Lady Sherry and the Highwayman

by Maggie MacKeever

  Lady Sherry might well have settled on this latter alternative if not for the circumstance that Prinny pressed forward. Since Sherry was standing in front of him, she pressed forward also. She stumbled across the threshold, righted herself, and looked about.

  The shed was very neat and tidy. There were no bloodstains on the floor, no shreds of torn petticoat. Sherry stared at the corner where she’d found the shawl and was relieved not to see it there again.

  She leaned against the wheelbarrow. Had she imagined the entire incident? Had there been no hanging and no highwayman, no wild ride through the London streets, no pistol and no pruning knife? Was she perhaps still asleep in her bed?

  In a spirit of experimentation, Sherry pinched herself, and winced. She was awake, alas. Yes, and now that she looked more closely, she saw damp spots where someone had scrubbed the floor. There was even the scrub bucket by the door. But who—

  At this point Lady Sherry’s ruminations were interrupted by a great racket in the garden. She moved to the doorway and peered out. Prinny, disappointed to find nothing of interest in the shed, had continued his investigations out-of-doors. Now he was frolicking exuberantly around Lord Viccars, for whom he had a partiality, his lordship having once brought him a nice bone. Though his lordship had never repeated this signal mark of approval, Prinny had never ceased to hope for its recurrence. He leaped up and placed his front paws on his lordship’s shoulders and attempted to salute his cheek.

  Lord Viccars had no wish to wrestle with an obese hound, though his innate good manners prohibited him from manhandling the brute. It was with relief that he saw Lady Sherry emerge from the gardener’s shed with a water bucket in her hand. Andrew leaped back as she emptied the bucket over the dog’s head. This treatment was the final blow to Prinny’s dignity. He yelped, then fled.

  “I am so sorry!” Sherry brushed dog hairs from her admirer’s exquisitely cut frock coat. “There is simply no controlling the beast. Lavinia ignores him and the rest of us spoil him, and now it is you who suffer the results!”

  Andrew caught her restless hands. “Don’t concern yourself. I consider it well worthwhile to suffer the beast’s abuse if it gains me a few moments alone with you.” Sherry flushed and sought to free herself. He made no attempt to detain her but held out the pruning knife. “I am curious, my dear. Perhaps someday you may tell me what has inspired this sudden interest in things horticultural. You wished to restore this to its proper place, did you not? Hadn’t you better do so now? We wouldn’t wish to put Jacob in a tweak.”

  Lady Sherry grasped the knife, then fled into the shed. Once safely out of his lordship’s sight, she pressed her hands to her hot cheeks and took several deep, steadying breaths.

  How foolish she was being. Sherry had long ago accepted her spinster state. She had not thought to marry, and it was a circumstance she had accepted with only slight regret.

  Sherry had been genuinely devoted to her mama and grieved when that frail but valiant lady had breathed her last. She had been further dismayed to discover that her well-ordered life as a consequence must change. Used to a large amount of freedom, as befit an independent female accustomed to running her own household, Sherry found it an irksome necessity to now dwell under her brother’s roof. Even more unsettling, she found herself with her first beau at twenty-seven years of age. Once life had been simple. Now it was nothing of the sort.

  What must Andrew think of her disappearance? Probably that she was being tediously missish. Sherry brushed vainly at her unruly hair and stepped back out into the sunlight. “I quite forgot that you had promised to call today. And then I came to you in all my dirt. You will think me shockingly shatterbrained. The truth is—” She broke off. Though sadly unskilled in the art of flirtation, Sherry knew instinctively that her companion would not admire her more for discovering that she had a highwayman hidden away under the eaves. She didn’t want Lord Viccars to think less of her, even though his admiration left her feeling both embarrassed and confused.

  That Lady Sherry was currently suffering confusion, Lord Viccars could hardly fail to note. That she frequently suffered that condition in his presence, he was ruefully aware. Andrew was not accustomed to ladies who regarded him with something of the fascination they would accord to a traveling-show freak. Lady Sherry’s response left him both humbled and amused.

  Andrew was no slow-top. The object of his affections was even more than usually distracted today. “My dear, you can never look anything less than lovely,” he said. “Something is troubling you. I wish you’d let me help.”

  How unnerving was the gentleman’s perspicacity. How tempting, his suggestion that she should seek his help. Sherry wondered what advice he might give. Not that she would ever know, because pigs would fly before she confided her folly to him. “I doubt that anyone can help me,” she said, somewhat gloomily.

  “Does your highwayman still refuse to cooperate with you?” inquired Lord Viccars, with a timeliness that gave Sherry a very nasty start. Then she realized that he spoke of her current work in progress, which had been inspired by the exploits of a certain green-eyed rogue. “Oh! It goes well enough, I suppose.”

  Conversation with Lady Sherry was not going well today. Lord Viccars was pleased to have sparked even so tepid a response. “You concern yourself too much with it,” he said kindly, under the impression that the lady was dispirited because her current work in progress was not proceeding as quickly as she would have liked. “As my wife you needn’t ever write another word, if that is your wish.”

  He didn’t understand the seriousness of the situation. For Sherry to cease to write her novels would have been on the order of a meadowlark who abruptly ceased to sing. “And if I do wish to continue?” she inquired, somewhat acerbically.

  “Then of course you must!” Lord Viccars responded with laudable patience. Perhaps a new topic of conversation might distract Lady Sherry from whatever had caused her spirits to sink so low. “They hanged the highwayman today. It’s a pity you couldn’t have spoken with him first. He might have provided you with some useful details.”

  He still might. The highwayman owed Sherry something, after all, for her efforts on his behalf. Perhaps his escape from the gallows might make an interesting chapter for her book. Indeed, perhaps a study of his character might enable her to overcome her problem with her current hero, who was disagreeable and brooding and Byronic in true romantic style; and who displayed raven hair and wicked features, dashing mustache and muscular limbs.

  Unfortunately, he also displayed a stronger tendency toward clever conversation than dramatic action, which was all well and good in some instances, but a highwayman prone to flowery speeches lost a certain degree of credibility.

  Captain Toby was not prone to flowery speeches. Sherry wondered what the rogue would say to her when they next met. “You are fortunate Lavinia cannot hear you encourage me to rub shoulders with highwaymen,” she said dryly, leaving Lord Viccars to enjoy his ignorance regarding Captain Toby’s demise. “She would scold us both.”

  “Is it so very hard for you?” Andrew claimed one of her hands and drew it through his arm. “You must not allow her to oppress your spirits. She means well, you know.”

  “I do know! Lavinia is a repository for all the cardinal virtues, and one can only respect her for it, but she has a tendency to make life difficult for those of us who are not! I cannot even take the air without listening to a peal rung over me afterward, as though I had a total want of common conduct.” As perhaps she did. Sheltering a highwayman hardly argued a respect for the proprieties.

  Sherry glanced covertly at her companion. Lord Viccars had not called today to listen to her complaints. What would be an acceptable topic of conversation? Not religion or politics. Or escaped highwaymen.

  Gracious, she could think of nothing else. Andrew would think she had no conversation. Sherry would be well served if someone did snatch him out from under her nose. Indeed, she was amazed that someone had not already done so
. What on earth had possessed the man to toss his handkerchief to a hayseed like her?

  Lord Viccars wondered why his companion had fallen silent. If he could have been aware of her thoughts, he would have been surprised. He saw little of the provincial in Sherry. Instead, he admired her intellect and was refreshed by her lack of social artifice.

  Which is not to say that he was so besotted that he was incapable of fair criticism. “I dislike to see you stand on bad terms with Lavinia,” he remarked.

  “That is because you’ve known her forever and she doesn’t rip up at you!” So much for her good intentions. Sherry wondered if she would admire Lord Viccars better if he admired Lavinia less. “You refine too much upon it. I merely find Lavinia a trifle high in the instep, while she can’t rid herself of a secret suspicion that novel-writing sisters-in-law aren’t quite the thing. Lavinia wishes to understand me and cannot, and will not accept that she cannot and so continues the effort, which puts us both out of patience. I sometimes wonder how it came about that members of a family are expected to like one another, because the truth is that frequently they do not.”

  They had, by way of gentle perambulations, now arrived at the garden gate. Andrew paused and looked down into Sherry’s face. She immediately lowered her gaze.

  Courting Lady Sherry was a humbling experience for a gentleman who had been the quarry of matchmaking mamas ever since the death of his first wife several years previously. That marriage, on the surface an admirable match in all respects, had not been a happy one. Not until recently had Andrew even briefly considered stepping again into the parson’s mousetrap. And now that he did consider it, the object of his affections was as changeable as a weathervane. One day she was perfectly at ease with him and the next prone to regard him as something akin to an amiable ogre. She had agreed to marry him but could not be persuaded to set a date. The situation was as diverting as it was deflating to his self-esteem.

  What would be the outcome, Andrew could not guess. He would give Sherry time to discover the truth of her affections and meanwhile serve as best he could to buffer Lavinia’s reformatory zeal.

  There was more troubling her today than Lavinia’s criticisms or his own courtship, he thought. Therefore, Andrew refrained from taking advantage of this private moment to press his suit once again. “What’s plaguing you, my dear?” he asked. “You may trust me, you know.”

  Shyly, Sherry looked at him. Andrew was a fine figure of a man in his well-tailored tailored frock coat and high neckcloth, striped waistcoat, well-fitting unmentionables, and gleaming boots. She should come down from her high fidgets and cease shilly-shallying.

  There was little doubt that Lord Viccars would make her a good husband. He had the knack of sympathetic listening and didn’t try to argue her out of her feelings, whether he agreed with them or not, which made him very pleasant company. Thus far in their relationship, he’d inspired her to hurl no inkwells.

  Sherry realized suddenly that Andrew had made no mention of marriage today, had pressed her to set no wedding date. Had he changed his mind? Did he no longer wish to marry her but was prohibited by honor from crying off?

  How the deuce was she to know his true sentiments? If only she were not so green! “I know that I may trust you,” Sherry said in an agony of uncertainty. “You are very good.”

  She did not trust him enough to confide in him. Andrew told himself that it was foolish to experience her reticence as a blow. He did so, all the same, and above all wished that she should not realize it, and so after the exchange of a few more pleasantries, took his leave. Sherry stood at the gate and watched him out of sight, then turned unhappily back to Longacre House.

  Chapter Six

  As he went about his usual business for the remainder of that afternoon, Lord Viccars’s mood did not improve. He paused at Weston’s to inspect the progress of a coat he was having made, at Hoby’s to order a pair of fashionable Hessian boots with a tassel dangling from their V-shaped front, and at Lock’s to inquire about a chapeau bras. Since these acquisitions failed to cheer him, he next repaired to White’s, the most exclusive of all the gentlemen’s clubs, with its famed bow window from which Brummell and his cronies had used to sit and stare; and passed no little time playing whist and listening to on-dits concerning falling prices and the Elgin Marbles and most especially the highwayman who had escaped the gallows that morn. Andrew placed a wager in the betting book as to how soon the rogue would be found and then left behind those Corinthian pilasters, that handsome and well-proportioned facade, to sally forth next to Gentleman Jackson’s boxing salon, where he was privileged to go a round or two with the champion himself, thus vastly increasing his knowledge of the noble art of self-defense. Feeling slightly better for this exercise, he then withdrew to the Clarendon Hotel, where he kept a set of rooms, finding the Clarendon more to his taste than the town house in which he had not set foot since his wife’s funeral. The food was superb at the Clarendon, his bed was several mattresses thick and large enough to hold three people easily, and the other accommodations were equally luxurious. The Clarendon even boasted a menagerie attached to the garden for the edification of those guests who were curious about elephants and llamas and other such beasts.

  Lord Viccars had little interest in elephants and llamas and the like. What slight curiosity he might have about such things had long since been satisfied. Andrew’s mind was not of an inquiring nature, and his pocketbook was plump enough to satisfy his every whim.

  As a result, he was frequently bored. Or had been bored until making the acquaintance of a certain authoress. She might easily have bored him as well, because Andrew was well acquainted with the various strategies and ploys utilized mercilessly by the weaker sex in hopes of bringing a gentleman up to scratch. He had been intrigued to find Lady Sherry seemingly without artifice, had set out to discover if she was truly what she seemed or merely more clever than the majority of her sex. He was not amusing himself with her, despite her doubts. Or if so, then with serious intent. But Sherry gave not the least sign of realizing how very flattering and particular were the attentions that he paid her, and so, ironically, he was caught. Not that he lamented the circumstance. Andrew wondered if he would wish to cry off if Sherry suddenly became eager to have the knot tied. He hoped not. She was unlikely to give him an honorable excuse to cry off.

  These speculations were without basis and did nothing to elevate his spirits. Lord Viccars gave a last critical glance at his reflection in the large standing looking glass. He looked well enough in evening dress. Long-tailed coat and Florentine waistcoat, frilled shirt and intricately tied cravat, knee breeches and silk stockings and gleaming pumps— Andrew might have reached the advanced age of forty, but few younger men could boast a more shapely calf, a more muscular thigh. “I’ll be late, Williams,” he said to his valet. “You need not wait up.” The valet bowed and then hastened to open the door.

  The carriage was waiting outside the hotel. Dusk had fallen and the lamp-lighters were making their rounds. The air was thick with a rich mixture of fog and chimney smoke, smuts and pulverized horse dung. “Marylebone,” Andrew murmured to his driver as he took his seat.

  The driver needed no further instructions. He took up his reins. Like the valet before him, the coachman knew that Lord Viccars was setting out this evening to visit a certain little ladybird. Nor was this the first ladybird to occupy that pretty little villa constructed in the Italian style, and neither Williams nor Briscoe, the coachman, fancied that she would be the last, whether or not their master stepped into the parson’s mousetrap.

  About Lord Viccars’s prospective venture into matrimony, both loyal retainers had mixed feelings. They wished their master to be happy, but lamented the curtailment of their freedom, for both knew well that matters would become a great deal more prim and proper when a female took a hand. Williams would no longer be able, in his master’s absence, to carry on his very ardent flirtation with a Clarendon chambermaid; nor would Briscoe be able to exe
cute the occasional commissions that enabled him to enjoy luxuries not generally available to persons of his station, an earl’s coach being above suspicion and therefore admirably well suited to the conveyance of various questionable items.

  Not only Williams and Briscoe lamented Lord Viccars’s prospective marriage. This sentiment was shared by the lovely lady who awaited his arrival in the drawing room of the aforementioned pretty Italian villa in Marylebone. Indeed, the subject of that prospective marriage was a matter that much occupied her mind and made her wish to gnash her teeth.

  Marguerite was not so foolish as to give voice to any rancor. “Mon cher Andrew,” she murmured huskily as she pressed herself into his arms. “You are very cruel to leave me alone so long. I have missed you dreadfully.”

  “Have you, my dear?” Lord Viccars stepped back to inspect his chère amie. She was stunningly beautiful with auburn curls and brown eyes and pale perfect skin; her voluptuous body, which she was prone to drape in dampened muslin so that not a single curve was left to the imagination.

  Marguerite wore no dampened muslin this evening but a wrapper with a plunging décolletage that drew even Andrew’s somewhat jaded eye. Experience had taught him that this generous display presaged a request of some sort. “What is it this time, I wonder?” he murmured. “Or, perhaps, how much?”

  Marguerite pouted. It was an expression that she had practiced long before her mirror and that suited her lovely, roguish face well. “You make me sound like a scheming sort of female. Truly I am nothing of the sort. True, my pockets are a teeny bit to let, but I do not wish to make a fuss about trifles, and you will not mind seeing the bailiffs camped outside the door.”

  Lord Viccars was indeed experienced in the arts of dalliance, and thus well-qualified to translate. “You’ve been plunging deep again. How much this time?”