Dim light emanated from the structure. The faint whickering of horses was the only sound that emerged.
Lifting her skirts, she darted across the street in an uneven gait. The blasted heel on her right boot kept sliding sideways. She pressed herself against the wall by the door and strained her ears. Was that low murmur men’s voices? For just a moment she wished Charles was more histrionic. A man who shouted in despair or raged loudly. Something to let her know he still lived.
But he was steady and restrained. Would think it unfitting for a man to be other than stoic and brave, for that was the box to which good men were assigned. And if he could act so staunchly, so could she.
Cassie bent over double, pulled the door just wide enough for her to scuttle past, and slipped into the building. It was dark inside, the stalls only faint shadows. But a glow to her left told her at least one lantern was lit. Staying hunched over, she slowly made her way in that direction.
At the end of the row of stalls, the stables opened up into an airy, high-ceilinged structure. Various carriages and carts were positioned in orderly rows on the ground, and up in the loft, bales upon bales of hay were stacked.
A rough curse had her popping her head up. She wended her way around an ornate coach then froze. Charles knelt next to a cart, his hands bound around the axle. The wheel blocked him from sliding his hands free. A trickle of blood oozed from the corner of his mouth. He grimaced and turned his head as Lincoln swung the butt of a gun at his face again.
Cassie winced at the blow.
“You should be careful.” Charles rolled his neck then glared up at Lincoln through a rapidly closing eye. “If that weapon has such a hair-trigger, it might go off if you keep using it as a hammer.”
Lincoln rested the gun on the cart and took off his glasses. He wiped the lens with a kerchief. “What has Wiltshire told you? Did he say anything about our business arrangement?”
Cassie stared at the gun. If she snuck around the back side of the cart, perhaps she could—
Lincoln plucked the pistol up again. “Come now, you can talk just as well with a hole in your leg as without.” He aimed at Charles’s thigh.
“We didn’t talk business.” Charles shifted, dropping one knee to the ground. “We spoke of love. And murder.” He nodded at Lincoln’s hand. “He’s ready to give you up. Told us all about how you wear his signet ring. The ring that left a mark on Lydia Moore’s neck when you choked her to death.”
“Did it?” Lincoln switched the gun to his left hand and peered at the ring on his right. He sighed. “It’s too big for me, you see. Always slipping so the face hangs under my finger. I meant to have it resized, but never got around to it.”
Bitterness flooded Cassie’s mouth. Lydia’s life had meant absolutely nothing to this man. There was no regret, not the least bit of horror over what he’d done. He cared more about his ring than he did of her death.
Her gaze darted about, searching for something, anything, that could help.
Lincoln rested his boot on the spoke of one of the wheels. “So he whinged about the Moore girl? Complained she was too needy or some such rot? I’ve listened to it all before. But what did he say about our business? Did he mention the Teobaldo corporation or Cleto Galeazzo?”
Cassie filled her eyes with a last look of Charles then crept her way back the way she’d come. She found the ladder she’d passed at the juncture of the stables and the warehouse and slowly began to climb. Lincoln might be able to see her from the corner of his eye, but she hoped the semi-dark and shadows would hide her.
“Teobaldo?” Charles asked. “They’re a gun manufacture based in Milan, yes?”
“Not just guns. Swords. Munitions. Anything an army might need to fight a war.” Lincoln leaned against the cart, looking for all the world like he was having a friendly conversation. “They’ve even branched into boots and uniforms.”
“How industrious of them,” Charles said dryly. “And that little civil war down in the Kingdom of Two Sicilies. Teobaldo is supplying one of the sides?”
“Both actually.”
Cassie’s hand slipped on the top rung. She smothered a gasp and froze, waiting to see if she was discovered.
“But our government doesn’t know about that,” Lincoln continued. “No, England has decided it is in their benefit for the Habsburgs to come out the victor. That entire peninsula is rife with rebellion. Battles have been raging for nigh on a decade now. War has become very profitable down there.”
“And so we send the anti-independence fighters British pounds to buy weapons and boots and uniforms from the Teobaldo corporation.” Charles’s voice held a tinge of disgust.
Cassie scrambled the rest of the way onto the loft. From this angle she could just see the top of Charles’s head behind the cart.
Lincoln, however, was a full target. Crawling, she made her way back towards them until she knelt directly over the rear of the cart. And over Lincoln.
“Wiltshire did tell you about our arrangement.” Lincoln slid his glasses back up his nose and tucked his kerchief away.
“Perhaps.” Her view of Charles was now partially blocked by Lincoln, but she caught the edge of one of his shoulders rising in a shrug. “Or perhaps I’m merely good at deduction. Wiltshire is a member of the foreign relations committee in the House. He would have a vote in whether to fund that civil war. Influence over the other members on how they should vote. If a weapons company wanted a contract dearly enough, it just might offer a bribe to the man, or men, who can make that happen.”
Cassie crawled backwards to the nearest hay bale. She threaded her fingers under the twine holding it together and tugged. It scraped across the wood slats an inch.
She held her breath. Had they heard?
