The Highwayman (4 page)

The man’s eyebrows lifted as he replied, “My dear Miss Wedmore, I was not dosed with so much as a single drop of laudanum.”

“Not? Now, whatever can Jane have been thinking? It is not at all like her to be so remiss. But however it came about, I shall rectify the mistake immediately. In the meantime, I have brought you some breakfast.”

After carefully arranging the tray beside him on the bed, Agatha whisked the covering napkin away, and he looked down into a bowl of thin, grey stuff which could only be gruel. Beside it sat a cup of weak-looking tea. The expectant expression faded from his countenance, and he groaned before muttering, “I might have guessed it. In addition to all else, she means to starve me.”

Agatha’s lips twitched ever so slightly, but in truth, she could enter into his sentiments exactly. However, when she had said as much to Jane earlier, she’d received a lecture on the proper diet for an invalid. This she now dutifully repeated to their patient.

After staring at her for a moment, he replied, “If I were not so da—so hungry, I’d send this back to that—that
female
with my compliments. As it is, you may tell her from me that for my next meal, I expect something a great deal more substantial. Where is she, anyway?”

“I collect you are referring to Miss Lockwood.”

“Yes, if that is the Amazon’s name,” he growled.

“Well,” said Agatha a trifle vaguely, “as to where she is at the moment, I could not say, but I shall certainly tell her that you asked for her when next I see her. However, I fear she is rather busy this morning.”

The man gave what could only be termed a smirk, and said, “I’ve no doubt she is. As busy as she is cowardly.”

Agatha thought it best to ignore that remark, and she merely studied him with interest before turning away, saying, “I shall fetch that laudanum for you now.”

“Miss Wedmore,” he called as she reached the door.

She paused with her hand on the doorknob and looked back at him.

“Achilles,” he said rather anxiously. “My horse?”

“Oh,” she assured him, “he took no harm in your recent mishap. He is in our stables at this moment, and I promise you we shall take very good care of him.”

“My thanks,” he said. “He has seen me safely through more than one difficult situation, and I am rather fond of him.”

At that, Agatha frowned slightly, wondering if those difficult situations of which he spoke might have something to do with the nefarious activities of a highwayman. But she only nodded before leaving the chamber, saying as she went, “Enjoy your breakfast, Mr. Sebast. I shall return shortly.”

Upon hearing himself called Mr. Sebast, he stared at the door in puzzlement, then shrugged and turned his attention to his meager meal. The misunderstanding was of no consequence and could be cleared up at a later time.

He was so hungry that, although he would not have admitted it under any circumstances, even the gruel tasted good to him. But when he was done and was once more lying down, he discovered himself to be weaker than ever, as well as exhausted beyond belief. He wanted sleep desperately, but the unremitting pain in his leg would not allow it. And so it was with great relief that he welcomed Agatha back into his chamber a few minutes later and swallowed the bitter concoction she offered without a word of protest.

Thanking her, he banded the cup back, then said, “Miss Wedmore, there is another service which you could perform for me if it would not be too much trouble.”

“I should be happy to,” she replied. “If I am able.”

“My man, Kearny, will be wondering what has become of me. He should be racked up at the village inn by now. I should appreciate it if you would send him a message, telling him that I have been wounded but am on the mend and recommending him to remain where he is until he receives further word from me.”

“Certainly. You may consider it done,” she told him after only a slight hesitation.

“You are very kind,” he murmured, his eyelids beginning to droop.

Agatha gazed at the man lying on the bed, wondering if she should speak what was on her mind. Was he the answer to her prayers, as she had begun to hope, or was he something far otherwise?

Every instinct told her that he was a gentleman, but she could so easily be mistaken. He could, in truth, be the highwayman who had the entire district on the fidget. The man, Kearny, of whom he had spoken, might well be an accomplice, although she had heard nothing to indicate the existence of such a person. On the other hand, a man who was fond of his horse and worried about its welfare could not be too wicked, could he?

In the end, she decided that she preferred to place her trust in her female intuition, for it had seldom led her astray.

That being settled, she sat down in the chair beside the bed, and said, “My good man, I could not help but notice earlier that your feelings towards Miss Lockwood seem to be somewhat—that is, they are a trifle...”

“Antipathetic?” he supplied, opening his eyes and offering her a lazy grin.

“Well, yes, though perhaps that is too strong a word. However, what I wish to tell you is that I have been with Jane since she was a very young girl, and I believe that I know her better than anyone—most certainly better than she knows herself. And while there is no finer female than she, I would be the first to admit that she is as full as she can hold with proprieties. Not that propriety is a bad thing in a female of gentle birth, but I fear that Jane has a trifling tendency to overdo it, which is likely why you have taken her in dislike.

“In any event,” she went on when he made no reply, “I hope you will not judge her too harshly, for you see, there are extenuating circumstances. Not that I mean to bore you with those details, but perhaps if I were to make known to you a few of her better qualities...”

She went on, but by now the laudanum was taking hold, and he heard nothing beyond the drone of her voice until she ended with the words “... and that is what I wished to convey to you, Mr. Sebast.”

The repetition of the misnomer pulled him back just enough to make the attempt at correcting her. But he only managed one word, “Not...” before he floated off again on a deliriously pain-free cloud.

* * * *

Agatha was far off the mark when she said that she knew Jane better than that lady knew herself. In point of fact, Miss Lockwood was well aware of all her faults, and was agonizing over them at that very moment.

Although a more youthful Jane would have thought it impossible to be too concerned with proper behaviour—and, certainly, she still knew its value—there were times when she admitted, if only to herself, that, possibly, she tended to be a bit too steeped in propriety. On a very few occasions, she had even shared Agatha’s wish that she were a bit less so. But after years of ruthlessly training oneself to be a model of decorum, it was difficult, if not impossible, suddenly to turn round and become something else.

For the most part, she accepted herself as she was, the most memorable exception to that being her one, disastrous London Season years before. She had known how it would be, just as she had known that it would take a very unusual man to overlook all her drawbacks and offer for her. She had not really wanted to go to London, but Agatha and Jane’s aunt, Lady Chidwell, had insisted.

By the time her embittered and irascible father had consented to give her a Season, she was already older, by at least two years, than most of the other girls making their debuts that year. That, however, had not been the cause of her failure to “take.” Nor was it a lack of looks which had been the problem. She was no great beauty, but she had certainly been comely enough to attract the notice of several eligible gentlemen. Although her dowry was not large, she was the heiress to Meadowbrook, too, which counted for something. At least it had then, for at that time the estate was still bringing in a tidy profit.

But after only one dance and some brief conversation with her, all of the more interesting males soon escaped her for the company of more agreeable females.

She knew that she was considered to be too cold, too aloof, too unbending, even too prudish, but as much as she longed to be more like those other girls, she had been wholly unable to relax her rigid code of conduct. Besides, she had not the talent for flirtation or light-hearted chatter with persons of the opposite sex, and would have felt ridiculous attempting it.

And, of course, there was always the old scandal involving her parents, which was, actually, at the very core of the whole matter. It, more than anything else in her life, had formed her present character.

Agatha, always the optimist, had been certain that no one would recall how Lady Lockwood had deserted her husband and daughter to run off with another man. But, although no one had mentioned it in her presence, Jane knew the incident had not been forgotten, and that knowledge had rendered her even more incapable of lowering the barrier she had elected over the years. That barrier had been raised in an attempt to protect herself, to prove herself to be as unlike her mother as possible, and thus win her father’s approval, something which, despite all, she had never been able to do.

But if ever she had doubted the wisdom of adhering to such a strict code of propriety, she had only to recall the events of the previous night to erase all uncertainty. Nothing could have shown her more clearly the folly of deviating from her usual mode of behaviour. She should not have remained alone with that man in his chamber. And she could not imagine what had possessed her to throw herself upon him in that abandoned manner without first ascertaining if he indeed had a fever. Everything within her cringed each time she visualized the scene, and each time she did so, it seemed more appalling.

At that moment, Agatha entered the morning-room, and Jane focused her attention on the sheet she was supposed to be mending.

The older woman took a seat near the younger one and shaking her head, she said, “How I dislike seeing you do servants’ work.”

Jane looked up in surprise. It had been ages since they had had this argument and she could not think why Agatha should be dredging it up now. She said, “Well, if you can think of a way to teach Elsie to do it, you will have accomplished more than I have ever been able to do. You know that she is hopeless with a needle, and you also know that I do not mind doing it.”

Agatha realized it was futile to continue this line of discussion. She was aware that Elsie was next to useless, but with the wages they could afford to pay, there had been no better applicants for the position. That being so, there was nothing to be done, and since the subject was not what was uppermost in Agatha’s mind, she dropped it.

Drawing her own work basket closer, she said, “Mr. Sebast seems to be faring well this morning. Of course he is quite weak, but at least he has no fever.”

“That is good,” murmured Jane without looking up.

“He asked after you,” said Agatha casually.

At that, Jane glanced up swiftly, then down again. “Did he?” she asked, carefully matching her tone to her companion’s.

“Yes, and for some odd reason, he seemed to be of the opinion that your failure to visit him this morning was due to cowardice. Of course one must make excuses for the poor man. He was in a great deal of pain and said that he’d had no sleep at all last night.”

Jane opened her mouth to speak, then, as though thinking better of it, closed it again. But Agatha, watching closely, saw with satisfaction the crimson colour mounting the younger woman’s cheeks. She was now quite certain that Jane was not wholly indifferent to their unexpected guest. She was equally certain that something had occurred between the two of them the previous night. Nothing short of a major distraction would have prevented Jane from seeing to her patient’s comfort, and Agatha would have given much to know what it was.

Jane was feeling extremely uncomfortable. She knew that her patient had gone sleepless for only a portion of the night. Still, she felt guilty for having fled his chamber without offering him the relief of laudanum. On top of that was the unwelcome knowledge that it was, indeed, cowardice which had kept her away from him that morning. As much as she disliked admitting to such craven behaviour, she had simply been unable to force herself to face him after what had happened. But it was more than that.

She, too, had lain awake for at least an hour, trying to analyze her feelings towards him, and still she did not understand them. Even without the embarrassment of all that had occurred between them, he awakened feelings and reactions in her which were completely foreign to her, and more than a little frightening.

Each time she had found herself near him, from that first moment when she had knelt beside him in the road, she had felt oddly breathless and on edge, with strange flutterings in her chest and stomach. During the night, she had decided that these sensations were not at all pleasant and had vowed to stay away from him as much as possible until she could be safely rid of him. She had also vowed to stop thinking about him, but she could not seem to do so. Her first thoughts upon awakening that morning had been of him... and most of her thoughts since, if she were to be truthful.

Even worse, she could not seem to stop the sudden visions of his face—or, God help her, his body—which flashed into her mind at odd moments.

However, she knew that she had to face him sooner or later, and since she did not wish to give him further cause to stigmatize her as a coward, she supposed that sooner would be better. She decided that she would take his noon meal of broth to him and that, this time, she would not allow him to discompose her in any way.

It was a decision which proved to be more easily formed than carried out, for she entered his chamber, shortly after the noon hour, with a great deal of trepidation. Despite her good intentions, she was alone again. At the last moment, Agatha had suddenly discovered something of great importance which required her presence elsewhere. And, of course, Elsie could not be found anywhere.

When Jane had remonstrated with her companion, Agatha had said, “Nonsense, my dear. You are merely ministering to a sick and injured man—something which you have done frequently in the past without a loss of reputation. There can be nothing improper in it, and no one could think otherwise. Moreover, the man is so weak he could not hurt a fly.”