Lord Sebastian's Secret (The Duke's Sons #3)(31)

Minutes ticked by. Georgina rested in Sebastian’s arms. Finally, though, she had to speak. “I’m not sure they’ll be back anytime soon.”

“What?” He gazed down at her.

“I believe Hilda is playing a prank.”

Sebastian looked around at their constricted surroundings.

“She wouldn’t have expected me to fall, of course,” Georgina added. “I’m sure she didn’t know about this gully either. But she may plan to leave us out overnight. The bag of food left here makes me think so.” She noticed that he had the bag tied to his back by the strings.

“Why would she do such a thing?”

“Because she is incorrigible,” exclaimed Georgina. “And to hurry things along.”

“Things?”

“The wedding. She has this idea that all her problems will be solved once we are married.”

Sebastian could sympathize with the idea, if not understand how it applied to Hilda. The feel of Georgina’s body in his arms was rousing all sorts of inappropriate yearnings.

“It’s outrageous.”

That seemed to sum it up. More minutes dragged past. There was no sound of returning horses from above. Sebastian shouted anyway. To no avail.

“Do put me down,” said Georgina. “You must be getting tired.”

He was. And it was true that he couldn’t hold her indefinitely. But he couldn’t just set her down in the mud oozing around his feet.

“We’ll try moving along and hope it opens up a bit,” Sebastian said.

The gully was too narrow to walk straight down. He had to edge sideways, shoving through the tangled vegetation with the back of one shoulder, taking care not to bump Georgina’s injured leg as he slithered onward. He didn’t always succeed, and her stifled gasps of pain distressed him. How long could this crevice go on?

Quite a way, seemingly. The mud clung to his boots, weighing them down, making each step a greater effort. Twisted brambles caught at his coat and breeches. His arms began to burn. When no way out appeared, he tried to turn back. The declivity had grown so narrow that he barely managed to edge around. He pushed back the way they’d come, but the combination of snarled vegetation and an incline he hadn’t noticed much going down defeated him. It was as if the brambles and twigs reached out and shoved him backward. There was no choice but to go on.

After another exhausting turn, he slogged forward. The tiny ravine twisted to the right, then left, the sides remaining nearly vertical. Sebastian pressed on, growing more and more tired as the minutes passed.

Just when he thought he’d have to take a rest, and had begun to search for a less muddy spot to set Georgina down, he broke through a heavy screen of branches into a more open spot. Here, the gully widened into a roughly circular area perhaps twenty feet across. The thick mud was interrupted by a pool of water, thickly edged by bracken. Staggering forward, Sebastian placed Georgina gently on a bed of moss near the wall. He put the bag of food beside her. Then he stood for a while panting, thoroughly winded.

“Can we get out from here?” asked Georgina. She gazed upward uneasily.

Sebastian shook his head. This slope was more difficult, not easier. It was undercut, as if some great hand had scooped inward at the bottom of the circle, forming a kind of dome in the rock. The shape made one think of raging flash floods. Thankfully, this was not the season for heavy rain. They were not likely to be swept away by a sudden rush of water.

The leaves were a bit thinner in the opening above, lightening the green dimness. He stepped to the other side of the space. Here, the ravine narrowed once more, and the brambles closed in. He shoved a little way onward. It seemed the same as what they’d already traversed except for a towering pile of deadfall nearly blocking the gully further on. This was probably the cause of the circular space where Georgina rested. Suppressing images of raging whirlpools, Sebastian paused to scrape most of the heavy mud off his boots with a split branch. Then he gathered a great armful of dry wood and returned. It was chilly here deep below ground level. He needed a fire to keep her warm. He would have to explore further, but for now there was no obvious escape.

He came back to face Georgina’s anxious gaze. “So far it looks the same ahead. I’ll push on a ways in a bit. We’ll rest a while here first.”

Quickly evaluating the small space, Sebastian found a good place for his fire. He dropped the wood and pulled some withered grass from under the stone overhang. Assembling a structure of tinder and twigs took only a moment. He lit the grass with the flint and steel he always kept in his pocket and made sure the wood had begun to catch before lifting Georgina and placing her between the flames and the wall. She would stay dry here except in a torrential rain, and the arching rock would reflect the heat of the fire. Nodding his satisfaction at the arrangement, he looked up to find her staring at him.

“How do you know just what to do?”

“Military training,” he responded. “A soldier never knows when he might have to be self-sufficient.” He’d added his own hands-on learning and experiences to the army’s information. He enjoyed riding into wild country and using his own efforts to ensure survival.

“It’s… You’re amazing.”

Though he was warmed by the admiration in her eyes, Sebastian had to shrug. It was all easy enough. Nothing like wading through a pile of books in a few days, as he had seen her do. “I should take a look at your leg,” he replied.