“We’ll need strong shoring,” he said to the men. “The sides are beginning to move. Take the wagon to the timber yard, Derry, and tell Joe I sent you. Grab every piece of planking you can find. Don’t take more than half an hour. We can’t wait any longer than that, or the work we’ve done will be a waste of time.” He hauled a bag of dirt out of the hole and dumped the weight on the slippery verges. His big shoulders strained.
“Need spelling yet, Seymour?” A stout man emptied the soil and handed the limp sack back to him.
“Not until it’s safe. I’ll go on until the shoring arrives.” Mr. Seymour wiped a stained hand through his dirt-plastered hair.
This morning, while he’d wandered around more than half-naked, Starling’s only reaction had been embarrassment. She’d never seen a bare man before him. Now she gazed at his manly form, wishing he wasn’t quite so physically attractive. She would hate to see such a fine body injured, and she was scared for him, but as he stood with the rain sluicing over his skin, he looked insoluble, like a great stone monument.
Within moments, and not even glancing at her, he disappeared headfirst back into his hole.
Starling held her umbrella over Mrs. Burdon. “He’ll get her out,” she said, repeating the words the servants had told her. “He never gives in once he’s made up his mind to help.”
“I wish I could see Tammy. I can’t even hear her. Mr. Seymour says he knows how far down she’s wedged.” Mrs. Burdon’s face creased with worry.
Starling reached out a tentative hand. Mrs. Burdon grasped her fingers. The men continued to empty the bags of soil while Mr. Seymour filled them. The hole looked tiny, not much wider than a man’s shoulders, yet the earth being removed seemed never-ending.
When the shoring arrived, Mr. Seymour widened the hole, and then the heavy-set, older man, who Starling had identified as Mr. Burdon, took over. Mr. Seymour paced. Not wanting to be noticed by him, certain he would not be bolstered by her presence, Starling pulled the waterproof farther over her head, left the umbrella with Mrs. Burdon, and squelched in her waterlogged boots back to the house.
“May I have something sustaining to take out to the men?” Starling’s hands trembled as she spoke to Mrs. Trelevan. Perhaps after her poor night’s sleep, she was tired. She had no reason to be frightened. No one had been hurt and the little girl would likely be rescued.
“Bless you.” Mrs. Trelevan poured boiling water from her kettle and filled a bottle with hot, sweet tea. “We can make cake if the men want sustaining. I’ve got nothing prepared but dinner.”
Within a quarter of an hour, Starling had returned to the well. She poured the tea into mugs and passed them around. Mr. Seymour took his with both hands. Dirt ingrained his fingernails and mud clung up his arms to his elbows. His once cared-for hands were blistered and covered with small cuts, as damaged as hers had been by the laundering.
“Your hands are very dirty. If you would like, you can use this first.” She offered him the towel from the bottle, but in his lordly way, he held out his hands for her to clean. Adopting her role as an obedient wife far too easily, she wiped them, dabbing the cuts and trying not to touch the blisters. The intimate contact shortened her breath. The man was strong and handsome, and she would share a chaste bed with him again tonight.
The rain continued to drizzle. The men continued to dispose of the soil Mr. Seymour dug from the hole. Mr. Elliot arrived, discussed the work with the men, and after a jaunty tipping of his rain-soaked hat to Starling, returned to the house. Likely he’d only wanted news. Although tall and broad-shouldered, he was clearly a gentleman unused to outdoor labor. She’d thought the same about Mr. Seymour, who had surprised her, but she knew Mr. Elliot wasn’t needed. Only one man could tunnel at a time.
Other than nodding thanks to her when she passed food or poured tea, the rescuers kept their concentration entirely on their task. Twice more she went back to the house, ferrying hot tea and, later, the big brown cake Mrs. Trelevan had made. Ginger, she called the taste. Hourly, Starling learned more about the luxuries in life.
Dusk began to shade the sky. The hole, angled to a depth of six feet, had now been changed to intercept the well. Mr. Seymour seemed to be digging faster as the day waned. Finally, he called, “We’ve hit the stone wall. I should be able to tunnel through in no more than an hour or two.”
Mrs. Burdon gasped and put her soft, white hand to her throat. “He’s found the edge of the well. He’s almost reached her.”
The men above ground showed a tense satisfaction. Mr. Burdon clapped Derry on the back, grinning.
Mr. Seymour came up for a chiseling tool. He noticed Starling and frowned. “You’re still here? Why?”
“In case you need me.”
“You should be indoors with the others.”
Mr. Burdon came over and put his arm around his wife’s waist, and she rested her head on his shoulder. “You’ve been wonderful,” he said to Starling. “But I can take care of Jane now that Seymour has finished the worst. You ought to get back to the house. You look as though you could do with a good coddling.”
“Thank you, Starling,” Mrs. Burdon clung to her husband’s coat lapels. “I agree. I shouldn’t have insisted you stay out here in the rain with me.”
“You didn’t ins—”
“Mrs. Trelevan serves dinner at eight,” Mr. Seymour interrupted with a distracted expression on his face.
Mr. Burdon glanced at his fob watch. “It’s not much after seven.”
“Go.”
Rebuked, Starling left. Despite his attitude toward her, she had relented hers toward him. He’d worked long and hard. She might be wary of him, but she had to admit to a grudging respect.
She had accepted his bargain. From now on, she would, to the best of her ability, do the job for which he had hired her.
* * * *
Alasdair crashed the mallet onto the stone chisel. The well walls were thicker than he’d expected and better built. His plan was to dig beneath Tammy and bear her out along the new shaft. Some years had passed since he had last tunneled, and he ached in a way he could never forget. Each beat of his hammer on the chisel brought back memories of being confined in a dark and airless space. He coughed, clearing his lungs.
The rain hampered the digging and the shoring hampered the tunneling. If he couldn’t get the child out within a couple more hours, he doubted she would live. No one had heard a cry from her since his hired wife had begun impressing the diggers with her selflessness.
He struck the stone, hard. His hand was wet and slippery, whether from the damp or his perspiration he couldn’t tell, and the chisel flew out of his grip. He sought the tool in the dark, grimly determined to break through the rock by sheer persistence, if necessary. Persistence had served him well the last time he had mined and would again. The word applied to Starling, too. Unwillingly, he remembered her readiness to stay out in the pelting rain despite the blue of her hands and the pinched white of her face.
He struck the stone again with more force. Insisting on sharing his bedroom with her had been an inspired move. Not for a second had his servants queried the hasty marriage, nor had Lavender. His lips stretched hard over his teeth. He would not disabuse her of that idea too soon.
A rock dropped on his shoulder—a rock as hard as Lavender’s final words to him seven years ago. He shoved the impediment aside, fully intending to use Starling to make Lavender regret trampling on his heart.
He inched forward. First, he had to rescue Tammy.
Chapter 5
Starling sat, rearranging her newly refurbished skirts. While the others settled themselves into their dining chairs, she examined the rose arrangement between a pair of silver candelabras on the