“The boy stays with us,” Elizabeth said, moving to stand beside Fletcher. She’d changed up her voice in a believable version of a street accent. Enough of Móirín’s disguise remained that Four-Finger wasn’t likely to know who she was.
“No bird’s gonna thwart me.”
Elizabeth shrugged then pulled a knife from her boot. One of the largest knives he’d ever seen hidden on someone’s person. She brandished it like an expert. Her show of confidence brought the first hints of doubt to Four-Finger’s face.
“Drop your wee knife,” Elizabeth said. “Save me the trouble of cutting it out of your hand. I ain’t looking to make that kind o’ mess.”
“You’re bluffin’,” the man spat.
“Try your luck, then.”
Directly behind Four-Finger Mike, Fletcher could see a tall, broad-shouldered silhouette stealthily approach. Elizabeth kept her knife pointed menacingly at their foe. Fletcher assessed their situation. Where could they run? What makeshift weapons did they have? How likely was it this new arrival was one of Four-Finger’s comrades?
The figure addressed Four-Finger Mike by a less-than-flattering name. The thug spun about and was, almost too fast to be seen, leveled by a punch so hard, so perfectly placed, that Fletcher swore he could hear teeth and jaw and nose all crack at once. Four-Finger hit the ground, hard. A kick was delivered, causing the man to curl up in pain. He’d not be going anywhere.
“Danny.” The figure was Joe. Of course it was.
Daniel rushed to his friend and guardian and was promptly scooped up and carried away without a backward glance.
“That was impressive,” Elizabeth said.
Fletcher eyed her sidelong. “As was your expert knife brandishing.”
She pushed out a rush of breath. “I’m a better actress than I thought. I was also doing my best to appear unafraid, which was absolutely not true.”
Fletcher crossed to the prostrate form of Four-Finger Mike. He would eventually feel equal to standing. Fletcher would be ready when he was.
“The other Dreadfuls’ll come ’round soon enough,” he quietly told Elizabeth. “It’d be best if you weren’t here when they arrive.”
“Because then I’d be able to identify them?”
He nodded. The more she learned of the Dread Penny Society, the harder it’d be to keep his membership.
“You ain’t likely to get credit for all you’ve done today,” he said. “But I thank you for it.”
“I didn’t do it for the credit,” she said. “I suspect you didn’t either.”
He eyed the man still curled up on the ground and holding his hands to his bleeding face. “There’re too many men like this’n in the world.”
He could hear someone approaching. Telling her the location of the Dreadfuls’ headquarters, giving her the ability to identify a growing number of them . . . he’d broken a lot of rules. There were always consequences for that. If another of the Dreadfuls were to appear, it’d be best if she didn’t see him.
“Rush off,” he told her earnestly. “It’s for the best.”
She hesitated only a moment before leaving swiftly. Watching her go, he realized something. Losing his membership in the Dread Penny Society would hurt and sting and frustrate him. But losing Elizabeth was a tragedy he’d never recover from.
by Mr. King
Installment VII,
in which our Heroine seizes her Happiness!
Lucinda casually mentioned over tea the next afternoon that she meant to take a walk in the woods and do all she could to find the highwayman. She hinted that she meant to tell him all that had happened the day before and that the necklace he had given her was the amulet he’d been searching for. Sir Frederick had shown only minimal interest, nodding and expressing his relief that the forest was now a safe place.
She knew she was not wrong about him. His smile had given him away.
Thus, when she saw her highwayman sauntering down the forest path toward her, she could not entirely contain the excitement she felt. All that she had come to admire and enjoy about this mysterious man of daring and intrigue, and all she had come to love and cherish about Sir Frederick’s generous and caring heart, were found in one remarkable gentleman.
“Miss.” He tugged at his bedraggled hat. “Fine thing seeing you here.”
“I looked for you in this very spot yesterday,” she said, “but it seems you were occupied elsewhere.”
His mouth tipped in a smile. “I was, in fact, in the forest yesterday.”
She bit back a smile of her own. “I know.”
Curiosity tugged at his mouth. “You do?”
“And, by the end of the day, I understood why I couldn’t find you.”
He tucked his hands into the pockets of his outercoat. “Did you?”
“I also discovered why Sir Frederick told me that he knew I was brave from our very first encounter, when that encounter involved no degree of courage.”
The highwayman grew noticeably uneasy. “Because he misremembered?”
“No.” She stepped up to him and, rising onto her toes, reached up and took hold of the brim of his hat. “Because he is you.” She pulled his hat off. Sir Frederick. Her Sir Frederick. Her highwayman. “Why the ruse?”
“The amulet was found during my father’s lifetime, but it did not work as it was meant to. We had the talisman, but not the one intended to wield it. Our only hope was to find someone inherently brave.”
“So you held up carriages to gauge your ‘victim’s’ reactions?”
“I severely disliked the necessity of it. It felt cruel and was certainly not kind.” All the bravado of the highwayman melted away, replaced by uncertainty and heaviness of heart. “I wished again and again I were in a position to be truthful with you about all of this. That day when we saw each other in town, I was discussing my work as a highwayman, which necessitated my dismissal of you; I could not risk you overhearing.”
So many things were making sense to her at last.
He took her hand as he’d done the day before, but this time with an aura of pleading. “I will understand, my Lucinda, if you cannot forgive me for deceiving you. The secret was simply too vast and the consequences too potentially devastating.”
She understood fully and deeply. “My darling Frederick.” She set her arms about his neck. “My dear, brave highwayman.”
In true dastardly fashion, he bent and kissed her, declaring his love and devotion through the earnestness of that very personal gesture. Lucinda clung to him, reveling in the certainty she felt within his arms, and in the promise that they could weather any storm.
Together.
The lady and the highwayman.
The Metropolitan Police stationed two men outside Thurloe, agreeing to keep them there for the time being. Mr. Allen and Four-Finger Mike had been apprehended, and they knew where to look for Mrs. George. All in all, it had been a fruitful night.
Elizabeth lowered herself into the armchair nearest her office fireplace, utterly spent. The school was completely silent, which was both reassuring and unnerving. Her girls were safe; that was what mattered most.
Fletcher stepped inside, the skin under his eyes marred with the shadow of exhaustion. He also bore the telltale bruises of one who’d been in a few too many brawls back-to-back.
“You look a tad worse for wear,” Elizabeth said, hearing the weariness in her own voice.
“Always do after a night like this’n.” He pulled the ottoman over to her chair and sat on it, facing her.
“You do this often, do you?”
“Saving children like Daniel and Hogg’s students and yours ain’t always a small ask. Sometimes it requires a fight.”
She reached out and took his hand. “The sort of fight Morris and Jimmy undertake in your stories?”
“Aye.”
�
�Is that why you write what you do? A parallel of your own efforts?”
“I started fighting for urchins while I still was one. Tried feeding m’ fellow street children while I was hungry m’self. Fought to free little’ns from violent masters while I was still bein’ beaten. Life ain’t always been kind to me, Elizabeth.”
“I know.”
Contrition touched his tired expression. “I hadn’t meant to make life harder for you, endangering you and your girls the way I did.”
Keeping his hand in hers, she rose and led him to the front-facing window. “The school is safe,” she said, motioning to the policeman patrolling the street. “I will have a brawny, capable manservant in place before the girls return. We will be safe, and no one, other than you and I and a small handful of your very trustworthy friends, will be any the wiser about my less-than-prim role in all of this.”
He wrapped his arms around her from behind, holding her tenderly. “You saved a few lives tonight. Though few know of it, I hope you feel how blasted remarkable that is.”
She turned in his arms, looking up at him, her hands on his chest. “Brogan said you might lose your membership in the Dread Penny Society.”
“Might.” He tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear, then set his arms around her again. “Tellin’ you where to find the Dreadfuls breaks some mighty big rules.”
Whether her heart pounded from worry over him or the comfort of his embrace, she didn’t know. “You had to send me, though. Everyone at Hogg’s school was in danger.”
“I intend to argue m’ case, I assure you. But it won’t be an easy-won battle,” he said.
“Was it worth it?”
“In this moment, dove, I cain’t think of a thing these past weeks that ain’t been worth it.”
He tucked her even closer. She slid her arms around his neck. His pulse picked up pace.
“You know I ain’t the sort society’s sticklers are likely to approve of.”
She interlocked her fingers behind his neck. “That is a risk I am excessively willing to take.”
His gaze narrowed. “Even if it costs you support for your school?”
“I have enough faith in us to believe we can weather whatever storms may come.”
“And if your Mr. King objects?” he asked hesitantly.
Mr. King. That still stood between them, the secret she kept, the literary rival he chased.
“Does Mr. King bother you a great deal?” she asked.
“A bit at least, but not on account o’ his success.” Fletcher lowered his voice. “He’s close to you in ways I can’t claim. How am I to compete with that?”
Of all the responses she might have received, jealousy was not one she’d expected.
“I can tell you truthfully, Fletcher Walker, that the closeness we’re sharing now is something I have never shared with Mr. King.”
“Truly?” The corner of his mouth tipped upward.
“Truly. Furthermore, I have every intention of introducing him to you.”
That pulled his eyes wide. She couldn’t help a laugh at his surprised amazement.
“King won’t object?”
She shook her head. Mr. King most certainly wouldn’t. How she wished her nom de plume was a real person so she could send him traipsing into the Dread Penny Society headquarters demanding both membership and Fletcher’s reinstatement.
“My heart aches that you might lose your place among the Dreadfuls.” She rested her head against him, relishing the lingering embrace. “I will think of a way to help; I swear I will.”
“You’re helping more than you know, dear.”
She tipped her head enough to look up at him once more. “We can still be a team, even if the DPS tosses you out.”
“I’ve every intention of always bein’ on your team.”
She could feel herself blush even as her smile grew. “I suspect you like me, Fletcher Walker.”
“I love you,” he said. “With every breath, every heartbeat, every thought. I love you, Miss Elizabeth Black. I love you, and I always will.”
She swallowed back the emotion rising unexpectedly in her throat. He loved her. He truly did.
“No matter that I make my living with words, I’m at a loss to express how very much I love you,” she said.
“I don’t need words, dove.”
He bent, his arms holding her close. His kiss was not tentative, not questioning, but sure and reassuring. Theirs was not a love that had taken the direct route, but they’d found their way to this solid foundation all the same.
Fletcher kissed her cheek, then her jaw.
“I do like when you call me ‘dove.’” A sliver of pleasure slid down her body as his lips brushed her neck.
“It ain’t exactly a high-class pet name.” He kissed her right temple, then her left. “It’s something street people say.”
She shifted her hand to his face and looked into his eyes. “It is perfect because it is the name you gave me.”
“You’ve fallen in love with an overgrown urchin, you know.”
How she loved when he smiled at her in just that way.
“If that overgrown urchin knows what’s good for him, he’ll kiss me again.”
“My great pleasure.” He leaned his forehead against hers and added in a whisper, “Dove.”
He kissed her slowly and deeply, holding her in his strong, gentle arms. He kissed her in the peaceful silence of her beloved school, quite as naturally as if they’d been doing so from the very beginning.
She loved him and knew with absolute certainty he loved her. The moment was utterly and absolutely perfect.
A letter sat on the table, sealed in black wax under the mark of the Dread Master. Fletcher sat in a spindle-backed chair in the empty aisle between the rows of seats his comrades occupied in the Dreadfuls’ parliamentary chamber. Ahead of him, just beyond the table and the letter, his usual chair sat empty, as the bylaws required when a member was on trial. This ritual had been enacted only twice before, and never with Fletcher in the position of scrutiny.
He’d been explaining his actions for a full five minutes now, and there was little else to say. The situation was not truly so complicated. “Dozens of children’s lives was at stake,” he said, bringing his testimony to its conclusion. “If saving their lives meant losin’ my membership, that was a trade-off I’s willing to make.”
He took a breath and steeled his resolve. He would face the consequences of his decision.
“My membership had already been guessed at,” Brogan said. “Seeing me here didn’t reveal anything new to her.”
“It revealed our society’s location,” Doc pointed out. “No one’s ever spilled that secret before.”
“Certainly we have,” Hollis countered. “Every time we have determined someone new was worthy and eligible for membership.”
“Which Miss Black ain’t,” Martin said.
“She is most certainly worthy,” Brogan said. “As much as anyone we’ve brought in among us.”
“But she ain’t eligible.” Doc didn’t speak unkindly, but neither was he wrong.
Elizabeth didn’t write penny dreadfuls, though she was closely connected to King, who did. And Fletcher himself had told her all the members were male, though he’d jokingly explained it as a requirement to wear trousers.
“There weren’t anyone else I could send,” Fletcher said. “But I also knew she could be counted on to keep mum.”
“Why not send Janey or Fanny?” Milligan pressed.
He turned in that direction. “They don’t know where headquarters is, and they ain’t any more eligible than Miss Black. Less so, truth be told. She, at least, is a writer and a do-gooder.”
Doc nodded his acknowledgment of that truth. Nothing about this debate had been unkind or even personal. They were, as was require
d, arguing all aspects of his decision and the impact it had on the group. He only hoped those continually reminding the others of the rules he’d broken didn’t actually wish to see him tossed out.
“You might’ve sent Martin or me,” Hollis said. “We were both at Thurloe.”
“If I had, that would’ve left Miss Black and only one of you to keep them two men subdued, a difficult task for three of us Dreadfuls to manage. That would’ve been dangerous in the extreme.”
The others looked to Hollis and Martin. Both nodded.
“None of us’d argue that you weren’t in a fix,” Irving said. “But neither can we overlook that you laid out our location to someone who ain’t approved to know it. You’re aware that’s against the rules. So are we.”
“So is she,” Brogan said. “Told me as much. Worried, she was. Afraid Fletcher would lose his membership. Someone as concerned as she was wouldn’t go blabbing about what she knows.”
“But she’s not a member,” Irving said. “And can’t be. We’ve never revealed our location to someone who wasn’t coming here to join up, having already been fully scrutinized.”
Fletcher remembered how he had, for a moment, once wondered if Elizabeth might have been the pen behind Mr. King’s stories. If only that had been true. He’d have a firm argument in his favor, and she’d be able to join the Dreadfuls. Almost.
“We’re arguing the same things over again,” Stone muttered. “Time to vote.”
It was a mercy, really. No point prolonging the pain.
A knock sounded immediately on the council chamber door. That almost never happened. All eyes turned in that direction. Not a word was spoken.
Nolan, the butler, stepped to the threshold. “A visitor, gentlemen.”
The silence among the Dreadfuls echoed Fletcher’s confusion.
Fletcher might’ve been on trial, with his membership on the line, but he was still the acting head of the organization.
“You never allow visitors,” he said to Nolan.
“This’n placed a penny right where one’s meant to be placed.”
The Lady and the Highwayman Page 26
