The Locket and the Flintlock
Page 1
Synopsis
Will the masked outlaw who stole Lucia’s locket also claim her heart?
When Miss Lucia Foxe is robbed by a band of shadowy highwaymen, she does not realize this frightening event will change her life forever. Her brave quest to retrieve her stolen locket brings her into close contact with the thieves and their dashing and fearless masked leader, Len Hawkins. But there is more to Len than meets the eye. Beneath the robber’s mask lies a woman who, in her heart, is not really so very different from Lucia.
As their unlikely love grows against the backdrop of the poverty and violent protest of Regency England, Lucia learns how much more there is to the world than her upbringing has taught her. Len flirts with death every day, and eventually, an attempt at exacting revenge on her cruel father threatens to snatch her from Lucia’s arms.
Will Len survive her encounter with death and avoid the retribution of the agents of justice? And can respectable gentlewoman Lucia love Len enough to sacrifice everything she knows?
The Locket and the Flintlock
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By the Author
Truths
Ghosts of Winter
The Locket and the Flintlock
The Locket and the Flintlock
© 2012 By Rebecca S. Buck. All Rights Reserved.
ISBN 13: 978-1-60282-704-2
This Electronic Book is published by
Bold Strokes Books, Inc.
P.O. Box 249
Valley Falls, New York 12185
First Edition: May 2012
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
Credits
Editor: Ruth Sternglantz
Production Design: Susan Ramundo
Cover Design By Sheri (graphicartist2020@hotmail.com)
Acknowledgments
The Locket and the Flintlock has existed in various drafts for a while and, therefore, many people have influenced me for the good between the time I typed the first word and now. I can’t possibly thank everyone, but I hope you all know I am very grateful. Never underestimate the effect a single word or a fleeting conversation can have on a writer’s brain.
There are just a few people I must mention by name:
I am eternally thankful to Radclyffe for creating, supporting, and guiding the wonderful Bold Strokes family. I feel very lucky to be part of that family and I thank all the wonderful BSB authors and associates for your support. In particular I have to thank Sheri for another outstanding front cover.
Again, I don’t have sufficient words to thank Ruth Sternglantz, my amazing editor, without whom this novel would never have existed in its current form and whose guidance makes me a better writer, sentence by sentence.
This is the first novel I’ve worked on while surrounded by some wonderful writing and editing friends. Every member of Nottingham’s Sapphist Writers group deserves credit for their constant support and friendship.
I must single out Victoria Oldham, for all the conversations about writing and editing, and for being the organisational driving force helping me connect with so many readers this past year.
Thank you to Michelle Ward, Debbie Silberman, Raych Udell, and Cindy Pfannenstiel for reading draft versions of this novel, or parts of it, at one point or another and giving me their feedback and encouragement. It has been very much appreciated.
There are a lot of people who have affected the way I think, the way I feel, my thoughts about writing, history—and life in general—while this novel was taking shape. I want to mention just a few, though there are many more (and you must forgive me if I’ve not mentioned you): Amanda Tindale, Lindsey Stone, Michelle White, M.L. Rice, Mark Spray, Ulla Högstedt, Clare Stephens, Al Dharmasasmita, John Hayes, Natalie Martin, David Knight, Adam Nightingale, Stephen Dennis, Melissa McGuire, and especially Cindy Pfannenstiel.
Thanks too, and lots of love, to my family.
And to every reader who reads this book, or one of my others. I hope you enjoy it. Thank you for the feedback, I always love to hear from you, and thank you for letting your imagination fall under the sway of my words for a while. It’s an honour.
Dedication
The Locket and the Flintlock is dedicated to Ryan.
There could be no better guide through the dark woods.
Chapter One
December, 1812
The sound was indistinct at first. A distant thud combined with the rattling and bumping of the carriage. Then it became clearer. Hoof falls of several horses thundering against the solid ground. A large shadow passed the window. A cry of alarm sounded in the frosty night.
The carriage halted.
Inside the carriage, Miss Isabella Jane Foxe forgot the dignity of her seventeen years and looked at her father, Sir Spencer Foxe, in blind panic.
“What’s happening? Father, what is it?” Her words held a childlike fear.
Their maid, Mary, showed even less restraint. “Oh, it’s robbers isn’t it, sir? I know it is. There’s been talk there has, sir, they’ve been prowling round these parts of late. Oh, sir, what do we do? Will they kill us, sir?”
“Kill us?” Isabella’s blue eyes were wide with terror.
Sir Spencer appeared paralysed by the panic of the two young women and blinked dumbly at the servant girl and his youngest daughter. As if looking for reassurance, he turned to the other occupant of the carriage.
Miss Lucia Elizabeth Foxe, four years older than Isabella, drew a deep and unsteady breath. Her heart was thundering with just as much fear as her younger sister exhibited; she wanted to panic just as Mary had. And yet somehow she knew fear would achieve nothing. Highway robbery very rarely resulted in murder. The surest way to be one of the more unlucky victims was certainly to panic and infuse their assailants with the same unease. Calm was needed.
“Hold your tongue, Mary!” Her command was sharp. The maid’s panic was filling the enclosed space of the carriage and infecting her sister.
“Will they kill us, Lucia?” Isabella demanded.
“Don’t be so foolish, Isabella. If they are robbers, their intention is surely only to rob. You do not read of murders by the roadside so often, do you?” Lucia wondered where she had found the authority of her tone. It was in marked contrast to the apprehension surging hotly through her body.
Still silent, Sir Spencer reached beneath his seat. Lucia watched in horror as he brought out an antique travelling pistol. Ornate and aged, she doubted it was loaded or there was any chance her father would actually fire it.
“Father, it seems to me any act of aggression on our part will most likely anger the outlaws. Do you not agree?” Sir Spencer considered her objection and appeared about to protest when a shadow fell over the window blind. Moments later the door was flung open, and the chill December air flooded the carriage.
The night was moonlit, but Lucia almost wished it were not, for the pale illumination gave the countenance of the man who confronted them a devilish aspect. He wore a dark greatcoat and a bicorn hat. His face was obscured by the black scarf he wore over his mouth, nose, and chin. In the patch of light created by the carriage lamp, Lucia had an impress
ion of him as broad shouldered and dark haired, but otherwise indistinct.
Sir Spencer lifted the pistol, but all the action accomplished was a demonstration of his trembling hand. The man at the carriage door raised his own pistol and pointed it calmly at Isabella’s heaving chest. Isabella whimpered pitifully and Lucia was outraged on behalf of her sister. The anger almost drove away the fear, but not quite.
“Out.” The command was gruff and muffled by the scarf, but the peremptory tone could not be disobeyed.
The barrel of the pistol aimed at Isabella’s heart could not be disobeyed.
The occupants of the carriage climbed out into the cold night and stood in a shivering group by the roadside. The moonlight glinted on the frozen puddles and showed the harsh, black branches of the barren trees. A strikingly beautiful nightmare landscape, Lucia observed, wondering how on earth she had the wherewithal to even notice. She shuddered and took hold of her sister’s gloved hand. Isabella returned the pressure, though her attention was fixed on the pistol still pointed at her chest.
The dark-clothed robber, who was far taller than Sir Spencer, stood between the huddled group and the carriage. Silhouetted against the patch of yellow light created by the carriage lamps, he appeared even more menacing than he had before.
With a slowness apparently designed to increase their terror by the application of suspense, the man moved his aim from Isabella to Sir Spencer. Lucia was ashamed to feel a rush of relief as he did so. “Your money and jewellery, if you please, sir.” His tone held an affectation of politeness yet also a determination Lucia did not feel inclined to cross. She hoped her father felt the same way. That he did not was apparent in the next moment.
“Do you know who I am?” Sir Spencer drew himself up to his full height but was still an unimpressive figure before the outlaw.
“Yes, sir, the coat of arms on your carriage would have revealed it to me, even if I did not. You are Sir Spencer Foxe of Foxe Hall, a few miles hence. Now, if you please, Sir Spencer, your money and jewellery.” His resolution was harder, colder, more apparent now. He pronounced Sir Spencer’s title with a derisory snarl. Lucia felt her pulse throb in her temples. Isabella’s fingers squeezed hers painfully.
“We are not rich.” Sir Spencer seemed determined to defend them with ineffective words. Lucia was dismayed by her father’s foolish protests. Why resist so fruitlessly and risk angering this armed man?
“You are rich enough, sir,” the man said. Uncannily, Lucia could picture him smiling beneath his scarf. “Now, please do as I say, before I feel inclined to shoot one of your daughters.” He waved the barrel of the pistol in the general direction of Isabella and Lucia. Lucia heard her sister gasp and did her best to prevent her own hand from shaking and revealing her fear. Mary had begun to sob, but the man did not seem to be interested in the maid.
“You won’t get away with this,” Sir Spencer said. He began to remove his coin purse from his pocket all the same. “I’ll see you hang.”
“Perhaps, sir,” the man spoke with no noticeable trepidation as he reached out for the purse offered to him.
Three men had opened the door of the carriage on the opposite side from where Lucia and her family stood. These men were now rifling through its contents, clearly in hope of further treasures. Lucia knew they would find little, her father spoke the truth. They were comfortable, yes, but only country gentry, hardly the richest of pickings to travel the roads that night.
The robber now turned his gaze, glinting in the moonlight, towards Lucia. He lowered his pistol just enough to make the threat less immediate, yet still pressing, and looked between her and her sister as he spoke. “Ladies, my apologies, but if you would be so kind?” Involuntarily, Lucia reached for the place where his gaze fell upon her throat and felt a wave of sickness sweep through her body. About her neck she wore a locket which contained a miniature of her long-deceased mother and a lock of her hair, her most treasured possession and all she had of her mother. She stared back at the man in dread, challenging him to make the demand of her. He would not have her locket unless it was forced from her.
“Your jewellery, please, ladies.” His irritation at being made to ask again was not well concealed.
Lucia’s panic at the prospect of losing the locket was enough to make her abandon her former good sense and inspire her with foolhardy confidence to speak. She chose her words carefully and kept her tone polite, as though she spoke to a gentleman rather than a criminal. “Please, sir, this necklace is of great sentimental import to me.”
“The gold will be of great import to us too, miss, I assure you.” Again Lucia had the unwarranted notion he was smiling.
“I cannot give it to you, sir.” She could barely believe her audacity, the steely resolution in her words.
“Lucia!” Sir Spencer exclaimed in warning, clearly stunned by his eldest daughter’s rashness. Lucia paid her father little heed. The idea that the man was smiling rather diminished her fear, although a part of her knew it should have made him more threatening still.
The appropriate dizzying level of horror returned to her as the man approached. He stopped barely half a pace from her, his eyes fixed to hers. Lucia found it extraordinary to look into the eyes of a villain but to see only a man. A wicked man to be sure, but a man just the same.
“If you cannot give it, Miss Foxe, I shall take it,” he said, the words softly dangerous. The hard barrel of the pistol made contact with Lucia’s body, over her heart, as he reached out his gloved hand. Despite her best efforts at control, Lucia trembled as he grasped the locket and pulled it sharply, breaking the chain. She watched him put it in the pocket of his coat, and protests rose in her throat. As if he sensed her resistance, his pistol was still pressed to her as he spoke again. “Do you ladies have any more jewellery to offer me, or shall I be compelled to search your persons for it?”
Lucia was indignant at the notion and suddenly furious with the man more than frightened of him. The anger was made worse by her inability—the pistol being pressed to her breast as it was—to do anything but comply. She removed her pearl earrings as Isabella took her mother-of-pearl comb from her hair below her bonnet and unclipped the gold earrings she was wearing. Her sister handed these to the man with trembling fingers and reached up to release her own necklace, a gold chain with a crucifix made of rubies, a gift from the uncle whose house in the south of the county they were returning from this night. The robber took the items offered to him with a small mocking bow.
“Very grateful, ladies, sir, I’m sure. Now we will impede your journey no further.” He backed away, the pistol still aimed in Lucia’s general direction. The three men who had searched the carriage retreated towards their horses.
“I will see you hang, sir, all of you,” Sir Spencer called out. His voice was small in the night. The men all ignored him. Lucia looked up at the other members of the band of robbers: two men on horseback who had their weapons trained on the driver and footman. The first of these was mostly indistinct, even in the moonlight, but looked to be a stocky man wearing no hat despite the cold. The other rode a fine black steed, a good three or four hands taller than the other horses. He appeared a slender man, this one in an old-fashioned tricorn hat with a kerchief obscuring his face, a long, dark cloak about his shoulders and draped over the rump of his horse. This man was observant, looking around himself continually.
The dismounted men climbed back onto their horses. To Lucia’s surprise, it was not to the man who had taken her locket they looked but to the slender man on the black horse, who gave a slight signal with his hand. The riders galloped away. From distinct shapes they became shadows and eventually merged with the night.
As they returned to the carriage to see what had been stolen, Isabella was still trembling, and Mary began once more to sob. Resentment, anger, and humiliation burned strongest of all the emotions in Lucia’s heart. The echoing thunder of the hooves on the frozen ground died away as the footman and driver closed the doors and shut out
the bitter cold. Sir Spencer had been travelling with another purse of coins beneath his seat, which he discovered was also missing. There had been little else of value in the carriage, but as Lucia climbed in and settled herself, she realised her new book of poetry, a gift from her cousin, had been taken. It gave her a moment’s pause. Her book had not been expensively bound. What use did savage thieves have with poetry?
The carriage jolted into life, and they were driven through the suddenly more sinister night towards the refuge of home.
*
The horse surged, muscular and powerful, between her thighs. Len Hawkins allowed her body to relax and mould to the movements of the beast in his loose gallop. The air around her was filled with the sound of the hooves of the other horses on the hard ground. In the moonlight, the breath of the horses rose in eerie plumes of steam, as the dark hedgerows and looming shadows of trees flew past on either side.
These were the moments she lived for. Years of conducting her unlawful business had not made her stomach hard to it yet, and there were some nights upon which she wished her task over before it had even begun. Tonight had been one of those nights. One of the occasions she yearned to give sway to her gentle heart. Those pretty, genteel women who her loyal Julian had forced from the carriage were a jarring echo of a time she remembered clearly, though she would rather have forgotten. Their gowns pale in the moonlight, almost ghosts. Her past haunted her still. Why could she not harden herself against the memories? Len never liked it when they robbed women. Not because they suffered any more than the menfolk, but because they stirred the empathy she fought not to feel. She battled it every day, yet still the ache, the edge of self-doubt persisted. She knew she was an excellent leader, she was confident, but the sharp contrast between her illicit actions and the pain of compassion threatened to make her heartsick. If she had a choice, she watched her men work from afar, never dismounting her stallion. It gave her authority. It gave her distance.