“My personal life is as I wish it to be,” she finally retorted, lifting her chin.
Walter scowled, for a woman should never be so openly contradictory. Elizabeth Wyndham had neither tact nor good manners, but she did have damnably fine breasts. There wasn’t a finer pair in all the Dales. “Speaking of your personal life,” he said, keeping his voice steady, attempting a sangfroid he didn’t feel, “I assume you’re still planning to do me the very great honor of acting the devoted companion during next week’s fête. I have been keeping company with a wealthy widow who yearns for my escort, but you agreed so many months ago and your mother—”
“Stepmother!”
“—said that you have been eagerly anticipating our engagement.”
“If you have found yourself a wealthy widow, my lord, I’ll not hold you to your promise.”
“Dear Elizabeth,” he began, clasping his hands in front of him, purposefully flashing the ruby ring that dwarfed his index finger. “Dear, dear Elizabeth, I would not consider reneging on my promise. It’s just that sometimes you seem more concerned with making a statement than acting the woman, and many men might find that a bit off-putting.”
She arched an eyebrow. “And you, my lord?”
Stafford hesitated once again, his eyes raking her body. Damnably fine. “No, I don’t find you off-putting,” he said, and even to his own ears, his voice sounded rough, throaty. Aware that such naked desire would only further alienate her, he shifted his attention back to Tim. “I’ve been helping your ostler sharpen his powers of observation, my dear. Even someone as dim-witted as Tim might inadvertently supply information which will rid this area of the scourge that has descended upon us.”
“Yes, we all know how lawless the Dales are. Even the sheep have criminal records. Really, my lord, from your attitude one would think that you were a member of London’s Bow Street Runners, rather than someone who spends his time issuing alehouse licenses.”
Stafford’s smile was peculiar. “I have not always lived in the Dales,” he said. “And you comprehend very little about me, though I remain eager to rectify that deficiency. Despite your doubts, my dear Elizabeth, I am confident that those two scoundrels are very nearly within our grasp. I’ve studied them and their minds, and I know them better than they know themselves. I must confess, I’m more concerned with the quiet one than his flamboyant partner.”
Her heart slammed against her bodice. “And why is that, sir?”
“The loud one has obviously assimilated the same propaganda as most of the populace, who believe what they read about in chapbooks and what they see in The Beggar’s Opera. But I sense the quiet one is conducting his own private war with society. He is the one who must be caught. And he will be. For when it all comes down to it, despite their superficial differences, highwaymen are stupid and lazy. They live only to drink and whore and gamble. They rely solely on a pistol to intimidate their victims, a mask to disguise their features, and a fast horse for escape. Beyond that, they have no imagination.”
Which sounds remarkably like you, thought Elizabeth.
“I don’t believe these men are stupid or lazy,” she countered. “They certainly work hard at their trade. And I need not remind you that they made short work of the watchmen you posted. The Gentleman Giant and his Quiet Companion tied the watchmen up, took their places, then proceeded to rob every person who passed by. That, my lord, takes imagination.”
Stafford threw back his head and laughed, as if Elizabeth had just related the most amusing anecdote. “I love wit in the fairer sex, my dear, which is one of the reasons why I remain so smitten with you. Watchmen are old and decrepit. Anybody could thwart them, even a woman. Not that some of you aren’t extremely capable,” he amended, “although your independence afforded you ill when you were faced with danger.”
Before she could reply, a stable boy arrived with Stafford’s horse.
Stafford removed his heavily scrolled gold pocket watch, its fob-seal encrusted with diamonds. “Oh my. I’ve enjoyed our chat, but I must be on my way. However, the prospect of spending an entire day in your lovely company will warm my heart on the cold ride home.”
He swung up onto his horse. “I was distressed after reading Castles of Doom,” he said, leaning sideways. “I’ve read all your books, you know. Some were acceptable, but Castles of Doom was most definitely not.”
“And why is that, my lord?”
“You may possess the face of an angel, but your mind seems to work in an inappropriately masculine manner. Lady Guinevere was not always as chaste as she should be. She seldom knew her place, and on more than one occasion she was downright contumacious.”
“Contumacious? Did it ever occur to you that Guinevere was stubbornly disobedient because circumstances forced her—”
“She was rebellious!”
“If I am so contumacious, I should think you’d quit asking me to marry you.”
“I’ve always enjoyed a challenge.” Stafford reined his horse around. “And I warn you. I’m just as dogged in the pursuit of love as I am in my quest for justice.”
Still angry, Elizabeth watched him melt into the fog-shrouded highway.
Tim sidled up to her and thrust his hands through his pale, uncombed hair. “That one likes to talk, don’t he?”
“Pay him no mind. Lord Stafford likes to annoy people.”
“Aye.” Tim smiled his cherubic smile. “The quiet highwayman don’t keep his spoils, Mistress. He gives it over t’ them in need.”
“That’s called a bribe, Tim. Hush money.”
“Nay, Mistress. He gives over his boodle t’ them wot’s hungry an’ sick. He give Old Fife a cow.”
“A cow,” Elizabeth repeated, dazed. She had pictured John in many guises, but never altruistic.
“Aye, Mistress. Old Fife’s daughter died i’ the straw, birthin’ a baby, an’ there weren’t no wet nurse hereabouts, nor coins fer one wot bided far off. That baby fared poorly, no more ’n this side o’ the grave, ’til the quiet highwayman brung Old Fife a cow.”
“Did the baby live, Tim?”
“Aye.”
“Thank God.”
“Nay, Mistress. Thank the highwayman.”
Elizabeth watched her ostler walk toward the harness room. With a sigh, she veered toward the stalls. Lantern lights dropped soft golden circles upon row after row of browns and blacks and roans and horses the color of tonight’s fog. The scent of ammonia, leather, and hay from an overhead loft enshrouded her while she made her way to Rhiannon, her mare. Elizabeth heard a stable boy’s whistle, the cursing of a groom who had dropped something, and the stirring of the horses.
Rhiannon greeted her with a soft nicker. Elizabeth wrapped her arms around the mare’s neck and rested her cheek against the smooth chestnut coat. Something about Rhiannon’s warmth and the darkness in the high-backed stall caused Elizabeth to feel as alone as the moor owls who skimmed the gills.
“I’m trapped,” she whispered to her mare. “I am twenty-eight years old, a spinster without prospects. My life is half over and what do I have to show for it? Lord Stafford was right. I am too masculine. I don’t fit in anywhere. I may rail against a woman’s lot, and name a hundred things I find unjust, yet I have no idea what would make me happy.”
She thought of Old Fife’s baby and the brown-eyed baby. She thought of the couples leaning against each other while they conversed or shared a slice of lamb or smiled together over some shared memory.
I don’t want that, she thought, leading Rhiannon from her stall. But what do I want?
Deciding a saddle was unnecessary, Elizabeth mounted her mare from a block, then plunged into the fog. She often rode out on fitful evenings, when the weather was as unpredictable as her moods. She especially enjoyed racing across the countryside, with the thunder growling and the rain slashing her face. She loved the charged air and the powe
r of a storm, which empowered her as well. This was a quieter night, designed to soothe rather than excite the soul, but her soul was in need of soothing. She felt protected by the fog, which nestled deep in the valleys, settled thick upon the bracken, and obliterated the treeless landscape. Elizabeth felt as if she could wrap the fog around her like a cloak, perhaps even hide from the world.
What lay beyond the ravines and caves? York, of course, and London, and beyond that France and Spain, India and America. But what else? Her Aunt Lilith told stories of a magic world filled with spells and bindings and enchanted happenings. Elizabeth desperately wanted the world to be like that tonight. If it was, she could make a wish and bring her books to life, or she could change her destiny with the utterance of a spell, or she could—
A pistol cracked.
Elizabeth reined in Rhiannon and looked around. It was impossible to determine direction or distance. She heard a shout, seemingly cut off in mid-cry. Then she heard hoofbeats, cutting across the fields, racing toward her. She saw the swirl of a black cloak, the blur of a dark horse, and she felt the earth shake beneath her as the horse and rider thundered past.
Could that have been John plying his trade? But he and his partner always worked together.
“John!” Elizabeth called.
Her only answer was silence.
Eight
Elizabeth awakened from a fitful sleep. The wind rattled her shutters. She rolled over on her side. The shutters rattled again, as if someone shook them. She sat up.
The night had carried fog, but no wind.
Crossing to the window, she raised the sash, swung open the shutters, and leaned out. Her long, unbound hair tumbled over the window’s ledge.
John sat astride his black stallion, bathed by the moonlight. “I thought you’d never awaken,” he said. “I nearly broke my whip beating on your shutters.”
“How did you know which room was mine?”
“I know everything about you, my bonny Bess.”
He looked so pleased with himself, she could not help but return his impish grin. “I’ve looked everywhere for you,” she confessed, propping her elbows on the window’s ledge. “Nobody would tell me anything.”
“That’s why highwaymen always have limited funds. Bribery is expensive.”
“I’ve heard you do more than bribe. I’ve heard you help those in need.”
“’Tis merely a drop in the bucket.” John removed his hat, shook the moisture from its brim, then rested it on his saddle horn. “Despite your low opinion of your justice of the peace, he’s made life difficult for my partner and me, and I have a feeling that things are about to get much worse. ’Tis time we moved along.”
“But Walter Stafford is a cork-head. He cannot find his snuffbox, let alone a criminal.”
“You underestimate him, Bess. I think you’re soon going to learn that there is more to Stafford than he generally presents to the world.”
She felt her skin prickle. “What have you done now? Have you been up to more mischief?”
Ignoring her questions, he retrieved a coin purse from beneath his cloak, then tossed it to her. “I am honoring my promise, Bess. Since you work so hard for your money, I didn’t think it fair to keep it forever.”
Elizabeth estimated the purse’s weight. “This is far too heavy for pound notes.”
John shrugged. “In my business, I have to improvise.”
She studied him, his dark hair sweeping untidily across his forehead, his eyes sparkling with excitement. Who are you? An ordinary man who’s fallen into lawlessness, an altruistic outlaw, or someone “at war with society”?
According to chapbooks, highwaymen were brought into the trade because of gambling debts or a disinheritance or some other acceptably genteel reason. Why had John become one?
“Do you think to repay me with your ill-gotten funds, John Randolph? Was it you I heard earlier tonight? Were you out in the fog, waylaying coach passengers?”
“What were you doing out in the fog?”
“Celebrating,” she fibbed, even though she had a feeling he might understand her restlessness. “I’ve just finished the last installment of Castles of Doom.”
“How does it end?”
“You must purchase a copy to find out.”
“I’m serious, Bess. How does it end?”
“Happily ever after.”
“Ralf Darkstarre… does he die?”
“No,” she replied uncomfortably, remembering the Alcester Chronicles. She also recalled the curator’s comment about a man who limped. “John, do you read Latin?”
“Darkstarre doesn’t suffer a bloody death?” he pressed, ignoring her query.
“I just told you. He does not. Conventional wisdom says that Gothic romances must end on a happy note.”
“But Darkstarre was the villain.”
“Not to Lady Guinevere. I mean, he was a villain, of course he was, a thoroughly reprehensible rebel…” Cheeks aflame, she swallowed the rest of her explanation, and instead gazed down at the purse she held so tightly against her palm, secured by her clenched fingers. “If I accept this, will the law consider me an accessory?”
John laughed. “You don’t give a hang what the law says. I suspect you’re every bit as rebellious as I am.”
Elizabeth was flattered by his characterization, but her rebellions were largely in her imagination. “I don’t consider an occasional comment about a woman’s sorry lot the same as holding a man at gunpoint,” she said. “Why don’t you retire, John? Find yourself a more respectable way to thumb your nose at society and—”
“Never,” he interrupted, his expression so fierce she recoiled, momentarily afraid of him. “Besides,” he said, his manner again smooth and unruffled, “if I were a respectable merchant or craftsman, I would not have robbed Lady Avery. And most likely I would not have happened across Castles of Doom.”
“I should have guessed. You picked up my volume along with your booty, and when you had some free time between robbing people, you read it.” She saw John’s knee-high black boots glimmer in the moonlight. His stallion pawed the cobblestones. “And you were so impressed, you simply had to meet me,” she added sarcastically.
“I can’t decide whether I’m pleased we met, or terrified.”
“Terrified? Whatever do you mean?” She dropped the purse on the floor and pressed her hands against her heart.
Standing in his stirrups, he entwined his fingers through her unbound hair, drawing her to him, brushing her lips with his own. Elizabeth’s breath caught in her throat. “John,” she whispered. She nearly added: I do love thee, but that was absurd. He had stolen from her. He was a rogue, a good-for-naught, a scoundrel. Still, it seemed right to tell him she loved him.
Rather than speak, she kissed him, softly at first, then harder, more urgently. As her mouth opened under the onslaught of his tongue, she felt her limbs grow weak. As if they had kissed like this a thousand times before, as if they had lain together and he had stroked every inch of her body, as if she had already felt his hands caress her breasts and thighs, as if she already knew what it was like to feel him inside her, to own him as her beloved. And all the while her mind whispered: I do love thee. And all the while she knew it was true, that she did love him, that she had always loved him.
“Enough,” he said, pulling away. Elizabeth stumbled backwards, bent over double, her hands beating at the air for balance. Then, standing upright, she extended her arms in a gesture of supplication.
Rand had seen that identical gesture before!
Of course he had. Many of his ladies had offered up just such a gesture, begging him to return to their beds. But none had stood above a window’s casement, ebony hair shrouding a white nightshift. He contemplated climbing through Bess’s window, but suddenly she was gone. Feeling hollow and cold at the loss of her warmth, he watched the roo
m flicker and glow. She had lit a candle.
Darkness was much more tempting than light, even though he would love to see her body enshrined by candlelight, her womanly curves visible, nay, defined by the taper’s illumination. But he couldn’t treat Elizabeth Wyndham like one of his London bunters. She would require a covenant of promises, a commitment he was unwilling to give. At the very least, she would insist he forfeit his life of crime.
After his niece’s death, he had pressed his lips upon a Bible and sworn revenge. Revenge against whom? The upper classes, of course. Would Bess consider his present activities fair trade? Rand doubted it. Sometimes he wondered if his actions stemmed from another motive. Perhaps he wanted to atone for sins committed in his past by playing the sainted Robin Hood. What sins? Could the death of the American rebels be considered an offense against God? Rand thought not. In battle, one killed or was killed—a simple concept. Anyway, Rand had a feeling his transgressions had been committed five hundred years ago, a ridiculous concept.
Bess stirred a host of emotions in him that were better left buried. He didn’t want to think about the past or how they might be connected. Yet even as he told himself that a man only lived once and any other notion bordered on madness, somehow it didn’t seem mad. On the contrary, it seemed eminently logical.
Elizabeth poked her head out through the open window. “You really are a scoundrel,” she said.
“I try to be.” He raised his whip in a mock salute. “Get some sleep, Bess. Dream of your highwayman. Dream of Rand.”
“Rand?”
“My given name is John Randolph Remington,” he confessed, wondering if his slip of the tongue had been intentional. Was he challenging her trustworthiness? “My friends call me Rand, not John.” He grinned recklessly. “I would have you call me Rand, Bess, especially in your dreams. And now, good night.”
“Wait!” she called. “When will I see you again?”
But John… Rand’s horse was already racing across the cobblestones. Only after the stallion’s hoofbeats had died away did Elizabeth retrieve the discarded coin purse and walk over to her writing table. Darting a quick glance toward Castles of Doom, she focused on the purse. From inside, she retrieved a gold watch, a ruby ring, and more guineas than she could easily count.
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