“We have an air raid siren!”
“Not sure the Luftwaffe is your biggest threat, but sure.”
“We’ve never had problems with people breaking in. It takes commitment to get here. It’s not like someone’s going to stroll byand chance it. Besides, until recently, the house was rarely left unattended.”
“I guess.”
“And every penny we spend is a penny further into debt. Besides, even if we had a top-shelf security system, monitored alarms, the lot, it’s always going to be a while before help arrives, and by that time…” He shrugged, not that she would be able to see it.
“Security is relative,” she said.
“Indeed it is.”
“I’m going to be incredibly safe after this!” she added, so loudly he had to shush her. She looked around in panic, and then continued, her whisper dulled by the close air. “Remember you said last night that I’m statistically safer since the robbery? ‘Incredibly’ safe, you said.”
He winced. “Again, I’m sorry about that.”
“Well, how about now? I’ve been robbed in one country and shot at in an entirely different country, in a totally unconnected event. I will be statistically untouchable!”
“You really are an optimist, underneath all that cynicism. But yes, you’re basically immortal now.” He was not about to remind her that that discussion had concluded with them agreeing that fate paid no heed to statistics. And, strictly speaking, they hadn’t yet survived this.
Amelia shone the light into the nook where they’d found the brandy. “I can’t see any other bottles there like it.” She slowed. “You told me a funny story, just after we took a swig of it, while we were walking out. Something about your grandfather. I don’t remember the details. My mind must already have been going fuzzy.”
“I vaguely recall. About how he used to make a grand gesture out of taking dinner guests to the cellar and allowing them to ‘select a bottle, any bottle.’”
“Yes. What was the rest of it? You said something about how it seemed like a magnanimous gesture, but in reality he orchestrated it to show off his wealth.”
“Theillusionof wealth, because the estate had begun to slide. He kept the truly valuable bottles back here in the darkest depths of the cellar. He would stand beside the light cord at the entrance while the guest chose, knowing they wouldn’t be rude enough to take a bottle beyond the circle of illumination, and that circle was a careful selection that was a decent-enough drop but not truly valuable. But this one evening, a guest had a torch on her keyring and she marched off down the tunnel and chose something priceless. He fumed for months. He didn’t even enjoy drinking it, he was that mad.”
“It would backfire in this era, when everyone has a flashlight on their phone. I wonder if they ever grabbed a bottle of the salamander brandy.”
As they passed the Bordeaux section, a quiet growl sounded. Tom froze, unable to place it. Amelia turned slightly, touching her palm to her belly. “That was me, sorry.”
“You’re joking. That seriously sounded like wildlife. A particularly furious squirrel.” He was surprised his own stomach didn’t reply. “I know I should be thinking about life or death matters right now, but you know the one thing I can’t stop thinking about?”
“Sex, right?” she said, snapping to attention. “I know—me too. I’m so glad you said that. Do you think it’s the salamander effect?”
“I was going to say ‘food.’”
“Oh,” she squeaked, walking away at pace.
He suppressed a laugh. “But that too. I am uncomfortably aware there might be a killer stalking us, but I have a very strong urge to pick you up and carry you to the folly and?—”
She stopped and turned. “You have a folly? An actual folly?”
“The whole estate is a folly.” He was a little offended that she was more interested in the structure than what they could do there. “But yes, we have an actual folly. They used it in the TV show.”
“The first proposal scene! I didn’t know that was filmed here!”
“Technically, it happens at Rosings, not Pemberley. We include the folly in the tour in the summer months, though at the moment it’s storage for hay, which I guess means it’s not a folly at all. I’ll show it to you later.”
Later. After what? It was hard to see more than a few steps ahead. Maybe that was why they wanted to have sex while they still could. If these were his last hours on earth, it made complete sense to spend them naked with Amelia. Though it didn’t make a lot of sense for instinct to favor reproduction over flight.
“Eggs,” he whispered longingly as they emerged into the basement.
“I’m sorry, what?”
“I could kill for scrambled eggs. I mean, not kill, obviously. But I do have a sudden craving.”
