He drew back and was replaced by Gerry, one of the older boys.
Kate started handing out the rocks that littered Caleb’s back, weighing him down. She steadily worked her way down his body as Gerry eagerly took the rocks from her.
Eventually, Gerry said, “Let me go and empty this.” He gripped the basket’s handles. “I’ll be back in a jiffy.”
“On your way,” Caleb said, “can you ask Hillsythe to look in?”
“’Course, Capt’n.” Gerry grinned and saluted, then moved out of sight.
A short time later, Hillsythe crouched in the opening. “How are you feeling?”
“Bruised and a trifle battered, but I’ve been worse.” Caleb studied Hillsythe’s features. “Dubois? The guards?”
Hillsythe cracked a grin of his own. “Outside—and they’re showing no signs whatever of wanting to come in, not even to see the state of things.” He sobered. “But be prepared to meet Dubois’s questions when we get you out. He’s seen Amy, so he knows why you came into the tunnel, but we’re not yet sure what he’s making of it all.”
“Muldoon?” Caleb asked.
Disgust passed over Hillsythe’s features. “All he’s concerned about is what this means in terms of mining more diamonds. Dixon described the situation here”—with his gaze, Hillsythe indicated the pile beneath which Caleb lay—“and told Muldoon and Dubois that we won’t know what’s what until the tunnel is cleared, most likely later tomorrow.”
“And the timing mechanism?”
Hillsythe’s grin resurfaced. “Well and truly buried and almost certainly smashed to smithereens. Regardless, as it’s us who’ll be digging it out, I think we can be assured Dubois, Muldoon, and the guards will never see anything to stir their suspicions.”
Kate had already realized that the men had engineered the collapse of the mine themselves—in secret—but had she needed confirmation, the comments regarding a timing mechanism provided it. But she held her tongue, and when Hillsythe drew back and let Gerry return to take more rocks from her, she resumed her task. She and Caleb still had to get free of the collapse the men had engineered. Time enough for upbraidings later.
As she worked, freeing Caleb’s waist and hips and reaching as far as his knees—the farthest she could manage—she considered why they’d done it. That, she could understand—desperate times called for desperate measures, and they’d obviously set it up so that if it hadn’t been for Amy going back into the mine, no one would have been hurt at all...
But why hadn’t the men told the women?
Why hadn’t Caleb told her?
With all the larger rocks removed, she smiled and waved Gerry away. “That’s it for now. It must be late.” She’d lost all track of time. “All you children should be in bed.”
Gerry grinned. “Miss Harriet and Miss Annie are just rounding us up.” He looked at Caleb and sobered. “Me and all the others, Capt’n, we wanted to ask if you’re really all right.”
Caleb actually laughed. “Battered and bruised, but more or less intact. My thanks to you and all the others for your help, but you’d better head off before Miss Annie comes to tow you away.”
Gerry saluted. “Aye, aye, Capt’n.” Then he rose and dragged the basket away.
Caleb lowered his head and rested it on his left forearm. The position allowed him to tip his head far enough to look at her.
When his eyes met hers, she arched her brows. “Can you move your legs and feet?”
The space was still limiting, the beams angled over his back too close for him to turn onto his side and pull his legs up. He shifted, attempting various maneuvers, in the process dislodging the rubble about his calves and feet, but eventually, he grunted, gave up, and slumped flat as he had been. Meeting her eyes once more, he grimaced. “They’ll have to lift all the beams off.” He tried to look over his shoulder, but couldn’t manage it. “How many are there?”
“At least three of the big ones, and there’s several others in between. But I think they’re going to lift this first one and then see if they can pull you out.”
He grunted again. After a moment, he caught her eye. “You must be exhausted. You don’t have to stay.”
She held his gaze. “Yes, I do.” In case he thought to argue, she added firmly, “More, I am.”
His lips curved in his usual irrepressibly charming grin. He reached out and took her hand again, and she sat beside him and waited.
It took another half an hour before the men had cleared the debris sufficiently to safely lift the first beam away. Trapped by the remaining beams, Caleb still couldn’t move—couldn’t even raise up enough to crawl out—but after helping Kate out and to her feet, then urging her back, Fanshawe stepped in, gripped Caleb’s hands, heaved, and slowly dragged him out from beneath the remaining beams.
Finally! Caleb slid his hands from Fanshawe’s, thanked the man, then pushed himself half upright into a sitting position. He drew in his aching legs and bent his knees, then swiveled to lean his back against the tunnel wall. Just that much movement made his head pound and his senses swim; he was grateful for Kate’s steadying hand on his shoulder.
Dozens of men were crammed into the tunnel; they sent up a resounding cheer. In lieu of a grin, Caleb managed to hold up a hand and weakly wave in acknowledgment.
Dixon appeared, briefly gripped Caleb’s shoulder, then addressed the men. “Now he’s out, we’ll leave the rest until tomorrow. No sense risking getting trapped in here if there are any further falls.”
Everyone agreed. The men started to file out.
Phillipe crouched before Caleb and searched his eyes. “How are you feeling?”
Caleb wished he could grin as he had before, but now he was sitting, the blood was rushing through his limbs, making him acutely aware of each bruise and scrape. “I don’t think I’m bleeding anywhere” was the best he could muster.
Phillipe held up several fingers. “How many?”
Caleb was fairly certain the answer was two and said so.
Phillipe grunted. “You’re guessing. You have a concussion. No sleep yet for you.”
“Actually,” said Hillsythe, who had come to stand just behind Phillipe and had been studying Caleb, “I wouldn’t attempt to appear too chipper. Dubois is waiting outside. Your pallor’s quite convincing, but I wouldn’t go out of your way to play down any weakness—not in this case.”
“Ah.” Caleb went to nod, but thought better of it. “I take your point.” He reached behind him to push up off the wall.
Phillipe shifted to his side, seized Caleb’s arm, and looped it over his shoulders. Hillsythe displaced Kate on Caleb’s other side, and between them, the pair hoisted him to his feet.
When he swayed, they steadied him.
Caleb closed his eyes and sucked in a breath. “Damned head.”
“Just as well it’s still attached to your shoulders,” Hillsythe drily remarked, “because we’re still going to need it and you to get us through August and into September.”
Caleb grunted, but as Hillsythe and Phillipe turned to half carry him out of the mine, he opened his eyes enough to find Kate’s face.
She smiled, although the gesture didn’t erase the worry in her eyes, then she spoke to Hillsythe and Phillipe. “Take him to the medical hut. I’ll need to check his injuries, and we should bathe that lump and give him something for the pain.”
Caleb decided he could live with that plan. “How’s Amy? Is she truly all right?”
With their way lit by lanterns held aloft by other men, Kate walked beside the three of them and assured him Amy was better than he was and, more, had retrieved her ribbon. Apparently, that fact, combined with the usual resilience of youth, meant that Amy was already well on her way to being her usual sunny self.
Supported between Phillipe and Hillsythe, he staggered
slowly out of the mine and into the open compound. As they paused to pivot toward the medical hut, he saw Dubois and Muldoon waiting ahead and to one side, backed by a semicircle of guards with muskets in their hands. Instinctively, Caleb tried to stand taller, only to have one ankle buckle beneath him.
Kate grabbed the hand of the arm slung across Hillsythe’s shoulder, while both men grunted and heaved Caleb upright.
Beneath his breath, Hillsythe grumbled, “No need for histrionics.”
Caleb murmured, “That wasn’t an act.”
Kate gritted her teeth. She wasn’t at all sure what the truth was. Not that it mattered; his injuries needed tending, and he needed to stay awake. She released his hand. “Straight to the medical hut.”
Dubois, of course, stepped across to block their way, his men ranging behind him.
Hillsythe and Phillipe drew up with Caleb swaying between them. He noted that Muldoon had remained where he’d been—on the sidelines and farther from the captives.
Dubois studied Caleb with cold detachment. “Captain Dixon informs me that the collapse of the tunnel was most likely due to a minor earth tremor that caused the newly constructed entrance to the lower level to shift and subsequently fail.”
Caleb tried valiantly to raise his head high enough to nod, but couldn’t quite do it. He managed, “I’m not an expert, but that seems about right. The ground did...tremble, and it was somewhere back there—around the entrance to the lower level—that collapsed first.” He really didn’t want to relive the moment—the sickening seconds before the roof had fallen in and he’d thought he’d finally pushed Fate too far—and if some of that reluctance crept into his tone, he couldn’t bring himself to care.
Dubois said nothing for several seconds, but Caleb had a mother and three manipulative brothers; silence wasn’t going to make him obligingly rush in to fill it.
Kate, however, wasn’t so inured. “I was closest to the mine. I felt the ground shake, just a little, before the collapse.” She offered the comment reluctantly, as if feeling forced to speak up.
Dubois glanced her way, then inclined his head. “As it happens, the guards in the tower felt the movement as well.” He returned his gaze to Caleb. “Which leads me to conclude that the cause was, indeed, a natural one.” Dubois’s smile was as chilly as his tone as he continued, “Which is good news for you, Captain Frobisher. If part of the mine had collapsed inexplicably, even with you sending in a young girl to give you a reason to go in when no one else was there, I would have been sorely tempted to lay the blame at your feet.”
At that, Caleb did raise his head enough to look Dubois in the eye. “Do you really think I would be fool enough to bring down the mine about my own ears, let alone with Amy in there with me?”
Dubois held his gaze steadily. “Do I think you would be reckless enough to arrange such a scenario, but misjudge the outcome and get caught in the collapse? Yes, Captain Frobisher, I do.”
Caleb’s frown was entirely genuine. “Well, I didn’t.” For once, his scheme had been determinedly nonreckless, and it certainly hadn’t been any part of his plan to send Amy in as a decoy of sorts. He felt he had a right to be huffily indignant, but wasn’t sure that wasn’t his concussion talking. “It was an earth tremor.”
“As Captain Dixon and my men bear that out, I accept that to be the case.” With a coolly contemptuous nod, Dubois stepped back. His men followed suit, clearing their path to the medical hut. “I have been told,” Dubois said, “that you are not so badly injured that you will not be able to continue to work as you have been.”
It was Kate who snapped, “He has a concussion, but that appears to be all. He should be recovered enough in twenty-four hours.”
“Excellent.” With a cold smile, Dubois waved them on. “According to Captain Dixon, it will take that long to clear the debris. I’ll expect to see you on your feet when Mr. Muldoon and I make an inspection of the mine tomorrow afternoon.”
Caleb didn’t bother attempting a reply.
Her head high, Kate swept past and on, leading the way to the medical hut, and he allowed Hillsythe and Phillipe to steer him in her wake. His mind buzzed with questions regarding the state of the mine and their plans for the upcoming inspection, but then he had to climb the steps into the medical hut.
Kate had gone ahead and stood holding the door.
He hauled in a breath and started up.
The change in elevation rocked his balance.
The buzzing in his head abruptly increased—and giddy dizziness rose and dragged him down into blessedly unfeeling darkness.
* * *
When he regained his senses, he was lying in the bed in the medical hut, under the mosquito netting. From somewhere nearby, a lamp shed golden light upon the scene.
He blinked.
Several seconds passed, then he realized he was naked.
He was also clean.
Someone had sponged the dust from all of him, from all his cuts and bruises, and everywhere in between...
Without moving his head, he shifted his gaze and saw Kate carrying a wide bowl to the chest against the wall.
He blinked again. Surely not?
He knew his brain wasn’t working all that well. While her back was to him, he lifted the sheet and peered down.
Yes, he was naked.
And yes, he was clean.
Someone had washed all of him.
CHAPTER 18
Caleb lowered the sheet and glanced at the door.
Kate turned and saw. “What is it?”
He looked at her. “Is there someone else here?” When did Phillipe and Hillsythe leave?
She frowned. “I don’t think so.” Carrying a pot of salve in one hand, she walked to the door and looked into the corridor. “No. No one’s about.” She shut the door and latched it. Turning back to the bed, she said, “In case anyone else is brought in.”
His wits, he discovered, weren’t cooperating. “What time is it?” How long had he been non compos mentis?
“It must be nearly midnight.” She advanced on the bed.
He watched her approach and reminded himself that he should be trying to keep a viable distance...shouldn’t he? His wits were fuzzy about that, too. When she lifted the netting, ducked beneath and let it fall, then sat on the bed beside him, he cleared his throat. “How did I get here?” He waved. “In the bed?” In this state?
She’d been unscrewing the lid of the pot. She looked up and met his gaze. “Hillsythe and Lascelle carried you in, then Hillsythe had to go back. Lascelle helped me undress and bathe you.” Her lashes lowered, but her lips quirked. “If that’s what you want to know.”
He wasn’t at all sure what he felt about that—tantalized or horrified. But... “I can doctor my own cuts.”
“Actually, you can’t.” She looked up, and he saw determination of a sort he hadn’t previously encountered in her eyes. Before he could decide what it foretold, she went on, “Most of your abrasions are on your back—you won’t be able to see them much less reach them.” She gestured with one hand. “Now turn over so I can rub some of this on. You know you can’t risk infection in this place.”
A second was all it took to convince him that he was really not up to arguing. He humphed, and clutching the sheet to keep it over his shoulders, he turned away from her onto his left side, then, gingerly, onto his stomach.
Of course, she promptly drew the sheet down, but only to his hips.
Then came the excruciatingly delicate touch of her fingertips as she dabbed the ointment around a scrape on one shoulder blade, but that was followed by the much firmer and definitely soothing pressure as she gently stroked, then rubbed the ointment in.
After she’d attended to several such scrapes, he found he was all but floating, relaxed and strangely content.
> Then she stood, circled the bed, and came to sit on his other side, the better to reach the rest of the damage. She dabbed, then stroked. He felt her gaze on the side of his face, but didn’t raise his heavy lids.
“You’re supposed to stay awake,” she said, her voice soft and low, “or at least, I’m supposed to make sure you don’t sink into sleep for too long.”
“Hmm.”
“So why don’t you tell me why you and the other men chose not to tell the women about your plan?”
Although he didn’t raise his lids, he was immediately wide awake. And for a wonder, his brain seemed to realize that he needed all his wits about him. “I wanted to tell you—you and the other women—but the rest of the men made a convincing case.”
“So Lascelle informed me. He also said the reasons the other men put forward were unarguable, and that if the same situation arose again, you would behave in the same way.”
Caleb made a mental note to reward Phillipe appropriately for his help. First, Phillipe had acquiesced to Kate being involved in undressing and bathing Caleb, and then Phillipe had told her just enough to leave Caleb having to explain a point he was well aware women often didn’t appreciate. “Phillipe’s such a good friend.”
“Indeed.” The crispness in her tone suggested she understood enough to suspect Phillipe’s motives. “But in the interests of keeping the peace among us all, why don’t you explain what those ‘unarguable’ reasons were?”
Inwardly, he sighed. “They convinced me by pointing out that when the tunnel collapsed, the reactions of the women and children—your shock and surprise—would instantly eliminate all of you from Dubois’s list of suspects. Moreover, we’re all fairly certain that Dubois amuses himself by watching us plotting, so he knows that, generally, the women and children are included and involved in all our plans. So in this case, having you—the women and children—all reacting in obvious shock and surprise would also assist in keeping Dubois from thinking that we—the men—were responsible for engineering the collapse.”