‘Mardell, is it? Well, thank you for that very useful piece of information.’ With a smirk Rupert rose. ‘And now I must bid you goodb—’
He never finished the sentence. Gentleman George jumped up from his seat with a roar, knocking over the rickety table. The brandy bottle and the glasses toppled to the floor and smashed into a thousand pieces. Before Rupert had time to think, the man’s hands were around his neck. ‘You mangy cur! You son of an ill-gotten whore! A pox on you!’
He tried to wrench free, but the highwayman had him in an iron grip and was shaking him like a rag doll. Rupert felt his lungs burn and his eyes pop. The room swam around him and grew darker, until he was on the very edge of consciousness. He saw his life before him and then darkness began to take over completely …
Suddenly he was pulled free and thrown roughly to the ground, coughing and spluttering. When he became aware of his surroundings again, he realised he was lying face down in the dirty straw with his hand on something soft and foul. Horrified, he sat and scrambled away from the lumpy bundle next to him.
‘I told you he was dangerous,’ said the keeper, ‘but you didn’t believe me, did you?’ A hand came down and yanked Rupert to his feet. It was then he noticed that the bundle on the ground was Gentleman George, and that the keeper was holding a truncheon in his hand.
‘Trust me, ’e won’t be getting up for the rest of the day.’ The keeper hawked up a gob of spit and aimed it at the condemned man, who lay on the ground moaning faintly. ‘Scum o’ the earth, the lot o’ them!’
Rupert wiped his hands on his handkerchief, tossed it to the ground and straightened his clothes and his wig as best he could. He hesitated for a moment, and then aimed a kick at the man on the floor, which caught him in a tender place judging by the growl he emitted. He had got what he came for, he hoped, but his best riding jacket was ruined, and someone had to pay.
The keeper laughed. ‘Let’s get you out of here, sir. Leave the vermin to ’is miserable life. Ain’t much of it left anyhow.’
When Rupert was halfway across the vaulted dungeon, Gentleman George shouted at him; after the beating he was only just loud enough for Rupert to hear.
‘You leave Ned’s girl alone! If you as much as touch one hair on her head, I swear, as God is my witness, I’ll come back and haunt you! You’ll never know sleep again!’
Rupert paid him no attention. It was an empty threat if ever he’d heard one – he didn’t believe in ghosts. This world was for the living.
Chapter Nine
After the conversation with his father, Jack was even more determined to see Miss Mardell again, and he set off early next morning with Lady and Duke gambolling at his heels to track her down. The apothecary had said she lived in the woods, and if he concentrated on the triangle he’d marked on the magistrate’s map, he was confident he would find her.
Saddling the horse with only the help of a bleary-eyed stable lad, he dismissed the boy’s offer to accompany him and followed the road out towards Heston Mill. It had rained in the night, and the muddy, pot-holed road glistened silvery-brown in the pale morning light. Passing the gibbets on the Heath, where they had been erected to strike fear into the hearts of anyone contemplating breaking the law, he averted his eyes and held a handkerchief to his face against the stink of decay.
Crows circled the caged skeletons, and Jack felt a shiver run down his back. Although he had no doubt these criminals deserved a harsh punishment for their crimes, there was something ungodly about the sight of a man’s bones being picked clean by birds. Could the souls of these unfortunates ever be at rest, he wondered?
When he reached the mill, he turned off the road and made his way south, with the magistrate’s map and the ink dot sightings firmly imprinted on his mind. Dense heather glimmering with moisture made riding difficult and cumbersome, but here and there tussocks of blue-green grass provided a safer footing for Jack’s horse. Soon low bushes and heather gave way to woodland, and as he followed a path of worn grass and compacted mud, the trees grew denser.
Duke took the opportunity to explore, running from tree to tree on the trail of a scent only perceptible to dogs, and Jack brought him back with a sharp command. The spaniel slunk back to his master, tongue lolling, and didn’t seem penitent at all.
‘Stay!’ Jack grumbled.
He stopped and listened, but all he could hear were the squabbling crows in the distance and raindrops dripping from leaf to leaf. Pulling his cloak tighter around him, he urged his horse into the thicket. He was acting purely on a hunch, but the pattern of the robberies and the need for the perpetrator to get off the road and out of sight as quickly as possible told him that the highwaywoman had to have a hideout somewhere in the centre of that pattern.
‘That’s what I would do,’ he muttered, partly to convince himself that this wasn’t a complete fool’s errand and partly to quell the uncanny feeling that he wasn’t welcome here, that he was being watched.
The sun had come out and cast a dappled light among the trees. Jack attempted to keep heading south, although on several occasions he was hindered by thorny brambles or trees with low branches threatening to unhorse him.
A fallow deer burst out of the thicket. The horse whinnied and reared, taking off in fright, and before Jack could get it under control, a low-lying branch knocked him out of his seat. He landed in an uncomfortable and undignified heap in the wet undergrowth. The dogs came running as if to make sure he was unharmed, their guarding instincts to the fore.
‘Hell’s teeth!’
Momentarily winded, he lay on the ground; then he got up and brushed dirt and wet leaves off his clothing. He looked around for his horse, but it had disappeared, and he swore long and fluently. It probably hadn’t gone very far, he thought, and felt encouraged by that. With the forest as dense as it was, it wouldn’t take long before the reins got caught on a branch.
He glanced around him again and saw that there was a clearing just ahead of him in the woods. Cautiously, he sneaked towards a tree and peered into the open space, still sheltered by the dense bushes and undergrowth. At the other end of the clearing he spied a dilapidated labourer’s cottage, almost hidden by a row of thick brambles. Jack eased closer while he tried to think of a suitable excuse as to why he was here in the forest, by what was clearly someone’s home. If it turned out to be the home of the highwaywoman herself – and he was quietly confident it might be – he could only hope that she wouldn’t bolt at the sight of him. He felt for his rapier, which he had buckled on when he left; if she felt herself backed into a corner, he had no doubt that she would defend herself, but he hoped it wouldn’t come to that.
He could have saved himself the worry. A surreptitious glance through a window told him the cottage was empty. The fire had been put out and all was quiet. It seemed probable that the occupant wouldn’t be back for some time. Damnation! Jack considered searching the cottage for evidence of a highwaywoman’s activities, but thought it best to leave the place undisturbed. If this really was her hideout he did not want to alert her to the fact that someone was on her trail.
Behind the cottage he found his horse inside a lean-to munching away at a remnant of hay. Following him obediently, Lady and Duke sniffed around.
‘I might have known,’ he muttered. ‘Always filling your belly, aren’t you?’
The lean-to appeared to be some sort of makeshift stable. So whoever lived in this cottage owned a horse; not something most farm labourers could afford. He made a mental note of that. He also wondered where the horse was; if the occupants of the cottage were helping with the harvest, they wouldn’t bring their horse, and it was far too valuable to leave on its own. Then he looked around him and thought he had the answer. Grass grew sporadically among the trees; probably the owners had led the horse further into the woods, where it could graze undisturbed. It could be anywhere.
Taking his horse by the bit, Jack began to drag it outside, but having found warm, dry hay, the animal wasn’t prepared to come
willingly. It tossed its head and tried to nip him.
‘If you don’t come this instant, I’m going to sell you to the bloody pie-maker.’ Jack cursed and pulled hard at the reins, and the horse reluctantly accepted his authority.
Leading the recalcitrant beast, he walked around to the other side of the cottage to investigate further. To his surprise he found what looked like a well-tended grave, or rather two graves, with weather-beaten boards serving as headstones. One carved board was smaller than the other; a child, he thought, and was overcome by a sudden sadness. He remembered well his anguish when his little brother, a boy of two and a half, had died from congestion of the lungs.
Henry had been a mischievous little cherub with dark curls and cornflower-blue eyes, very like his cousin Alethea. His loss had left a gap in the family, dulled his mother’s smile, and cast a splinter in his heart.
Although he felt as if he was intruding upon this poor family’s private grief, he tethered his capricious horse, knelt by the larger of the two graves and brushed the vegetation aside to read the faint inscription.
Jack frowned at the woman’s family name. Having learned his nation’s and county’s history, he was familiar with the name of Duval. A gallant and courteous rogue, Claude Duval was probably the most dashing highwayman ever to haunt the roads of England.
Some of his exploits had taken place on Hounslow Heath, where one version of a famous story recounted that he had held up a coach and danced with a lady who played the flageolet, after which he had robbed her of only one hundred pounds of a four-hundred-pound booty, allowing ‘the fair owner to ransom the rest by dancing a coranto with him on the Heath’. Like so many others of his ilk Duval had ended his days at Tyburn almost a hundred years ago, but the romance prevailed.
And there was something else. A story closer to home, more recent than the exploits of the legendary highwayman.
Lady Heston, the wife of his neighbour Lord Heston, had – sick with childbed fever and grief after the birth of a stillborn daughter – taken off in the middle of the night with only a young, inexperienced maid for company. The coach had later been found abandoned, with Lady Heston dead inside, clutching the stillborn baby, and her valuables and the maid gone.
A manhunt had ensued, but no one had managed to track down the elusive maid, who at best deserved to be punished for thieving, or worse, for luring the sick woman into a vulnerable situation and hastening her demise. He couldn’t remember the name of the maid, but the word “mistress” on the gravestone caught his attention. Who else had a mistress but for a servant? Perhaps the chit’s name had been Duval.
Only one person might be able to answer his questions. As he returned to his horse, he was deep in thought. The barking of his dogs brought him back to the present; he looked up and saw them jumping around a familiar figure.
Miss Mardell.
He raised his eyes and pinned her with a stare. So she hadn’t left yet. Why, he wondered. Could the torrential rain the previous night have prevented her from travelling, or was there another reason, something to do with him? No, that was just hope. But why had she come back here? She must have known he was likely to track her down.
Then he glanced back at the grave and realised this place must have a special meaning to her.
‘Well, if it isn’t Miss Mardell,’ he said, noting her disquiet at the way his dogs had her trapped. Lady and Duke wouldn’t harm her, but he would let her believe it if it meant he could talk to her.
‘M-my lord,’ she stammered and backed away from the dogs a little. ‘How do you know my name?’
‘The apothecary.’
‘I see.’ She raised her chin. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘That’s obvious, isn’t it? I’m looking for you. I feared you might have left for good, but here you are.’ He smiled at her and felt his insides curl when she smiled back briefly. Then she turned wary again.
‘I had left, but …’ She glanced at the grave behind him; then asked curtly, ‘Why were you looking for me? You let me go, if you recall.’
‘Well, for one thing I wanted to see you again and, for another, I wanted to ask you some questions. But first I’d like you to do something for me.’
‘What can you possibly want from me, unless it is to serve you in one capacity or other?’ Backing further way from the dogs, she sent him a haughty look.
Jack marvelled at her self-possession even as the double-meaning of her words shamed him a little. With one hand placed on her hip and her strange eyes blazing defiance, she was challenging him despite being at a total disadvantage. Again, he found himself amazed and even more determined to help her whether she was a distant relation or not – to risk her life holding up coaches she must be desperate.
The thought had formed in his mind when he’d seen the captain’s painting, and he had been contemplating it since then. He had never resented that the earl had taken his orphaned relatives under his wing – it was only natural – but it did irk him a little that his father refused to see Rupert for what he was, a spendthrift and a gambler. His father paid for Rupert’s excesses without complaint; if Miss Mardell was a relation too, she deserved the same generosity.
But first he had to convince her.
‘I’d like to introduce you to my family,’ he replied.
‘I beg your pardon?’ She cast him a suspicious glance; then spread her hands wide. ‘But I have no lady’s clothes, m’lord. This is my finest gown. It serves me well enough for church’—she tossed her head at that—‘but it wouldn’t be fitting in Society.’
‘No need to worry about that. I’ll provide you with something. The clothes themselves are unimportant. What matters are your eyes. I have reason to believe that you’re the daughter – illegitimate child, if I may be so bold – of my father’s cousin, Captain Cecil Francis Blythe. He had eyes the same as yours.’
To his surprise the girl threw her head back and laughed. The sound, soft and musical, echoed in the empty forest and, entranced, Jack stared at the movement of her slender neck and the way her full lips stretched over a set of strong, white teeth. Blood thrummed in his ears, and a familiar warmth spread in his belly.
Those lips …
‘M’lord, you’re jesting. How could I possibly be related to you, even distantly? I see no resemblance at all. Anyway, what makes you the authority on a person’s eyes? I’m sure they cannot be that unusual.’
‘It’s not just the eyes. You look a bit like my Cousin Alethea too, Cecil’s daughter.’
The girl sobered and pierced him with a look. ‘You flatter me, sir, to liken me to a high-born lady, but I’m afraid you’re mistaken. My father’s name is Ned, and my mother was Sarah, and never was a couple more devoted to each other. Besides I fancy I take after my father in looks.’
‘If you would only come with me to Lampton to see the captain’s portrait for yourself, perhaps you might change your mind.’
‘And dolling me up like a lady? What’s the purpose of that?’
‘On the night of the robbery, you spoke in a very common manner – to hide your identity I assume. But I’ve had the pleasure of speaking with you since, and your diction reveals a certain level of education.’
‘My mother taught me to read and write,’ she said and stuck out her chin. ‘She was a lady’s maid, and her mistress saw to her education.’
‘Just so. If you were to wear a lady’s dress, it would make the resemblance more noticeable. Without the distraction of your – pardon me – simple clothes, we’re more likely to convince my father that he must do right by you,’ said Jack. ‘If you’re family, he should help you.’
The girl scoffed at that. ‘Do right by me! I’m not saying I believe you, but if what you claim is true, that I am the illegitimate child of this captain of yours, an earl will have no reason to believe he needs to see me right.’
‘We’ll see about that,’ said Jack.
The girl muttered a most unladylike oath, and it was Jack’s turn to laugh. She re
ally was quite delightful. ‘What is your name?’ he asked, although he already knew her surname.
‘Cora,’ she replied almost reluctantly. ‘Cora Mardell.’
‘And I’m Jack. Well, Cora Mardell, do we have a deal?’
Jack sensed her indecision. She was clearly not convinced by what he had told her, but if she carried on robbing coaches, whatever her reasons, she would get caught eventually and no doubt hang for it. He couldn’t let that happen.
He suspected from the way she was chewing her lip that she was intrigued by his claims. That she was itching to get away from him was evident too, but his dogs sat either side of her and she probably knew he could make them trip her up if he commanded it. Besides, he would catch her soon enough if she tried to make a run for it – he had a horse right here, and she didn’t.
All in all, he had her pretty well cornered. Along the line the wager with Rupert had lost its importance; helping Miss Mardell, whether she appreciated it or not, had become far more important, not to mention the prospect of spending time in her company. She fascinated him and made him want to be a better man. And he could not deny the chemistry between them.
‘Well?’ he said, one eyebrow raised. ‘I’m waiting for an answer.’
She looked to be on the verge of replying when a rabbit bolted out of a nearby hole and both dogs took off in pursuit, barking with excitement. It happened so fast Jack didn’t have a chance to call them back, and Cora must have seen him hesitate. She didn’t.
‘The answer is no!’ she shouted and dove off into the undergrowth, disappearing faster than the rabbit and its pursuers.
Jack was about to follow, but then shook his head and stayed put. What was the point? She probably knew these woods better than anyone and she’d lead him a merry dance before getting him lost.
‘Bloody hell,’ he muttered. He’d thought her convinced, but she was obviously still wary of him. Could he blame her? Not really. He had the power to unmask her as a notorious highwayman and criminal, and not doing so would be a dereliction of duty for any honourable man. She would be well aware of that and he hadn’t exactly given her proper reassurances that he wasn’t going to take her to the magistrate. If he’d been in her shoes, he wouldn’t have trusted him either.
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