Lady Sherry and the Highwayman

by Maggie MacKeever

  Many moments elapsed in this fashion. At their conclusion, Sherry and Micah both reposed on the settee while Prinny sprawled in a very dejected manner by the door. Prinny was feeling very jealous, because it had been made very clear that his new friend preferred someone else to him. Micah, too, was not free of the pangs of jealousy at the thought that this female with her astonishing depths of passion should be promised in marriage to someone else. Yes, and if she made those marriage vows she would not break them, unlike many other so-called ladies that he’d known. But Lady Sherry was like no other female he’d ever encountered, and Micah was not inexperienced in the petticoat line. He stroked her red-gold head, which rested upon his chest.

  Sherry’s thoughts were not so coherent. She lacked Micah’s experience in the game of hearts and had nothing with which to compare what had just taken place. What should not have taken place, she reminded herself as she listened to his strong heartbeat. What must never take place again, because she was no giddy miss to toss her bonnet over the windmill. Nor was she cut out for life as a highwayman’s light-o’-love, even if he wished that of her, which of course he would not. He had been bored and she had been at hand, and so—

  And so he must never realize that she had suffered the sting of Cupid’s dart. Sherry sat up, straightened her rumpled clothing, and smoothed her tousled hair. Micah watched quizzically as she unlocked the door, then brought him the key. “You are well enough to travel now, I think,” she said, and dropped it onto the settee.

  Well enough, perhaps, but Micah was not ready to leave. “Wait!” he called as she walked toward the door.

  Sherry did not falter. If she were to pause even one instant, she would disgrace herself by bursting into tears. “What just passed between us was a singular piece of folly on both our pans and I do not wish to discuss it—indeed, I wish to forget that it ever happened—and I beg you will do the same!” she said in not-quite-steady tones, and with as much dignity as she could muster stepped out into the hall.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Lady Sherry did not appear at the dinner table that day, nor would she open the door of her bedchamber to family or friends, leaving a note stuck on her door stating that she was prostrated with a sick headache. And indeed she was prostrated, had flung herself down on her bed in all her clothing, stricken by something perhaps best described as a sickness of the heart.

  Not surprisingly, Sherry found sleep elusive. She tossed and turned upon her mattress until the sheets were in a dreadful tangle. The Montagues and Capulets had nothing on a highwayman and the sister of a magistrate. Not that she and Micah were star-crossed, because he did not love her, which was, all things considered, probably for the best. And wasn’t it a great pity, if she was going to respond to any man with such intense feeling, that it was not the man to whom she was betrothed?

  What was wrong with her? She was affianced to one man, yet dreaming of another. Sherry pounded her pillow into a more comfortable shape. She could not force from her mind the memory of Micah’s kiss, the feeling of his flesh under her hands. Why couldn’t she have fallen in love with Andrew, who was so good and law-abiding? It had something to do with Ophelia and Captain Blood, she suspected, because Micah had said Captain Blood was dull and Andrew thought him a great deal too bold.

  She had been a great deal too bold. Never, ever again would she take a drink; the port had obviously gone straight to her head.

  Oh, this was absurd! Sherry abandoned her efforts to sleep, lit the pretty brass lamp, and studied her reflection in its soft glow. The image offered back to her by the honeysuckle-framed mirror was wild-eyed and distraught.

  Red-eyed also, for she had not withstood her mournful thoughts without recourse to a handkerchief. Sherry had fallen in love with a highwayman and sent him away in almost the next moment, and now she wished that she had not.

  What a pretty pickle this was! Shocking as it was in her, what Sherry truly wished to do at that moment was to return to her book room. She sighed and began to make such repairs as she could to her tear-streaked face.

  Lady Sherry was not the only member of her brother’s household to be awake so late that night, although the servants slept exhausted in their cramped little rooms beneath the eaves. Greedy Ned dreamed of Daffodil, who in turn dreamed of the newly hired footman who possessed a most shapely calf. Aunt Tulliver dreamed of a country pleasure fair complete with puppet shows and gingerbread stalls, a pig-faced lady and a pair of dwarfs. And Sir Christopher snoozed peacefully in his great carved bed.

  He did so, unknowingly, alone. His beloved wife did not rest companionably beside him now. Lavinia was not even present in the bedchamber that she shared with her doting spouse. She had come into possession of a certain key ring—had in fact filched it from her butler’s pantry when Barclay’s superior gaze was directed elsewhere—and was at this very moment stealing down the upper hallway on tiptoe.

  There it was, the book room door. Now all that remained was to discover which key fit the lock. With candle in one hand and key ring in the other, Lavinia glanced cautiously over her shoulder to make sure that she was not observed.

  It was rather a thrilling moment. Lavinia felt as though she was being very adventurous and brave. Dukes’ daughters did not in the normal course of events skulk about the hallways in the dead of night.

  At last! A key that fit. Lavinia savored the sweet taste of triumph. Before she could turn the key in the lock, the door swung open. Lavinia very nearly lost her balance from sheer astonishment. She kept her wits about her and did not scream, not wishing to be asked to explain her presence here, with Barclay’s keys, at this very advanced hour. She kept firm hold of her candle, too, not being wishful of setting the house afire, ducked into the book room, and quietly closed the door.

  Once inside, she looked around her suspiciously but saw little more than worn tapestries and cast-off furniture and piles of books. On the old library table were a tea tray, a liquor decanter, and a stack of manuscript pages. Lavinia tsk’d at the sight of the decanter. But since it was there— She set her candle on the table and settled herself upon a chair, then poured some port into a glass and began to read.

  Lady Sherry, meanwhile, succumbed to temptation. She could not banish Micah so cavalierly, could not let him leave without a more appropriate farewell. In truth, Sherry did not know how she could bring herself to allow him to leave at all, except that she could hardly keep him prisoner forever beneath her brother’s roof. She pondered these matters as she crept up the stairs and down the narrow dark hallway. With her, she carried not only a candle to light her way but also a pretty hot-water jug with ivory handles that sprang from two serpents and rose to a single winged head. In case Micah decided to launch a further attack upon her virtue, Sherry deemed it best to be prepared.

  She paused outside the book room doorway, gathering her courage, without any notion that something might be amiss. Even Prinny’s failure to appear and accompany her roused no second thoughts, for she absently assumed that Micah had not evicted him.

  Sherry placed her hand on the door handle. It swung open before she could use her key. Cautiously, stealthily, she stepped across the threshold. A figure was seated at the library table reading by candlelight, its back turned toward her and the door. A figure clad all in white.

  For a moment, Sherry thought she saw a ghost. It did not frighten her. After the day she had experienced, Sherry would have welcomed a reunion with her mama, even in so incorporeal a form. Who else other than her mama cared enough about Sherry’s little stories to read them in the dead of night?

  Who else? “Lavinia! What have you done?”

  Lavinia started mightily at being rudely interrupted in her perusal of the adventures of Ophelia and Captain Blood—and, for the record, Lavinia thought Captain Blood most satisfactorily swashbuckling, though she found Ophelia rather too outspoken for her taste. She swung around in her chair. “Sherris! How you startled me!” she protested with that degree of indignation popular among tho
se who have been caught in the wrong. “Why are you clutching that hot-water bottle? Have you taken a cold in the chest?”

  Sherry walked to the library table and set down her hot-water bottle with an angry thump. Her first horrid suspicion was unfounded, then: Lavinia would hardly greet her in this manner if a certain highwayman had been apprehended and taken off to gaol. “What are you doing here, Lavinia? Other than indulging your irrepressible nosiness by snooping into my affairs?”

  “Irrepressible— Snooping?” Lavinia clutched the hot-water bottle to her own chest. “You are severe! Too severe, I think. What do you have hidden here that you do not wish me to discover? Don’t bother to try to tell me that is not the case, because you aren’t one to make a piece of work about nothing and otherwise you wouldn’t be looking like such a thundercloud!”

  “I am looking like a thundercloud,” Sherry said grimly, “because you are a sneak, Lavinia! A gabble-grinder, a Polly Pry!” But as long as she and Lavinia were brangling, Lavinia would not leave the room so that Micah could come out from wherever he was hiding. “Oh, let us talk of it tomorrow! I wish to go to bed.”

  “Yes, and I do not!” retorted Lavinia icily. A Polly Pry, was she? A sneak? “Pray do not allow me to keep you from your beauty rest! I shall simply stay here and read. And it is hardly proper for you to chastise me for misconduct, Sherris, when you have that dreadful book upon your shelf!’’

  A brief diversion ensued here, which need not be described in its entirety, since it does not appreciably advance our tale. Lady Childe referred, of course, to The Giaour, and expressed considerable indignation at finding the work of such a reprobate as Lord Byron present in her house. Lady Sherry in turn expressed a large lack of concern for her sister-in-law’s feelings and informed Lavinia that she had no more literary taste than the mice that lived in the wainscoting. Lady Childe expressed horror at the suggestion that rodents might dwell beneath her tidy roof—although rodents might be preferable to Lady Sherry, whom Lavinia (perhaps inspired by the hot-water bottle that she still clutched) likened to a serpent nourished in her bosom and then added a rather confused comparison concerning thankless relatives and adders’ tongues. Lady Sherry—who, during this exchange, had been wandering about her book room, peering surreptitiously into her closet and beneath the settee, in the former of which she found only clothing and beneath the latter a well-gnawed ham bone abandoned amid a considerable amount of dust—responded very cordially that the only viper who dwelt in this house was, alas, her brother’s wife.

  There is no telling how long this quarrel might have continued: Lady Childe was very unhappy to have found no trace of the exposé she knew Sherris must be writing, and Lady Sherry was even more displeased that her sister-in-law could not be persuaded to retreat. However, they became aware then of noises in the hallway outside the book room door. Running footsteps were heard, and raised voices. The ladies stared at each other with startled expressions. And then the door burst open.

  Lavinia uttered a little shriek and almost dropped the hot-water bottle. Sherry was more composed, having already mistaken a nightgowned figure for a ghost already once this eve. “Daffodil!” she said.

  The abigail recovered somewhat from her own surprise at finding the book room thus occupied. “Lawks! You scared me out of a year’s growth!”

  Lavinia drew herself up. She was among those few women who could look commanding even in nightgown and cap. “What do you mean by bursting in here like that, girl?” she snapped. “Explain yourself at once!”

  Daffodil was not cowed by Lavinia. She darted around the table and skidded to a stop before Sherry. “Milady! There’s a proper ruckus going on downstairs! The whole household’s at sixes and sevens, and Sir Christopher’s threatening to call in Bow Street because her ladyship here turned up missing and then you wasn’t in your room.” She caught at her mistress’s arm and gestured toward Lavinia. “What’s she doing here?”

  “Snooping,” said Sherry bitterly. “Prying. Meddling. What’s this about calling in Bow Street? Why should Christopher become so upset? Good gracious, it’s the middle of the night!”

  So it was, and Daffodil shared her mistress’s misgivings. She, too, glanced surreptitiously around the book room. “Oh, milady, there’s been a robbery! The front door was found unlocked and Barclay’s keys have been nicked right off their hook!”

  “A robbery?” Sherry felt weak with relief. Micah had not fled the book room on Lavinia’s invasion and consequently been caught. Then she and Daffodil exchanged glances, both stricken by the terrible suspicion that the highwayman whom they had sheltered and protected had chosen to repay them in this cruel way.

  “A robbery?” Lavinia had taken advantage of her companions’ abstraction to hide Barclay’s keys in the bodice of her nightgown. But how was she to explain to Sir Christopher her presence in his sister’s book room?

  There was one sure way to win his sympathy. “A robbery!” Lavinia cried again, and gracefully swooned.

  Chapter Sixteen

  As matters evolved, Sir Christopher did not call in Bow Street, to the great relief of several members of his household, because it seemed a trifle absurd to report a robbery when nothing seemed to be missing from the house. For this queer circumstance, Lady Childe provided an explanation: she had been drawn from her bed by noises heard in the night, had gone to investigate and in so doing had obviously frightened away the thief. She was, in short, a heroine, as Sir Christopher pointed out.

  This ramification had not occurred to Lavinia, but she took full advantage of her heroic status to retire to her bedchamber, prostrated by excitement, with her worried and admiring spouse attached firmly by her side. Having secured this captive audience, Lavinia availed herself of the opportunity to complain—in the most delicate manner—about the unfortunate repercussions of Sherry’s sojourn in this house. Not that Sherris could be faulted for it, dear sweet creature that she was. Indeed, if any fault could be laid at Sherry’s door, it was that her heart was perhaps a teeny bit too generous, too large. Not that Lavinia would ever utter the horrid words “I told you so,” but she had felt that it might not be entirely prudent to introduce Daffodil into the household. Perhaps the girl did have a flair for fashion, a passion for pretty clothes; she also had an unfortunate history and background and moral character. Though others might blithely assume that the chit had reformed, Lavinia was not so gullible, and frequently reassured herself that her jewels were intact, as well as the family plate. As for this current contretemps, Lavinia wasn’t certain that Daffodil wasn’t somehow involved, might even have unlocked the front door so that some of her vulgar low-bred friends might sneak into the house, heaven only knew for what purpose, perhaps to murder them all in their beds!

  Clever as this ploy was, it fell on deaf ears. Sir Christopher had been stricken all aheap by his darling wife’s unsuspected bravery, and was not at all surprised that reaction should now have set in and she become semi-hysterical as a result. “There, there!” he said, and patted her. “Least said, soonest mended, after all!”

  Lavinia, quite naturally, was not appreciative of this attitude. She flung herself away from her spouse across the bed, at which point Barclay’s key ring fell out of her nightgown and onto the rug. Sir Christopher bent and picked it up. “By Jove! Barclay’s keys! How the devil did they get here?” he said.

  If ever Lavinia thought quickly, she did so then. A notion brilliant in its simplicity struck her. “Prinny!” she gasped.

  “Prinny?” Sir Christopher looked with concern at his wife, who had apparently been more overset by her adventure than he’d previously realized. First she went into raptures about that dastardly highwayman, and now she seemed to fancy the Prince Regent as a houseguest.

  “Not the Prince Regent!” cried Lavinia, when her doting spouse aired these views. “Prinny. The dog, the hound! You must remember, Christopher; you gave him to me!”

  So he had. Now he remembered the great, frolicsome beast that had not turned o
ut to be one of his better-chosen gifts. So it was the wretched dog who’d nicked the butler’s keys and caused all this brouhaha, had ruined a good night’s sleep for the entire household. Who, furthermore, adorned every object with which he came into contact with spittle and dog hair.

  Clearly, the beast was in need of chastisement. Sir Christopher set out to track down the culprit, leaving Lavinia to sink back with exhaustion upon her pillows and beg in weakened tones that her maidservant should fetch her vinaigrette.

  Lavinia was not left long to catch her breath, however. A thorough search of the house, including Lady Sherry’s room, revealed that Prinny was nowhere to be found. “Maybe he was stolen,” Sir Christopher conjectured at the close of these investigations. “It was a valuable beast.”

  “Stolen!” Lavinia sat abruptly upright. Previously, when she had claimed to be a heroine, she had thought the whole business to be a hum based on her appropriation of Barclay’s keys. Now that it appeared otherwise—if Prinny had been stolen, then there had been an intruder in the house and Lavinia had been in mortal peril—she let out a shriek and swooned.

  This swoon was one too many for Sir Christopher to bear with equanimity. Sensibility was an admirable thing in a woman, but his Livvy was carrying it to excess. Never, to his recollection, had he seen anyone so sorely pulled about.

  No, and he didn’t care for it. “Get that damned sawbones here on the double!” he snarled at Lavinia’s maidservant, and waved away the burnt feathers she’d brought to wave beneath her mistress’s nose, and patted his wife’s hands clumsily between his own. The maidservant sped to execute her errands and at the same time spread intimation of further disaster through the house.

  All within waited with breathless anticipation for the sawbones’ verdict, which when it finally came caused no little sensation: Her ladyship was discovered to be in an interesting condition. There was to be an addition to the household. The doctor made reference to the prospective patter of little feet. By which he did not refer to the footsteps of that misbegotten hound, whose salutations he was grateful to be spared this day. So saying, he took his leave.