Christmas At Pemberley. Katie Oliver

nothing else to do but continue searching downstairs.’

      ‘Downstairs?’ Colm’s expression plainly showed that he thought Tarquin had taken leave of his senses. ‘But there’s nothing down there but the dungeons.’

      ‘We’ve exhausted every other possibility. Could you have another look upstairs, please? You might check the guest wing again.’

      Colm nodded doubtfully. ‘Aye. I’ll go and have a look now.’

       Chapter 39

      As he began searching the guest bedrooms, knocking on each door before he entered to have a look around, Colm found no sign of Dominic. He arrived at the last room on the left and lifted his hand to knock. The door was open.

      ‘Hello?’

      He thrust his head cautiously around the doorjamb and glanced inside. ‘Hello...is anyone here?’

      There was no answer.

      Judging from the silk nightgown thrown across a chair, and the clutter of cosmetics and perfume bottles on the dresser, this was a woman’s room. He had a cursory glance round, then turned to go.

      He had his own bloody work to be doing, after all.

      Colm turned, impatient to be gone, and bumped into an antique desk by the window. He muttered a curse as a pencil rolled off onto the floor.

      As he knelt to retrieve it, he noticed a laptop open in the middle of the desk. It was Helen’s laptop.

      When he’d bumped into the desk, the movement must have jarred the screen to life.

      Colm laid the pencil down, and as he did he saw a search engine on the laptop screen. He smiled. That was his Helen, always working, probably researching a new story for that editor chap, Tom...

      Then he saw the links, and his smile froze.

       ‘Accident on the A96, Serious Injuries.’ ‘Pregnant Woman Airlifted to Hospital Following Deadly Wreck.’ ‘McRoberts to be Charged in Accident Fatality?’

      A black rage gripped him as he realized she’d been up here, investigating him, delving into his background as if he were a bloody job applicant, or worse still – as if he were some kind of a common criminal.

      Evidently not content with his own version of the past, she’d gone looking online to search on his adoptive name, McRoberts, to find...what? Something a bit more titillating than what he’d told her? Something more damning?

      Something more...newsworthy?

      He slammed his fist down hard on the desk, sending papers fluttering into the air, and the pencil skittered and rolled once again to the floor.

      But this time, he didn’t bother to pick it up.

      And he didn’t bother to shut the door when he strode out of the room.

      A weak shaft of sunlight slanted in through the tiny slit of a window.

      Dominic, shivering from a night spent passed out on the floor in whisky-fuelled oblivion, sat up and groggily surveyed his surroundings. He was sitting on dirt. The wall against his back was rough stone, darkened here and there with moss.

      Where the fuck was he?

      The last thing he remembered – after downing a bottle of Draemar whisky with Archie – was stumbling down the back stairs in search of car keys – any car keys – so he could get away from the castle, away from Scotland, and most importantly, away from Gemma and her incessant demands.

       Try this jacket on, Dom. What do you think of this dress for the honeymoon, Dom? Will you wear a boutonnière, Dom? Shall we go with Royal Doulton or Wedgwood china, Dom?

      As if it made any fucking difference what he liked! Dom thought darkly. Gemma always did whatever the bloody hell she wanted anyway, regardless of his opinion.

      He pushed himself unsteadily to his feet and staggered to the door. Gripping the ancient-looking metal handle, he yanked on it with all his might, but the heavy oaken door didn’t budge.

      It was locked. What the!?

      There were bars inset in a small window at the top of the door, like the kind you saw in that Man in the Iron Mask film. But wait a minute – the man in the iron mask spent most of that film in a bloody prison.

      What in hell was he doing in prison?

      Panic overtook him as the whisky fumes fogging his brain began to lift. This was no prison. This, he remembered from the tour Tarquin had given them when they’d arrived at Draemar, was the dungeon.

      He was locked in a dungeon in the bowels of the castle. And no one – no one! ‒ knew he was down here.

      ‘Help!’ Dominic bellowed, as real panic set in. ‘Let me out of here!’ He cast his eyes wildly over the dirt floor, hoping to find a key, or a crowbar, or maybe one of those tin cups that prisoners dragged across the bars in prison films.

      But there was nothing. No key, no crowbar. Not even a tin cup. Just...dirt.

      Right, then, he told himself as he began to hyperventilate. This was it. He’d always wondered how he’d die...and now he knew. No massive cocaine overdose for him, no heart attack whilst romping in bed with a couple of curvaceous groupies.

      No, instead he’d die of starvation, wasting away little by little, until one day they found his bones in a pathetic heap on the floor of this bloody Scottish dungeon.

      ‘Lemme out!’ Dominic howled as he pounded his fists against the door. ‘Somebody get me the fuck out of here!’

      Halfway down the stairs, Gemma came to a halt. ‘I can’t go down there,’ she said, and shuddered as she brushed another cobweb away from her face. ‘This is disgusting.’

      Tarquin, a few steps ahead of her, turned and looked up at her with a raised brow. ‘You want to find Dominic, don’t you?’

      ‘Yes, of course I do,’ she gritted, ‘but only so I can kick him in the balls and give him his bloody ring back!’

      ‘Stay here, then. I’ll go ahead and have a look round.’

      ‘No, wait!’ Gemma’s eyes widened as he started back down the steps without her. ‘Don’t you dare to leave me here!’ She eyed the moss-covered stone wall that pressed in closely on either side, and with another shudder, she hurried after Tarquin.

      The floor, if you could call it that, consisted of packed dirt. Gemma wrinkled her nose as she glanced around. It was dim down here, and dank, and it smelled like earth, and moss, and damp.

      Oh well, she reasoned uneasily, dungeons aren’t meant to be comfortable or sweet-smelling, are they?

      ‘Do you really think Dom’s down here?’ she asked Tarquin.

      ‘I doubt it. But we’d best have a look, just to be sure.’

      ‘Right,’ she agreed reluctantly, and followed close behind him.

      They were halfway along the corridor, its length liberally festooned with cobwebs and inset on either side with thick oak doors, when Gemma came to an abrupt stop.

      ‘Did you hear it?’ she asked as she clutched his arm, her words breathless.

      ‘Hear what?’

      ‘That!’ she hissed. ‘Listen!’

      Tarquin tamped down his rising irritation – really, Gemma Astley was more dramatic (and more annoying) than a six-year-old schoolgirl – when he heard it, too. It was a low sort of moan...

      ...followed by the unmistakable sound of someone bellowing, ‘Get me the fuck out of here!’

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