His expression stated he thought she was indulging in fantasy, but he said nothing more, just nudged the gray into the lead again.
But when next they stopped—at a hayshed—and he lifted her down, he said, “You need to remember that all those remaining at Pressingstoke Hall know me only by repute. Not even Cecilia knew I know Drake beyond a nodding acquaintance. You know otherwise. You also know Drake. But for most of the haut ton, let alone wider society, there’s no reason for anyone to suspect that the Marquess of Earith might occasionally undertake missions for Winchelsea and his Home Office masters.”
She considered that as they circled the hayshed, then checked inside. And some of her nebulous anxiety faded.
After concluding that there was nothing concealed among the bales of hay, they walked back to the horses.
She halted by the mare’s side and faced him. “How occasionally do you work for Drake?”
He lifted her to her saddle, then shrugged as he turned and gathered the gray’s reins. “A few times a year.” He mounted, then widened his eyes at her. “But of course, the sons of dukes can’t ever be even vaguely associated with anything like work.”
She grinned at his tone. Then he wheeled the gray, and she followed him on.
They reached the Deal-Dover road at the village of Ringwould and stopped at the inn, the Five Bells, for lunch. While seated at a table in the corner of the tap and consuming portions of an excellent rabbit pie, they debated the wisdom of asking the locals about any recent smuggler-like activity and decided against it.
Sebastian grimaced and concluded, “It’s too difficult to clarify exactly what we’re asking about.”
To Antonia’s mind, it was simply too risky; people asking about smugglers on this coast…she’d heard too many tales. “Besides, we aren’t really concerned with the mechanism by which the gunpowder got here but rather with the stuff itself.”
His eyes on his plate, Sebastian nodded. “True.” He swallowed. “And even if they know something, they won’t tell us—neither of us are locals.”
After finishing their meal, they mounted up again and, this time, swept south, riding a few hundred yards inside the boundary and diverting to search any building they spotted.
They halted at two cottages, and Sebastian used his title as license to search the associated sheds and barns—to no avail.
After searching two more haysheds, they reached the estate’s southern boundary and swung east toward the coast. They came upon three abandoned huts and an isolated ruin of a cottage, but none of the structures held barrels of anything.
Eventually, with the sun sliding down the western sky and the clouds massing more thickly overhead, they reached the coast just north of the next village. The tide was out, and the increasingly brisk wind set narrow white crests rearing on the gray-green waves. A bridle path meandered along the edge of the cliffs; they turned their horses’ heads to the north and cantered along the path, scanning both the sands below and the nearby fields.
Again, they turned aside to search cottages, barns, and sheds; again, they found nothing. The sands at the base of the cliffs along which they rode remained smooth and unmarred.
Drawing rein at a point he judged to be level with Pressingstoke Hall, Sebastian studied the pale sands. “It looks like the tide comes up high enough to wash away any signs of activity on the beach.” He looked northward along the cliffs. “If tomorrow we find nothing on the northern half of the estate, we’ll try riding along the beach. There’ll be caves in the cliffs, but whether we’ll come upon the right one, much less that there’ll be anything there to find…who knows?”
Beside him on her chestnut, Antonia shrugged. “If we find nothing tomorrow, it’ll be worth a try.”
While they continued northward, keeping to the bridle path, Sebastian pondered the likelihood of caves and how best to address that. They spotted two more haysheds and turned aside to search them, but there was nothing to be found amid the tightly packed bales.
The day was closing in. He halted the gray above a steep dip where the bridle path dropped to cross a tiny lane that led all the way down to the sands. On the other side of the lane, there was a scattering of cottages built on a narrow rocky shelf that jutted out from the base of the cliff.
Folding his hands on the pommel, he revisited their strategy. “Gunpowder. Here.” He could still hear Ennis’s strained voice gasping the words. “What precisely did Ennis mean? Was the gunpowder already here—or was it going to be brought here sometime in the future?” He glanced at Antonia; she had halted the chestnut alongside the gray. “Is gunpowder here now? Or is it on its way here, or was it here last week or earlier, but even when Ennis died, had it already been moved on? Or did Ennis mean something else entirely by the word ‘here’?”