Page 32 of Nature of the Crime
“If you will be discussing the two murders I have been connected to, I am coming with you.”
“That isn’t necessary,” Michael replied. “You can trust that I will see that your best interests are upheld.”
With a tick of her cheek, she suppressed her temper. “It isn’t a matter of whether I trust you or don’t. I can speak for and defend myself. If I am to be discussed in this meeting, then I will be there. Greer, fetch my pelisse, if you will.”
Her maid, who had been sitting with Cassie’s maid, Ruth, disappeared on her errand. Cassie stood and brushed her skirt. “Well, I’m not sitting here alone. Ruth?”
Her maid followed in Greer’s footsteps. Michael tossed up his hands.
“Shall we bring Thornton? What about Sir? While we’re at it, let’s invite Mrs. Bloody Plimpton.”
His fit of pique was not solely due to Audrey and Cassie insisting on accompanying him. He was worried for Genie. The timing of this whole debacle was indeed rotten. He should be with his beloved wife, not stuck in Dover attempting to see his sister-in-law free from murder charges.
“Shall we bring Thornton where?” the physician said gaily, joining them as he descended the stairs.
“Nowhere interesting,” Cassie said as Michael groaned in annoyance.
Audrey answered, “The Western Heights. We’re meeting with Lieutenant Edmunds.”
Thornton pointedly ignored Cassie’s sour mien. “Excellent. I’ll get my coat and hat.”
They were on their way within a few minutes, led by two of their military guards. Audrey learned their names were Corporals Hart and Levens, and that they were more than happy to have been selected for guard duty.
“Drills in this weather are nightmarish,” Corporal Levens imparted. Then, with a reserved grin, “I’d rather sit in Mrs. Plimpton’s inn and stay warm, dry, and fed than be up at the Western Heights, losing all feeling in my fingers and toes.”
They were both hardly older than the youngest of the Sinclair children, Tobias, who was in his final year at Cambridge. Even with their faces still soft and whisker-free, in their meticulous uniforms, with cocked soldier’s hats, sidearms, tassels, brass buttons, and braid, they had a rugged and severe quality that Tobias had not developed. The life of a soldier would not be half as posh as that of a man at university.
As they wended their way to Snargate Street and the Grand Shaft that the corporals explained would take them to the Western Heights above town, they learned that at one point,hundreds of soldiers had resided in the barracks, but now that number had been drastically reduced. In the half-dozen years since the end of the Peninsula War, England had started to slowly lessen their defense of the gateway to England. And yet, they were not complacent in their victory. More fortifications were being built into the Drop Redoubt, as Hart and Levens called it.
“The whole structure is dug out of the hillside, with trenches, dry ditches, and tunnels,” Corporal Hart said. “Brick and more brick. Not a window in the place that isn’t a gun slit.”
“A magnificent fortification to meet the threat of Napoleon’s forces,” Michael said. He’d been a captain in the army during the war, though after the Treaty of Paris, he’d resigned his commission. Still, he carried himself as rigidly as any military man. It was one of the reasons Philip had always believed his brother would be better as duke.
“And this is how we ascend?” Cassie asked as they passed through a gate and into a courtyard. They then started toward what appeared to be a tunnel built into the side of a cliff. “It looks as if we’re entering a cave.”
Audrey agreed, but as the corporals marched onward, they chuckled at Cassie’s comment. “You’ll see ahead, my lady, that it’s no cave,” Hart said. “Just a cylinder, built to give the troops a faster way up to and down from the Drop.”
They entered the tunnel, and though it was dark, ahead lay bleak sunlight. Once they stepped into the light, at the base of the Grand Shaft, Audrey craned her neck to look up. The name of the structure now made perfect sense. The open top of the shaft was at a dizzying height. She felt as though she were at the bottom of a well. The pale limestone cylinder had arched windows spiraling all the way to the top, and it appeared there were two staircases set behind them. One for ascending and onefor descending, Corporal Hart explained. “Efficient,” Michael praised.
“We are to climb all the way to the top?” Cassie balked.
“You could have stayed at the inn,” her brother grumbled.
Audrey took her by the elbow. “You crewed at a regatta last summer, or so I remember.” With a playful pinch to her arm, Cassie sighed and followed the first corporal to the twisting stone steps.
“We can take the steps slowly,” Thornton said, but Cassie met what was meant as kind reassurance with a scowl. She increased her speed.
“My legs can keep pace just as well as yours, thank you.”
“Can they? I may require proof.”
Cassie peered over her shoulder, her skirt hem raised an inch from the step so as not to trip. “Proof?”
Thornton’s lips formed a sly grin. “Shall we see who reaches the top first?”
“You shall not,” Michael intoned.
A tactical mistake. Audrey’s sister-in-law deplored being told what to do—or not do.
