Mr. Leigh looked up at once. Although his expression was composed, she caught the flicker of fatigue in his eyes and thefaint shadow at his jaw where he had not shaved; the tautness of a man who had been holding a line through the night and had not yet allowed himself to rest.
“Mrs. Larkin,” he said quietly.
“Mr. Leigh,” she replied, going at once to the bed.
Blake lay pale against the pillow. There was sweat at his temple, and his breathing was shallow. His eyes were open but unfocused.
“Elise?” he rasped, and she felt her chest flutter at the sound—he never used her given name unless fear made him forget himself.
“I am here,” she said softly. “Do not try to move.”
Blake swallowed. His gaze went, not to Mr. Leigh, but away from him toward the wall.
“You may speak,” Elise said softly. “Mr. Leigh rescued you. He was sent by the Crown to assist us.” Elise said reassuringly although unsure if she was wholly correct in her assumptions. However, she needed Blake to talk.
Blake’s lips pursed. “Holt… is near,” he whispered.
Elise leaned closer. “Where?”
Blake’s eyes squeezed shut as if the answer hurt. “Tunnels.”
That much they had discovered for themselves.
Blake’s throat worked. “He comes… like tide. In, out.”
Mr. Leigh’s posture straightened, almost imperceptibly. “From where?”
Blake’s eyes snapped open and, for a moment, they were lucid—piercing and urgent.
“Belair,” Blake whispered.
Elise went very still. Belair—the house itself, or the land around it or beneath? The name carried weight here. It was their shelter, their school, their refuge—and now it sounded like a haven of danger.
Blake’s gaze fluttered and he spoke faster, breath hitching with effort. “He said… the key… here. He said… ‘Search her.’ Said… ‘Whatever it takes.’”
Elise’s blood went cold.
Mr. Leigh’s eyes narrowed. “Are there caves or tunnels beneath the house?”
Blake’s brow furrowed as he struggled to communicate. “Old… tunnels.” He coughed, a painful, rattling sound that made Elise’s stomach twist. “Charles… blocked…”
Elise pressed a hand to his shoulder. “Hush. Do not strain yourself.”
Blake swallowed again, his eyes distant. “He waits…”
Elise’s mind snapped to the places where hidden tunnels might reach the house and where there might be a place to listen, to watch, to hide.
Mr. Leigh’s gaze shifted to Elise. It was a look that asked a hundred questions without speaking one. Elise felt the prickling of danger return, as sharp as a needle.
“You have told us enough,” she murmured to Blake. “Rest now.”
Blake’s eyes closed, and his breathing steadied slightly.
Elise straightened slowly. In the confines of the room, Mr. Leigh’s presence felt larger than it had any right to feel. He had not moved, yet the air seemed to shift around him as if he carried weather in his wake.
“You see,” he said quietly, “you are not merely suspected. You are pursued.”
Elise bristled. “I know. ’Tis why I have sent the girls away.”
