Page 65 of The Nature of a Lady
If ever she met that stranger when he didn’t have a gun in his hand, she’d delight in crackinghimon the head.
A moment later they were near to where the boat always waited to row tourists through the pool, and Oliver was there on the rocks, reaching to help them out of the water. Libby too, a few steps away.
Panic clawed at her chest. This wasn’t the plan, wasn’t the plan at all. He and Mabena were supposed to be hidden in the cave before the stranger arrived, along with the constable’s men. But had they even gotten here yet?
This bloke must have had the same idea and positioned himself inside first.
Libby, who’d never even stepped foot in the cave before today, wasn’t supposed to be going alone into its darkness. But there she went, one hand on the ever-damp wall, the other now clutching the change purse. The only light within was from the torch Mabena had dropped.
She gripped Oliver’s arm. “She shouldn’t be in there alone.”
“You think I don’t know that?” His voice was agony wrapped in fury. “He has a gun. What am I to do, exactly?”
“The two of you should have run.”
“So he could shoot the two ofyou?” Apparently satisfied that her footing was firm, Oliver pulled his arm from her grasp. “Don’t be an idiot. She was inside and dropping down to the rocks before he finished speaking. You’re her friend, Benna, whether you realize it or not.”
“And what isthatsupposed to mean?”
Casek pulled himself out of the water behind her. “Could you two save the bickering until later? Who is that in there? What’s this about? He thinks she’s Beth?”
“We don’t know who it is.” Oliver clambered up the ledge and reached a hand to Mabena. But his eyes were on Libby, and he looked as though he might rush to her side with just a breath of wind to nudge him. “But yes.”
Casek snorted and reached for a bag he must have stowed in the shadows. “Leave it to the Tremaynes to bring a mad gunman to our shores.”
17
Oliver gritted his teeth and turned his head, ready to sneer, snap, or punch at Casek Wearne as he shoved past him and strode out of the cave. But the moment he turned, he saw movement on the path they’d run up, and his chest tightened even more, somehow.
“The constable’s men.” He kept his voice so low that he could barely hear it himself and aimed so that the wind and rock and water couldn’t carry it inside the cave. “Wearne, I need you to go and intercept them. Tell them not to come this way, or he’ll just shoot her.”
Casek raised his chin. “Yougo and tell them.”
“I’m not leaving Libby in there alone!” he whispered furiously.
“AndI’mnot leavingBennahere withyou.”
Mabena should have been bristling at the implication that she needed a protector, but her eyes looked too dull with pain to allow for any bristling. “I’ll go with you.”
At leastoneof them had sense. Oliver motioned them onward. “Good. You’re out of his view now. He won’t see you leaving.”
Casek relented with a huff, muttering something about fetching the doctor. Oliver stiffened at that—what had happened to Mabena to require a physician? But he couldn’t ask. They’d already takena few steps away, Casek’s arm supporting her frame, which meant something must be seriously wrong.
But she was on her feet and moving, so he simply said a prayer and turned back to the cave. Edged, a few inches at a time, more fully into it. Then lowered himself to his stomach so he could see below the ledge.
Libby’s progress was slow. Perhaps by design, perhaps because her feet were unaccustomed to the wet stone and her mind no doubt full of the stories of Johnnie slipping and cracking his skull and never rising again.
But notslipping. It was him, whoever it was hiding in the shadows in there, that had done it. He knew that now.
Oliver slid a few inches closer to the ledge so he could drop down again if necessary. He didn’t know what he could do that wouldn’t just get them both killed, but he prayed with every quarter of an inch that the Lord would show him something. Make a way. Send a bolt of lightning or an earthquake or a tsunami orsomethingto distract the man long enough for Libby to get back out to him.
She’d made it only halfway to where the voice had come from when it echoed again. “Stop!”
She stopped, hand still braced on the cavern wall.
“What exactly is in that bag?”
Her fingers gripped it tightly. “Silver.”
