Kat, Incorrigible (24 page)

I licked my lips, looking around the room. Who had realized the truth, apart from Sir Neville?

Wait.
That clattering sound I’d heard … I twisted around to peek over the highwayman’s shoulder. Then I wished I hadn’t.

It was his loaded pistol. It had fallen from the air onto the empty dance floor, twelve feet behind us. Twelve feet behind us … and only six feet from the closest of the spectators. I couldn’t breathe. If we ran for the pistol,
someone else would get there first. If we ran for the door and didn’t make it out in time, the highwayman might be shot down trying to escape, before anyone even knew who he really was.

My horrified gaze met Elissa’s across the space between us. She was still sitting staring after us, looking ready to swoon at any moment. But when she followed my gaze to the pistol, color flooded her cheeks.

“The pistol!” someone shouted in the crowd. “Get it!”

A concerted rush started across the floor.

“Stand back!” the highwayman bellowed. But his voice cracked on the command.

I whirled back around, trying to pull the highwayman with me. No one
should
shoot at him when he was holding me close. If we ran for the door—if we could make it past all the people who stood between us and it, and if—

A shot rang out behind us. I jumped. The highwayman staggered.
Oh, no.

“I am so sorry,” Elissa’s soft voice said behind us. “It went off by accident.”

I turned, slowed by dread. My sweet, gentle oldest sister was standing in the middle of the dance floor, covered in plaster. She was holding the pistol—now empty—in her hand, and another piece of molding had come off the ceiling above her.

“Horrid thing,” she said, and shuddered, shaking flakes of plaster off her fair hair. “I can’t bear how dangerous it
is!” She turned, as if carelessly, to toss it away from her. It flew straight across the room and out the window, in a crash of shattered glass.

Charles had taught Elissa to throw like a boy for our family cricket games, before Stepmama had married Papa and banned the practice. I wondered if he had taught her to shoot, too.

But I didn’t have time to gloat over her cleverness. The crowd of men who’d been aiming for the pistol had all turned back to us, now, along with Sir Neville’s original group.

“Hurry!” I urged, and the highwayman nodded against my hair.

“Out of my way, or the girl bleeds!” he snarled loudly, and the crowd around us fell back.

It was hard to walk quickly when I had to stay just one step ahead of him, so close that no one could see the lack of a knife between us. Prickles burned against my skin as we shuffle-walked past Sir Neville. He didn’t speak. He didn’t have to. His silence was more frightening.

He’d seen me defeat Angeline’s magic. He knew now that I’d been helping the highwayman. And as for how in the world I was going to defend myself against him …

Well, there wasn’t time to worry about that now. We shuffled out of the assembly room and down the hall, out the door, and down the broad marble steps of the displaced Greece-in-Yorkshire building. Coachmen stared at us. The dogs ignored us, concentrating on their scavenging. A single horse stood tethered to a tree outside.

The highwayman let go of me with visible relief. “I do beg your pardon, Miss Katherine. And I thank you with all my heart. But—”

“No time!” I said. “Where are your associates? They can—”

“What associates?”

“‘What associates?’” I repeated. I stared at him through the dark. “You know who I mean! Your associates in the ballroom, who were holding pistols on the other guests and—”

“I’m afraid I made those up,” the highwayman said, and smiled ruefully beneath his mask. “It seemed like a good precaution.”

“But—” I cut myself off, gritting my teeth. Curse Elissa’s taste in men. There was no time to tell him how stupid he had been. That would have to wait until later. “You have to go now, as fast as you can, and—oh, Lord, it’s too late.”

The crowd of men had already followed us, surging onto the top steps. They all stood there, watching us silently.
Waiting.
As soon as the highwayman jumped up onto his horse and I was out of danger, they would be after him. Once they caught him …

I sighed. The adventure wasn’t over yet after all. And I would have a great deal of explaining to do for my sisters later.

“Come on,” I said. “Help me onto your horse.”

“What are you talking about?” He glanced back and forth between the ominously silent, watching crowd and
my face, which seemed to frighten him even more. “Miss Katherine, you mustn’t—we couldn’t possibly—”

“Do you want to survive tonight or not?” I said, and backed away from him, toward his horse, trying to look reluctant, as if I were under threat. I injected an expression of terror onto my face for the sake of our pursuers. It had a bad effect on my highwayman, though—I was afraid he would swoon at any moment. “Don’t be foolish,” I said briskly between my teeth. “There’s no other choice. You have to take me with you.”

“I—I don’t know—I’m afraid Miss Stephenson might—”

“Elissa would much rather have you escape a hanging,” I said firmly. “She is very attached to propriety, in case you hadn’t noticed. A hanging would be far too scandalous for her sensibilities. So.” I undid the knot that tethered the horse to the tree and scrambled up onto its back. There was no lady’s sidesaddle there, of course, so I had to swing my leg straight across like a man and forget all about my own modesty and proper sensibilities. I yanked my skirts down to cover as much of my stockinged legs as possible. “Are you coming or not?” I said.

He glanced back at the silent crowd of men one more time. Then he gave in. “Oh, very well.” He jumped up behind me and swirled out his cloak. As the crowd surged toward us, he raised his voice to a dangerous roar.

“No one dare follow if you want her returned to Grantham Abbey unharmed!”

He wheeled the horse around in a fast circle, and it whinnied with excitement.

“I already know that I’ll regret this,” the highwayman said.

We tore down the long road, into the moonlight.

The wind blew through my short hair, and the
highwayman’s cloak billowed around me. I laughed out loud with sheer exhilaration.

The highwayman let out a pitiful groan.

“How can you laugh?” he called. He was sitting just behind me, but I could barely hear his voice over the sound of the horse’s pounding hooves and the wind in my ears. “This is a disaster!”

I shook my head against his chest. “That’s not it,” I shouted back. I spread my arms out, scooping up the rushing wind before me. “I’ve never ridden this fast in my life!”

He only groaned again in answer. I decided to ignore him for the rest of the ride.

I’d never be allowed to ride like a man again, straddling the horse and riding at full gallop. Poor Papa didn’t even own any horses that could run this quickly. I wouldn’t waste the rest of my thrilling ride by worrying about Elissa’s mooning suitor.

But I had to turn my attention back to him when he slowed the horse and guided it into the dark woods that bordered the river. Tree branches poked into my face and eyes. I batted them away, slumping down to keep as safe from them as possible.

“What are you doing?” I said.

“We have to hide.” Now that we’d slowed to a trudge, to pick our way among the thickly clustered trees, the highwayman’s voice had settled back from despair into glum resignation. “Even if they follow us, we’ll have a chance if we’re far enough into the woods.”

“Mm,” I said doubtfully, and peered through the darkness that surrounded us. The canopy of leaves above us was so full that only the thinnest strands of moonlight filtered through it, leaving the trees around us in deep shadow. With my vision dulled, my hearing intensified until I could hear my own breathing loud in my ears. I heard low, hooting bird cries and insects, and the crunch of the horse’s hooves through the undergrowth. It would be hard to pursue us here, it was true, but if the horse turned an ankle, we’d all be stuck. And then—

“No!” I said, and straightened up so fast, the top of my
head slammed into the highwayman’s chin. He yelped with pain. I said, “We can’t!”

“I know this can’t be pleasant for you,” the highwayman said in a muffled voice. He’d dropped one of his hands from the reins to clutch his jaw. “But I did try to warn you, and you will be perfectly safe. You needn’t be afraid of—”

“I’m not,” I said. “You don’t understand. We have to get back to Grantham Abbey right now!”

“Miss Katherine, every man from the assembly ball will be chasing down that road at full speed. If they catch us—”

“If they reach Grantham Abbey before us,” I said grimly, “then Sir Neville will go straight to your room to tell you what’s happened and roust you up for the manhunt. And what will he find there?”

Sir Neville’s younger brother swallowed audibly. “Ah. I hadn’t thought of that.”

“I’m not surprised.” I sighed. “Now do you understand why we have to hurry back?”

“All right. Yes. Yes, I do see that.” His shoulders rose and fell behind me. “This is all much more complicated than I’d expected.” He tugged at the reins, and the horse turned back obediently, picking his way back toward the moonlit opening to the road.

“You didn’t expect it to be complicated?” I said. “I know you’ve been robbing carriages for a long time now, but surely you must have known it would be more difficult to rob a whole ballroom full of people.”

“But I haven’t been,” the highwayman said.

“I beg your pardon?” I twisted around in his arms to stare at him. “I saw you.”

“I tried to rob a ballroom,” he said. “I’ve never robbed a carriage in my life.”

“But—but—” I slammed my mouth shut to stop stammering.

“I’d heard people talking at dinner two nights ago,” he said. “All about the highwayman and how dangerous he was. So I thought, there’s a way to get enough fortune to marry.”

“Oh, my Lord,” I said. “Are you telling me you put on a cloak and mask, shot out the ceiling of the assembly rooms, and risked a hanging, only so you could afford to offer marriage to my sister?”

Mr. Collingwood pulled off his mask. His face shone in the moonlight as we neared the road, pale and dreamy against his jet-black hair. “Well,” he said, “it was the only thing I could think of.”

“But—,” I started again. Then I stopped. I jerked around. “Did you hear that?”

“What?” Mr. Collingwood didn’t bother to look back. He was already pointing the horse’s nose at the road ahead. “We’ll have to hurry.”

“No,” I said. My voice sounded strange and choked, as if it belonged to someone else. “I don’t think we will. I think you should stop the horse right now.”

“You know I can’t—”

A click sounded in the darkness. It was the click of a pistol being cocked. Mr. Collingwood must have known that sound. He yanked the horse to a halt and turned to stare in the same direction as I was, at the pistol pointing directly at us.

“I think you had better listen to the young lady’s advice,” a deep voice growled from the darkness. “Now, put your hands up and ask yourself: your money … or your life?”

Swathed in a great black cloak, the highwayman was nearly invisible in the darkness. I had to squint to pick out the deeper shadow of his silhouette between the trees, and the outline of the big black horse he sat on. I could only catch the glimmer of the horse’s eyes as it watched us, and hear its steady breath. But I had no difficulty at all in picking out the gleam of the highwayman’s single pistol, which never wavered from my chest. I couldn’t look away from it.