Leather & Lark (The Ruinous Love Trilogy, #2) (38)

Lark moves out of the way as I push the table into the elevator. She hovers by the door when it’s in position, watching from the threshold while I head to the manual controls to figure out the simple mechanism.

Lark makes no motion to enter. “You getting in or what?” I ask. Her body seems to tighten as though she’s ready to take off running, but she steps inside instead, the dog sticking close to her heels. Though I give her a quizzical look, she just ignores me. I wait until her gaze shifts away from me before I flick on the overhead fluorescent light and she startles. “Up or down. Seems straightforward enough. You wanna get the door there, duchess …?”

Lark blinks as though coming out of a haze and looks from me to the cord that will pull the two halves of the door shut. But she doesn’t move.

“Got a thing about elevators?”

“No.”

“You sure about that?”

“It’s just … I don’t trust this one,” she says. When she looks at me again, her face is flushed. “My stepdad said they got stuck in it the first time he came to see the place with the realtor. He got it serviced when he bought it, but that was a few years ago.”

“If it hasn’t seen much use, I’m sure it’s fine. It’s all mechanical. And we’re not climbing far.”

Lark still doesn’t move. “I’m not afraid.”

I don’t try to hide my grin and I can tell it irritates her. “Right. But for argument’s sake, if you are, you can just take the stairs.”

“And let you ride alone with my coffee table? Fat fucking chance. It has sentimental value to me and I’m sure you’d love nothing more than to oh-so-accidentally bust it up.”

I blink at her. “A table … one you just made … has sentimental value to you …?”

“That’s what I said.”

“And you think I’m going to break through three feet of epoxy resin with what, my bare feckin’ hands?” I slap a palm on it and Lark looks like she’s going to pass out or rip my face off, and I’m not sure which reaction brings me more glee. “Why did you make it so feckin’ enormous anyway?”

Lark’s eyes narrow to thin slits. “If you don’t like it, you can go hang out by yourself in your room.” She pulls the rope to shut the door, then folds her arms across her chest and raises one brow in a challenge. Feckin’ stubborn. She has the iron will of someone used to getting their way. It stokes my urge to find something to push her with, harder and harder until she’s forced to relent. In fact, I’m not sure there’s much right now that would give me greater satisfaction than seeing Lark Montague concede defeat at something. Anything.

Shaking my head, I let out a low chuckle as I turn my attention toward the mechanism. “All right, you feckin’ catastrophe. Fingers crossed, yeah?”

I shift the lever to the up position and the elevator lurches as the motor comes to life and the cables begin to pass through the sheave. It’s a shaky start, but the car lifts toward the upper floor. I turn enough that I can see Lark, who looks a little more relieved now that we’re moving. “See?” I say. “I told you it would be fine.”

But then there’s a lurch. The motor goes silent and the elevator grinds to a halt.

Lark and I stare at each other, unmoving. I can actually watch the panic creep into her body, her pulse surging in the tiny veins that swell next to her temple.

“Are we at the second floor?” she asks, and I glance around at the box we’re in as though it might cough up an answer.

“Not quite.”

“Then why are we stopped?”

“I assume one of the electrical wires in the motor burned out.”

“I thought you said it was mechanical.”

“It is mechanical. With an electrically powered motor.” When I give her a shit happens shrug, Lark’s eyes narrow to a slash of menace in reply. “Let’s just be glad the lights are still on, shall we?”

The fluorescent bulb flickers.

My hand hovers over the switch. “For fucksakes.”

“No, don’t touch it.” Lark’s hands are out, her gaze darting between me and the ceiling as the bulb hums and pings with the effort to say on. Her chest rises and falls with heavy breaths. “Please … I don’t know how to get out. I need the light—”

The utter terror in Lark’s eyes claws at my heart. I take a step toward her …

And then we’re plunged into darkness.

Lark lets out some kind of sound I’ve never heard a person make despite having thought I’d heard them all, something between panic and powerlessness and despair. The dog whines. There’s a crash against the steel wall.

“Lark.”

She doesn’t reply, but I hear her increasingly rapid breathing from the corner of the pitch-black box. And then I hear her whispering, though I can’t make out what she says.

“Lark,” I say again as I pull my phone from my pocket and turn on the flashlight. I keep it pointed to the floor and pan toward where she sits curled in the corner like someone trapped in a horror film, hands over her ears and eyes wide but unfocused. Bentley stands next to her and lets out another whine, his tongue lolling with every panting exhalation. I step around the table and the dog gives me a single woof of a warning bark. When I drop to a crouch and try to look as nonthreatening as a bloke like me can, the dog stays plastered to her side, but seems to relax a little. “I won’t hurt her.”