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 and 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.