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This story follows the first in Jenn’s Rediscovered series, Last Assault on Oak Island.
Behind the door, Lauren discovered what had been a small private chapel. Now it only stored relics forgotten by the modern world, like an obscure feretory. To one side oak benches were stacked and to the other a long unornamented chest squatted.
The last item had the appearance of a coffin. She turned her attention from it to where the gouges disappeared beneath a tapestry hung on the wall. She stopped there, frowning at the old, frayed hanging. The colors were vibrant—too bright for its age—and she wondered if it had ever seen a room topside of the vault. The embroidered scene was unspectacular, of a Flemish nun speaking with an angel, from about the mid-fifteenth century, she guessed, knowing Drew would have been much more specific. The track of gouges ended there, dissolving under the tapestry.
She carefully pushed the hanging to one side to reveal a plain wooden door leading into another passageway or room. She lifted its latch, shining her light into the smaller corridor beyond. This was little more than a beam-supported tunnel, and she stepped cautiously onto the red cobbled flooring.
She moved on without deliberation. For a long while she followed the trail that alternately dipped and climbed until the floor swooped abruptly up to a dead end.
She halted at the far end, shining the light above her where the bottom of a ladder protruded from the dark overhead. The tunnel continued up and out of the beam's range into dusty darkness. She grabbed the bottom rung of the ladder extended from the wall and flicked the light off, tucking it into the back of her jeans.
Technically, a vertical tunnel was a shaft or hole rather than a tunnel, she decided. She climbed steadily in the dark, testing each step in the six-foot-square shaft, pausing every few rungs to aim her flashlight up. More darkness.
After her venture with Carlos' into the depths of Oak Island, she trusted no underground passageway entirely. Nor did she want to trust climbing with the flashlight in hand and risk dropping it. As she shined the light for the eighth time upward moments later, she reached a hollow sunken into the wall. She paused eye level here and examined it with the light. Her fingers curled tighter over the last ladder rung. Here a small cave opened, cut out of the light blue clay wall. The flashlight beam bounced off the far interior wall glistening with a coating of moisture. As in the previous chamber, five deep, flat impressions took up most of the hollow floor.
For a long moment she could only stare at the manmade cave, wondering how long the Amber Chamber had been stored there. Part of it, at least.
She pulled herself up and sat inside it, catching her breath that rattled from dust, the climb, and excitement. She glanced down at the sixty-foot drop. The smell of horses mingled with hydraulic oil and she knew she was likely below the stables. She angled the flashlight up and clicked on the high-beam setting to illuminate a few feet overhead. Light shone on a second ladder that continued above her into the dark, the beam hazing off the dust particles so she couldn't see much of the opening she knew had to be above her.
She leaned against the cool wall a moment before continuing, letting the beam brighten the small shelf-like hollow. Surely the ladder didn't just pop out into a stall, she thought. Maybe there was a closet in the stables that Gustalav kept off-limits to the grooms. No wonder he had a fit when Edmund began tearing down the barracks.
She shut off the light and stuck it in the back of her jeans again for the climb up. Carlos will like to hear this one, she thought with a smile in the inky passageway, grasping the next rung and climbing out of the hollow. She had the feeling Elden would, too. She found herself missing him suddenly.
As her hand took the third rung in her ascent, she felt the ladder suddenly loosen from the wall. She took a hasty step down as it pulled away and then made a desperate lunge for the hollow in the earthen wall below as the ladder slid out from beneath her.
She barely grabbed the edge of the hollow and dangled there for a second hugging the cave bank, tucking her head inside, but unable to climb in before the ladder broke loose entirely. With a shearing of metal, it separated, grazing her back as it fell, snagging the first ladder loose below her and taking it with it in the fall.
She muffled a moan, cursing, and threw a leg into the earthen hollow and scrambled to pull herself inside. The chill cold of the air clung to her skin. A low rumble from above was followed by a shower of dirt and rubble. It bounced off her head as she hastily crawled farther into the hollow. She covered her face as an avalanche of gravel and wooden debris echoed below, raising a cloud of thick dust.
She coughed, waiting for more to fall, but none came. She chanced to look over the edge, but when she reached for the flashlight in her jeans back pocket, it was gone. She sat back slowly, grimacing when her back met the cold cave wall. She switched positions and got to her knees and blindly felt along the shaft wall above her. She was rewarded with a sprinkle of gravel into her face.
"Great," she muttered, slouching back into the cave. She wiped her face as best she could, coughing. She was about to re-evaluate the drop to the ground, wondering how deep the rubble was and if she could dig through it to the red-cobbled tunnel—providing she didn't break a leg—when another bout of gravel from above fell beside her.
"Lauren?"
She looked out of the hollow, unable to see anything in the dusty darkness, and up at Reuben's voice.
"I'm down here," she called. "There's a deep hole right in front of you."
A shift of dust fell and she was afraid it would be followed by him.
"I see it. Are you all right?"
"Yes. I'm just stuck," she admitted reluctantly.
"Hold your hand up."
She stood as much as she could in the hollow, leaning out and reaching up, anchoring herself by one of the remaining ladder braces above her.
Reuben's hand closed around her wrist and she caught her breath as her feet left the hollow.
He pulled her up quickly and covered her mouth as soon as she got to her knees above. For a moment she was disoriented and confused in the dark, alien surroundings of the half-demolished stable feed room.
"Keep quiet. Gustalav just came in," he whispered in her ear.
She nodded as he pulled her to her feet and let him lead her through the dark, debris-strewn stable. The nobleman's irate voice grew louder behind them at the stable entrance as they wove among the demolition of stalls. They halted in a rear tack room where three windows let the light of a clear moon seep into the mostly intact room.
Reuben closed the door almost completely behind them, listening as Gustalav bellowed in French. He grinned and then moved to Lauren.
"The Duke's in a fine state tonight. He heard the crash from the garden. He's damning Edmund even now."
She suppressed a cough. "He thinks it collapsed from work on the stables?"
He nodded. "We'll let him think so." He took her to a window as Gustalav's voice faded out onto the lawn. "You'll excuse me for not putting on the light."
"Thanks for pulling me out." She watched him walk slowly around her.
He stopped before her and unbuttoned his shirt. "Take yours off."
She raised an eyebrow stiff with dust. "I'm not that grateful," she snapped.
He caught her wrist as she turned away.
"Presumptuous girl," he said. "I would think not. Your blouse is almost gone in the back."
She angled her arm behind her back, fingers searching.
"Be easy," he added as her hand hastily clutched at her back.
She groaned at the touch. Bare skin met her fingers. She was suddenly aware of the cold air on her chest. She looked down, dismayed to find her bra peeking brazenly in the moonlight. She pulled her blouse shut, her fingers searching for, and not finding, four of the six buttons that were supposed to be there.
"You're going to have bruises."
She took the shirt he gave her and turned, moving from the window's light. When she unbuttoned the last two lowest remaining buttons of her blouse, she realized the back was attached by a mere inch of material at the back of her collar. She had underestimated the ladder's damage and proximity.
"What were you doing in that hole?"
She shrugged off the unsalvageable blouse. "Just browsing. We were in the crypt the other day and vault fascinated me." Well, that was partly true.
"Was it worth it?"
She pulled his shirt on quickly, her fingers flying over the buttons. She could feel his gaze on her back. She turned to face him and tried to laugh. "No. We don't have many castles in America, but my curiosity is satisfied."
He crossed his arms, nodding to her back. "They're only bruises. You won't need attending, unless you think something is broken."
She suddenly felt as if they had been caught in a compromising situation. "I'm sorry I assumed your intentions were less than honorable," she said lowly. "And I do thank you for helping me out, Reuben. I'd be in there until the workmen came back Monday."
He shook his head, laughing. "Not that long. You'd have found your way out. Of that I am sure."
She shook the dust from her hair, eyeing his bare chest. "What are you doing out here?"
"Waiting for you to find the end of the tunnel." He chuckled at her surprise. "I followed it myself a few days ago. There are many like it. Some go to the stables, some the mill." He shrugged, humor in his voice. "But this one is the driest. The rest have rats, and other things. I thought you'd come out here, but a lot sooner."
"I'm glad your guess was right."
His dark eyes traveled over her as he grinned again.
She returned his attention and cleared her throat. "Can you get it? Like that?"
"No. There's an accommodating trellis by my balcony." For a moment she thought he would say something else, but he only added, "I suppose we should head in to the house. Dr. Sheldon will want to know where you were during the disturbance."
"Right. Thanks again."
Lauren made her own quiet entrance into the house by a side door moments later. She moved quickly through the darkened floors of the spacious house until finding her room, breathing easier at not being spotted.
When she opened the door to the mural-lined bedroom, her heart missed a beat. She slowly stepped in, closing the door behind her, clutching her torn blouse in her hand.
Carlos' gaze met hers and then fell as he estimated her apparel in the low lamplight. He stood at the fireplace, apparently waiting.
When he spoke, his tone held disappointment. "I almost hope you're responsible for that commotion in the stables, my dear."
"I was there." She left the overhead light off, fingering the last button on Reuben's shirt, realizing only then that she'd misbuttoned it. "We're not the only ones who know about the amber, Carlos."
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