From Waif to Gentleman's Wife

by Julia Justiss

  ‘Tell them to leave, all of ’em,’ he replied, still keeping his voice low. ‘Once they are out of sight, I’ll come out—and you with me. If anyone tries to stop us, I’ll shoot you.’

  He gave her a smile that chilled her to her marrow. ‘Once we’re safely away, I’ll release you…or maybe I’ll keep you, if you bring me good luck. A red-haired wench is always hot for pleasuring. Greaves had his fill of you yet?’

  Despite her resolve to stay calm, tears of fury and frustration at her helplessness trickled down her cheeks. ‘You are despicable,’ she whispered.

  He laughed at her. ‘And you’re as gullible as your lazy brother. Long as I got the manor fixed up and made sure he had doxies to service him regular, he was happy as a pig in muck.’

  Shock momentarily suppressed the fear. ‘Mr Barksdale?’ she whispered.

  ‘Aye, Barksdale—the man who saw to it your idiot brother made it through the war. Would have got his worthless posterior shot off in the first engagement if it hadn’t been for me. Owed me for that, he did! I was making a fine living, squeezing coin from this hogswill of a farm, until he decided to verify the accounts. Threatened to turn me off, after all I done for him! Well, I made sure Martin whined to your fancy cousin Lord Englemere and got him turned off first—afore I took care of him. Englemere owes me, too, but he’ll get his later. Right now, ’twill be sweet to have Greville’s pretty sister part her legs and work off some of the honeyfall he made me lose. Now—’ he waved the pistol at her again ‘—tell that crowd of bumpkins what they need to do. Fast.’

  Just how had Barksdale ‘taken care of’ Greville? she wondered. ‘Why must I answer—?’ she began.

  ‘Just tell them,’ he snarled, the leer leaving his face as his expression hardened.

  Quivering between terror and outrage, she called out, ‘He wants everyone to disperse. After you leave, he will come out, taking me with him. If you don’t let us go away unmolested, he says he will shoot me.’

  ‘What, Hampton can’t speak for hisself?’ Davie’s voice answered. ‘What kind of man is he, hiding behind a woman’s skirts? Must not be the crafty rascal we’re looking for. That one be smart, a real leader. This here must be a common hooligan—or maybe ’tis no man at all.

  ‘Maybe it’s just Crazy Peg from Hazelwick,’ Davie continued, his tone becoming taunting. ‘Heard about the mill fire and thinks she’s a Spencean, like some of them no-goods been hanging out at the Hart and Hare. Listen now, Peggie girl, you put down that pistol and come on out.’

  Davie must have urged on the other men, for several more voices echoed, ‘That’s right, Peg’ and ‘Come on out, girlie.’

  Hampton–Barksdale’s jaw tightened as the mocking calls continued, and for a moment, Joanna thought he might fire at her. Then, with a roar, he yelled, ‘Enough! I’ll show you a leader at the end of my pistol, you gutter rat, if you don’t quit your yapping and move off with your friends. Or do you want the Merrill woman’s death on your heads?’

  For a moment Barksdale’s threat echoed in the sudden silence. Then Davie’s voice came again. ‘Hear that, Tanner? I was right! Ain’t no clever man we got trapped here. Just that great bully and coward Barksdale.’

  ‘Barksdale?’ Various voices disputed before a moment later Tanner replied, ‘Davie’s right. That is his voice!’

  ‘Sure nuff is,’ Davie said. ‘’Tis just like him, too, threatening women, beating on children. Had to knock me over the head and drag me away in the middle of the night, so brave he was about facing a boy half his age. Afraid if you tussled with me in the daylight, I might slip away like a youngin through a hole, Barksdale?’

  ‘The mill boss should have whipped you to death,’ Barksdale roared back. ‘But never you worry, guttersnipe. One day soon I’ll be back to finish the job.’

  ‘Threats and bluster, just like always,’ Davie called back. ‘If you’re so much a man, come after me now! You got a pistol and all’s I got’s this little slingshot. Open one of them windows and we’ll see who’s the better shot.’

  ‘Davie, no!’ Joanna cried, echoing the warnings of a number of the men outside the building.

  ‘Or are you too much a coward to shoot, even from behind that big stone wall? Better face me now, ’cause I ain’t gonna sneak away out some hole, scared of the likes of you!’

  With a growl of fury, Barksdale charged to the window, unlatched and threw open the shutter. Crouching behind the wall, so as to make it difficult for anyone in the crowd who might possess a pistol to get a shot at him, he peered over the frame at the schoolyard. ‘Show yourself, whoreson, and we’ll see who can shoot!’

  As Barksdale focused his attention out of the window, Joanna’s muzzy head suddenly cleared.

  ‘Slip out like a youngin through a hole…’ Davie was trying to infuriate Barksdale enough to distract him so she might try to escape!

  To her horror, Davie must have come out into the open, for a chorus of voices shouted, ‘Davie, get down!’ ‘Don’t go out there!’ ‘Fool, you’ll get yourself killed!’

  Chuckling darkly, Barksdale levelled his weapon out the window and fired, then ducked back as a flurry of stones whizzed through the frame to clatter on to the tables inside.

  ‘Told ya he couldn’t hit nothing,’ Davie’s voice taunted. ‘Did I part your hair with them rocks, Barksdale? I’ll bruise your pretty cheek with the next round! Or is you out of shot and too scared to show your face?’

  With a growl, the furious man threw down the empty pistol and seized the other, then peeked once again around the window frame. ‘Won’t talk so big with a load of shot in your belly, whore-bait!’

  Saying a prayer of thanks for Davie’s audacious bravery, along with a fervent plea that Barksdale’s second shot would be no more effective than the first, Joanna took a deep breath and waited for him to squeeze the trigger. During the noise of the report, while both Barksdale’s weapons were unloaded and he was preoccupied ducking Davie’s second volley of rocks, she would have to take the chance his cleverness offered and try to get out.

  Would she be able to wriggle through the small gap? Better to try and fail than do nothing and sit there meekly for Barksdale to use as a hostage—and then his trollop.

  As the blast for which she’d been waiting assaulted her ears, she darted to the alcove, though her stealth hadn’t been necessary. His full attention focused on Davie, Barksdale never looked in her direction.

  Her heart sank as she fell to her knees by the opening and ripped apart the temporary thatch cover that protected the unfinished section of wall. A mischievous child might be able to scramble out through the narrow space remaining, but she was never going to make it.

  Despite that conviction, desperately she set to work with palms and fingers, pushing and tugging to dislodge more rock.

  The sound of her sobbing breath roared in her ears. Knowing she had at best seconds before Barksdale turned from the window to reload his pistols—and notice she’d gone missing—she threw herself on to the dirt floor, jammed her head through the hole and pushed with all her strength.

  It was no use—turn and twist as she might, she couldn’t get both shoulders to slip through. And then she heard what she’d been dreading.

  ‘What the…?’ Barksdale exclaimed. In the small cottage, there wouldn’t be much doubt where she’d gone. Tears dripping down her face anew, she slammed her shoulders against the rock.

  Seconds later, the trotting of footsteps was followed by the sound of Barksdale’s malicious laughter. ‘Why, Mrs Merrill, with your bum in the air and your skirts around your knees, what a tempting morsel you are. Alas, that I must wait until later to enjoy you.’

  While she scrabbled for something outside the stone foundation to cling to, Barksdale seized her ankles.

  Chapter Fifteen

  A nxious and frustrated, Ned rode his horse into the stableyard at the Hart and Hare, where he was to rendezvous with the others of his party after they finished conducting a house-to-house search t
hrough the town. Ever since Miller had brought the Nottingham journeyman to him early this morning, claiming to know the whereabouts of the leader who’d set the mill fire, he’d been in a fever of anticipation and fury to apprehend the man who had cindered his investment and seriously injured his workers.

  But it seemed they had missed the man they sought at every turn. In the hot ashes of a cooking fire and scatter of provisions within the first cottage, they had found evidence of recent habitation, but not the inhabitant. Proceeding east, they had searched several other abandoned cottages, each of which also showed signs of occupancy, though none as fresh, seeming to indicate the man who’d left those traces had moved around. Or that several men had quietly taken up residence on Blenhem land.Thankfully, a quick stop at Granny Cuthbert’s cottage found the old lady safe inside, proving at least one of the reports he’d been given by men who’d joined the search—that she had been carried off by the ‘mystery man’ they sought—was false.

  At that point, after several fruitless hours, he was considering giving up the search entirely when one of the trackers sighted a man threading his horse along the edge of the woods bordering the road to Hazelwick. Sending half the group to continue searching in the opposite direction to the west, Ned had set off with his group into the woods. Thus far, however, he had discovered the stranger neither among the trees nor in any of the dwellings at Hazelwick.

  Did the informer truly know who had set the fire? Was the occupant of the abandoned cottage in fact responsible, or was he simply a common workman, one of the several displaced men who’d recently left Manchester to come to Blenhem to claim the jobs Ned was offering?

  What if the information was correct, but instead of making for town, the miscreant had doubled back somewhere in the woods and gone in the opposite direction?

  West…towards the schoolhouse. Uneasy foreboding sat like a plough-breaking bolder in his gut. Surely Myles would have told Mrs Merrill the reason behind his early-morning departure today? Surely knowing that, she wouldn’t have ventured out of the manor to the school?

  Even as he thought that, he had to smile. This was the Mrs Merrill he hadn’t managed to dissuade from accompanying him to the fire. If she felt there was work to be done, she was unlikely to cool her heels meekly at the manor while search parties chased around Blenhem in hopes of capturing someone who, thus far, he could not even say for sure was a villain.

  Besides, if she did go, Davie would go with her. The lad wasn’t yet a man full grown, but he was clever and resourceful beyond his years. Ned knew he’d utilise every trick he possessed to keep Mrs Merrill safe.

  Still, Ned would feel much better if they could run this stranger to ground so he could return to check on the schoolmistress.

  While he waited, he might as well go into the taproom and ask anyone who chanced to be there if he’d seen a stranger. Mary, standing by a table occupied by a young man goggling in admiration up at her, smiled at him as he walked in.

  ‘A mug of ale, Mr Greaves?’ she asked.

  ‘Not now, thanks. I’m looking for a newcomer who’s been staying in one of Blenhem’s abandoned cottages. Might be an unemployed mill hand come over from Manchester. Have you had any new customers of that description?’

  She shook her head. ‘Nay, nor have we had much custom at all today, save Mr Abernathy here, the squire’s son just down from school.’ While the two men nodded a greeting, Mary continued, ‘Mr Kirkbride lit out early, after Miller’s brother came by saying you were chasing the man who set the mill fire. You’ve not found him then, yet?’

  ‘No,’ Ned said regretfully. ‘I’ve got men searching all the houses and barns at Blenhem and in the village. If we don’t find him there, we’ll scour the woods. One way or another, we’ll flush him out today.’

  Just then, the innkeeper, Mr Kirkbride, came running into the taproom.

  ‘Mr Greaves, come quick! A man be holed up in the schoolhouse, holding the schoolteacher! They’re saying it’s that villain, the old agent you replaced, Barksdale!’

  Before Ned could make it out the door, Mary’s face blanched linen-white. ‘No!’ she screamed, taking two running steps towards him before pitching forwards, as if falling into a faint.

  Desperate to leave, Ned nonetheless halted long enough to catch the girl. Immediately after he steadied her, though, she thrust herself unassisted back to her feet. ‘Nay, I’m fine. Go! Go at once!’ she urged, motioning Ned towards the door. ‘Oh, you must get to Mrs Merrill before Barksdale…hurts her, like he did me!’ she cried, her voice ending on a sob.

  Kirkbride, who like Ned had rushed over to assist her, stopped short. ‘Barksdale hurt you? When?’

  ‘You think I was born a doxy?’ she fired back. ‘’Twas Barksdale attacked me, coming home from the village one night. Barksdale who fathered the babe I lost. Threatened to turn my folks off the land if I ever told anyone the truth.’ Tears streaming down her cheeks, she cried, ‘If Mrs Merrill is hurt, ’tis all my fault! Thought I’d seen him sneaking through town yesterday…but then I thought ’twas only my old nightmare, that for years had me seeing him everywhere. I should have warned Jesse—oh, but ’tis nothing for it now! Go, Mr Greaves!’ she said, giving Ned an urgent shove.

  ‘Tommy,’ she called over her shoulder to the squire’s son as she followed Ned out, ‘let Mr Greaves borrow your gelding. The horse is fast, sir, and fresher than your mount.’

  ‘Aye, take him,’ the young man seconded.

  Nodding his thanks, Ned leapt into the saddle. As he rode off, Mary, weeping openly, called after him, ‘Save her, sir! You must save her!’

  Mary’s desperate words echoed in his head as Ned pushed the unfamiliar mount to full speed. Discovering thankfully that the animal was as fast as Mary had claimed, Ned urged him in a ground-eating gallop towards the school.

  Could he get there in time? How would he induce Barksdale to give her up, if he was indeed holding her hostage?

  Ned refused to even consider the possibility that he might not. He would free her, whatever it took, and afterwards pound Barksdale into the ground like a fence post if he’d harmed her in any way.

  Forcing his mind from contemplating the awful image Mary had planted, Ned made himself focus instead on the jumble of facts he’d just learned. Barksdale—the detested former estate agent—was in the area? Ned doubted he could be the leader behind the group at the Hart and Hare; the man was far too infamous in the county to induce even otherwise disaffected men, related as they doubtless were to some of the tenants at Blenhem, to follow him. If he did have some connections with the group, he would have to work through intermediaries.

  Like a Nottingham workman…or refugees from the mills in Manchester—perhaps from the same factory where he’d ‘sold’ Davie?

  But as he drew closer to the school, he could no longer distract himself from the fear and worry battering aside all other thoughts. All that mattered was getting Joanna free and unharmed.

  Was it his fault she’d fallen into danger, for not delaying his departure this morning long enough to deliver a personal warning that she stay at the manor? For being so obsessed with capturing the villain that he’d trailed the man towards town, rather than riding west to see to her safety? For not revealing his identity and his reasons for concealing it long ago, so she might be forewarned?

  Mary’s testimony had removed any doubt about how black was the character of the man holding her. But if Barksdale were trapped, surrounded by an angry, threatening crowd, surely his first thought would be to use her to bargain for escape—not to harm her. Not with a throng of witnesses who’d be happy to testify against him. That road led as straight and direct to a hanging as a tightened noose.

  No, keeping her safe was the only rational course—if rational he still was.

  Time suspended, minutes stretching into hours, punctuated by pounding hoofs and his frantic heartbeat. At last, far too many of those minutes later, he urged the horse down the final stretch towards the schoolhouse that,
he could see as he peered into the distance, was surrounded by a crowd of men.

  Urging the spent and lathered horse to one final effort, he was pulling up, about to vault from the saddle, when he heard an urgent voice shriek his name.

  Joanna’s voice. Swivelling in the direction of the sound, he searched for her as she screamed again, ‘Ned! Here!’

  Then he saw her, her head and one shoulder crammed through the small space in the rock foundation Tanner had yet to seal on the side of the schoolhouse. She was struggling to get out, clinging to the exterior stones with the fingernails of one hand as someone—doubtless Barksdale—tried to drag her back inside.

  He leapt from the saddle and set off. Branches tore at his clothes and one raked across his face as he raced over, threw himself to his knees and seized her.

  ‘Let her go, Barksdale,’ he yelled, trying to brace her against him and minimise the scrape of her body against the rocks. ‘It’s over. You can’t win. Give yourself up and it will go more leniently for you.’

  While clutching Joanna as tightly as he dared and calling to the man inside, Ned kicked at the stone foundation with his boot. After a moment’s frantic effort, he dislodged one stone, then another, until the old, weakened mortar crumbled and, with an enormous heave, he broke her trapped shoulder free.

  With the ferocity of a rat cornered in a barn, Barksdale refused to release her. ‘Think you got the winning hand, Ned Greaves? Well, I know a thing or two, and she’ll be mine in the end! Let her loose, or I swear I’ll break her ankles!’

  Before Ned could decide how to counter that threat without causing Joanna any further injury, a huge crashing sound emanated from the front of the building. ‘That’s it, men!’ Davie’s voice shouted. ‘Another blow, and we’ll have the door open!’

  The surprise of the men’s attack distracted Barksdale for the instant Ned needed. Feeling the resistance to his pull on her lessen, Ned yanked with all his strength. Suddenly Joanna broke free and tumbled out, knocking them both to the ground.