He seized it and peered down.
It was about a ten-foot drop, if he had to estimate; a narrow ladder was affixed to the wall with bolts and stretched all the way to the bottom; he could see a dirt floor, packed smooth. He reached down and gave the ladder a testing tug. It seemed securely affixed to the wall.
And if Miss Margaret Gardner—Mr. Garr—had climbed down this ladder—and something told him that she had—it ought to hold him.
“I’m going down. Lower that lantern down along after me, will you?”
He handed the lantern back to Massey, who hooked it to a rope.
Tristan transferred his pistol into his hand and rapidly descended, landing on the dirt floor. He caught hold of the lamp they’d dangled in after him and inspected his surroundings.
He gave a stunned laugh.
Ah, yes. Smugglers took to England’s crevices, baseboards, crannies, caves.
And tunnels.
It was actually, more specifically, a segment of a longer tunnel. Very old, well-constructed, supported with ceiling crossbeams above, narrow, tall enough for a man of six feet to travel comfortably, wide enough for contraband to be ferried through.
It was impossible to know if this had been its original purpose. England was crisscrossed with tunnels used for various purposes. He thought of the tunnel in Brighton alleged to connect the king to his favorite pub and secret rooms where he kept a mistress. And if The Grand Palace on the Thames had once been a whorehouse, well, then. One could begin to draw conclusions.
He pivoted.
About five feet in from the hatch was a studded oak door, heavy as a drawbridge.
Behind, he was certain he’d find all those cigars that various merchants, aristocrats, and the occasional adventurer like Delacorte had been waiting for in vain. Because all around him was the faint, vile scent of those cigars, and there was no sign of them where he stood.
Outside of the door, tucked against a wall, was a small trunk, blackened with age. Spilling from it looked like old dresses, costumes, perhaps, that had been rifled through and tossed about.
He was no expert on fashion, but the dresses certainly looked like the sort that Jane and Margaret Gardner favored. It must have been a challenge finding ones they could actually fit into.
How had he not known immediately they were men? And yet, he believed some part of him had. Some part of him had always known something was amiss. He had never seen them through a filter of trust, the way Delilah had, because he saw virtually nothing through the eyes of trust. Unless it was her.
He dropped to a crouch and aimed the light through the keyhole, and peered.
It didn’t reveal much other than more darkness. But stacked within that darkness were little dark boxes. He’d wager everything he owned on what those boxes contained.
He stood again and grasped the door handle and twisted. It was, unsurprisingly, locked.
He pulled hard on the knob. The door shifted forward, bowing a very little inward in its frame. But it remained closed.
He released the knob and the door sank back into place with a dull, reverberating thud.
And upstairs in the drawing room of The Grand Palace on the Thames, the heads of the three ladies shot up from mending—Mr. Farraday had a rent in one of his shirts, Mr. Delacorte had lost another button, and they were setting about making them feel whole again.
“There’s our thud again. I haven’t heard it in quite some time,” Angelique said.
“We’ve never heard it at this time of night before, either,” Dot said.
“Maybe the rats have just awakened from hibernating,” Angelique suggested.
Dot stifled a whimper.
Delilah shot both of them a quelling look.
“Angelique.Really.And we’ve books about animals, Dot, so you can discover that rats don’t hibernate. The more you know about things, the less frightening they become.”
Both Angelique and Delilah knew this wasn’t precisely true—sometimes the very opposite was true—but there was some comfort in comforting Dot.