“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.”
Stepping to the side of the well-tramped trail, he drew Antonia behind him, and they moved steadily forward.
He sensed a stir in the air and stared ahead. There was a darker patch in the dimness before them—perhaps the opening of a tunnel leading onward.
“Look!” Antonia tugged his hand and halted.
He glanced at her and saw her pointing at the floor ahead and to their right with the hand holding her candle. He followed the direction, then grinned. “At last.”
He let go of her hand and walked to the marks she’d spotted, then crouched and examined the circular impressions left in the sandy floor.
Antonia came to stand at his shoulder. She raised her candle, illuminating the line of circles. “Ten. Ten barrels stood here.”
He released a breath, then straightened. “Until last night.”
She glanced sharply at him, as if hearing more in his tone than he’d intended. “How much gunpowder is there in ten barrels?”
He glanced again at the impressions by his feet. Heard the grim note in his voice as he replied, “Barrels this size would each hold a hundredweight.” He’d expected fewer barrels, maybe three or four. Not ten.