Vanity (17 page)

The beasts in the stalls moved restlessly as she walked down the length of the building, looking for Rupert’s roan, her heart thudding in terror as she imagined Ben, or someone even more terrifying, bursting in on her. She was there on sufferance, protected only by Rupert’s interest, an interest that would extend even in his absence to his own apartments; but once she ventured out of that protected territory, she could well be seen as fair game.

Peter was in the last stall, a halter hanging from a hook in the wall beside him. She slipped it over his head and led him out of the stall, back through the building. She blew out the lantern before opening the door to the yard and then led Peter outside, his hooves sounding like a drumroll in the stillness.

Her heart thumped so loudly she could hear it in her ears, and her stomach was in her throat, but she managed to lead the horse to the mounting block and haul herself
astride his broad bare back. Once mounted, her terror faded. The entire tribe gathered in the taproom could burst forth in pursuit, but no one on foot could stop her now.

She nudged Peter’s flanks with her heels and directed him to the gate. Once in the street, her heart took an exultant leap. She knew which way Rupert would have gone. She pulled on the halter, guiding Peter up the hill to the heath. The horse was as well behaved as she’d guessed from her earlier ride and showed no inclination to take advantage of the slight restraint of the halter.

Riding astride, she could keep her seat with relative ease on the broad back, leaning low over Peter’s neck, urging him into a canter as they reached the top of the hill and the black expanse of Putney Heath stretched to all sides. The thin ribbon of the road glimmered ahead of her, winding its way into the darkness. On all sides gnarled trunks and twisted branches bent to the wind, whistling in fierce gusts across the flat heath.

It was an eerie, inhospitable place, the sky so black it seemed to have swallowed all light. Only the road provided orientation, and Octavia drew Peter onto the gorse-strewn turf beside it, deadening the sound of his hooves.

She listened but could hear only the creaking of branches, the wail of the wind, the hoot of an owl. Lord Nick would not be far from the road. He would be waiting somewhere along that ribbon for his unsuspecting prey. Cautiously, she nudged Peter forward, and the horse obeyed almost reluctantly, sniffing the air as if scenting danger looming out of the darkness.

Suddenly the air was rent with a shriek of such pain and terror that Octavia’s heart stopped dead, and Peter reared, his lips pulled back from his teeth. Octavia clung on to the halter and wound her fingers into the coarse mane, sweat beading her forehead despite the bitter cold. The shriek reached a crescendo and then died away. She began to breathe again, recognizing the sound as the death cry of some small animal fallen prey to a fox or an owl. But it did nothing to make the heath more reassuring.

Gingerly, Peter moved forward, keeping to the turf
beside the road. A stand of silver birch trees took shape ahead, their bark white in the darkness. Horse and rider drew level with the trees.

She didn’t see the thing snaking out of the darkness behind her. She heard nothing until with a faint snap the whip curled around her body, wrapping twice around her, securing her in the heavy folds of her cloak. She felt no pain, but her mouth opened on a scream of shock that died in her throat as his voice spoke into her ear, “Not a sound!”

Octavia swallowed the scream and sat still, her arms imprisoned in her cloak, only her hands free, uselessly clutching the mane and the halter. Peter whinnied in recognition as the silver horse came up beside him.

Octavia turned her head. The silver’s black-shrouded rider regarded her in silence. His eyes were gray slits behind a black silk mask, and he wore a black silk scarf knotted loosely around his neck. He flicked his wrist, the whip uncurled, snaked through the air to be caught and coiled in one deft movement. He looped it over the pommel again.

Suddenly, the silver raised his head and whickered softly. Peter shuffled on the turf. Lord Nick became very still, his head cocked. Octavia froze.

Then she heard it, the faint rumble of iron wheels coming out of the darkness around the curve in the road ahead.

“Move into the trees.” His voice was as quiet as the grave, his eyes almost without expression as they rested on her face, but Octavia could no more have imagined disobeying the instruction than she could have stood up against an avalanche. She urged Peter backward into the stand of silver birch until they were out of sight of the road.

Lord Nick drew the silk scarf up over his mouth as he sat his horse beside the road. Then both horse and rider became totally still. Octavia strained eyes and ears into the darkness. She could just make out the shape of the highwayman; the rattle of wheels, the pounding of hooves, grew louder. The coach was coming at a fair clip. Now she could hear the crack of a whip, the voice of the coachman urging
on his horses as they approached the bend and the stand of trees.

The coachman’s frantic urgency seemed to indicate that he knew he was approaching some notorious point of ambush. The hair on her nape lifted, and a shiver of apprehension ran down her spine.

The coach lumbered around the corner, the coachman standing up on his box, cracking his whip, the six horses pounding the ill-made road, sending up a shower of gravel and larger stones.

Leisurely, the highwayman moved into the road. He raised a pistol and fired once over the team’s head. The horses reared and plunged, the boxes on top of the coach swayed and thudded against the ropes holding them. The coachman cursed vilely, and within the vehicle a shrill scream ensued, followed by a confused babble of voices.

Lord Nick remained where he was in the middle of the road as the coachman fought to get control of his horses. The postilions hauled back on the reins of the leaders, and the equipage at last came to a steaming, clattering halt.

“I won’t keep you long, gentlemen,” Lord Nick said casually. His voice, despite the silk scarf over his mouth, carried on the still air, but to Octavia it didn’t sound like the voice she knew. He was speaking with a faint but unmistakable foreign accent, and the timbre was higher, more musical. She listened and watched, fascinated despite the cold chill of naked terror.

“Would you throw down that blunderbuss, sir?” he requested the coachman politely. “And if you two gentlemen would throw down your pistols also.”

The coachman cursed him, but the three weapons thudded to the ground.

“Thank you.”

“Robert … Robert, do something!” shrilled a female voice from within the carriage. “You great lump, sitting there like a bowl of cold porridge! We’re being held up! It’s a highwayman!”

“Yes, my dear,” returned a weary voice. “I know.”

“Then do something! What are you? A man or a mouse? Protect my honor!”

“I doubt your honor is in danger, my dear.” There was a muffled thump, a resigned sigh, and then slowly the carriage door swung open.

A thin gentleman in a bag wig stepped down, fumbling with the sword at his waist. He looked up rather helplessly at the highwayman sitting atop his silver horse.

“You … you blackguard. I’ll see you hanging in chains before I give you a penny!” he declared with remarkable lack of conviction.

“My dear sir, I assure you I’m not in the least interested in your money,” Lord Nick said calmly. “But I do beg you not to trouble with your sword, it will only lead to unpleasantness.”

The man regarded him in frank bewilderment, his hand resting on the hilt of his half-drawn sword. “Not interested?”

“No, sir,” the highwayman said pleasantly. “Not in anything of yours. Sheathe your sword, if you please.”

“La, Robert! What’re you doing out there? Have you run him through yet?” A florid face appeared in the window of the coach, a towering powdered headdress swaying perilously above. “Odd’s bones, man, what good are you?” she declared in disgust, taking in the scene. “I could have been robbed and ravished by now. Run him through, I tell you. Do it this minute.”

“Yes, my dear … but it’s a little difficult, you see….” The thin man, his hand still on his sword hilt, continued to gaze helplessly up at the highwayman. “He’s on a horse, you see,” he offered in desperate explanation.

“La, I can see that, you windbag!” The door crashed open, and a mountainous figure swathed in crimson velvet descended. “Give me that sword!” She grabbed for it. “I’ll defend myself, you great lummox!”

“Forgive me, ma’am, but you have nothing to defend,” Lord Nick said, his eyes now alight with laughter but his voice as steady as before. “Pray return to the coach.”

“Don’t you talk to me like that, you murdering thief!”
With a great wrench the lady managed to pull the sword out of the sheath with a jerk that sent the hilt crashing into the chin of the unfortunate gentleman, who fell back, tripped over a stone in the road, and sat down with a weary little sigh that sounded like air escaping from a feather pillow.

“Now, you dastard! Attack a defenseless woman, would you?” Her large frame lumbered toward him with a movement reminiscent of a dancing elephant. She flourished the sword wildly, and Lord Nick’s horse shied.

The long whip snapped and curled around the hilt of the sword, effortlessly lifting it from her grasp. Then the blade fell to the road with a clatter.

Lord Nick leaned low over his saddle and scooped up the sword from the road, saying mildly, “I trust I didn’t hurt you, madam. Now, perhaps you’d return to the coach.” A touch of flint entered his voice at this point, and the woman stared at him, her jaw slack, her previously florid complexion now as white as whey.

Her husband scrambled to his feet, dusting off his coat. “Best do as he says, my dear.” He touched her arm with a placating hand.

“Coward!” she spat at the poor unfortunate, jerking her arm away. With a swish of her skirts she climbed back into the coach.

“Sir?” The highwayman gestured in her wake. “I can see you might find it more peaceful out here, but I’m afraid I must insist.”

The gentleman glanced over his shoulder at the coach, then, with a resigned shrug, followed his wife into the interior. The highwayman dismounted, still holding the sword, and leaned through the window. A small man in a dark-brown suit sat trembling in the corner, trying to make himself invisible.

The woman sat on the edge of the seat, for the moment mercifully silent, fanning herself with her gloves. When she saw the highwayman in the window, she hissed like a serpent, waving one pudgy hand, where a massive emerald winked among the folds of flesh.

“I’d give you my body sooner than let you have my rings … dastard!”

“Fortunately for us both, ma’am,
I
require neither,” Lord Nick returned in a voice as dry as the Sahara.

“You … you … you blackguard!” she exclaimed. “Do something, Robert.”

“Oh, do hold your tongue, Cornelia,” begged the long-suffering Robert, finally pushed beyond caution.

“Bravo, sir,” the highwayman applauded as the outraged Cornelia gobbled like a turkey. He leaned farther into the coach and politely addressed the man shrinking in the corner.

“Would you be good enough to pass me that leather satchel beneath your seat, sir?”

At this the little man sat up and stared at the highwayman as if he were looking upon a sorcerer. “How … how …?”

“Never mind how, my dear sir,” the highwayman said. “If you would just pass it across to me, then you may all be on your way again. It’s an inhospitable night to be traveling, I can’t think what you were thinking of.”

“Oh, I said we should have stayed overnight in the Bell and Book.” Cornelia recovered her tongue. “But you wouldn’t listen!”

“But, my dear ma’am, you were adamant we must reach town tonight,” her husband exclaimed. “I tried to point out the folly of crossing the heath late at night, but—”

“Oh,
you
hold your tongue!” Cornelia swiped at him with her reticule. “Don’t you dare argue with me…. Your memory is like a sieve, and you have the gall to tell me that I am mistaken….”

Lord Nick closed his ears as the tirade increased in volume. He took the leather satchel from the trembling passenger and withdrew his head from the window.

“To your left!”
Octavia’s yell cut through the night. He whirled, just in time to see one of the postilions grabbing up a pistol from the road.

Lord Nick sprang forward; the sword in his hand
flashed in the dark, and the postilion dropped the pistol with a cry of pain. He fell back against the coach, clutching his hand.

“Fool!” the highwayman declared bluntly, kicking all three weapons into the bushes beside the road. “You!” He beckoned the second postilion. “Bind your friend’s hand and look sharp about it.”

Lord Nick remounted while the lad slunk over to his wounded fellow and wound his kerchief around the bleeding hand. The highwayman waited until the postilions were back on their horses, the coachman on the box once more in charge of the reins. Then he moved his horse out of the roadway.

“Carry on, coachman.” The man needed no second invitation. The whip cracked and the horses plunged forward. Raising his hat, Lord Nick bowed with a flourish as the coach passed him, and the face of Cornelia, scarlet with fury, filled the window aperture.

As the coach thundered out of earshot, Octavia emerged from the trees. She was convulsed with an almost hysterical laughter and wiped at her streaming eyes with the back of her hand.

“That poor man!” she gasped.

“Yes, one’s heart bleeds,” Rupert agreed dryly, pulling the silk scarf away from his mouth. Reaching behind him with one hand, he unfastened the mask and thrust it into the pocket of his caped cloak. Then he regarded Octavia steadily.

“Would you mind telling me just what exactly you think you’re doing?”

“Ah,” said Octavia. “Well, to be brutally honest, thinking didn’t really come into it.”

“No …,” he said musingly, stroking his chin. “No, I suppose it didn’t, because if by some miracle you had given the matter an instant’s reflection, you would not be here. Would you?”