A/N: Hello all - Just a little something to dip your toes into before we get moving in our Alternative Universe Series again. I am more than a half-dozen chapters ahead of you now not to mention there are several Vignettes ready to go.

Enjoy this little niblet. I'll post another chapter tomorrow evening. ~RSteele82

Chapter 16: The House of Secrets

Remington switched on the flashlight, bathing the area in soft light. Standing on the landing of an old, stone staircase, Laura surveyed the room at the bottom of the steps.

"A wine cellar?" she whispered the question.

"Mmmm," he confirmed with a hum. "Daniel's father was quite the collector."

"And Daniel's not?" she wondered as she started down the stairs in front of him when he held out his arm indicating she should do so.

"Daniel enjoys a fine bottle of champers now and again, but prefers the more robust spirits," he shared, following behind her. When she reached the bottom of the stairs, she walked to one of the racks and removed a bottle. Blowing the dust off it, she turned the bottle to read the painted marking on the glass bottle.

"J.S. 1805 Madeira Terrantez?" Reaching her side, he took the bottle from her hands and looked at it with open admiration.

"A J.S. Terrante Madiera," he corrected. "Produced in 1805."

"1805?" she asked with disbelief. "Surely it went bad long ago," she speculated.

"To the contrary," he replied, carefully returning the bottle to the rack, "It's not only still good, but an impressive acquisition for a connoisseur's collection," he noted as he browsed additional racks. After consideration he pulled a bottle of 1929 Romanee Conti from the rack. "Good vintage," he noted, holding the bottle aloft, "And not so rare that it can't be replaced with relative ease." She plucked the bottle from his hands and put it back on the rack.

"Focus, Mr. Steele," she scolded. "What's the plan now?" With a lopsided grin he took the pack containing their disguises and passports off her shoulder and, unzipping it, dropped the bottle of wine in.

"It's not a luxury, but an essential where we're going," he advised. Her eyes sparked with unhidden curiosity.

"Another secret door?" she asked eagerly, already sliding her hands along the wall, while searching for any cracks that might give it away.

"Of the trap variety," he confirmed, adding a corkscrew to the bag, then closing it. Gingerly, he worked one arm through a strap, then another, shrugging it onto his shoulders, mentally brushing aside the discomfort.

"The bottles?" she wondered, pushing and turning several.

"And risk damage coming to the wine?" he chided. "Don't be ridiculous, Laura." She looked at him as though he'd lost his mind.

"How silly of me to forget secret doors are commonplace," she remarked, sarcastically, crossing her arms as she walked to join him at the bar, watching as he reached under it.

"No need to berate yourself," he retorted, quickly, with a cheeky grin while depressing a small button on the underside of the bar top. Laura took a step back then watched with a disbelieving shake of her head as the bar began to rise from the floor. When it stopped about three feet above the ground, she stepped forward and checked out the underside of the bar top.

"A button?" she asked, semi-aghast. "Isn't that a bit obvious?"

"Intentionally so," he confirmed with a lift of his brows as he took her purse from her. "You'll find a ladder along this side. Watch your head," he advised.

Heeding his advice she sat down on the edge of the hole, then turned around onto her stomach as her feet sought purchase on the ladder. Once her head disappeared below floor level, he sat as well, shining the flashlight downward to provide her light.

"Catch," he advised, when she stood on firm ground below. Dropping the flashlight and purse to her, he turned, and shortly joined her.

"Intentionally so?" she inquired.

"Mmm," he hummed. "Shine the light upward, if you don't mind." When she did, she watched as he depressed a button similar to the previous. The bar slowly moved downwards, then sealed itself in the hole. With an audible grunt, he pulled down a metal bar connected to the gear, locking the bar in place. "Once the lock is engaged here, that buzzer becomes nothing more than a servant's bell that rings in the kitchen," he explained as she panned the flashlight along the narrow passageway they were standing in.

"I'm almost afraid to ask," she noted, ruefully, "But exactly where does this tunnel lead?"

"Would you mind?" he asked, indicating with a nod of his head that she should shine the light on a nearby support beam. That it was hand hewn spoke to its age.

"Is it even safe?" she wondered, tilting her head slightly when he kicked than yanked on the beam several times.

"Seems sturdy enough," he noted, then took the flashlight back to her. "Shall we? We've a bit of a hike ahead of us."

"And where, exactly, will this hike take us?" she pressed, as she walked along side him, with his hand on the small of her back.

"That's a bit of a story, actually," he shared. "As Tildy tells it, as was tradition, after they'd married Daniel's parents had moved into the manor with Daniel's paternal grandparents as they'd one day inherit the property, given his father was the oldest son. It was expected, you see, for the heir to care for his parents in their golden years."

"By locking them below ground?" she joked, flashing a dimple. He laughed appreciatively.

"Not quite. Daniel's parents had only been wed a pair of years when the first rumblings of England entering the war reached his mother's ears and she was petrified." He lifted his brow at Laura. "It was a little too close to home, if you know what I mean. Daniel's father at first tried to assuage her fears, assuring her the war would never reach the Isles. It wasn't but a couple months later when that belief was shattered with the Zeppelin raid on Great Yarmouth, Sheringham and King's Lynn." Understanding suddenly dawned and a grin lifted her lips.

"He built her a bomb shelter," she announced with certainty.

"Yes and no," he corrected. "More he saw the possibilities in what already existed. Daniel's great-grandmother, you see, thought it unseemly for servants to live in the main home. Servant quarters were built at the rear of the property, limiting the servants' contact with the family except when they were carrying out their duties. Then the blizzard of 1881 came to pass, and much to her dismay the servants failed to appear. Her husband, being the more progressive…" he turned and raised his brows at her "…and logical one, informed her no one would be taken to task because he'd neither ask nor demand a member of the staff to place life and limb at risk so she might be convenienced."

"So, he built a passageway," she concluded.

"Oh, under a great deal of duress, I assure you." He grinned at her. "Once he laid down the law, so to speak, she promptly left him to tend to children and home, locking herself away in her room until he agreed to find a solution."

"All is fine until he's inconvenienced… reminds me of someone else I know," she noted wryly and with a soft laugh. Remington straightened slightly feigning umbrage.

"I've no idea who you mean," he said, with a playful, snooty tone, drawing a quiet snort of laughter from her. She fell silent, drifting into her thoughts, the conversation bringing to the forefront of her mind Daniel's claims.

She had no choice but to forewarn him of the tale Daniel was about to tell, she knew that. Without a turn of her head, her eyes flickered toward him then away. She resisted the urge to sigh. That she knew what needed to be done wasn't the problem; how he might react – that was the problem! There was every possibility he'd, hypothetically speaking, lob off her heard for being the proverbial messenger… or wonder if she'd fully taken leave of her senses.

Fury brought on by betrayal that Daniel would use such a personal matter as part of whatever gambit he was currently trying to pull off? A laugh, flip of a hand and a 'don't be ridiculous, Laura?' She had no idea.

Unconsciously, she sighed, drawing Remington's gaze, unnoticed.

Then there was the matter of Daniel's health. The hairs on the back of her neck said he was seriously ill. What would that do to the man beside her? He'd enjoyed few constants in his life – the actions of those in his childhood making him distrustful long before the deceit he'd lived with daily while walking the shady side of the street. Daniel was one of the few people that he trusted, relied on. To—

"Thinking about the Agency?" Remington speculated, unable to quash his curiosity any longer. She frowned at him, then when she fully registered his question, lifting and dropping a hand, she admitted…

"I hadn't even made it that far yet." Whether it was her candor or that the Agency hadn't been her first thought, his brows lifted upwards. "Although if we manage to get out of here, we'll have to find a way to let Mildred know what's going on if we don't want her hopping on the next plane to Europe." He grunted his agreement. He and Laura might need to move swiftly, to change their appearances any number of times. Mildred, God love her, would only make evading capture all the more difficult.

Laura huffed her irritation.

"If we get out of here, I—"

"We will, get out of here, Laura," he cut in to insist. She studied his face a long moment then nodded her head.

"Alright, when we get out of here, I have no idea where to even start!" Her frustration peppered her words and she threw out her arms. "We've made no real headway into discovering the identity of who ordered the attack on you. I'm being framed for Keyes' murder, and our only suspect is the currently nameless niece—"

"Who may have been more of a… niece…" he suggested with a tilt of his head and lift of his brows. She scrunched her nose with distaste.

"My point, Mr. Steele, is we need to be able to move around London freely, if we're going to get answers. We've already lost a good deal of time while—" She stopped herself before uttering the words. "We've already lost—" she began again, but he'd already divined the conclusion of her original thought.

"While I was recovering, you mean," he finished, defensively. Her shoulders slumped slightly.

"That's not what I mean." She shook her head. "I mean it is, but not like that. We've lost time. It couldn't be helped, but that doesn't change the fact that we have," she ended resignedly.

"It's not as though we've not solved cases where those before us didn't believe all leads had been exhausted, Laura," he reasoned. "Billie, for instance, comes readily to mind, and you solv—"

"We," she corrected automatically. He flashed her a quick smile for the acknowledgment.

"We solved her disappearance decades later. We're not speaking of years here, Laura, merely weeks." She lifted a hand and kneaded a brow.

"I know," she sighed. "I just don't like leaving our fate in the hands of others – for any amount of time." He flung an arm around her shoulders and gave her what could pass as a hug as they continued to walk.

"Can't say I care for it either, but it would seem we have no choice at the moment other than to play the hand we've been dealt." She sighed heavily then grimaced apologetically at him.

"I still don't like it." She glanced at her watch. "How much further?"

"Not much further, I think." The answer earned another look from her.

"You think? You don't know?" He lifted a shoulder and dropped it.

"I only ventured down here once, near on twenty years ago. I don't particularly care for basements and the like. They're… creepy."

"I'd think skulking about in the dark would be right up your alley," she retorted, with a smirk.

"Not when there are few means of escape and you never know what might be lurking around the corner," he returned. He panned the flashlight ahead. "It would seem we've found what we've been looking for," he noted, when the light revealed a rust-coated steel door some thirty-feet ahead.

"Let's just hope it's been oiled sometime in the last fifty years," she noted drily, rubbing at her arms. The chill he'd spoken of had begun to make itself known.

"Mmm," he hummed his agreement.

"What's the trick this time?" she wondered, once they reached it. He gave her a queer look.

"It's a door, Laura. I imagine a pull on the handle should do it," he deadpanned. Her mouth clamped shut and she shot him a narrow-eyed look.

"Why do I even bother?" she asked herself aloud, in a huff.

A couple of hard tugs later and the door groaned open. With a peek of her head inside, Laura cautiously entered…