The Highwayman (Rakes and Rogues of the Restoration Book 3) (9 page)

“Money….No. But gallantry, poetic justice, a damsel in distress.”

Billy snorted in disgust, but Richard Dudley and Seven String Ned leaned closer.

~

After making arrangements to meet his companions two days hence, Jack set out for a small alehouse in Nottingham. He still had danger and hard riding ahead, and it would doubtless be wiser to sleep, but he was restless and edgy despite his fatigue, and the pretty, ginger-haired barmaid had made her interest clear. He was anxious to be quit of Lady Hamilton. She had no place in his life, let alone his thoughts, yet her presence seemed to have settled comfortably around him. He had only to close his eyes to feel the heat and weight of her wrapped tight in his arms. The wind, playing through the trees, reminded him of her delighted laughter as they rode the moors, and his lips still burned with the taste of that sweet mouth, and her first, tentative, curious kisses.

Hoping Peg’s charms would cure him of his fascination with a foolhardy, titled, unkempt spinster, he entered the Three Swans. Peg beamed at him and came over immediately, pressing against his shoulder and leaning into him as she set a large tankard of ale on the table. This time he returned her smile with one of his own, and she slid in on the bench beside him.

He’d never paid much attention to her before, but now he gave her a close look. Her eyes look dull and tired despite her smile, and there were lines at the corners of her mouth, partially hidden beneath a cheap layer of powder. She was coarser than he’d imagined, and younger too.

She slid her palm beneath his coat, tugging at his shirt and reaching for his breeches––

He took her wrist and stopped her. That was not what he was hungry for. She looked at him, the question in her eyes, and he shook his head ‘no.’

“Two shillings, sir. It’s all I’m asking. But as you’re so handsome, I’ll do you for one. You don’t even have to leave the table. If it pleases you.” Her eyes flicked back over her shoulder at a belligerent looking heavyset man who was watching them both closely.

“You’re a whore then, Peg?”

“Aye, sir. I thought you knew. I thought every man that came here knew. Only you never talked to me before tonight ’cept for ‘please’ and ‘thank you,’ but I always wished you would.”

He sighed. “I don’t suppose I was really paying attention.”

“I’ll make you pay attention if you give me the chance, my lord. I know tricks you can only imagine. You won’t regret it.”

But he already did. He felt the same sick feeling he’d known too often in his youth. “I’m not my lord and I don’t fancy another man’s leavings, love.” Though the words were harsh, his voice was kind.

“Please, sir! I’ll make you happy. I’ll do whatever you tell me to.”

Her stomach whined and he tossed her half a crown, breaking into a smile at the astonished look on her face. “Fetch us a beef pie, then. And some sack for me and whatever you please for yourself.” She scurried away, returning within minutes with a savory beef pie. He pushed it toward her and watched with a grin as she wolfed it down, stopping every now and then to wipe her mouth primly with a napkin. There was nothing but some gravy and a bit of crust left before she looked up at him guiltily and offered him what remained.

“You finish it, sweetheart. I’ve already eaten.”

“You’re him, aren’t you? You’re the one that rides the North Road. The one they call Gentleman Jack.”

“I hate to disappoint you, love, but I’m the one they call Swift Nick.

“Swift Nick! They say—”

He cut off her excited chatter with a wave of his hand. “Will you live and die a whore, Peg? It’s a short and brutal life. Have you ever thought of doing something else?”

“Oh, I daren’t think such things, sir. Thoughts like that are what’s dangerous.” She looked quickly to the far wall and back again. “I need to keep my mind on what’s what. Times is hard and I’m not so young as I used to be.”

Jack blinked, momentarily taken aback. Now that he really looked at her, he thought she couldn’t be much older than fifteen.

“How old
are
you?”

“I was fourteen when my da sold me to that one, and that’d be maybe two years ago? The rich ones, they like their whores young and pretty. The younger the better so they don’t get the pox. Is that why you don’t want me? Because I’m too old?”

The anxiety in her voice was unmistakable. “No, love. I don’t want you because you’re too
young
. And all I was seeking was a lass to talk to and maybe take to the public ball.”

“I’ve never ever been to a dance.” Her lower lip trembled and she looked as though she were about to cry.

“Give me your hand, Peg.” He pressed two gold guineas into her palm. “Give that lummox by the wall the change from supper and hide that well. If you’ve ever a mind to take the stage to….” He was about to say Newark, but the thought of an impressionable young Allen made him reconsider. “If you’ve ever a mind to take the stage to York, they’re always looking for help at The Angel. Proper help, mind. Tell them Swift Nick sent you and you’ll find a welcome there. I pass through there now and then. They have dances in York too.”

~

Several days later, the Earl of Berkeley was robbed on the heath while traveling to his seat at Crawford Park. Much to the surprise of local authorities, Sir Robert Hammond was found tied hand and foot by the side of the road with several piece of the earl’s plate lying beside him, apparently after a disagreement with his accomplices. He was summarily imprisoned and held over for the spring assizes.

Arabella woke from a troubled sleep filled with tumbling images of snorting horses, pistol shots, and careening carriage wheels. She remembered shouting men, being roughly handled, and her cousin’s leering face. She struggled to make sense of it before it faded. It seemed important somehow, and surprisingly, unlike most of her dreams, it came more sharply into focus as the fog of sleep lifted. There had been a man, a handsome and dangerous man who had at first seemed an enemy and later a savior. He had rescued her from a tower. They had flown, soaring high and––

“My lady?”

A pretty, diminutive, dark-haired girl, barely a woman, poked her head around the corner of the open door. Arabella sat up straight, leaving the last tangled threads of her dream behind. It had seemed so vivid, so real, that she was actually confused to find herself in her own feathered bed in her comfortably appointed bedchamber.

“Caroline?”

“Are you all right, miss?” Caroline Whitehall, Arabella’s lady’s maid, rushed to the side of the bed and felt her mistress’s brow. “Oh thank God, my lady! You’re back with us at last. We were all so worried!”

Arabella strove to get her bearings. “I’ve had the oddest dreams. So very vivid. I confess I am a little befuddled. I remember them as if they happened yesterday, yet I have no recollection of taking to my bed.”

“That would be from the fever, ma’am. Though it’s left you now, praise God. Mr. and Mrs. Tully of the Angel Islington brought you home. They told us you were sick a bed for six days, and too fevered to remember your name. Mr. Tully said the rascals hired to accompany you ran away for fear of the plague, but he knew you for quality and was sure it was only the ague. You spoke in your fever of visiting a friend who’d taken ill, and he was able to make inquiries as to your identity. The lady is recovered and has sent men to replace the ones who ran away. They arrived yesterday, and you have been here, safe in your own bed these past two days.”

Arabella stared at the girl as if she were a two headed calf. What was she nattering on about? Who had been ill and—

The events of the last several days overtook her in a jumbled rush, jolting her completely awake. Her dream. It really
had
happened! All of it. She had been abducted and held prisoner at her cousin’s behest. Rescued from a tower and delivered to the inn by a famous highwayman.
By Gentleman Jack, who is also Swift Nick, who kissed me and stole my mother’s necklace.

Her hand clutched at her throat. That he would do such a thing after being so kind hurt and confused her. She had told him it was her mother’s necklace. Would he have taken it if he knew it was the only thing of her mother’s that she owned? She supposed he would have. ‘I am, after all, a highwayman,’ he’d said.

He had stolen her eager kisses as well, she remembered with some embarrassment. She took pride in an even-temper and her commonsense. Yet all it had taken was a charming grin and a bit of banter for her to fall like a giddy girl for a man who’d turned out to be a shameless cozening thief.

“Oh heaven’s, my lady! You are flushed and your breathing is heavy. I fear you have overtaxed yourself. Please lay back down! At least until the physician has seen you and said you might leave your bed.”

A brief tug of war ensued as the anxious maid attempted to secure her charge in a cocoon of silken sheets and blankets, even as Arabella struggled to fight her way free of them.

“Caroline, I must insist on getting up. I am quite well and…I...” Assailed by a sudden wave of dizziness, she sunk back against her pillows. She remembered that Mrs. Tully had given her a posset to help her sleep. It must be that, and days of privation and captivity, that had left her so drained and weak.

‘They will swear by whatever truth you choose to tell,’ the highwayman had said, only now she was trapped in the role of an invalid. A fragile woman recovering from a dangerous ordeal. Well, the last part was true. She had been manhandled, threatened, beaten, hauled over a saddle, kidnapped, almost smothered, and hauled down the length of a tower. She had been in fear for her life, her reputation, and her freedom. A few weeks in bed recovering from a mysterious illness lent credence to her claimed illness, and provided an excuse for remaining hidden until any bruises she had might fade.

She wondered how the Tully’s had explained them. Caroline hadn’t mentioned the bruises at all. Perhaps her injuries weren’t as bad they had felt, or perhaps Caroline wasn’t comfortable questioning her mistress yet. She’d hired her shortly after arriving at the townhouse in the spring, wanting only new staff close to her, to protect against her cousin’s spies. Someone had tipped Robert off about her preparations, or he’d had someone watching the house. She shivered at the thought, certain that he wasn’t done with her yet.

Caroline, seeing her shudder, smothered her with another coverlet, rushed to place an extra log on the fire, and then hurried out to get her more tea. Arabella sighed. The girl was determined she was ill, and if she believed it, so would everyone else. She could hardly rise from her bed, hale and hardy. For the moment at least, she was a prisoner of her own contrivance.

When Caroline returned, Arabella asked her for a mirror. The girl’s obvious reluctance to supply her with one spoke volumes. The face that stared back at her was marred by brown and yellow bruises, and one blackened eye was swollen half shut.
It must have been an act of fortitude and courage just for him to kiss me, let alone effect my rescue. Let him keep the necklace. He earned it.
Her involuntary chuckle and the accompanying grin sent shards of pain through cheek and jaw.

“Thank you, Caroline.” She handed the maid the mirror. “You can put it away now.”

“It’s really not so bad, my lady,” the girl said kindly. “Mr. Tully said he thinks your hired men put you unconscious in the carriage and were so afraid of falling ill themselves they never poked their heads in to see if you were all right. He guesses you must have fallen from your seat and been rattled around unconscious. He says ’tis lucky indeed you didn’t break your neck.”

“Lucky, yes.”

Caroline, in an obvious attempt to comfort, patted her awkwardly on the shoulder. “Some cold cloths and ice will fix it, my lady. We’ll soon have you as pretty as any woman in London.”

“Good luck with that,” Arabella muttered under her breath. “This is your first position as a lady’s maid is it not?”

“Yes ma’am. I apologize if I’ve been too forward.” She stepped back smartly and put her hands behind her back, just like a young private. All that was missing was the salute.

Arabella couldn’t help but smile, which in turn made her wince again.
I most stop these perverse fits of humor. They are painful in the extreme
. “My father was the colonel, not I, Caroline.”

The little maid gave her a worried look and she felt ashamed for teasing her. “Never apologize for being kind. I think we shall get on very well. I only worry that with all this excitement in the first weeks of your employ, you will throw up your hands and pack your bags and leave for more temperate climes.”

“Oh no, my lady!” Caroline was positively beaming. “I am the only one in my family who has ever left home. Even my father has only been so far as the next shire. People said a preacher’s daughter could never be a lady’s maid, particularly in London, but I
like
excitement! I am ever so grateful you agreed—” She caught herself, and continued more sedately, studiously practicing the intonation and phrasing of a sophisticated city dweller. “That is to say, I am very pleased to have the honor of serving you, ma’am.”

Arabella smiled carefully, though she felt a sudden concern that her enthusiastic new employee might prove more of a responsibility than she’d anticipated. “You spoke of some men? Sent by my dear friend?”
A friend who would surely be far more exciting than anything you might have imagined, my girl––or me for that matter.

“Oh yes, ma’am. Two very fine footmen and a very fierce-looking manservant who says he is to serve you, as there is no man of the house, as such.”

“Indeed?”

“Yes ma’am. Mr. Crookshanks, the butler is a little taken aback, but Mr. Butcher told him he was here to see the household protected, not to supervise the servants or help you dress.”

“I should hope not!” Arabella gave a short laugh she immediately regretted, and asked to have her three new employees introduced.