The Lady By His Side(99)
“A hundred and twelve pounds each?” When he nodded, she paused, then said, “But…that’s over one thousand pounds of gunpowder!”
His face felt like stone as he nodded. “Indeed. Enough to blow up something very large.” And the barrels were already on their way to London.
Urgency gripped him. He reached out and caught her hand. “We need to get news of this to Whitehall immediately—”
“Oh, no, you don’t.”
The voice came out of the darkness ahead.
Sebastian swung to face the threat, and light—a strong, brilliant beam of it—hit him in the face.
Some man—just a vague shadow in the opening of what, in the faint light reflected from the distant cavern walls, was revealed as a tunnel leading onward—ruthlessly directed a powerful lantern beam into Sebastian’s and Antonia’s eyes.
Sebastian raised the hand holding his candle and tried to shield his face, but he couldn’t escape that disorienting, blinding light.
He and Antonia were standing together; a mistake.
He released her hand and stepped away from her. “Drop the candle,” he murmured and tossed his away.
She did the same.
He took another, larger step away from her, forcing the man to swing the lantern beam more widely to keep them both in sight.
“Stop!” the man ordered.
Antonia gave up trying to see the man clearly and looked at Sebastian—saw him disregard the man’s order and keep edging away from her.
Then the lantern beam locked on Sebastian, and the sound of a pistol being cocked echoed through the cavern.
She knew that sound. Knew what she was seeing—and immediately realized Sebastian had it wrong.
He was ensuring the man shot him and not her.
But if the man wounded Sebastian, who would protect her? The man wouldn’t allow her to live. And if he killed Sebastian…
Her heart seized.
Sebastian’s gaze swung from the man to her.
“No!” She flung herself toward him.
Sebastian felt his heart stop. He saw Antonia spring toward him, distantly heard her scream.
He was already moving, launching himself at her—forced by instincts too powerful to resist to change direction and protect her.
The pistol roared, the sound magnified by the rock around them.
The ball sliced through the air where, a split second before, he’d been, and ricocheted into the darkness.
He collided with Antonia, clutched her to him, and let his momentum, dampened but not negated by hers, carry them on and down. He rolled, shifting to cushion her head as they landed. Then he pushed her from him and turned onto his side between her and their assailant, and frantically reached for his right coat pocket.
The lantern beam swung wildly as the man tried to locate them. Then it steadied above their heads and started to lower.
Searching desperately, Sebastian slumped onto his back.
A second before the light reached his face, his fingers closed around the butt of his pistol. He hauled it from his pocket, sighted, and fired.
The man cried out. The lantern wobbled crazily, but the bastard didn’t fall, just cursed.
In the reflected glow from the now-erratically swinging lantern beam, Sebastian saw the man heave something their way; he reached up and batted the projectile—the man’s spent pistol—aside. It clattered to the rock floor.
Glancing back at the man, Sebastian started to push to his feet—only to realize the bastard was fleeing.
The lantern light winked out.
Leaving him blinking into complete and utter darkness. “Damn!”
He dropped back to sit on the floor.
“My God—are you hurt?” Suddenly, Antonia was clambering over him—in the dark patting him, working her way to his face. “Sebastian? Say something! Did he shoot you? Where, for heaven’s sake?”
He caught her hands, one in each of his, and yanked her to him. He released her hands, found her face, held it immobile, and crushed his lips to hers.
The emotions crashing through him were too many, too great, to make any sense of. All he knew was that if she hadn’t acted—hadn’t flung herself at him—he would, almost certainly, be dead. And she might have been facing a worse fate.
It seemed all wrong—completely and inescapably wrong. She shouldn’t even have been there. If he’d had his way—if she hadn’t pushed, or if he’d pigheadedly insisted on letting his protective self hold sway as he’d been so very close to doing—she would have been waiting in safety on the shore for him.
And he would never have returned to her.
He would never again have felt the indescribable thrill of her hands desperately clutching at him, of her fingers winding in his hair, never again have experienced the transcendent glory of her lips soft and pliant under his, kissing him back with a fervor and a passion to match his.