on in his venture. What was more, his mind that normally would provide an escape plan, or even a strategy, had become blank as soon as his arms were seized. He could feel panic starting in his stomach. The only way to gain time was to keep the Viper talking. He wasn’t sure he would be able to keep him talking until the others arrived, however.

“They were scum,” Lisle shouted. “I am good for our nation. I keep us on the straight and narrow. We shouldn’t have to hide spies in other people’s courts.”

“Just like you hide who you are whilst killing people.”

“It’s not the same thing.” Lisle lifted up Hades’ hands behind his back, forcing his twisted arms to almost break. “Walk forward into the house. I was just about to leave, but I have enough time for you to see what your coming has wrought. I did tell you to stay away. Now you can act like your namesake, and open the gates to the underworld for me.”

“What have you done?” Hades’ heart was in his mouth.

“Oh, I’ve had a little fun with your courtesan.”

“You haven’t!”

Professor Lisle pulled up on Hades’ hands, causing Hades to moan. “I am not interested in that kind of thing,” he purred. “No, snakes are far more exciting. Especially the prospect of my lovely snakes wrapping their smooth dry bodies around your lover and then—” He paused and took a large sniff—“biting hard with their sharp teeth, injecting venom into her veins.”
 
The professor moaned.

Hades gagged. The man was unnatural. “Where is Melissa? What have you done to her?”

“Such concern!” Lisle laughed scornfully. “You haven’t shown her this much care so far. Why so needy now?”

Because I love her
, Hades bit back
. I love her, and I wanted to run from her because of it—I thought she wanted to use me like the others. Instead she put herself ahead of me. Despite me.

“No matter,” Lisle said slowly. “I couldn’t be bothered to wait to see if you would come after her. I put her in a room with some snakes. I think she should be dead already.”

“No!” roared Hades, “You can’t, she did nothing to you, she wasn’t even part of the establishment which you hate!”

“Oh, I hated her father alright. I think that makes it enough. And there was the little matter of dallying with my sister’s affections.”

“Where is she?” Hades said, uncaring. “Show me!”

“But of course. What would be the fun in not showing you?”

Professor Lisle pushed Hades unwillingly in front of him through the house and into the kitchen. A large door lay locked in front of them with a brass key still in the lock.

“Turn around,” Lisle said tersely. Still exerting the pressure on Hades’ hands, Lisle turned the key in the lock, opened the door, and thrust Hades through into the dark room beyond.

“Behold!” he thundered, “behold your lovely, but dead lover.”

Hades stood quietly, his shoulders sagging. He couldn’t believe that he was too late. Too late to salvage everything. He was a broken man.

“Does she look beautiful?” Lisle asked quietly into his ear. “Do you think she loves you now, fool?”

Hades blinked and looked around at the floor as his eyes became used to the darkness. He could hear a slithering on the floor. “What have you done?” he asked.

“Oh, just left your lovely with some of my most poisonous snakes I was waiting to move. I thought I would give them a meal before I left. They do so enjoy warm, tender meat.”