The Highwayman's Daughter (8 page)

Except he wanted to know her better. That was why he had dragged her here and not to magistrate’s, he realised now. He held on to her tighter to stop her from running away, pulling her close so their bodies met, and although she gasped, he had to give her credit for not flinching away. Instead she met his insulting scrutiny with her head held high and a look of defiance in her strangely coloured eyes. Jack felt something primal stir in his belly. He hadn’t bedded a woman in over a year. He had begun to find courtesans boring, and gently brought up girls would expect to be wed first – so far he hadn’t met any he could imagine sharing his life with. And now an incredibly beautiful woman was offering herself to him, not willingly perhaps, but as payment for his silence. All he had to do was to drag her upstairs to one of the bedchambers and have her.

Disgusted by his own train of thought, he loosened his grip on her wrist. He never
had
and never
would
treat a young woman like that, be she a lady or a serving girl. But what was he supposed to do with her? He wanted justice, didn’t he? Except somehow, with her standing there looking both defiant and vulnerable, he couldn’t just simply hand her over to the authorities.

Perhaps her story was true. He’d seen her in the apothecary’s buying a cough tincture, which tied in with what she’d said about her father. Could he really condemn her for trying to save someone she loved – and thereby condemn her father for something he had no part in? He looked into her eyes and saw honesty, not guile, behind her defiance, and slowly he released her and pushed her away from him.

‘Be assured your honour is safe with me, madam. I have no use for a mistress. I—’

He’d got no further when she cut him off with a curt, ‘Good!’ and took off, sprinting down the alley faster than he’d thought possible.

‘Damn it all to hell!’

He set off in pursuit, but a stagecoach drawn by four sweaty horses came clattering towards him and blocked his way. He tried to get round it, but the alley was narrow and as soon as the vehicle stopped exhausted passengers began to climb down from the top seat and spill out of the coach, and he found himself in a sea of arms and legs, petticoats and carpet bags.

‘Excuse me, but …’

‘Ruffian!’ huffed a blowzy matron in black bombazine and an oversized mob cap. She lashed out at him with her parasol as he tried to squeeze past her, and he had no choice but to clamber through the coach and out the other side, much to the consternation of those passengers who had yet to alight.

‘I say!’ exclaimed one.

‘Bounder!’ cried another.

‘Oi, you!’ yelled the coachman. ‘Watch where yer bleedin’ goin’!’

Jack shouted a few apologies and ran out of the yard. He had lost his hat somewhere, probably inside the coach, but he had no time to stop. He
had
to catch up with the girl. He knew her name, but that was no guarantee he would find her again.

When he came out into the High Street, she had a clear head start, but Jack could still see her. He was fit and he quickly gained on her. She shrieked as he made a grab for her and dodged sideways down a narrow alley. Jack followed her but his leather shoes with their fashionable heels had nothing on his quarry’s sturdy boots, and he skidded on something foul and slippery, banging his elbow against the wall as he tried to keep his balance.

Cursing, he hung on to the wall for support while he fought to combat the dizzy feeling from the knock to his elbow; then he picked up the pursuit with grim determination. If she thought she could get the better of him, she could think again. He would
make
her think again.

Suddenly he laughed. He had been on her trail ever since she’d robbed him; then chased her through town, and had, he realised now to his chagrin, enjoyed every moment of it. Miss Mardell’s presence shook him alive, but it was the chase which made him see the funny side. He’d begun to take himself far too seriously. When that had started, he couldn’t say – probably when he’d decided to try and curb Rupert’s excesses. His attraction to the highwaywoman had shown him that there was more to life than following his wayward younger cousin around, and for that reason he had to find her again.

Cora’s heart raced wildly and her lungs felt as if they were going to explode. When she’d dashed down the alley, her pursuer had stopped, and she’d felt herself safe from him. Now he was behind her again, so close that she could hear his ragged breathing, and gaining fast. Hampered by her heavy shopping basket, which she was reluctant to let go of, it was only a matter of time before she was caught.

And then what?

In a split second she made a decision and dodged sideways again, this time hurtling through the backyard of a blacksmith. The blacksmith was using his bellows, and sparks flew as Cora tore through his workshop, with Jack hot on her heels.

‘What the blazes …?’

She thought she heard her pursuer shouting an apology, but couldn’t be sure. Nor did she care – her only intent was to get away. His nearness when he’d held her fast had caused her pulse to race and her breath to shorten, but despite his effect on her, she couldn’t afford to trust him, or anyone else for that matter. When the opportunity to give him the slip had presented itself, she hadn’t hesitated. If he thought she would walk blindly to the gallows, he was sorely mistaken.

Spurred on by fear, Cora ran as fast as her legs would carry her, out on to the High Street and didn’t see the coach thundering towards her, horses springing.

Cora screamed as the horse reared, whinnying and with hooves thrashing, and she held up her arm to ward off the inevitable blow. A hoof caught her on the shoulder, and she fell to the ground with the horse kicking wildly over her.

Swearing, the coachman struggled to rein in the terrified animal, but the rattling of the pole chains seemed to antagonise it further. The eyes of the enormous beast rolled back in its head, its ears flattened and it bucked and reared, agitating the other horses. The coach jerked forward bit by bit despite the coachman’s attempts at restraining the animals. Cora scrambled to get up but her arms and legs were strangely uncoordinated, and she could only crawl on her belly in the dirt.

She lost her sense of time; everything around her seemed distorted and happened with preternatural slowness. A man attempted to pull her to safety but was forced back by the thrashing hooves; a woman screamed; a crying child tugged at his mother’s apron. Cora wanted to plead for help but her throat was full of dust and no sound came. Her life, for what it was worth, flashed before her eyes. Ned, Uncle George, Mr Isaacs. Her mother. Baby Tom. Choked, she mourned those she had lost and those she was about to lose.

Then a hand caught the horse’s bridle. A strong, decisive hand.

‘Whoa!’ Lord Halliford held on tight as the horse whinnied and reared, and with his other hand he stroked it on the muzzle. ‘Easy girl,’ he said. ‘Easy now.’

The mare tossed her head and scraped her hooves, but slowly she began to respond to Lord Halliford’s calming influence. As the onlookers helped Cora to her feet, picking up the things which had spilled out of her shopping basket – mercifully only the vegetables and not her stolen goods – his lordship whispered soothing words to the horse as if they were the only souls in the world. The mare snorted and pushed against his hand in a last show of defiance, but finally accepted his mastery. Only then did he let go of the bridle.

Lord Halliford had saved her from being run over. He could have let the horses trample her to death and saved himself the trouble of bringing her to justice, yet he hadn’t. Why?

‘You crazy mare!’ grumbled the coachman. ‘You wanna kill us all?’ But he was glaring at Cora as he said so and she wasn’t sure whether he was referring to her or the horse.

He saved me.

The thought went over and over in her head. He didn’t have to, but he did. She’d sensed his attraction to her, and couldn’t deny her own attraction to him, but that still didn’t change the fact that she’d robbed him, tricked him, and run from him. Gratitude mixed with shame spread in her chest that he’d still thought her life worth saving.

‘You all right, dear?’ The woman with the little boy, who was now bouncing on her hip with a dirty thumb in his mouth, looked at Cora with concern. ‘’Twas a close one, and all. Best be more careful next time you’re thinking of crossing the road.’

‘Y-yes, I’m all right. Thank you.’ She wasn’t though. Her recklessness had nearly got her killed, and then Ned would have been alone. The thought made her shake uncontrollably.

‘Well, if you’re sure, luvvie.’ It seemed Cora’s trembling hadn’t escaped the woman, and she sounded uncertain.

Cora nodded. ‘I’m sure.’

‘Well, mind how you go, eh.’ With a final glance at Cora, the woman left. The little boy stared at Cora with large frightened eyes, and it struck her just how dreadful it would have been for the child if he had witnessed a person being trampled to death by horses. Not to mention seeing a woman being dragged kicking and screaming to the magistrate’s house and later hanged. It was a sobering thought.

Without turning, Cora sensed Lord Halliford’s presence right behind her. Her entire body tingled with awareness of him, from the base of her scalp to the small of her back where his hand had rested when he had pulled her close. Her breath came in short bursts, both from the effect he had on her and the certain knowledge that he would likely want her severely punished for her crimes.

Slowly, she turned to face him. There was no way out now; she was too exhausted to run.

She almost laughed at the sight of him. His shorn hair stood out in all directions, like the prickles on a hedgehog; black coal dust from the smithy graced the front of his elegant blue coat, and his white silk stockings were frayed and besmirched. He looked like a scarecrow.

The finest scarecrow Cora had ever laid eyes on.

‘M’lord, I …’

‘Madam.’

Suddenly his hazel eyes were full of humour, and he surprised her by bowing deeply. With practised flourish, he swung, not a hat, for she saw now that he must have lost it earlier, but something round and green.

‘Your cabbage, I believe.’

Cora stared at the head of cabbage in his hand, and then back at him. This was a different person to the one who had chased her with such fervour, and suspiciously she snatched it out of his hand and returned it to her basket. It must have rolled out when she’d fallen, but a quick feel in her basket, while she kept a close eye on her nemesis, told her that nothing else was missing, not even the waistcoat, which still lay tucked securely underneath the rough cloth.

He kept his eyes on her face and, mesmerised, she found herself returning the gaze despite the hotness which flared in her cheeks. The amusement was still there in his eyes, but something deeper too, a part of him which was deadly serious. Desire, passion, need. He took a step closer, bringing his face only inches from hers. Cora’s breath caught in her throat, and for a long, delicious,
dreadful
moment she thought, feared – no,
hoped
, devil take it! – that he might kiss her.

Instead he took her free hand, the one not clutching the basket for dear life, and lifted it to his lips.

The pressure of his warm lips against her skin lasted only a moment, but it scorched her soul and woke a longing in her which no man had ever done before. Heat seared through her from deep in her belly, spreading, teasing and tingling in her veins until she feared she could no longer stand it. Her lips parted, and involuntarily she took a step closer.

She wanted him. Now.

The naked lust he glimpsed in her eyes slammed into Jack with the force of a river bursting a dam. He had met women intent on bedding him before, to which he had experienced merely an instinctive, tepid response from his own body.

But Miss Mardell was no saucy and skilled seductress. She was, as far as he could tell, quite the beginner in such matters, and that she should long for him in this way touched him deeply. What puzzled him was that he’d given her no reason to trust him, yet she did not run this time.

All he had to do was to reach out and do with her what he wanted. His head swam with potential scenarios, some so rude they would make even a courtesan blush, while others almost made his heart stop. His breathing became laboured, and the stirring in his groin built to an unbearable ache, straining against his breeches and begging for release.

Sometimes, in the dead of night, he lay awake and thought of the woman he would one day love, but she’d always been faceless, a shadow on the periphery of his consciousness. Now here she stood, real flesh and blood and no longer an invention, and had almost been killed in front of his eyes. His heart squeezed with fear and longing, his earlier joviality with the cabbage forgotten. He didn’t want her punished or harmed in any way, but what was to be done? Perhaps he should take her back to the inn, where they could discuss it without an audience. Or better still, force her to take him to her home so she could hand back what she had stolen.

Then he saw himself as she would: commanding her one way or the other, and he did something which surprised even himself.

Dropping her hand gently, he whispered, ‘Go!’

He didn’t have to say it twice. With an unfathomable look she turned on her heel and left, limping a little from her fall, and Jack watched her go with a singular pang in his chest. It was fitting, he thought wryly, that her birthmark – he’d noticed it earlier when he’d traced the soft curve from her eyebrow to her cheek – should be shaped as the symbol of love.

She was frightened of him, and he understood why, but he had let her go to show her that he meant her no harm, to gain her trust. Undoubtedly she would go into hiding now, but he intended to find her again – by God he would! – and when he did, he wasn’t going to let her go again.

Ever.

Rupert was on his way home when a commotion caught his attention. He told his valet, Hodges, to stay put and rode down the High Street to see what it was all about and was met by a common enough spectacle. A village girl had got herself entangled with a coach and lay on the ground in front of it with the horses threatening to bolt.

A fool of a man was trying to reach the unfortunate girl; around him people were screaming or looking horror-struck or both; dirty children were howling and wiping their runny noses on their mothers’ garments. Rupert sniffed. It was all very disagreeable.

Uninterested, he stayed on his horse and treated himself to a pinch of snuff, the finest he had been able to procure while he was in London. After all, there was nothing he could do except keep well out of the way, unless he fancied getting hurt in the process of saving some low-born wench, and he most decidedly did not.

He was turning his horse around to ride back the way he’d come when he caught sight of movement from the corner of his eye. A man ran out from a yard and seemingly without thought to his own safety rushed towards the rearing horse and grabbed the bridle. The horse almost kicked the brainless buffoon in the chest, but the man managed to hold on and calm the animal down.

Grudgingly Rupert had to admit that here was a person – although clearly an imbecile for attempting such dangerous tactics – who knew almost as much about horses as he himself did.

Then his mouth fell open in surprise when he saw that the crazy hero was none other than his cousin Jack.

He urged his horse forward and opened his mouth to speak, but something held him back. Instead he retreated behind a hay wagon, from where he could watch the spectacle unfold. There was something altogether curious about Jack’s appearance; he looked as if he had taken part in a bout of fisticuffs.

Saintly Cousin Jack, he snorted to himself, in a fight? Over what? A winsome country girl? Surely not!

‘This I must see,’ he muttered and stayed where he was.

A couple of people helped the girl to her feet while Jack pacified the horse. Then he handed the woman a head of cabbage. Rupert chuckled to himself. This was getting more and more curious, and although he was too far away to overhear any conversation, it was clear that something was going on between them.

Jack kissed the woman’s hand. It was not an affectation as dictated by society, but a personal, intimate gesture, as if they were lovers. For a moment Rupert’s good humour vanished and was replaced by sorrow: he had often imagined that his father must have kissed his mother like that, but his father had died when Rupert was very young, and he had no real recollection of his parents’ relationship.

If his parents had lived, life would have been different. Basking in their pride, he would have gone into a profession, married a well-bred girl, and never have hankered after something he knew he couldn’t have. Rupert wouldn’t have been the poor relation.

If they had lived.
But they hadn’t.

Instead he resided in Jack’s shadow as an inferior comparison. Although his uncle, the earl, was generous enough and would no doubt settle a large allowance on him once he married, the knowledge ate away at him that Jack stood to gain everything Rupert coveted. Status, title and respect. His face a grim mask, he clenched his fists so hard at the unfairness that his fingernails dug into the palms of his hands.

If only …
He allowed himself to follow the thought to its natural conclusion.
If only Jack were dead.

If this was the case, Rupert would inherit more than just debts, which was all his father had left him. Then no one could question either his legal rights to the estate or his moral rights.

He shook his head at where his thoughts had taken him again. Causing his cousin to be discredited elicited no qualms, but murder …

And Jack was well on his way to ruining his own name; he really didn’t need Rupert’s help. Just look at the way he was simpering over the country girl. A man in his position was expected to marry well – even a mistress should be of some breeding too.

With wry amusement Rupert watched his cousin and the girl seemingly lost in each other’s eyes. There was no doubt the girl was pretty, if you liked that sort of thing, but there was something else about her, a certain bearing perhaps, that intrigued him.

He narrowed his eyes and paid more attention to Jack’s paramour, or whatever she was. She was wearing an ugly, plain dress and a tattered old straw hat, which was now dangling on one shoulder, attached to her neck by only a ribbon, but it was her hair, masses of dark curls, which caught Rupert’s eye. It was the same colour as that of the highwaywoman, and her height and stature were similar too.

‘I wonder,’ he muttered to himself. Could it be that his cousin had outwitted him and already tracked down the thieving wench?
Devil take the man!

But Jack was letting the woman go. Rupert frowned. If she really was the one who had robbed them, Jack would not have done that. So what exactly was his cousin’s interest in this woman?

Intrigued, he decided to follow her.

Hidden behind the hay wagon, he turned his horse quietly and followed the woman at a safe distance down the High Street and past the tailor’s, where Hodges had emerged from the shop with a large parcel under his arm and a surprised expression on his bovine face.

‘Sir?’

‘Not now, man, damn it!’ he snarled. ‘I’m on a mission. Take the parcel back to Lampton. I’ll be along later.’

The valet’s eyes fell on the girl, who was now about twenty yards ahead of his master; then he nodded grimly. ‘Right you are, sir.’

Rupert grinned to himself. He was known for being a dandy and a bit of a ladies’ man and had made no attempts at refuting this image, though if he was entirely honest with himself, it had been a while since he had encountered a female who really excited him. There was something unique about this one though.

He told himself that this had absolutely nothing to do with the fact his cousin seemed rather smitten by her.

He followed her slowly out of town, where a farmer offered her a lift on the seat of his wagon alongside a large number of children. Rupert kept even further back as the brats at the back of the wagon started to pull faces at him. He was tempted to ride up beside them and teach the little varmints a lesson, but the need to employ subterfuge stayed his whip hand.

Instead he ground his teeth and bided his time.

At Hospital Bridge the woman got down from the wagon, thanked the farmer and dove into the copse at the side of the road. When the wagon was out of sight, Rupert did the same. There was no sign of her, but Rupert wasn’t concerned. If she lived in the forest, there was bound to be smoke rising from a chimney somewhere.

Sure enough, he soon spotted a thin grey column rising in the distance and headed in that direction. It wasn’t easy; the forest was at its densest here, and there was no real path, only narrow tracks that could have been made by human or animal alike. He ripped his new stockings on a hostile bramble, and his wig snagged on the branch of a tree, forcing him to go back and retrieve it. Angrily, he snapped the branch in half. He was beginning to doubt the wisdom of his venture.

Just then he caught the smell of wood smoke and came upon a small clearing. He stopped and surveyed the surroundings. In the middle of the clearing sat a tumbledown labourer’s cottage with a small shack a little distance away. There was no one in sight, but the door was open, so Rupert assumed that the inhabitants were inside.

He returned to the cover of the forest and under the canopy of the trees he worked his way around to the side of building, where there were no windows. Then he tied his horse to a tree, stroked the animal reassuringly, and crept towards the cottage. It seemed a good bet that this was where the woman had gone, but in order to be sure he needed to get closer. When he was halfway across the clearing, he heard voices. Agitated voices, one female, another of a lower timbre, unmistakeably male.

A husband perhaps. Or an accomplice.

‘… has happened?’

‘I’ve been …’

‘… followed?’

‘… don’t think …’

Rupert stopped, overcome by indecision. It was one thing to overpower a female, however spirited she might be, but another to take on a burly male accomplice. Or
accomplices
. Just because he had only heard one man didn’t mean there weren’t others inside the cottage or nearby. Damn it all, why hadn’t he thought to bring a pistol?

A rustle and a soft nickering startled him. From the shack a horse had stuck its nose out over a makeshift stable door and was eyeing him expectantly. He approached the beast and stroked it on its soft muzzle. The horse, a handsome gelding with a white star below the forelock, pushed gently against his hand and snorted appreciatively.

‘What is it, boy?’ Rupert whispered. He had always had an affinity with animals. ‘Don’t they feed you enough? Is that it, hm?’

The horse gave another low snort and stomped softly in the hay as if in agreement. It made Rupert wonder why he should come upon such a fine specimen by a labourer’s cottage in the forest. Horses were expensive creatures; they required proper feed, not just grass and hay, plenty of exercise and expert care that a labourer couldn’t afford, nor have the time for.

The animal could be stolen, of course, and if this place was indeed a thief’s hideout, that fitted well enough, but he hadn’t heard of any horses going missing in the area. The theft of a fine horse such as this would cause enough of a stir for the word to go around.

Another mystery.

After checking that the inhabitants of the cottage hadn’t discovered his presence, Rupert opened the gate and slid inside the small stable shack. The horse welcomed him with a little nicker and allowed him to run a hand appreciatively over its back and down his flanks. Although the animal was perhaps a little on the thin side, it appeared strong and in good health otherwise.

Something else caught Rupert’s attention.

He hadn’t been as close to the highwaywoman as Jack had, and, given his cousin had a rapier at his throat at the time, Rupert certainly hadn’t envied him the position. But whereas Jack might have got a very good look at the woman, Rupert had had his eyes on something else.

He may not pay much attention to women: courtesans were much like each other, and simpering debutantes bored him rigid. But he knew his horses.

Like the highwaywoman’s horse, this beast had white markings on its front legs extending from the edge of the hoof halfway up the middle of the leg, a so-called half-stocking. Along with the star and stripe on the nose, the horse’s markings were as unique as Rupert was himself.

There was no mistaking it; he had found the thieving harlot and her accomplices. But there was no way he could take them down single-handedly, and he didn’t much care to try. He caressed the fine animal one more time, slipped out of the stable, and crept back to his own horse. He would have to come back with reinforcements, and soon, but as no one had attempted to flee the cottage, he suspected the criminals thought themselves safe for the time being.

They were in for a surprise.

Cora and Ned packed as many of their belongings as they could carry, leaving behind anything which wasn’t necessary to their survival. Cora collected their few cooking implements in her basket, together with what food they had. The strong, salty smell of the bacon suddenly made her stomach churn, and, swallowing back her revulsion, she quickly wrapped it in a cloth and then hid the two pistols, the blunderbuss and the rapier at the bottom of her trunk.

What they owned didn’t amount to much, and barely any time had passed before they were ready to leave. Cora saddled Samson, and they bundled as much as they could into the saddle bags, leaving the rest of their belongings to dangle from the pommel.