Aunt Dimity and the Deep Blue Sea (23 page)

It was too much. My fearless bodyguard had been able to contain his temper while a band of murderous thugs kidnapped Peter and sealed us into a secret subterranean tomb, but when it came to a
missing handkerchief
. . . My sobs turned into a strangled giggle. I pulled a handkerchief out of my jacket pocket, buried my face in it, and sank onto the sand, shaking with laughter.

“Are you hysterical?” Damian inquired, squatting in front of me. “Should I slap you?”

“No, thanks,” I said, gasping. “I’ll stop in a minute. I’m s-s-sorry about your hanky.” It was an unwise comment, because it set me off again, but after a few more unsuccessful tries, I managed to regain my composure. “Forgive me, Damian, but you pick the strangest things to get angry about.”

Damian sat beside me, with his shoulder touching mine, and turned off his flashlight. Darkness swallowed us, but it didn’t bother me as much as it had before. I’d purged my fear with laughter and tears. I could face whatever happened next with still-imperfect but much-improved equanimity.

“I’m angry with myself,” Damian confessed. “I’ve behaved like the rankest amateur.”

“You haven’t done so badly.” I groped for his knee and patted it reassuringly. “You kept Percy from saddling us with a posse that would have led us astray.You made sure Cassie would be safe by sending her back to the pub with Kate and Elliot as an escort. And let’s not forget that you saved my bacon upstairs in the church. I would have fallen into the hole if you hadn’t knocked me over in the nick of time. Take credit where credit is due.”

Damian grunted disparagingly.

“I don’t understand why the islanders shut us up in here,” I mused aloud. “We’re the laird’s special guests. They must know we’ll be missed.”

“It may be another scare tactic,” Damian reasoned. “Or they may hope that we’ll kill ourselves attempting to climb the cliffs. There’d be no way to prove that we hadn’t lost our way in the fog and fallen from the coastal path.” He sighed explosively. “I’ve been playing this game too long to make so many basic mistakes. I should never have allowed myself to be caught up in an affair that has nothing to do with my assignment.”

“I’m glad you did,” I told him. “Otherwise I’d be sitting here with only the monks for company.”

“Yes,” he retorted, with considerable asperity. “I can easily imagine you chasing after Peter on your own. I should have locked you in the suite when I had the chance.”

“I would have tied my sheets together and swung down from the balcony,” I responded airily.

“Lori,”
he snapped, his temper flaring. “You still don’t understand, do you?” He swung sideways and leaned in close to me.
“My mistakes get people killed.”

His words hit me like heat from a blast furnace. My frivolous mood evaporated, and I lapsed into a pensive silence.

“I’m sorry,” he said after a few moments had passed. “I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.”

“You haven’t.” I hesitated, then asked, in a voice that was barely above a whisper, “Damian . . . how did you get those scars?”

He sat unmoving for several minutes. Then, without speaking, he reached across my body for my right arm, found my hand, and guided my fingers to his left shoulder.

“Knife,” he said, and moved my hand to his collarbone, his chest, his ribs, saying in turn, “Gun, gun, knife again. A round from a Kalashnikov grazed my right buttock as I was pushing Sir Percy to the ground one memorable evening, but since I’m sitting on the souvenir, we’ll pass that one by.” Finally he pressed my fingertips lightly to the scar on his temple and said, “A reminder of the bullet that killed me.”

He released my hand, but my fingers stayed at his temple. As I grappled with a thousand churning thoughts, one sentence came back to me, something he’d said the night before, after he’d removed the poker from my shaking hand:
You can’t know what you’re capable of, until you’re put to the test.

Here was a man who’d been tested, who knew precisely what he was capable of doing and enduring. The warmth of his skin beneath my cold fingertips brought home to me as nothing had before the magnitude of the sacrifice he was willing to make. Damian Hunter, a man I’d known for less than a week, would, without hesitation, lay down his life for me. I felt like a child beside him.

I drew my hand back. “What happened, Damian? How did you . . . die?”

“I was assigned to guard the teenage daughter of a government official in a part of the world where kidnapping is common.” He spoke casually, as if he were recounting an ordinary incident in a routine day. “She gave me the slip one night, for a lark. By the time I caught up with her, two men were forcing her into the boot of a car at gunpoint. I took out one, but the other took me out. Luckily, my partner arrived in time to pick off the shooter, rescue the girl, and get me to hospital. I was dead on arrival, but they revived me. The girl and my partner told me later what had happened. I have no memory of the event.”

“I’m sorry,” I mumbled. “I shouldn’t have asked.”

“I’ve been waiting for you to ask,” he said. “You’re not the sort of person to let questions go unanswered.”

“I’m the kind of person who should have her mouth stapled shut,” I said bitterly. “My God, Damian, I
teased
you about your scar. I said you were
stagnant.
”

“You said I wasn’t
completely
stagnant,” he corrected.

“I called you an
action hero.
I made
fun
of you.” I covered my face with my hands, distraught. “I’ve said so many asinine things to you I’ve lost count. I haven’t taken you seriously. I’ve treated you with appalling disrespect. I’m surprised you haven’t pushed me off the balcony.”

“I’d prefer to keep you
on
the balcony,” he said.

“Why?” I asked brokenly. “Why would you risk your neck to save a fool like me?”

“Because you’re worth saving,” he replied.

“The pay must be
awfully
good,” I muttered.

“Do you know why you haven’t taken me seriously?” Damian asked. “It’s because, as Peter said, you like to think the best of people.You have faith in the essential goodness of human nature. You don’t really believe, deep down, that anyone would wish to harm you.You’re not naive.You’re aware of evil, but you’re convinced that goodness will conquer it every time. I’d almost forgotten that people like you exist.You’re an endangered species, Lori, and I will not allow you to become extinct. The world would be a much poorer place without you. And, of course, the pay is
awfully
good.”

I elbowed him in the ribs but smiled ruefully through my tears and put my handkerchief to work again. When I’d finished with it, I wrapped my arms around my knees and asked, “Is that why you didn’t come swimming with us this morning? Because you didn’t want us to see your scars?”

“I didn’t want to frighten the children,” he admitted.

“Those little ghouls?” I snorted. “You wouldn’t have frightened them. They would have thought you were the coolest guy on earth.” I hugged my knees more tightly. “Speaking of cool—is it my imagination, or is it getting colder down here?”

“You’re getting colder because you’re sitting still,” said Damian. “We’ll stay warmer if we keep moving. Time to explore the other passages, I think. Close your eyes. I’m going to turn on my torch.”

When our eyes had adjusted to the dazzling brightness of Damian’s flashlight, we stepped through the opening to the left of the one that had taken us to the sea. It led to a passage so low that I had to duck my head to avoid concussing myself. Poor Damian was forced to bend almost double. I think we were both relieved when we came to a rockfall that filled the tunnel from floor to ceiling and forced us to turn back.

The last passage went on for twenty yards or so before it, too, was blocked by a rockfall. I started to turn around, but Damian stayed put. He ran the light across the piled stones, then reached for the topmost one, pulled it out, and passed it back to me.

“I thought so,” he murmured, leaning forward to peer into the hole. “It’s too neat. Nature didn’t bring these rocks down. Someone stacked them here to seal off the tunnel. The wall’s no more than six inches thick. Let’s find out what’s behind it.”

He carefully dismantled the man-made rockfall until he’d opened a doorway large enough for us to walk through. A short passage beyond the doorway took us to a sandy-floored cavern similar in size and shape to the monks’ cave. Damian strode ahead of me, making a circuit of the walls, looking for openings that might lead to still more caverns.

“No fissures, cracks, or crevices,” he announced. “I think we’ve reached a dead—” He broke off abruptly as he stumbled over some obstacle and fell to his knees. The flashlight flew from his hand, but the lanyard kept it from flying too far, and he was soon in possession of it again.

“Damian?” I said, walking cautiously to his side. “Are you all right?”

“No damage done,” he answered, but he didn’t stand. He stayed on his knees and trained his light on the object that had tripped him up.

The oblong container was the size of a steamer trunk and made of opaque black plastic. Two hefty latches held its hinged lid shut. Eleven identical containers sat beside it, ranged end to end along the cavern’s wall.

“Well, well, well,” Damian murmured. “What have we here?”

“Buried treasure,” I said. “What else?”

“Let’s find out, shall we?” He slipped the lanyard over his head and handed his flashlight to me, saying, “Keep it steady.”

He pressed his thumbs to the latches. They popped open, and with some effort he lifted the lid.

“Oh . . . my,” I murmured, when I could speak.

The container was packed to the brim with clear-plastic food-storage bags, and each bag held a banded bundle of English currency. Hundred-pound notes predominated, though packets of fifties, twenties, and even a few stray bundles of lowly tens helped to break up the monotony. Damian dug down to the bottom of the container, but there was nothing in it besides money.

“As I told you last night, Lori, drug transport is a lucrative business.” He ran his hands across the bags. “There must be half a million pounds here.”

“A m-million dollars,” I managed. I was breathing rather rapidly. “That’s a lot of cash to leave lying around.”

“Drug dealers deal in cash, which can be awkward for those on the receiving end. A red flag would go up at the Inland Revenue if such large sums were to appear suddenly in a private bank account.” Damian pointed to strips of rubber that ran along the inside edges of the container’s lid and rim. “The gaskets form an airtight seal—that’s why the box was hard to open. Designed to keep out moisture, I imagine. Custom-made by the same firm that builds their shipping containers, no doubt.”

He didn’t need to explain who “they” were. No one but the islanders could have used the hidden cavern as a bank vault.

“Please note the conspicuous absence of locks,” he went on.

“I don’t suppose burglars get down here too often,” I commented.

“Let’s open the rest,” he suggested.

I followed Damian with the light—which was none too steady—as he crawled from one chest to the next, popping latches and lifting lids. Ten of the remaining containers were filled to the brim with cash, but the eleventh fulfilled my prophecy.

It
was filled with treasure.

In truth, the container was only half full, but the half that remained was enough to make my eyes start from their sockets. Goblets, coins, candle-sticks, and many pieces of jewelry lay jumbled together in a gleaming gold-and-silver heap. Some of the objects were enameled, some were encrusted with gems, and some were decorated with interlaced patterns of birds and beasts and leaves. Each was exquisitely wrought and appeared to be of great antiquity. I sank to my knees beside Damian and held my hand out to the glittering hoard, half expecting to warm myself by its glow.

“Sir Percy was quite correct when he described his people as resourceful,” Damian said sardonically. “They’re smuggling antiques as well as drugs. Don’t touch,” he added, gripping my wrist as I reached for a golden goblet. “We don’t want to leave more fingerprints than we have to.”

A pang of disappointment shot through me when he closed the box, and I followed somewhat reluctantly as he retraced his steps, closing each of the containers in turn.

“Well,” I said sadly, “we’ve found the evidence you wanted.”

“We have indeed,” he agreed. “I’ll speak with Sir Percy when we get back to Dundrillin. I’ll leave it to him to contact the authorities.” He closed the last container and stood. “It would be best to leave everything as it was when we found it. Come along. We have a wall to mend.”

We rebuilt the man-made rockfall and returned to the monks’ cave, but we didn’t have much to say once we got there. I was depressed by our discovery because of the pain it would cause Sir Percy. Damian was no doubt envisioning the route he would take when he attacked the cliffs at sunrise.We both nearly jumped out of our skins when a grinding creak sounded overhead and a voice floated down the staircase.

“Lori? Damian? Are you there? Can you hear me?”

“It’s Elliot,” I said, thunderstruck. “What’s Elliot doing here?”

“Rescuing us, apparently.” Damian turned on his light and ran to the bottom of the stairs, calling, “Yes, we’re here! Stay where you are! We’ll be right up!”

My heart was so light as I climbed to freedom that my knees didn’t dare complain. Elliot Southmore had the good sense to keep his powerful flashlight pointed away from us as we emerged from the black hole, but even the cloud-crowded moon seemed too bright to my light-sensitive eyes. Squinting against the glare, I watched in amazement as Elliot single-handedly lowered the memorial tablet back into place.

“You’re stronger than you look,” I said.

“It’s lighter than it looks,” he said in return, brushing grit from his palms. “You won’t have to walk back to the castle. I parked the car at MacAllen’s croft.”