The Locket and the Flintlock

by Rebecca S. Buck

  She was also painfully aware of disappointment. She did not know what she had expected of Lucia and chided herself for wanting anything more from the eldest daughter of a country gentleman. But somehow, she had hoped this woman who had climbed on a horse in the night and chased after outlaws would be more like herself. Lucia’s dignified confusion and refusal to understand how on earth Len could lead a group of men had angered her. She had hoped for acceptance, possibly curiosity. And yet she had seen scorn in Lucia’s expression, concealed though it was.

  Len leaned against the wall of the house, the stone cold at her back. She reached up to release her long hair from the ribbon which held it at the nape of her neck and massaged her scalp with her fingertips. Part of her had wanted to just talk with Lucia Foxe; she knew it and hated herself for the weakness. She wanted to explain, reveal something more of herself. Instead she had used her power and the threat of violence as another kind of mask, keeping her distance from the other woman.

  And she was deeply concerned that her trust in Lucia was misplaced. Lost in the moment, craving to be perceived as more than merely an ignorant criminal, she had let her guard down. She acknowledged that Lucia’s fragile, pale beauty—such a marked contrast to her apparently stubborn temper and degree of bravery—had affected her more than she had thought a woman’s beauty ever would again.

  She drew on her cigar and leaned her head back against the cold stone wall, eyes losing focus on the woodland before her, as she remembered. The life she had known; the woman who had been its turning point in so many ways. Hattie had looked nothing like Lucia Foxe, with her light-brown hair and green eyes, and she’d been a dressmaker not a gentlewoman. And yet there was a quality she saw in Lucia she had also seen in Hattie. The emotion she had perceived just below the surface when Lucia spoke of her mother, the pride she had demonstrated in not allowing her fear of Len’s pistol to show. Hattie would have reacted in just the same way.

  Len smiled at the memory of Hattie, holding onto it and fighting the sadness which threatened to engulf her. She heard the door to the house open and close. Julian came out into the night, looking around him.

  “Over here,” she called from her place against the wall of the house.

  “Cold night.” Julian came to lean against the wall next to her, rubbing his hands together.

  “Aye, that it is. A bad winter this one, Julian.”

  “Worse for some than it is for us, no doubt.”

  “Yes. I wonder how many Death will claim before spring is here.”

  “Too many.”

  They stood together in companionable and reflective silence for a short while. Len looked across at Julian. He reminded her so much of his sister. “I was thinking of Hattie,” she said. She had no secrets from Julian, knew they were unnecessary.

  “I think of her a lot.”

  “Do you miss her, Julian?”

  “That I do. A man couldn’t ask for a better sister.”

  “No. I still miss her too. However many seasons pass.” Len heard the emotion in her own tone but knew Julian would not view it as a weakness.

  “She’d be so proud of you.”

  “Of a thief in the night? Not so. Hattie was a good woman.” Len hated the idea that Hattie would have objected to her way of making her living every bit as strongly as Lucia Foxe had shown she did tonight.

  “She would have understood. And she would be proud of your strength, Len. How free you are.” Julian’s voice was gruff. Len knew such talk of emotions made him uncomfortable.

  Silence fell between them again. Len wondered what Julian was thinking and waited for him to speak first. “What did you think of the little rich girl then?” he said, after a few minutes.

  “Miss Foxe? I’m not sure, to be honest. She was braver than I thought she might be. But stubborn with it.” Len did not feel inclined to reveal her deeper reflections in that moment. She sensed Julian’s unease with Lucia and with her own method of handling the situation.

  “Do you trust her?”

  “I trust she will not betray us.”

  “Are you certain?”

  Len considered, drawing on her cigar. She exhaled the smoke before she replied. “It would be foolish to be certain on such a matter. We can never be certain of anything. But I’d be inclined towards having faith in her discretion. She has her locket now after all.”

  “An odd woman, to chase thieves for a trinket.”

  “Indeed. How unladylike of her.”

  Julian looked in her direction quickly. “I did not mean—”

  “I am in jest, Julian.” Len smiled, although she knew he could not see her face in the darkness. “You would hardly follow me if you were worried about the appropriate behaviour of the fairer sex. And as for Miss Foxe, I do not know if she is foolish or brave. Whichever, I think we are done with her.”

  “I hope so.” Julian paused. “Can I ask why you let her see you, Len?”

  Len wondered how honest to be. “You can ask, Julian. But I am not sure I can answer.”

  Chapter Six

  If the dark shadows beneath her eyes the next morning did not give her away, Lucia was convinced one of the grooms would notice something amiss in Sally’s stable, and she would be forced into an explanation of what had occurred in the night. And yet Lucia found she had managed her escapade in complete secrecy; not one question was asked of her.

  Of course, she could not wear her locket. The chain was broken, and besides, there was no way she would be able to wear it in the presence of her father or sister again. It made her angry once more. There would be no reasonable explanation as to how she had retrieved it, and therefore they could not know she had it back in her possession. She had slipped it beneath her pillow, so she might at least be close to her mother as she slept.

  After breakfast, Lucia took a novel into the garden. Sitting in the arbour where the damp smell of morning foliage surrounded her, she wrapped her shawl tightly around her body, for it was really very cold, the winter sun thin in the sky. She opened the book and pretended to read. In reality, she was lost in thought.

  Her adventure of the night haunted her. In the light of day, she was astonished at her nocturnal courage. Surely if she had seen the riders pass the gate now, as she sat in the garden, she would not have been brave enough to rise and follow them. For a fleeting moment, she was proud of her courage. Then she reprimanded herself, recalling the danger she had been in, the risk she had brought upon herself and her family. Sickness swept through her as she remembered the pistol pointed at her breast. She closed her eyes and breathed deep of the frosty air until she felt calm again.

  She read a sentence or two of the novel she held in her cold hands. Any attempt to distract her thoughts was useless. The image of the leader of the robbers crept into her mind once more. A woman! Even now, it seemed the fabrication of a dream. Only her picture of the woman—several inches taller than her, with that lithe figure and broad shoulders, the glossy dark hair, and the mocking eyes—was far too clear in her head for her to have dreamed her. Lucia doubted she could ever have dreamed up such a person, someone so beyond her comprehension. So many questions still cried for answers. Why did the men follow her? And why had she chosen to reveal herself to Lucia?

  As she contemplated these things, she remembered that odd reluctance to part from the mysterious outlaw woman. Never had she encountered anyone who had so bewildered her. Lucia did not remember her amiably, indeed, she recalled her hostility, her sardonic smile and felt the resentment rise inside her. She had made Lucia feel inferior and naïve. Who was this Len Hawkins to judge her? Len? What manner of name was that? She was surely more properly called Helena or the like. Lucia found it all ludicrous and puzzling. And yet still she wished she could have spent a little longer in Len’s presence, maybe begun to understand her. Was there a part in her heart which still mourned for her dead mother, as there was in Lucia’s? Did Len Hawkins have a man who loved her, or did she shun marriage? Lucia couldn’t help but wonder w
hat impression Len had formed of her and hope the scorn Len had shown did not reach very deep. Len had called her brave, after all, and trusted her word of honour in the end. She wondered if Len would think of her, entertained the foolish hope that she would.

  In her musings, she almost forgot Len Hawkins was a thief and robber, who had not only stolen from her family but also held a pistol to her breast. It took some effort to keep in her mind that, woman though she was, Len was as dangerous as any man.

  *

  As the days passed, Lucia’s moments of contemplation grew not less frequent, as she expected, but more so. As that night receded further and further into the past, it became hazier in her recollection, and so she began to doubt herself. Had she really heard such menace in Len Hawkins’s voice? Had the woman really contemplated killing her? Did the men really have the respect for their unusual leader she had sensed they did?

  Isabella was much recovered from her ordeal by now and was busy planning what she would wear to Lord and Lady Netherfield’s ball a few weeks hence. She had good reason to believe a certain Lord Hyde would be in attendance with his sister. Isabella spent a good many hours in her chamber with Anne Drew—her closest confidante—and from the sound of their giggles as Lucia passed by the door, being robbed on the road was a very long way indeed from Isabella’s thoughts.

  In contrast, Sir Spencer’s worried glances now fell upon her own countenance, although she voiced nothing to him and did not think her complexion was yet reflecting the restless nights she was experiencing. True, she spent many hours alone with the novel she was reading, and it was a slim volume she would usually have managed in a day, but she did not think her father likely to be alert to such details. Lucia believed he simply noticed she had less to say for herself than usual. He did not however make enquiries after her health, and so she was excused the need of finding answers for him. This was just as well, since she had very few answers for herself.

  Once, she even tried closing her eyes, to see if by doing so she could recall the movements Sally had made beneath her, the turns they had taken to bring them to the robbers’ hideout. Of course, this was a completely ineffective exercise. Even if she had been able to recall the way there, what would she have done? Simply saddled Sally and trotted off to call upon a band of thieves, and in so doing show them not only did she recognise them from a distance, she also knew the way to their hideout? Impossible and ludicrous even to entertain the notion.

  And so Lucia was left with fading recollections and a queer curiosity she had no way to satisfy. She struggled to recall a time in her life she had felt so restricted, so unable to satiate her thirst to know, to comprehend. As the days passed, the feeling only grew. Never had something seemed so difficult to understand and yet so important that she understand it, as if in the full comprehension of her night-time escapade and encounter with Len Hawkins she would learn something of great value. And never had it seemed so unlikely she would ever find the answers she craved.

  *

  Ten days had come and gone since Lucia’s nocturnal adventure. There had been a touch of snow, dusting the trees decoratively but already melted from the paths and roads. The sky had been yellow and ominous all day. It was almost entirely dark by the time Lucia took tea with her sister. She retired early to her chamber, where even the fire in the hearth seemed suffocated.

  She had intended to sit at her desk and write a letter to her friends in Bath but, after many minutes had passed in which she could think of no way to begin the correspondence, she put aside the paper and undressed, crawling—already half in slumber—beneath her heavy blankets. On this night, even the contemplative mood of the previous days did not prevent sleep from overtaking her quickly.

  Lucia thought she was still in the throes of a dream when she awoke, hearing a sound out of place in the darkness. She was used to the groans of the house, to the cries of the foxes in the park, the way the large oak at the side of the house creaked in the breeze. This sound was different, closer.

  She turned onto her back and opened her eyes. The darkness of her chamber was disturbed somehow. The shadows before her eyes were not exactly as they should be.

  One of the shadows close to her moved.

  Before she had chance to comprehend fully she was not dreaming, the shadow loomed even closer, assumed a human shape, and pressed a gloved hand to her mouth. She cried out, but the sound was muffled. Fear filled her, making her heart pound most alarmingly.

  “Miss Foxe.” She heard the voice in her ear, familiar yet still terrifying. “Your presence is required. There is someone who wishes to speak to you,” the man said. He was not wearing his hat, but she recognised him nevertheless. She could hear her heart in her ears, and her thoughts buffeted around inside her skull. What did he want with her now? How did he come to be here in her chamber? Was he more or less of a threat than a stranger would have been? Who was it who wanted to talk to her? Len Hawkins?

  His hands pulled at her, forced her to sit up in the bed. She tried to move away from his grip, but he was stronger. Another shadow stirred, and she saw there was another shorter man in the room. The dying embers in the hearth were reflected upon something in his hand. She saw he held a knife with a long blade and felt nauseous with terror.

  “We will not hurt you, Miss Foxe, but you have to come with us,” the man with his hand over her mouth said. His words were far from reassuring. She reached up to pull at his arm—to give herself a chance to reply—but his response was simply to haul her to her feet. “Apologies, miss.” He held her firmly while the other man came closer.

  Lucia fought him as he forced her arms behind her back and wound a coarse rope around her wrists, but it was useless. When she felt the cold tip of the knife pressed against the skin of her throat, she did not resist, nor did she dare make a sound as the taller man released her mouth, only to force a piece of fabric between her lips, which he knotted tightly at the back of her head. Her legs were ready to collapse, the blood pulsing with unbearable force throughout her body as, once more, she found herself blindfolded. Still the cold of the blade touched her throat, and she remained motionless, terrified. She could not, strangely, comprehend the idea of her own potentially imminent death, but the threat of very great pain, the harm they could do her, rendered her barely able to breathe, a state not helped by the gag.

  And still the questions circled in her head. Why was this happening? Where did they intend to take her? What could she say to save herself from whatever they threatened?

  Although she did not faint, terror overtook Lucia, and she felt barely conscious as she was lifted onto the tall man’s shoulder—as though she was a sack of grain—and carried from her chamber. Through the haze she wondered if the intruders had broken the lock of the front door and was suddenly aware in the next moment of the cold of the night air through her nightdress. She thought of her father and sister and wondered if she would be returned by morning, as if this was simply a bad dream in the night.

  They travelled once more on horseback; she was aware of the steady rhythm, sickening in her disorientation, and the feeling of his strong embrace behind her, keeping her on the mount. But it all felt like the most farfetched of dreams. The fear had abandoned her, but so had the capability of rational thought.

  The smell of damp trees and woodsmoke, a recognised scent, brought her somewhat back to her senses. She knew at once they had returned to the same place as they had brought her before. Foolish curiosity fluttered inside her. Surely she would meet with Len Hawkins again. For a fleeting moment she was almost thrilled. Then Lucia recalled how dangerous Len was, how readily she pointed her pistol, and terror crept into her heart once more. Whatever questions she had asked, however she had painted the outlaw in her head, Lucia really knew nothing of Len Hawkins or what her reception would be tonight. The indications were that it would not be favourable. And why would it be? A woman like Len would have no conceivable reason to want to see Lucia again, unless forced.

  Lucia needed h
er abductor’s strong grip to steady her as he guided her towards the house. To her relief, as soon as she heard the door open and felt the wooden floorboards of the kitchen beneath her feet—still in her bed slippers—he removed the gag.

  She was silent, despite the new freedom to speak. What was there to say? He removed the blindfold and she blinked, looked around to see the kitchen was much the same as before, only neater. Many of the boxes and chests that had littered it before were missing, and there was no food on the table tonight.

  She turned to the tall man at her side, who was by now alarmingly familiar. “What do you want with me?” She was dismayed by how tremulous her voice sounded.

  “It’s not me, Miss Foxe, who wants anything with you,” he said. He put one hand on her bound wrists to push her forward. She went with him, as she had before, into the central hallway of the house, and they proceeded without knocking into the same room they had previously.

  As soon as they entered the room her kidnapper turned and left her, closing the door after him. Lucia looked at the shadow behind the desk. The room was as gloomy as it had been on her previous visit, although an extra candle burned on the desk. Len had made no attempt at disguise tonight: there was no hat, no kerchief. Still, if she had been seeing that shadow for the first time, she would not have believed it to be a woman. Len’s posture in her chair behind the desk was not like that of a woman. Her shoulders seemed too broad, however slender she was.

  Len put down the book she was reading and stood up. She was not wearing her cloak tonight. Instead, as she came closer to the candlelight, Lucia saw she wore simply her cream riding breeches above the black boots, and a loose man’s shirt beneath her dark-coloured waistcoat. The shirt was open at the neck and revealed something of a slender throat. Lucia felt Len’s power, her authority in the room, even as her eyes lingered on that patch of bare, vulnerable skin. The hair on the back of her own neck stood on end with an impossible tension, a thrill that unaccountably came from being in Len’s presence once more, and she shivered in her thin nightdress.