The Lady By His Side

by Stephanie Laurens

  “We have plenty, and a lot of it is in and around London. But the Office of Ordnance keeps a strict tally of how much there is and where it’s stored. For someone wanting gunpowder to use illegally, stealing it would instantly raise an alarm.”

  “All right.” She nodded. “So they have to bring it into the country, and that means by sea, and given we’re searching for hiding places along this coast, that means they’ve brought it this far by ship.” She glanced at him. “So why not take it directly to London? By water, it’s not that much farther.”

  “No, it’s not, but any ship coming into the Thames has to deal with Customs and Excise, so again, that route would risk failure or, at the very least, raising an early alarm.”

  The horses clopped on. He swayed with the movement, mentally filling in the picture her words had sketched in his mind. “Assuming the gunpowder was here, and the target chosen for destruction is somewhere in London, then…I assume they plan to move the barrels to London by road. As far as I know, if they just loaded the barrels onto a wagon, there would be no checks or hurdles for them to overcome. They could cover the load and cart it into London without anyone knowing what they were transporting.”

  “That must be their plan.”

  She sounded as bleakly grim as he felt.

  They continued along the bridle path, the cliffs and shore stretching southward before them.

  Just ahead on the seaward side, the cottages they’d seen the previous day—clustered on a semicircle of rocky land that ran out from the base of the cliffs—crouched above the waves. The cottages faced the cliffs, separated from them by a narrow path. He considered searching the cottages, but discarded the notion.

  When Antonia glanced questioningly at him, he shook his head. “They’re too close to the water to safely store gunpowder even for a short time, and given their lack of elevation, any cellars or underground passages leading to the cliffs would fill with water.”

  She grimaced and looked ahead, and they rode on.

  Soon after, they neared the place where they’d broken off their search the previous afternoon. Sebastian halted the gray above the dip concealing the tiny lane giving access to the shore; this time, they were on the northern side of the lane. Away to the southwest, they could see the chimneys of Pressingstoke Hall rising above the canopy of the Home Wood.

  They’d searched the entire estate and found nothing—no barrels, no sign of them, nothing at all.

  He drew in a deep breath, folded his hands on the pommel, and thought. Rethought.

  Antonia halted the mare alongside the gray; he felt her gaze on his face, but didn’t meet it.

  After a moment, he mused, “It all hangs on what Ennis meant by ‘here.’ If I was inside Somersham Place and said something was ‘here,’ I would mean…something either in the house or close by—attached to the house.” He finally met Antonia’s gaze. “When we searched the house, we were looking for places where barrels might have been stored. But what if the place the barrels are or were stored is attached to the house via one of those secret tunnels Sir Humphrey confirmed are common in large houses hereabouts?”

  Her gray gaze grew distant. After a moment, she said, “We looked for entrances to secret passageways in the cellars. We didn’t search above ground—and we didn’t look for hidden entrances to tunnels in the parts of the house in everyday use.” She glanced at him, her expression growing animated. “But entrances such as those could be anywhere, even on the upper floors.”

  Grimly, he nodded. “That’s where we search next.” He gathered his reins. “And we need to do it now, because we—and Crawford and Sir Humphrey—are running out of time.”

  He tapped his booted heels to the gray’s sides, and the horse surged.

  A second later, he heard from behind him, “Sebastian! Wait!”

  His instincts informed him Antonia hadn’t followed, hadn’t moved. He muttered an oath, slowed the gray, then wheeled.

  He saw Antonia in her dark gray habit silhouetted against the paler gray of sea and sky. But she was transformed; her eyes were wide, her face alight, and she was pointing insistently into the dip, toward where the tiny lane ran down to the sands.

  He couldn’t see what was exciting her interest from where he was. He rode back, scanning the sands as they came into view. “What?”

  “There!” She pointed again. “See that churned-up sand?” Her eyes glowed as they met his. “That patch of sand was perfectly flat when we were here yesterday afternoon. I looked.”

  He studied the area again. A section of sand at the end of the lane had, indeed, been trampled by many feet. The tide had come in and washed smooth the sands farther down the beach, but had only lipped the seaward edge of the churned-up section.

  Antonia all but jigged in her saddle. “It’s as if, since yesterday, men have walked back and forth along the base of the cliffs on the other side of the dip—the trail disappears around the cliff there, heading farther along the beach. Perhaps they were carrying barrels to a wagon that waited in the lane!”

  Her excitement was infectious. He could see the scene she was painting. The lane itself was surfaced in flints embedded in clay; there would be no wheel marks or boot prints to be found there. But the sands… The trail did seem to lead farther south; they couldn’t see how much farther from their present vantage point.

  He glanced in the other direction, at the cottages on the shore. Sensing his rising excitement, the gray shifted restlessly. “For anyone in those cottages…at night, the sound of the wind and the waves would drown out any other sounds.”

  “Come on!” Antonia’s patience had run out. “Let’s see where the trail leads.” She shook the chestnut’s reins and rode down into the dip, then urged the mare up the other side.

  He caught up with her as she trotted along the coastal path, keeping as close to the edge as she could and peering down. The cliffs along that section weren’t precipitous. They sloped sharply downward, and scrubby trees and bushes studded the slopes.

  “There!” Looking down through a gap between the trees and shrubs, Antonia pointed again. “See? They’re still trudging along.”

  She drew rein and glanced at him. “Should we stop and go down and follow along the sands?”

  He looked back at the Hall’s chimneys. He had an idea. “No. Let’s continue up here for as long as we can see the trail in the sand.”

  She was perfectly happy to comply. Her eyes were sharp; so were his. They caught sufficient glimpses of the sands bordering the foot of the cliffs to know almost immediately when the trail ended.

  They pulled up and wheeled. Without exchanging a word, they walked the horses back to the last point at which they could see churned sand below.

  Sebastian halted the gray and looked inland. “As I thought.” He smiled intently, then met Antonia’s questioning gaze. “We’re almost directly east of Pressingstoke Hall.”

  “You think there’s a cave here that’s connected to the house?”

  He nodded and dismounted. “The cliffs here are limestone—it’s fairly soft. Easy to tunnel through. They probably started from the house and tunneled until they joined a natural cave system closer to the shore.”

  He tied off the gray’s reins, then went to lift her down. He had already evaluated the dangers with respect to her; leaving her here, alone on the cliffs, while he investigated below, out of sight or hearing, wasn’t in anyone’s best interests.

  She rapidly tied the chestnut alongside the gray, then peered down the cliff. “It’s not impossibly steep. We should be able to manage it.”

  That was his assessment, too. “Let me go first.” As he moved past her, he felt her sharp glance and added, “If I’m behind you and lose my footing, I’ll take you down with me. If you’re behind me and fall, I’ll catch you.”

  The only response he got to that inarguable logic was a humph.

  The scramble down the cliff wasn’t as bad as Antonia had feared; they’d both scrambled over enough rough hillsides a
nd craggy slopes during their childhoods to still remember the tricks. But the last section of the descent was down the sheer face of a single block of stone. Sebastian dropped down easily, landing in a crouch. She dithered at the edge.

  He turned, saw, and grinned. He positioned himself, raised his arms, and beckoned. “Jump. I’ll catch you.”

  She narrowed her eyes on his face; he was enjoying this far too much. But… She dragged in a quick breath, held it, and jumped.

  He seized her about the waist in midair and swung her around and down, finally setting her gently on her feet.

  She brushed down her skirts—tamped down her leaping senses; the strength he’d just displayed was ridiculously impressive—then she squinted up at him and, with dignity, said, “Thank you.”

  He laughed.

  Then they turned to look at the trampled trail in which they now stood, and all impulse to levity faded.

  She tensed to follow the trail forward—southward—but he put out a hand, grasped her arm, and gently pushed.

  “Move toward the water a little way.”

  She complied, stepping out of the churned track to where the tide had left the sand smooth.

  He followed. He walked on a few feet, then hunkered down and studied the imprints in the sand.

  She waited with what patience she could muster.

  Eventually, he straightened. Before she could ask, he pointed to the footprints visible in the sand. “Men came from the end of the lane and trudged that way.” He pointed south, along the cliffs, then looked down at the trail again. “And then they came back, retracing their steps, but this time, they were each carrying something very heavy. You can see that the boot prints heading toward the lane overlie those coming from the lane, and the prints going back are deeper.”

  “Yes. I can see that.” With her eyes, she tracked the trail of footprints onward. Ten yards farther south from where she and Sebastian stood, the trail ended, and the footprints veered into a dark cleft in the cliff.

  “There’ll be a cave in there,” Sebastian said.

  “That’s where they hid the gunpowder,” she breathed. “We’ve finally found it.”

  She glanced at Sebastian in time to see him grimace.

  “We’ve found where it was.” He caught her eye. “Judging by these footprints, they moved the barrels out last night.”

  “Still…” She looked at the gap in the cliff face; it was only a yard or so wide with nothing but blackness beyond. “There might be some signs—some clues—inside.” She looked at Sebastian and found him striding past her. She picked up her skirts and hurried in his wake. “We are going to go in and look, aren’t we?”

  Sebastian halted and felt her run into him. He swung around and caught her elbows and steadied her. “I will go in and look.” He drew his hands from her and forced himself to rein in the overriding impulse to issue an order. “You need to remain out here.” Translation: He needed her to remain safely on the beach. There was no one near, and who knew what dangers might lurk in the darkness inside?

  He’d thought he’d muted his tone to at least reasonably acceptable, but the look on her face—stunned, eyes wide and widening, jaw dropping, mouth agape, disbelief in every line—suggested he’d fallen far short.

  For several seconds, she simply stared at him, then, slowly, she started to shake her head. “Oh, no, no, no.”

  He felt his jaw set, his features instinctively hardening.

  Her mouth snapped shut. Her lips compressed to a thin line, and something fiery leapt in her eyes before they narrowed to sharp gray flints. “No.” She punctuated the emphatic declaration by jabbing her index finger into his chest. Hard. “I am not—I repeat, not—going to be left out here, supposedly in safety, while you go in there to face God knows what.”

  Her diction was precise, forceful, with a hint of queenly power; she almost sounded like his mother.

  “Besides, you great arrogant oaf”—she stepped close enough for him to see the fire in her eyes and drilled her jabbing finger into his sternum—“if you truly want me to be safe, from whatever I might do as well as all else, then you’ll get it through your thick skull that the safest place for me to be at any time is right by your side.”

  Her chin set; her gaze bored into his.

  For an instant, they teetered, will against will.

  Time froze.

  Waves softly shushed on the sand, and high overhead, a seagull wheeled and screeched.

  He had time enough to study her face, to sense the temper, the strength, the unbending will behind her demand.

  He could crush it; he was the stronger.

  But should he?

  To have that—that feminine power—on his side, aligned with him through the rest of his life…

  What was he willing to pay as the price?

  He’d held her gaze throughout, just as she still held his. Neither of them would look away. Back away.

  Both of them recognized the significance of the moment; given their characters, their temperaments, it was one they would have had to face at some point, at some time.

  Climbing down was not something he did—could do—easily. It took significant effort to draw in a slow breath. He felt his chest rise beneath her finger. Then he fought to unlock his jaw and get his tongue around the words he’d elected to say.

  “All right.”

  She blinked, just once. Very slowly, she drew her finger back. “All right?” Uttered as if she wasn’t sure she believed her ears.

  “Yes. All right.” He bit off the words; his jaw was still clenched. He reached out and seized her still-raised hand. “You can come with me.” He stepped back, swung to face the cleft, and started marching through the sand.

  He felt her jerk into motion, then she hurried to keep up with him.

  He reached the cleft. It was intensely dark inside.

  As they passed through the opening and cool blackness fell over them, he adjusted his hold on her hand. “Stay close. And for pity’s sake, don’t dart ahead.”

  His tone made the words an outright order; too bad—he’d bent as far as he was going to.

  Chapter 14

  Antonia blinked and blinked, trying to get her eyes to adjust. The opening in the cliff faced east, and it was afternoon; very little illumination reached into the passageway they seemed to have stepped into. The area in which they stood was wider than the entrance, but her senses informed her the walls and roof were not that far away; it wasn’t as if they stood in a cave.

  Sebastian had taken only three paces, then stopped, bringing her to a halt beside and a little behind him.

  Now he stepped forward again, slowly.

  She remembered and asked, “Do you have your candle and matchbox?”

  “The matchbox, yes, but you dropped the candle in the crypt, and I forgot to pick up another.”

  “Oh.” She peered into the blackness. “Can you see at all?”

  “Not well. But then neither could they, so… Ah. Here we are.” He let go of her hand.

  She immediately clutched his coat. “Here we are what?”

  She sensed him reaching upward with both hands.

  “There’s a ledge up here—with candles.” He lowered his arms, then reached around and caught her hand.

  She felt him press a candle into her palm and grasped it. “Just as long as there are no mice, rats, or bats,” she muttered.

  He chuckled. She sensed him searching in his pockets, then he struck a match, and it flared. He caught her hand, held it steady, and lit the candle. Once the wick caught, he released her hand and reached into his pocket. “This time, I’ll carry one as well. Just in case of bats.”

  He’d murmured the last sentence under his breath. She pretended she hadn’t heard it. Holding her candle high, she turned, examining the area in which they stood. “It’s like a small antechamber.”

  “Indeed.” He reached over and lit his candle from hers. Once it was alight, he faced away from the entrance, then reached back and
took her free hand. “And there is a tunnel leading toward the house.”

  He walked forward, and she followed close behind.

  They’d gone only a few yards when he said, “Steps.” Holding his candle aloft, he started up them. Crudely hacked into the stone, the steps weren’t steep; they were like stair steps and easy enough to climb.

  She tugged her hand from his; he halted and looked back.

  “My skirt.” The candle in one hand, with the other, she raised her heavy skirt and climbed in his wake.

  He faced forward and continued.

  Her gaze on the steps, she counted twelve, then they reached a level stretch. She released her skirt, and he reached back and took her hand again, and they walked on. As far as she could tell, they were traveling in a roughly straight line, perpendicular to the beach—which meant directly west, more or less directly toward Pressingstoke Hall.

  After a moment, she asked, “Wouldn’t gunpowder stored in a cave in the cliff get damp?”

  “Normally, yes, which is why I wasn’t in any great hurry to search for smugglers’ caves, which are usually by the shore. But we’re already some way from the water, and limestone is drying. The air here is already bone dry.”

  “So perfect for storing gunpowder.”

  “Indeed.”

  An unsettling thought occurred. “What if the candles burn down?”

  He didn’t immediately reply. But after several more steps, he said, “I assume that, as there weren’t any lamps, only candles, then wherever the area for storing things along here is, getting to it and getting back can be done within a candle’s life. There were stubs left on that ledge, but I chose two unused candles.”

  The existence of candle stubs was, she decided, sufficiently reassuring.

  Then they passed through a roughly hewn archway and stepped into a large space—so large, the candles’ light didn’t reach any walls. She looked up and couldn’t see any roof, either.

  “This has to be the place.” Sebastian studied the cavern’s sandy floor. “It’s clear those men have been here. The floor all the way along has had boot prints the same as those on the beach.” He looked ahead. The boot prints led on. “Let’s see where they go.”