The Marsh Hawk (19 page)

Phelps's encrypted knock at the dressing room door called Simon from his marriage bed. While the wedding guests had been sampling the delectable viands and drinking French champagne at the wedding breakfast, his valet was closeted at the Heatherwood Arms, plying one of Rupert Marner's tigers with enough of the inn's black ale to loosen the man's tongue in regard to Rupert's travel plans. The volatile brew, known to have doubled as a furniture stripper on occasion, had done its job. As Simon feared, the viscount was, indeed, privy to their itinerary, and was about to set out for Roxburghshire. At that news, dressed in his highwayman garb, with Phelps in tow, the earl rode into the oncoming storm at breakneck speed and reached the stretch of wooded road just west of Widdon Down in time to intercept Rupert's brougham.

Well hidden among the trees that formed a natural canopy over the narrow thoroughfare in that sector, and sheltered somewhat from the persistent rain, Simon donned his half mask and loaded his pistols.

“My lord, it's madness, this,” Phelps pleaded. “Are you certain you want to take such a risk?”

“The bounder's got to answer for Jenna, Phelps,” Simon stated, speaking in a dark mutter. He tucked his tied-back hair underneath his old-fashioned tricorn hat, and adjusted the mask around it, anchoring it in place. “Nothing else could have gotten me out of that bed just now, old boy. I had planned on waking with my wife in my arms. What he's done, not to mention what he's planning, demands satisfaction. You know that.”

“What satisfaction, my lord, when he won't even know that it was you who have leveled it—and why?”

“
My
satisfaction,” Simon returned, thumping his chest with a balled-up fist, “in that I've put paid to the score.”

The valet wagged his head in an all too familiar manner, and Simon heaved a gusty sigh that flared his nostrils and answered the gesture. “What? Would you rather have another duel?” he said.

“At least there would be honor in it, my lord. You've never stooped to what you're planning. The Marsh Hawk has never—”

“I don't intend to kill him, Phelps. Stubble the melodrama.”

“What do you plan to do, then?”

“I plan to prevent him from spoiling my wedding trip. I plan, Phelps, to meddle with
his
travel plans. Just how much of a meddle depends upon him. Now, ride back 'round the bend and crow when you see the blackguard's coach. I don't want to meddle with anyone else this trip. Oh, and, Phelps,” he added, as the valet turned, “no matter what occurs, you are not to interfere.”

The valet offered a cursory nod and did as bidden, making no sound as he walked his horse through the underbrush and disappeared into the eerie green pallor of the wood.

Simon nodded in approval. Phelps would perform well, for this was his usual procedure. The one thing all of his victims remembered of an encounter with the Marsh Hawk was the cry of a real hawk before he appeared; hence his title. But it was never the Marsh Hawk himself who uttered the cry. It was Phelps, and the cry of the hawk was the valet's signal for Simon to continue according to plan.

Simon didn't have long to wait. The stubborn rain had just begun to drip from the corners of his hat, making hollow splats on the broad, caped shoulders of his greatcoat, when he heard the valet's piercing cue. And he drew his pistol and rode out onto the highway, firing a shot in the air that stopped the listing black brougham that rounded the curve.

“Stand and deliver!” he shouted, his voice booming like thunder, amplified by the storm. Then, to the driver he charged, “You there, coachman, throw down your weapons and hold your hands high where I can see them.”

A flintlock rifle came crashing to earth, landing in a puddle, and Simon's narrowed eyes—reduced to slits behind the half mask—glared through the rain-spattered coach window.

“You in there, step down!” he commanded.

The coach team shied and pranced in place, set in motion by the nervous right leader, nearest to Simon. With a careful eye upon the animal, Simon walked his own prancing mount closer as a slow hand pushed the coach door open and Rupert Marner stepped out on the sodden road, wearing a dour look of indignation.

“Well, well,” Simon taunted, knocking Rupert's beaver off his head with the point of his pistol, “a born-to-the-purple toady, I'll be bound.”

“H-how dare you stop this carriage? D-do you know who I am, you want-wit?” cried Rupert in falsetto, reaching too late to retrieve his hat, which had rolled upside down into the puddle between them, and joined the coachman's gun.

Simon ground out a guttural chuckle, meanwhile crushing the hat beneath his mount's prancing forefeet. He laughed outright as Rupert danced quickly away to spare his pantaloons a splattering with mud.

“Oh, aye, that I do—a fat chicken to be plucked,” he replied, disguising his cultured voice. He slid out of the saddle, looped his mount's reins around a clump of bracken at the side of the road, and strolled closer. “Turn out your pockets, gov'nor,” he charged, “and hand over your purse, that quizzing glass, stickpin—and the gold watch you're trying to conceal there, too.”

“I'll see you swing at Tyburn for this,” Rupert snapped, tossing the lot after the hat into the puddle.

“You will, eh?” Simon drawled. He took down a coiled length of rope from his saddle, advanced—pistol in one hand, rope in the other—and said through a dangerous tremor, “Off with the driving coat.”

Rupert hesitated, but Simon pressed his pistol barrel against the man's corseted stomach.

“It would be a pity to spoil this with a bullet hole, such a fine wool coat; a real pity,” he said, his thumb caressing the hammer.

Rupert stripped off the coat and tossed it down roughly.

“Now the tails, and the waistcoat—be quick about it!” Rupert complied, his furious eyes raking Simon from head to toe, and hurled the blue superfine coat and embroidered ivory satin waistcoat at his feet.

“Now the shirt, and the rest—corset, boots, pantaloons. Everything, right down to the drawers—if you're wearing any, that is.”

“You bastard!” Rupert snarled, removing his neckcloth and shirt with rough hands. “I've given you my jewels and purse—”

“Not nearly enough,” Simon interrupted. “Get those boots off!”

Again Rupert hesitated, mumbling complaints under his breath, clearly unhappy about consigning his Hessians to the pile. He removed the right one, but when he tugged off the left boot he straightened up, swinging it.

Simon sidestepped the attack aimed to disarm him, and the boot missed its mark, dislodging his tricorn hat instead and sending it flying, exposing the tied-back hair he'd tucked underneath it. The heavy barrel of his pistol lowered hard across the viscount's face made an end to the incident. Howling, Rupert clutched his face. Simon, spewing a string of profanity he hadn't indulged in since his seafaring days, snatched up his hat and put it back on, hoping that Rupert hadn't noticed the queue he'd again tucked away.

He hauled Rupert to his feet and yanked him close to his face. “Now the rest,” he commanded. “Unless you want help?”

Rupert obeyed until, barefoot and stripped to his drawers, he stood shivering in the rain.

Nudging him with the pistol, Simon shoved him up against an oak tree at the edge of the road, and tied him to it.

“You there, unhitch those horses!” he shouted to the terrified coachman.

Hopelessly trembling, the little man climbed down and fumbled with the harnesses, Simon looking on, until the four matched stallions were freed of the tangled leather tack. Then, firing a shot in the air, Simon slapped the rump of the skittish right leader, and the team galloped off in a shower of mud and water churned up from the road by their high-flying hooves, trampling Rupert's clothes in the morass underfoot.

Whimpering in spasms, the coachman backpedaled, slip-sliding in the ooze as Simon stalked closer.

“Throw down those bags, and give me the horsewhip!” he demanded of the coachman, gravel voiced.

The man scrambled back up to the driver's seat, reached behind, and tossed Rupert's two small travel bags and the whip to the ground. Simon secured the bags to his mount's saddle, and plucked up the horsewhip in a white-knuckled fist.

“Now get your arse down here,” he trumpeted. “Into the coach.
Move
!”

The panic-struck coachman climbed down, plunged into the carriage, and shut the door after, whimpering like a woman. Had he soiled himself? Sure as check. Simon laughed, but only briefly, viewing the little man's eyes—round as an owl's—gaping through the coach window, watching him crack the whip and lower it full force to Rupert's back. Again and again it struck its mark, until the scourging finally buckled Rupert's knees. The viscount moaned, and it wasn't long before his posture collapsed altogether, his dead weight driving him down along the tree trunk until he slumped there like a rag doll, scarcely conscious. Satisfied, Simon tossed the bloodied whip to the ground and gathered up every last piece of clothing from the muddy road.

“You stay put,” he warned the coachman, “unless you want a dose of the same.”

A terrified eruption of indistinguishable babbling answered him. Simon paid it no mind. Tying Rupert's belongings into a neat bundle, he hefted that up alongside the travel bags he'd secured on his horse's saddle earlier, then mounted and rode off without a backward glance.

It wasn't until Rupert's shrill voice knifed through the quiet that the terrified coachman finally poked his gray head out of the carriage window.

“Get down out of there and get me out of this, Wilby, you lack-witted dolt!” his employer bellowed.

The coachman climbed out of the carriage and began loosening the rope binding Rupert to the oak tree. “The brigand's done a proper job,” he said, sucking in his breath as he steadied him. “This needs attention. He's striped you badly, sir.”

“A fine help you were!” Rupert snapped through a grimace.

“
Me
, sir? What on earth could I have done?”

“Never mind. He'll pay for it, mark my words.”

“Was it the Marsh Hawk, sir?”

“It was. Fetch my clothes, you nodcock. And see if you can find that blasted team. We'll have to go back. I cannot continue to Scotland like this.”

“Oh, they're long gone, sir. You'll not catch those beasts tonight in this storm.”

Rupert loosed a spate of profanity that backed the coachman up a pace.

“My clothes, man! Fetch my clothes! I shall catch my death here,” he bellowed.

“I . . . I can't, sir. He's taken them.”

“The Hessians, too?”

The coachman nodded.

Another deluge of curses followed.

“Give me yours, then. Be quick, man!” Rupert demanded.

“
Mine
, sir?”

“Do you see anybody else about?”

“But, sir . . .”

“Come, come, the coat and breeches at least. I can hardly go about as I am.”

The coachman peeled off his coat and soiled breeches, and handed them over reluctantly.

“Oh, yes, the whoreson will pay for this,” Rupert vowed, wincing as he slid the coat over his raw back.

“There's many a nobleman on this coast who would like to see the Marsh Hawk pay, sir,” said the coachman solicitously.

“Ahhh, but I have the advantage,” Rupert returned.

“Sir?”

“I know who the blighter is! And in my own time, I'll hoist him with his own petard. He'll pay royally for this night's work, you have my oath upon that.”

It was nearly noon when Jenna stirred and stretched awake in the mahogany four-poster, and her heart turned over in her breast when she realized she'd overslept. Her eyes flashed toward the indentation Simon's body had left in the feather bed beside her. There on the pillow lay a perfect moss rose, and a folded parchment. Jenna bolted upright and read:

Forgive me, my love, for not being here when you woke. Our wedding trip must wait. There is an urgent matter concerning one of my cottagers that I must resolve before we go. We will leave when I return on Wednesday. Until then, my Jenna, my heart is with you
.

Simon

She was almost relieved. She couldn't have faced him then. She needed to order her thoughts first. They were still overshadowed by suspicion; sleep hadn't changed anything in that regard.

She dressed in a morning frock of white sprigged muslin and went downstairs. Nuncheon had been laid out for her in the breakfast room. There were platters of aged Stilton and mature cheddar, loaves of Cook's cobbled, soda, and herb breads, along with salvers of spiced chicken, smoked salmon, and baked ham. But Jenna availed herself of tea only. She was too overset to think of food.

Looking on in utter dismay, the housekeeper delivered a spate of apologies for not having a breakfast tray brought to her room earlier, explaining that the earl had left word that she not be disturbed. Her wrinkled brow knit in a worried frown, she vowed to leave the nuncheon fare awhile, in case Jenna should have a change of heart.

It was the frazzled housekeeper who told her that Phelps had returned as mysteriously as he'd disappeared in the wee hours, only to turn right around and leave again with Simon shortly after. Jenna wondered why Simon had taken the valet this time on such a short mission, when he had left him behind for over three weeks while he went off to London with the St. Johns—especially since her pocket and its contents had never been recovered. There was no explanation for that but that Rupert had taken it, which meant he knew their plans, and his interference was very probable. But those thoughts bothered her only marginally. She was glad of the valet's absence. His incessant hovering had begun to make her extremely uncomfortable. She needed time to think, and to form some sort of plan. In order to do this she needed to be alone, with no interference. She was having enough trouble dealing with the distraction of Simon's passionate embrace in the mahogany four-poster, which colored her cheeks and sent waves of relived pleasure surging through her body each time it ghosted across her memory. This was all so new to her.