Page 54 of Nature of the Crime
St. John laughed. “Not at night, he won’t. And by morning, this cave”—he spread his arms wide—“will be empty.”
He cinched and tied his bag and came toward them, his knife in hand again. Audrey pressed back, close to Becky’s side. With the chambermaid still tied, they couldn’t work together to overtake him.
“The doxy traders will be coming through tonight. They, at least, know where to find this cave and our unfortunate Becky.”
“No, you cannot. You must let her go!”
St. John grabbed Audrey’s arm and flung her aside. She scudded across the rough floor of the cave as he crouched to tie the gag around Becky’s mouth. She struggled, whipping her head back and forth to prevent him. He’d set down the lit hurricane lantern to have his hands free, and Audrey seized the opportunity. She lunged for it. St. John saw her move inhis periphery vision and spun, but not before she’d swung the metal-encased lantern at his head.
It struck him on the side of his face and the glass shattered, the flame inside instantly extinguished, plunging the cave into near darkness. He cried out in pain and anger, and staggered sideways, into stacked crates. One crate slid off the top and crashed to the stone floor, cracking open. A loud clanging filled the cave as the contents spilled free and rolled, tripping St. John as he lunged for Audrey.
She swung the broken lantern again, but he easily ripped it from her numbed fingers and tossed it across the cave. She scrambled backward, the chiming metal objects thrown from the shattered crate littering her path. Her feet knocked into them as she attempted to evade his clutches, and she bent to pick one up, hoping to use it against him. But there was no contest. As soon as she’d closed her hands around what felt like a handbell, St. John grabbed her and wrenched her to him. The point of his blade touched the underside of her chin. She dropped the handbell and went still.
“Thought you’d be brave? You should know when to give up, duchess. No one is coming to rescue you.”
St. John kept his harsh grip and shoved her toward the cave entrance, back into the twilight.
Chapter
Twenty-One
“She is lying through her teeth,” Hugh growled.
He stood within the entrance to Mrs. Plimpton’s kitchen, staring hard at the innkeeper. Her red-rimmed eyes jumped toward him, as did Thornton’s, who had just handed her a cold compress to place against the back of her head.
Hugh did not care if the woman overheard what he said to Lieutenant Edmunds; it was the truth. She was fortunate she was a woman, or else he would have thrashed her to within an inch of her life while demanding to know where the devil St. John had taken Audrey.
“Her claim is not outrageous,” Edmunds said, his voice much softer.
The innkeeper had insisted that St. John had appeared in her kitchen with Becky, and that he’d held a knife to the girl’s throat. He’d threatened to harm the chambermaid if Mrs. Plimpton did not summon the duchess to the kitchen.Bollocks.
“Did he also force her to put laudanum in Carrigan’s teapot an hour before his arrival?” Hugh scoffed.
Sir had returned to the inn to find the driver and Greer insensible on the sofa before the fire. When he’d entered the kitchen in search of help, he’d found the innkeeper, stirring to consciousness on the floor—or so she wanted to portray. After searching the inn high and low for Audrey and not finding her, Sir had raced toward Snargate and the Grand Shaft. But Hugh was already on his way back to Liverpool Street. Edmunds’s men had found a shelter in one of the unused munitions storage rooms. The wet clothing hanging from a rope to dry—trousers, smalls, stockings, and boots, too—had pointed to an explanation that Audrey herself had suggested. Edmunds should have listened to her earlier. St. John had been wading into the ocean, presumably to access a boat, and then rowing out to a smugglers cave.
“She is in on it,” Hugh said, his frustration brimming.
Mrs. Plimpton made a show of erupting into blubbering sobs again, a handkerchief fluttering toward her eyes and nose. Hugh turned away from the absurd scene. “We are wasting our time here. St. John has taken her to one of the caves.”
“We cannot be sure of that,” Edmunds said.
Hugh respected the man for his duty to king and country but that did not lessen his desire to plant him a facer.
“Listen to me, Edmunds, if you think I’m going to stand here while Audrey—” Hugh was interrupted by the sounds of someone coming through the inn’s front door. He rushed toward the foyer, but the inane hope that it was Audrey returning, unharmed, met an abrupt end. A middle-aged man and a young man, probably not yet twenty, stood in their winter wrappings, concern etched upon both their brows.
“Where’s Mrs. Plimpton?” the older man asked.
“We heard my sister’s missing,” the boy added, his hat crushed in his hand.
“I take it you are Mr. Leeds,” Hugh said. The man nodded.
“This is my boy, Ethan. We want to help look for Becky. She’s a good girl, she wouldn’t have run off.”
“No, we believe she was taken,” Hugh said, regretful for causing the alarm that filled their eyes. However, these men may be able to help. “Do you know a smuggler around these parts by the name of Sin?”
The two of them crossed a wary glance. But they didn’t hold back. Concern for Becky overruled whatever secrets they would have otherwise kept. Mr. Leeds nodded.
“Aye. Heard of ‘im. You think he has our Becky?”
