“Joyful…”
She just shook her head. “Missy, I been in way worse places than this. I’m not goin’ anywhere. You got guns? I can do guns. You got somethin’ else? I can fight with it. I’m not goin’.”
Pip intended to fight her. One look at the implacable look in Joyful’s eyes convinced her otherwise. “Then everyone else, please. There are too many people here right now. If something happens, all we would do is provide a massed target, and I would never forgive myself if I had to tell her grace I got her favorite staff shot.”
The staff left by dribs and drabs, so it didn’t look like an organized movement. Pip accepted a gun from Hawkins and loaded it. Hawkins kept the other one and refused to budge, taking up a position by the front window where he could see the willow at the other end of the Dower House tunnel. Pip tried to figure out what Beau would want her to do. Find that second cellar and expose the fact that they knew what was going on? Attack the other end of the tunnel and box the smugglers in?
But if they did that, then Burke and Pamela would know. The watching man would know. And even riding back to the house would put Beau in danger, not to mention everyone up at the Hall.
After consulting with her stalwarts, Pip chose the option of looking for the second cellar as stealthily as they could. Leaving Hawkins upstairs to stand watch, Pip, Joyful and Billings crept down the stairs into what had obviously begun as a limestone cave, dry and cool and the perfect place for a small wine cellar and storage. Every wall that did not boast wine racks, had shelving crammed higgledy-piggledy with old dishes, linens, small furniture, and trunks that just cried out to be searched.
“We need to start with the wall to the tunnel,” Pip whispered.
Joyful and Hawkins turned around as if it would set direction in their heads. They finally pointed to the front wall. As silently as they could, they moved the detritus of generations of dower lives away and searched the shelving for any hint of opening. Any way to let invaders in or lock them out. They had been down there at least a couple of hours when suddenly the door to the kitchen opened above them.
“Miss Pip,” young Sam whispered down.
She ran over to see him leaning through the kitchen doorway. “You were supposed to be gone.”
“I was. Her Grace sent me back till Lord Drummond got back. Says they have help up at the Hall, but that she thought we should all wait on his lordship before doin’ anything.”
“Thank you. Yes.” She checked the little watch she had attached to her dress. “He should be here soon. Everyone upstairs, now. We can at least lock the kitchen door into the cellars.”
She would leave it to Beau to figure out what to do about the second cellar, Pip decided. Waiting until everybody else had climbed the stairs, she turned to make one last quick scan of the cellar. They deserved a little treat, she decided, heading for the wine racks. For their nerves. Forhernerves. She was realizing that she didn’t like adventures nearly as much as she thought she would.
She had taken no more than two steps when she heard the oddest sound behind her. From the front wall, almost a rustling, like mice scampering across the floor. She turned to see one of the shelves move. A crack opened between the uprights and she felt the whisper of cooler air.
St. Sophia’s seashells, she thought, her stomach dropping to her shoes. Shoving her glasses up her nose, she pulled the loaded pistol from her pocket and took a careful step forward. The door—it was obviously a door, she could see—slid open without so much as a creak.
How did it do that?She wondered even as she positioned herself before the opening. She raised her gun, took hold with both hands, wondering what she could possibly accomplish with only one shot.
She came so very close to firing. But then she saw that the shoulder and arm that snaked through the door was at a child’s height. The hair was towheaded and cowlicked. The face, tearstained, was freckled.
It was Robbie Evans.
She ran forward, but he quickly waved her away. She stopped just far enough away to see into the flickering light of what had to be the second cellar, where she could just make out the geometrics of large, long crates.
There was an adult back there. Pip could see his shadow. She lifted the gun.
“No, Miss,” Robbie hissed. “Not him.”
Which was when she stopped cold in place. He had taken a step forward, that shadow man who was watching Robbie escape the second cellar. He lifted a hand and turned.
She knew that shadow. She knew that gait, that gesture. She swore she did.
For a moment she couldn’t breathe. Her heart was pounding so loudly she swore Robbie could hear it. She couldn’t take her eyes off that shadow that was already slipping back into the darkness beyond the door.
Instinctively she reached for the door. Robbie grabbed her arm. “No, miss. We have to go. He said so.”
“Who said so, Robbie?”
Taking the time to push the wall closed, Robbie took a deep breath. “Said his name was Barnaby, miss. Said as how if I wanted to keep myself safe, I should say I found my way out all by myself. Nobody was to know he was there. Gave me a message, though. Said to tell somebody name o’ Drake ‘north of the Royal Arsenal.’”
Pip was still watching the wall. Her heart was thundering, and she thought somebody had robbed her of her balance. She couldn’t even think. But that last sentence caught her attention. “North of the Royal Arsenal? What does that mean?”
Robbie shrugged. “Didn’t say. C’n I see me mum now, miss?”
Pip did her best to pull herself together. No, of course she’d been wrong. There was no other answer. Without another thought, she ran over to Robbie and gave him the hug of a lifetime. “I’m so glad to see you, Robbie. Do you think the men know you’re gone?”
