Page 38 of A Night of Forever
She reached the door. Carefully she raised herself to her knees and peered through the keyhole. There was no key in the lock. Perhaps she could push something into the hole and break the lock. But what?
A metal poker by the fire was her only choice. Keeping low to the floor, Isobel crawled to the fireplace, seized the poker, and returned to the door.
Her attempts to force the lock were not quiet. She had been working at it for several minutes, trying to break it open, when heavy footsteps pounded up the stairs and along the hallway to her room.
Hope and fear bloomed in her chest—rose and thorn. Was she about to be rescued? Or attacked?
She stepped back behind the door and raised the poker above her head.
When the door flew open and Dufort rushed in, Isobel swung the poker at him with all her strength. But her strength was not equal to Dufort’s. With one large arm he blocked the poker. Then, before she could even scream, a giant fist came rushing at her face.
Chapter 10
Arend now understood what pitch black truly meant. He wasn’t blindfolded. He blinked, and so knew his eyes were open, but he could not see a thing—not even the tip of his nose.
He didn’t need his eyesight to know where he was, however. The rock that dug into his back, the dust that made it difficult to breathe, and the distinctive smell of coal told him he was underground.
In a coal mine.
The back of his skull throbbed like hell, his head swam, and nausea pitched and rolled in his stomach. His mouth was so dry he could barely swallow.
He’d managed to prop himself upright against the rock, but although his captors had left him unbound, he was as much in prison as if he were behind bars. Even if he could move, he didn’t know which way to crawl. In the complete blackness he could be moving deeper into the mine. Worse still, he could fall down a shaft. It didn’t matter at the moment, as his legs didn’t seem to want to move.
“Fool,” he whispered into the stale, dust-laden air.
It was true. There was no one to blame for his predicament but himself. For the second time, he’d let a woman’s beauty distract him and never even heard his attacker coming.
In South America, he’d believed Daniela loved him when all she’d wanted was the location of his diamond mine. His stupidity had cost his best friend his life and destroyed what little faith in human nature Arend had left.
And then he’d seen Isobel.
He tried to laugh, but all he managed was a dry, scratchy croak.
Bloody Isobel.
All she’d had to do was bare her breasts, and he’d salivated over her like a randy dog. She’d played him like an expert. But then, she’d learned from the best—her stepmother. Once again, the hunter had become the hunted.
When would he learn that beautiful women were dangerous, untrustworthy, and without any sense of honor? In their hands, beauty was a weapon as deadly as any pistol. Besides, any woman who wantedhimhad to have an ulterior motive, because…well, just because. Why else would she pursue him? Not for his pleasant disposition.
He closed his eyes and cursed himself to hell.
A moment of self-pity was all he was allowed. He had no intention of visiting hell until he died, and he wasn’t dead yet.
He had no idea how long he’d been unconscious in the mine, but judging by his thirst and hunger it had been a couple of days at least.
His friends must already be looking for him.
However, one lesson hehadlearned well was that it was best to rely on no one but himself. With that in mind, he got slowly to his feet, feeling his way up the wall and expecting at any moment to hit his head on a support.
But, to his surprise, he was able to stand upright. He was in a main shaft, then. While he stood there in the darkness waiting for the dizziness to ebb, he heard something in the silence that was, at this point, worth all his diamond mines combined—a trickle of water.
The sound focused his energy and lifted his spirits. If he had to, he’d drag his sorry arse to its source, even with a thumping head and an injured leg.
He returned slowly to the ground and, feeling his way ahead like a blind man, crawled cautiously along the rough ground on hands and knees.
The sound of water got louder. It also sounded like less of a trickle and more of a flow. In spite of his raging thirst he forced himself to continue his slow, steady pace. The last thing he needed was to go too fast and fall down a shaft now.
When his groping hand splashed into a puddle he wanted to shout in victory. When he tasted the liquid and found it to be not only water but fresh, he cupped both hands, filled them, and forced himself to drink slowly.
