The Landlord's Black-Eyed Daughter (35 page)

Yes, Elizabeth knew. She realized full well what Janey had been trying to tell her all these months. That life without Ranulf had been a living hell, a living death.

What Elizabeth didn't understand was why she had been chosen to redeem Janey. Perhaps it had something to do with Dorothea's words: “Respectable women do not rut with highwaymen, nor do they write books. You've never wanted to be what you should be and therein lies your folly.”

It had all started with
Castles of Doom,
with her written account of Simon de Montfort's rebellion. Nay, it had started long before that. As a child, hadn't she oft dreamed of broadsword and chain mail? Hadn't she been discovered at Fountains Abbey when she was a mere ten years old? “We found you screaming among the ruins,” her father had said outside Wyndham Manor. “I thought we'd never calm you down.” And the peel tower! Had she not dreamt of shadowy knights on horseback, engaged in some sort of battle?

Ranulf and Janey had always been on hand, orchestrating her every move.

Why should I atone for Janey's mistakes?
Why?

Elizabeth knew why. Because life without Rand would be a living hell, a living death.

“Come on, you bastard,” Walter urged, gazing avidly at the window.

Elizabeth heard the ringing of hooves against cobblestones. All at once, she knew what she must do, how she'd save Rand and destroy Walter at the same time.

Even as she destroyed herself.

***

The soldiers looked to their priming.

Elizabeth stared at Walter, holding his gaze, praying he wouldn't see her finger on the trigger.

The lieutenant had turned his attention to the window. If Elizabeth managed to get Walter close enough she could shout “Don't shoot me, my lord!” and pull the trigger.

Walter would be arrested, gaoled, possibly hanged. In the eyes of the law she had done nothing wrong—nothing to provoke his vengeful wrath. Even if Walter managed to convince a judge and jury that she had played the highwayman's accomplice, there were witnesses—the Crown's own soldiers, no less—to testify that she could not have escaped. Wasn't she tightly bound to a musket?

“Come here, my lord,” she said.

Walter's face glistened with sweat. “Soon he'll be dead, Elizabeth. Just a few more minutes and—”

“Come to me.”

Walter hesitated. Then, as if compelled, he obeyed.

“Closer, my lord.” Her gaze was steady. “I have something I want to say, something I don't want the others to hear.”

“What lies will you tell me now, bitch?”

Walter bent forward until the sleeve of his coat touched the musket barrel, until he and Elizabeth were cheek by jowl. She saw the gash of white upon his head. “What do you have to say?” he asked harshly. “Why can't the others hear your words?”

“You will hang,” she whispered. “At the very least you will be gaoled with carrion crows. How I wish I could witness their feast.”

“Carrion crows?”

“Prisoners. They will feed on every inch of your body.” With a tight, triumphant smile, Elizabeth shouted, “Don't shoot me, my lord!”

Walter recoiled, a look of horror on his face. His gaze darted toward her finger on the trigger, but he had already grasped her meaning.

Elizabeth drew a calming breath. Her serene expression never faltered as she squeezed the trigger.

Walter's scream of rage and fear pierced the room. Just before the haze of smoke completely blinded her, Elizabeth saw him pull his pistol from his pocket and turn it on himself.

Rhiannon whinnied her displeasure. She didn't particularly care for the scent of sheep, and she was surrounded by the bothersome “woolbirds.”

The day had dawned cold and bright. No clouds scuttled the sky. Death had feasted on Walter Stafford. Full to bursting, Death had apparently decided that Rand would be
superfluous.

Tom and Billy Turnbull stood beneath a grove of distant trees.

In the sunlight, Elizabeth could clearly see the welt on Rand's neck, especially since he was once again clean-shaven.

“I should have come for you directly, after my attack on Stafford,” he said. “But my leg… my endurance… was all used up.”

“It takes a wee bit out of a man, returning from the dead,” Elizabeth teased. “Rand, I've been meaning to ask you about your attack on Walter. Why did you not shoot?”

“Stafford saw me, believed me a ghost, and fell from his horse. I couldn't shoot, Bess. 'Twas too easy. I wasn't threatened. Then, when I hesitated, he jolted my hand.”

“Walter said your gun might have misfired. Thank the Lord his musket did.” She shuddered. “I guess you could say I came back from the dead, too.”

“I didn't know about the musket.” Momentarily, Rand's blue eyes looked bleak, haunted. “If I had—”

“Hush, my love. There was no way you could discern Walter's black-hearted scheme.”

Glancing toward the fleecy sheep, the woolbirds that now populated Wyndham Manor, Elizabeth remembered last night. Nay, this morning. Had the clock not struck twelve? She remembered squeezing the musket's trigger and the subsequent flash of the pan.

Once, when she was only seven years old, she had wondered how it would feel to sleep evermore.
Now I shall find out,
she had thought.

But God had other plans for her. Perhaps the musket's priming had been wet or its flint had dulled. Whatever the reason, the gun had misfired, belching smoke rather than its deadly ball.

Ironically, it was Walter who had warned Rand away from the inn.

Believing Elizabeth dead, believing he would be gaoled with the felons he had captured, Walter had swiftly retrieved his pistol and placed the barrel between his terrified eyes. His pride had won out in the end, for he had preferred death to indignity; death to the thought of human carrion crows feasting on his flesh.

Or had he finally realized that Elizabeth was irrevocably lost to him?

Now, Rand lifted her hand toward his lips. Then he stopped short. “Your wrist, Bess! 'Tis every bit as swollen as my neck.”

“It will heal, just like your neck.”

Rand's misery was clearly visible. “Such a brave, foolish,
bonny
Bess. I'm not worth it.”

“Yes, you are. You once told the Duchess of Newcastle you didn't want to be valued cheaply. I think you're worth much more than two thousand guineas.”

“I can't even put a value on you, my love
.
The Crown Jewels? No. They pale compared to your radiance.” He kissed the back of her hand, above her bruise, then sighed. “Stafford oft said he knew me better than I knew myself, and he was right. Had I not heard his pistol, I would have ridden straight into his trap. I love you so much, I wasn't even thinking. Fortunately, Stafford miscalculated.”

“He never believed I would pull the trigger.”

“True. And there's something else. Had I known you were trussed up inside your room, a musket at your breast, I would have continued my ride regardless.”

“Perhaps that's what I was supposed to learn from Janey.”

“What, sweetheart?”

“Sacrifice. The ultimate sacrifice, dictated by love. Despite his neglect, Janey loved Ranulf more than life itself. Yet she saved her own life by conspiring against him, which she regretted to her dying day. I love you so much, Rand. I would never betray you.”

“I know. I've always known. I think I learned from Ranulf that I must never take you for granted. That life is precious and I must protect what we have, perhaps even settle down.”

“You'll never settle down, but I don't care. So long as we are law-abiding, you can tempt danger whenever you choose. Of course, I must go along for the ride.” Hugging him hard, she felt a slight resistance, a tightening of his muscles. “What is it, Rand? What aren't you telling me?”

“While imprisoned, I learned that Stafford was
responsible for your mother's death. My uncle, Tom and Billy's father, visited the Dales and—”

“But why?” Elizabeth swallowed her anguish. “Why would Walter want my mother dead?”

“Having gambled recklessly, your father owed vast sums. Upon Barbara's death, he would inherit the White Hart. 'Tis as simple as that. Walter was hired to murder Barbara by the same man who accepted your father's wagers. Stafford, in turn, hired my uncle.”

“No wonder Billy looked familiar, that day on the bridge. I must have seen your uncle prowling the grounds the night before the murder. God's teeth! Now I know why Walter gave my father the funds to restore Wyndham Manor. With age, he had begun to develop a conscience. Unfortunately, he was so blinded by his obsession with me and his hate for you that his purgation was short-lived.”

Rand gently tucked an errant curl behind her ear. “Do you want to visit America, my love? At least until my evil deeds are forgotten?”

Before she could reply, Tom and Billy joined them.

“Did I hear ye say America, cousin?” Billy waved his hands exuberantly. “Could I go with ye? I'd fight me way t' a fortune there, and I'll get the passage money somehow.”

“Not by robbing some unsuspecting lord, I trust,” Elizabeth chided.

“How'd ye guess?”

“I'll pay your passage,” said Tom.

“Will ye join us?” Billy asked his brother.

“No. I've just begun to amass my own fortune.”

Elizabeth hesitated, then held out her hand. “I misjudged you, Tom. When Walter told me Rand had been tarred and chained, I thought you had betrayed us again.”

“I must confess. 'Twas your words that brought me round.”

“What words?”

“You said Rand would never achieve success at the expense of others, especially his own family. You said Rand would have changed.” Tom's austere neck turned beet-red. “I would change my ways for a woman like you,” he blurted, clasping her extended hand.

“I see I shall have to find American brides for both Turnbulls.” Elizabeth extracted her hand. Tempted to count her fingers and see if she still possessed five, she added, “You'll join us one day, Tom, for I expect America has need of gambling establishments even more than London does.”

Rand grasped her shoulders and stared into her eyes. “The thought of leaving England does not repel you, Bess?”

“On the contrary, it intrigues me. At the sentencing you told the judge you wanted to be shed of England, and I couldn't agree more. I can pen my novels once we reach America. In fact, I began a new book at Middlethorpe. When I bid Aunt Lilith good-bye, I shall fetch the pages.”

“What is your book about, my love? Mad monks? Lusty half brothers? Debauched kings?”

“No.” Elizabeth flashed him a grin. “'Tis about a female land pirate whose lover keeps telling her to reform and give up her wicked ways.”

The woolbirds echoed their laughter.

In telling the story of Bess and Rand, it has been my intention to use nothing but historical facts. I have tried not to distort time or place or characters to suit my convenience, and although it has sometimes been necessary to rely on my own interpretations, I trust they are legitimate and backed by probability.

Some might question Bess's success as a Gothic romance novelist, while some might even wonder if the term “Gothic romance” was in use during my book's time period.

It was.

Gothic fiction began in England with
The Castle of Otranto
(1764) by Horace Walpole. Prominent features of Gothic fiction included ghosts, castles, darkness, death, madness (especially mad women), secrets, hereditary curses, and persecuted maidens.

The term “Gothic” was applied because the genre dealt with emotional extremes and dark themes, and because it found its most natural settings in the buildings of this style—castles, mansions, and monasteries, often remote, crumbling, and ruined.

It was, however, Ann Radcliffe (1764–1823) who created the Gothic romance novel in its now-standard form. Among other elements, Radcliffe introduced the brooding figure of the Gothic villain, which developed into the Byronic hero. Unlike Walpole's novels, Radcliffe's novels were bestsellers and virtually everyone in English society was reading them.

The Tyburn gallows, known as “the three-legged mare” or “three-legged stool,” really did exist. The gallows were last used on November 3, 1783, when highwayman John Austin was hanged. I have changed the date to fit the context of my story.

When Mary Ellen Dennis was very young she developed a love for Alfred Noyes's poem “The Highwayman” and the Angélique series by Sergeanne Golon. Mary Ellen's fifth-grade teacher was gobsmacked to hear her rambunctious student state that someday she'd write novels inspired by her favorite poem and favorite series. It has taken years to achieve her goal, but Mary Ellen says, “If you drop a dream, it breaks” (a saying coined by author Denise Dietz). Mary Ellen, who lives on Vancouver Island with her chocolate Labrador retriever Magic, likes to hear from readers. Her email address is [email protected]