The Pirate's Duty (Regent's Revenge #3)(28)
A sour taste filled his mouth, and he wheezed.
Damn it, this is not how I’m going to die!
Caught in a contest of wills, Walsingham struggled to survive long enough to save the Roost. He gritted his teeth, and his muscles screamed for clemency as a tidal wave of strength burst forth from his core. He pushed against his attacker, grunting with the effort, and found himself gazing into the eyes of Fergus Argall.
“You!” Walsingham raged.
His pulse beat in his throat as Fergus blew out a long breath and sneered. “Thought ye were smarter than Carnage, did ye? He’ll reward me plenty for taking care of ye.”
Fergus’s laughter became a snarl as Walsingham clamped his teeth and tightened his fingers around the pick shaft. He dug in, thrusting all his weight forward to force Fergus off-balance. Propelled backward, Fergus struggled to raise the pick and launch another attack.
Walsingham was ready. He used Fergus’s disrupted balance to his advantage and slung a bag of tea at his uplifted arms. Fergus instantly lowered them as Walsingham hit him again, this time in the knees. Fergus went down, and the pick rattled to the ground.
“No! Don’t!” Fergus cried out as Walsingham grabbed the pick and raised it to strike. He lifted his hands in surrender. “Wait!”
Hesitation caused death, and yet, as Walsingham stood there, poised above Fergus, he fought his impulses to kill the man. What if Fergus had information that could help them? Walsingham rammed the blunt end of the pick into Fergus’s head, knocking the man out cold, and then retrieved the lantern before a spark destroyed them all.
Around him, light and shadow played with his senses as he raised the lantern over the tunnel’s cavernous seaside entrance, Fergus’s point of entry. He glanced down at his assailant’s unconscious form, grabbed a pile of coiled rope, and proceeded to truss the man like a pig. Before he left him there to investigate the cellar further, he tied a discarded rag around the man’s mouth.
Confident he wouldn’t be interrupted by Fergus again, Walsingham retrieved the bag of tea he’d used to defend himself and put it back in its place. When he did, a seam of grain caught his attention on the rocky ground. The grain accentuated a rut in the floor indicating the tall shelf had been moved forward and back with frequency. Was this the secret hideaway Girard and O’Malley had reported?
Walsingham stood back and raised his lantern, examining the wall for any other signs of habitation. Did the trick door lead to another tunnel, a hidden alcove, the place where the Thorpes had hidden their contraband and Miss Thorpe continued to do so? Was this why the Board of Excise had never been able to catch the scurrilous bunch?
He searched the shelf for a lever or breaching device, running his hands along the edges top to bottom, lifting jars and moving boxes. Finding no identifiable way to open the trapdoor, he tugged on the back of the shelf. The partition offered little resistance. To his surprise, the shelves moved easily forward as if on a swivel, giving him access to a door with a bolted lock that had been hidden to the naked eye.
The padlock was similar to ones he’d pried open before. He set the lantern beside the shelf, knelt, and inspected it. He retrieved several pieces of narrow steel from his jacket and inserted them into the lock, jiggling them until he heard a resounding click, the only sound comingling with the whoosh of air whirring up the cavernous trail from the beachhead.
He slipped the bolt free and raised the iron handle, easing the door open. Before he ventured into the pitch-black darkness, he grabbed his lantern. He quickly moved inside, all too aware that his window of opportunity might suddenly close if anyone else crept up on him with the intent to kill him.
Inside the chamber, he was overwhelmed by the stench of drying fish. The room was large enough to house one hundred casks, maybe more, and shadows danced on various objects, both big and small. Empty crates in various modes of disarray sat around the space, indicating that whatever had been stored here had long since been collected or forgotten.
Cornish smugglers were crafty out of necessity. Most learned to evade excisemen from an early age, including hiding contraband right under the government’s nose. One woman had outwitted them by sitting on a cask and concealing it beneath her skirts. Some parsons had even gone so far as to store contraband in church cellars or cemeteries, of all hallowed places.
Considerably impressed, Walsingham stepped farther inside. The lantern light revealed neatly stacked eggs, buckets of fresh goat’s milk, boxes of salted fish, and wheels of cheese. Slabs of salted meat hung on makeshift rafters above his head. And to the right of that, he found Miss Thorpe’s ale distillery, along with barrels marked MR, for Marauder’s Roost, he imagined.
Next to the stores, he found a locked chest. He was just about to pick up the locked leather-bound box when he heard someone calling to him.
“Cap’n!” The floor creaked, the sound echoing through the cellar as the call came again. “Cap’n!”
Walsingham lowered the lantern and ventured to the opening of the secret passage, then stepped cautiously across the threshold, careful to avoid the spilled grain so he didn’t get any of it stuck on his boots. If he left a trail, he’d be forced to explain how he’d come in contact with the stuff.
“Aye?” he answered quietly as he scaled the ladder.
“It be me, Cap’n. Jarvis.”
Walsingham eased open the trapdoor. “What is it?”