Highroad

by Jeanie P Johnson

  “I would like that,” Lavonia told him.

  “It will take some practice,” he informed her.

  “My days are so boring, I have plenty of time to practice, Patrick,” she laughed.

  “Then when you come back from shooting, I’ll show you,” he promised.

  “All right,” she agreed, and then turned Thunderbolt out to the road, and headed out of town towards the moors.

  There were not many riders along this point, because most of the social riders went to the park at the other end of town, and serious travelers took their carriages, so Lavonia seldom met anyone on the road leading to the moors.

  She liked the feel of the wind in her face, and the easy motion of Thunderbolt rising and falling beneath her legs. She thought about what Grange had said about her only having a horse between her thighs, and now she knew what he was talking about. At the time she just went along with his teasing, not sure what he was talking about. But how could he talk as though that was actually pleasant? How could it ever be pleasant to a woman? She could understand a man liking it. It must feel good to them, or why else would they frequent women of the night? But a woman had to suffer the humiliation of a man touching her there in her most vulnerable place, jabbing at her like she was some sort of object to satisfy his lust. Even though Grange eluded to some sort of pleasure for a woman who took on a lover, she could not possibly imagine what that might be?

  Maybe it was the kissing? She thought idly. Maybe a true lover kissed the woman senseless until she didn’t even know what he was doing until it was all over. She laughed bitterly. It would take a lot of kissing to pull her mind away from being aware of something like that. She would never do it willingly!

  Eventually she found a place where there was actually a tree, and she dismounted Thunderbolt and tied him to a near by bush. Then she took some chalk out of her vest pocket, and drew a target on the tree. She decided it would be best to practice shooting close up to the target, and then move farther away each time she accomplished hitting the bulls eye. Standing close was not so hard, but the farther she got away from the target, the harder it became. Still she was determined to perfect her aim. She did not want to take any chances, incase someone came upon her while holding a carriage up. She could not take the risk of ever getting caught. But at the same time she dreaded having to actually shoot anyone. She didn’t want to be responsible for someone’s death. Remembering how Max looked after he fell from her body, was enough death to last her for a lifetime, she thought, as she felt her hand shaking, the moment the memory was recalled.

  But she loved the wonderful feeling that she got, each time she managed to hit the bulls eye. It made her feel powerful, like she felt when she was flirting with men, leading them around by the nose, without them even realizing it. Only this was ten times better, she thought. She was gaining a skill that few women, if any, had. She should have been a man, she told herself. Then she began to wonder if she was a man, would she be out frequenting women of the night? Why couldn’t she get those thoughts out of her head, she scoffed?

  When she ran out of bullets, she had to return. Luckily, she was on a slight hill, and had Thunderbolt stand on the down side of the rise, while she stood on the high side, and was able to get her foot in the stirrup. When she got back she would have Patrick show her how to mount by swinging up.

  Patrick was pleased to show Lavonia the method in doing it, but having the muscles to swing her body up, as she grabbed onto the horses mane was an obstacle that would take more than practice.

  “I’ll get a shorter horse,” Patrick offered. “Once you build up your muscles practicing, it will be easier to swing up on Thunderbolt,” he decided.

  Patrick brought out a bay mare that was a couple hands shorter than the stallion, and Lavonia began to practice once more. She would get her foot half way over the saddle, only to slide down again. But Lavonia would not give up, and as Patrick went back to his regular grooming chores, she persistently kept trying.

  She almost had it, she thought, as she backed up to take a short running leap, while she held onto the mare’s mane, and as her leg hit the saddle, she felt a firm hand pushing her bottom, giving her that extra support to swing her leg over. “Patrick!” Lavonia scolded, wondering at his boldness to even touch her bottom, but when she turned to look, and saw it was Grange laughing up at her.

  “What in the duce are you trying to do, Lavonia?” he asked as his green eyes twinkled at her.

  “What does it look like I am doing? I can’t always have some man’s hand on my bottom, helping me to mount. What if I fell off, and there was no one around to help me back up on my horse?” She reasoned.

  “If you had a skirt on, you would never be able to do that,” he pointed out.

  “I do not ride with the social crowd any longer, so I don’t have to wear a skirt to ride now.”

  “I must say, I like the way those britches show off your bottom,” he chuckled.

  “You keep your eyes off of my bottom,” she frowned, and he laughed.

  “Don’t see how you are going to stop me,” he parried. “I came to take you out to lunch, but dressed like that, I think you would cause a stir.”

  “Take me out to lunch? Honestly, Grange, you can’t be courting me. I am a new widow.”

  “Who said I was courting you? You told me you were bored staying in your house all day, and there are no social rules that say an old friend cannot take a widow out to lunch, is there? So climb down from that sorry excuse of a horse, and come join me. Only I believe you will need to change out of your gentleman tweeds,” he chuckled.

  “I can’t believe you have come to brighten my day,” Lavonia smiled, as she slid down from the saddle, to find Grange’s strong hands, easing her to the ground, as he held her by the waist. “Usually you try to put a blight on my day.”

  “Now that is not fair,” he defended. “Everything I ever wrote about you was the absolute truth!” he informed her.

  “It was the way you put it, that always stung,” she responded, as she batted her eyes at him, getting her old spirit back.

  Grange liked the spark he saw in her eyes. “You look different somehow, he told her. “Not so unhappy. If I didn’t know better, I would say you are planning something.”

  “Silly. What could I be planning?” she said as she took his arm and walked beside him back towards the house. “I have just gotten back from a much satisfying day of riding.”

  “On that nag, you just got off of?” he asked, surprised that Lavonia would lower herself to such a tame horse. She certainly was getting soft, he thought.

  “And I am learning to defend myself with a gun.” She took the gun from her pocket to show him.

  “Get that thing away from me before you shoot someone!” he demanded.

  “I don’t intend to shoot anyone. I just merely need to scare them a bit,” she purred.

  “You are scaring me enough, just thinking you are carrying that thing around with you. I hope you don’t have any bullets in it.”

  “Now what good would a gun be if it didn’t have any bullets?” she asked laughing, as she put the pistol away.

  “Something to scare someone with, since they would not know if it held bullets or not.”

  “But what if I really needed to use it, and it was empty?” she asked.

  “Where are you ever going to be where you will need it?” he questioned.

  “I sometimes ride out on the moor by myself,” she admitted.

  “Now, Lavonia, I don’t want to hear that! A woman alone……”

  “I dress like a man, so it is not like I am sticking out like a sore thumb in my frilly dresses, on the back of a horse. But even then, I should be prepared, don’t you think?”

  “If you are going to be out riding on your own, why don’t you send for me? I would ride out with you.”

  “I like being alone,” she stated. “I don’t need a man protecting me!” She stuck out her lower lip in her stubbornness.


  “You are just asking for trouble, Lavonia.” Grange knew there was no arguing with her, so he decided to drop the subject, but he doubted that her nag of a horse could ever out run someone chasing her.

  Grange led her into the house, and waited for her to get dressed. The house depressed him, so he could understand how it would depress Lavonia, who was always so full of spirit and mischief. The wedding and death of Max had taken its toll on her, and he could see it. He wondered if she would ever become her old self again? The old Lavonia was the woman he loved. This new Lavonia, he was not used to. There were moments he thought she was actually warming up to him, though, only to draw back again, but not in that spit fire way she used to have. He could hear the yapping of dogs in some part of the house, and he knew it was this gloomy house that was pulling Lavonia’s spirits down. He wished there was some way to take her away from it all, but her stubborn pride would never allow it, he realized.

  When she came down the staircase, dressed in one of her fine gowns, he noticed it fit a little more loosely than her gowns had fit her before, and he realized she had lost weight. “Haven’t you been eating, darling?” he asked as she came to wind her hand around his elbow. “We are going to have to fatten you up again.”

  “Nonsense,” she laughed. “I am fat as it is. But I do appreciate the offer of lunch.”

  “What puts the new spark in your eyes?” he asks. “You have something you are not telling me.”

  “Poo, Grange. You just want something to write about in that outrageous paper of yours. I haven’t seen a word printed about Marybeth yet,” she laughed.

  “She isn’t interesting enough,” he said, looking closer at her to figure out what she was trying to hide.

  “And here I thought you were besotted with her charm, and that lovely voice of hers.”

  “No one can make me feel besot but you, my dear,” he chuckled.

  “But I am just a boring widow. Nothing to do but sulk around in my ugly house.”

  “That is why I wonder about that spark you have in your eyes,” he prodded.

  “You are imagining it,” she told him. “Maybe you should look again.” She turned her head up to him and gazed into his eyes.

  Grange paused, as he looked into her soft brown eyes, and noted her enticing lips pulling at the small amount of his resistance, that was hanging by a thread. He couldn’t help but remember the kiss she shared with him the day before she was to be married. He so wanted to kiss those lips again, but he straightened up, and shrugged. “I will know soon enough,” he murmured, and led her out to his waiting carriage.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  It had been a week since Lavonia first started practicing with the gun. She must be a natural, she thought satisfactorily to herself, because now it seemed easy to hit the target. She even had Patrick come out with her, to throw up bottles for her to hit, and he praised her for her ability to hit a moving target. “You shouldn’t have any problem scaring off bad men,” he told her, which made Lavonia feel guilty, because she was about to become a bad man herself.

  Everyday was spent swinging up on the bay, until she had the strength to swing up on Thunderbolt as well, and she was feeling quite proud of her accomplishments. She no longer felt listless and bored, because now she had a goal to accomplish. Even though it was a daring and illegal goal, it gave her something to look forward too. The gentry wouldn’t miss their jewels and money that much, and it would give them something to talk about at the next event where they got together.

  Grange had continued to press her during lunch, because he was sure she was planning something, and it irked her that he could read her so well. But then he had been keeping his eyes on her ever since he started writing in the news, and probably before that, she reasoned, so it was no wonder he could pick up on her moods.

  The night that she had decided to put her new occupation in practice, she was as nervous as a hen guarding her chicks. Several times she decided not to do it, and went and put the gun away, but then she would stride with determined renewal of will, back to the drawer, and take it out again. She had put on Max’s black trousers, vest, and coat, pinned her hair up on top of her head, and pulled on a black hat low over her forehead, tied a black scarf that she had cut holes in, over her eyes, and put the pistol in her pocket. She wore high riding boots, and when she looked in the mirror, she didn’t even recognize herself.

  It would be easy to sneak out at night, since Patrick went home at night, and Max’s mother slept like a log at the other end of the house, with her yapping dogs, so they would not start barking. It was so simple, it frightened Lavonia, because it was just too damn easy, she thought. Anything that easy had to have some flaw in it, she reasoned.

  She chose the weekend of a full moon, because she was so unsure of herself, and wanted to be sure she could see what she was doing, the first time holding up a carriage. She wasn’t even sure how to go about it, but she figured she would sort it out, once she got to the spot where she planned to wait for the Wellingtons, on their way to a fundraiser, she had heard about. Fundraisers always meant that the people would have plenty of money on their persons, and be showing off their wealth by the jewelry that they wore. The Wellingtons were an elderly couple but not so old they would die of a heart attack caused by the fright of being held up on the road. Better yet, they wouldn’t be expecting it, because there hadn’t been any highway men in that area for no telling how long.

  Lavonia sat on her horse, on the rise of a hill. Her heart was pounding so hard, it seemed like hoof beats, and she kept looking around to see if there was a rider on the road. Thunderbolt was as nervous as she was. He was probably picking it up from her, but the one thing she had forgotten to do, was to practice riding him at night, and he wasn’t used to being taken out of the stables after dark. He kept pawing the ground, and a couple of times he reared up, and she could barely hold him back. That alone almost made her head back home and forget about the whole idea.

  But then she thought it would be such a disappointment, now, not to do it. And such a thrill, if she followed through. She set her resolve and calmed Thunderbolt as much as she could, while he danced in place, and she kept her eye on the road. She began to wonder if the Wellingtons were going to attend the fundraiser, and she had been wasting her time, sitting out here waiting for them, and then she heard the distant sound of a carriage coming in her direction. She just hoped it was the Wellingtons, and not someone else. She wouldn’t be prepared to rob someone who might also have a gun in their possession.

  As the carriage, slowed for the bend in the road, she could see the Wellington’s through the carriage window, and she gave Thunderbolt a tap with the whip, but it startled the horse so much, it caused him to rear, and almost unseat her. She gained control just in time, and forced the horse down the rise, out in front of the carriage, shooting her gun in the air.

  The driver pulled his horses up, and she rode up along side of the carriage. “This is a robbery,” she announced in a deep French accent. She was glad she has studied French a bit, even though she did not speak the language fluently. She just hoped none of her victims were French and could call her on it. “Step out of your carriage,” she demanded, as she kept the gun pointed at the driver, trying to stop her wrist from shaking. At this rate she wouldn’t be able to hit the carriage, let alone the driver, if he pulled a gun on her.

  The footman came around and opened the door, as though nothing out of the usual was happening, and she had to chuckle to herself. He knew she would not shoot him, and he had nothing to give her of value. Whether he felt loyal enough to protect his passengers, she did not know, but she suspected not, as footmen were the lowest on the totem poll of servants.

  Mr. and Mrs. Wellington, stepped down from the carriage. Mrs. Wellington kept crying, “Oh, dear. Oh dear.” But Mr. Wellington just glared at Lavonia.

  “Don’t worry, Madam, I am not going to harm you,” Lavonia promised. “I only want your money and jewels, but not your wedding ring. I wo
uld never deprive you of that.” It made her wonder for a split second, that when Mrs. Wellington was first married, if she enjoyed sharing her bed with Mr. Wellington? They had three grown children, so they had to have shared their bed together at least three times, she calculated. They were always so loving in public. She almost hated robbing them.

  She cleared her throat, and threw a bag down on the ground. “You can put your valuables in there,” she instructed, and Mr. Wellington picked up the bag. “Empty all your pockets,” she demanded, “and pull them out so I can see they are empty.”

  The Wellingtons did as she asked, and when the bag was full, she directed Mrs. Wellington to bring it to her, and hoped the poor woman wouldn’t end up fainting. She was a rather heavy woman, and the three of them would have a hard time getting her back in the carriage, if that were the case.

  The woman managed to bring Lavonia the bag, handing it up to her, and Lavonia smiled. “So sorry about this. I shall not stop your carriage again. I never rob anyone twice,” she assured the two.

  Mrs. Wellington managed to climb back up into the carriage, with the help of her husband and the footman, then the driver whipped up the horses, and the carriage continued on down the road, but at a faster pace than it was traveling when she first saw it.

  Lavonia was as shocked and dismayed as the Wellingtons, she thought. She was shaking all over, and almost despised herself for frightening Mrs. Wellington the way she had, but at the same time she felt elated. She had actually done it. She hadn’t had to shoot anyone, and she had tried to be as civil as possible. She pushed the bag down behind her vest, and kicked Thunderbolt into a gallop, and hurried home.

  Lavonia had barely discarded her men’s clothes, wrapping a robe around herself, when there was a pounding on the door. It was late, and she knew the butler would never hear it, and since she was already up, she decided to answer it herself. It sounded like an emergency, and she couldn’t guess who would come to the Paddington residence at this time of night?