Thank God.
Only… Perhaps he was thanking his maker too soon.
Miss Jones was frowning and tugging at the door. “What the devil?” She was mumbling beneath her breath again.
Foreboding tightened his chest even more.
“It’s locked.” She exhaled and then grunted. The ceiling was angled above them, making this particular landing smaller than the ones exiting onto the lower floors. Was it getting even smaller?
“Move aside.” Despite his heart pounding in his ears, he checked his impatience as she maneuvered herself around him, unable to avoid his arms brushing against hers. She was all but pressed against his back as he took his turn at the handle and tugged.
The door didn’t budge.
And again.
Nothing.
After a few more attempts, he conceded that someone had locked it from the other side.
“It’s usually propped open. I can’t imagine why it would be locked.” She’d apologized at least ten times now in between expressions of dismay as she edged around him again and gave the door one last tug. “Hello out there!” She pounded. “Is anyone there? We’re locked in here.” Her calls for help echoed loudly and after a moment, Addison became painfully aware that they would go unheeded.
“Nothing to worry about. We can exit on the third floor.” Her voice sounded tighter than it had moments before. “If this is some sort of prank, so help me…”
Addison wasn’t comprehending much of what she was saying as all his focus was trained on his breathing—or rather his lack thereof. He wiped one hand across his brow.
“Yes. The third floor,” he managed to answer despite his lips going numb.
He did not wait for her to descend first. He could not wait. Not if he wished to maintain his dignity.
Taking swift and deliberate steps, Addison all but flew down to that third-floor landing.
Where this door, too, refused to budge.
“I don’t understand it!” her voice wailed from behind him as they descended to the second floor, where yet again, and almost not surprisingly by now, they discovered it to be locked as well.
That drop of cold sweat he’d felt earlier had multiplied into several now, on his brow, his hands… the back of his neck.
He needed to get outside. He needed to see the sky—the sunlight. He needed to breathe fresh air, unconfined by this godforsaken stairwell. Addison skipped every other step on the way to the first floor where they’d entered.
But when he grasped the handle in order to escape to his freedom, black crept around the edges of his vision.
It was locked.
Holy Mother of God, they were trapped.
His knees all but gave out on him as he lowered himself to sit on the bottom step.
The Incident
Collette stepped past the duke to try the door herself, but something in his demeanor had her turning to study him instead. Even with only the dim light coming through the window at the very top of the stairwell shaft, she could tell that something was wrong.
“Your Grace?”
He’d removed his gloves and was pressing neatly trimmed and buffed fingertips to his forehead. His eyes were closed, and his breath hissed as he seemed to struggle for control.
Was he terribly angry with her? He was a duke, after all, and she’d gotten them trapped in this horrid little stairwell. If she were to judge by his disapproving demeanor in her classroom earlier, he likely was doing his best to keep from strangling her right about now.
But no, he seemed to have forgotten her presence altogether.
