Lady Sherry and the Highwayman

by Maggie MacKeever

  Sir Christopher’s sister’s motives were a great deal less noble; she had come to collect the five hundred pounds from her fiancé. As for Lord Viccars, he was present because the outing had been his idea in the first place.

  Not the best of ideas, his lordship thought now as he waited for the interminable evening to draw to a close. He chafed at sitting through several hours of theatrical entertainment when so many serious matters required his attention. But his betrothal to was a serious matter also. Andrew was marrying a very superior woman even though his heart was in the keeping of a member of the carnal company. He glanced at Lady Sherry’s red-gold curls and thought despairingly of his petite amie. The thought of Marguerite dangling from the gallows had concentrated his affections wonderfully.

  Intermission came at last. The gentlemen excused themselves from the box. Lavinia and Sarah-Louise embarked upon a desultory conversation about various actors they had seen.

  Lady Sherry did not contribute to this conversation. The smell of the theater was heavy in her nostrils, that suffocating combination of perspiration and stale cloth, theatrical makeup and burning candle wax. The theater was crowded, for the popular Mr. Kean was to appear as Shylock in The Merchant of Venice tonight, and Mr. Kean could reduce an audience to silence or tears or rouse them into a frenzy almost at will. Sherry glanced around at the neighboring boxes, which were filled with representatives of royalty and the Quality and the demi-monde; at the wits and squires, beaux and bullies jammed uncomfortably together on hard wooden benches in the pit; the abigails and journeymen and cits jostling for position in the gallery.

  Everyone seemed very gay. If only she might join in that general mood. Sherry almost wished she’d taken to the road herself rather than ask Lord Viccars for the money. And then to have to tell him tarradiddles as to why she needed it! Association with a highwayman had obviously not elevated the tone of Sherry’s mind.

  Her willpower was little more commendable, for she could not keep Micah from her thoughts. Since it was not Micah in Newgate, who languished there in his stead? How had such confusion come about? Surely someone must have realized that the wrong man was in chains!

  Tully had said there was a resemblance. Few people in Newgate would know Micah as well as they did. And where was Micah if not in jail? Surely he would not let another man hang in his place?

  The gentlemen returned to the box then, distracting Sherry from these thoughts. Sir Christopher immediately joined in the theatrical conversation, allowing that his own favorites were Elliston the comedian and Grimaldi the clown. Lord Viccars resumed his seat beside Lady Sherry. He was frowning. “You are very quiet this evening, Andrew,” she murmured. “Are you angry with me?”

  Andrew frowned all the harder at this suggestion. Rather, Lady Sherry should be angry with him, he thought. However, she was blissfully unaware of the alteration that had taken place in his sentiments. “Why should I be angry?” he countered irritably. “Forgive me if I have been neglecting you, but I have many things on my mind.”

  “Oh, no! Pray think nothing of it!” Sherry wished her fiancé would continue to ignore her, because then she wouldn’t have to talk to him. Not that she disliked talking to Lord Viccars, but it was difficult to concentrate on commonplace nonsense when there were very important things to contemplate. Such as a certain sum of money. “Andrew, I do not mean to tease you, but did you bring the”—she glanced cautiously at the other members of the party—”er?”

  The er? What the devil was Sherry prattling on about? Then Andrew recalled her gambling debts and his five hundred pounds. “I have,” he said sternly. “In return I must have your word that this will be an end to your—” He, too, glanced at the others. “You know! I am very surprised at you, my dear. Yes, and disappointed, too. But I do not mean to scold. You will know better in the future, I suppose.”

  Sherry bit her tongue and bowed her head. She supposed she deserved to be catechized and sermonized in this odious way. Deserving a thing, however, did not make it easier to bear. Nor did Sherry relish her growing suspicion that the man she had contracted herself to marry was a crashing bore.

  How unfair she was! Andrew meant his advice for the best. And good advice it would have been, moreover, had gambling been her vice.

  Lord Viccars interpreted his companion’s silence as abashment. “We’ll speak no more of it!” he said, even as he wondered what life would be like shared with someone so blasted submissive. Marguerite would have wept in such an instance or attempted to cajole him into a more accepting mood.

  Andrew would miss those cajoleries. They had had their price, of course. Many were the expensive baubles he’d fastened around that lovely throat. The throat that was now threatened by the hangman’s noose. “Has your brother said anything more to you about that highwayman?” he asked with studied nonchalance.

  “What highwayman?” inquired Lady Sherry with equal offhandedness. Could Andrew somehow suspect the use she meant to make of his five hundred pounds? “If you mean Captain Toby, not a word. The man’s been captured and will hang. I suppose there’s little more to tell.”

  Sarah-Louise had been blatantly eavesdropping on this conversation, which she thought very strange. Her brother and Lady Sherry were the most lukewarm lovers Sarah-Louise had ever seen. She was pleased to hear them mention Captain Toby, thereby giving her the opportunity to abandon the theatrical conversation, which had grown a trifle dull.

  “Oh! Captain Toby!” cried Sarah-Louise. “What an interesting rogue, to be sure! We should have a new play about a highwayman. It would be vastly popular, I vow. Perhaps you should write it, Lady Sherry! The hero will be a very handsome fellow who ran through a considerable estate by gambling, then took up the profession of the road. He will be very gallant, never taking from his victims quite everything they own—none of this ‘your money or your honor’ business for our lad. Nor will he kill without good reason, or ravish helpless nuns. He will console distraught widows, naturally. Females will flock around him like moths to the flame because of his handsome face. Eventually one female, jealous of the others, will betray him, which gives us an excellent opportunity to bring a gallows onto the stage. The tension will mount—ladies in the audience will swoon—and then, at the very last moment—” She snapped her fingers. “Our hero will be reprieved!”

  “Oh, brava!” cried Lavinia, who had enjoyed this nonsense very well. “You should write it yourself!”

  Sarah-Louise laughed. “I have not the discipline, as anyone can tell you; I am a useless creature, indolent as a butterfly. Oh, look, Andrew, there is Cissy.” She wriggled her fingers at a nearby box. “She has snagged Grenville, the wretch. There will be no bearing her now that she has that feather in her cap. Even though she wouldn’t have it if he were not a distant connection of her husband’s family. Strange to find a man with such a history with a reclusive streak.”

  Talk of feathers in caps could not fail to interest Lavinia. As the daughter of a duke, she had a social position to maintain. “Grenville?” she echoed, craning her neck so that she might see into Lady Cecilia’s box. “I thought Grenville died.”

  “Oh, yes!” Sarah-Louise chuckled. “I did not mean that his shade walks among us. Although if he could, he probably would; the old man had a positive lust for life from all accounts. Do not frown at me, Andrew. You know there is an eccentric streak, to put it no higher, in that family. We are not children here, and lust is definitely the correct word. It was well known that no serving wench was safe from old Grenville, not even the servants in his own house.”

  “Disgraceful,” murmured Lavinia. Child she may not have been, but she had no liking for conversations as frank as this. “There was some problem with the succession, was there not? The absence of an heir?”

  Sarah-Louise nodded. “Old Grenville’s son was killed on the Peninsula. The tide has passed to the cadet branch of the family now, and I suspect he must be turning in his grave. It’s Cissy’s belief the old man stayed alive as long as he did
in an effort to prevent that disaster taking place.” She glanced quizzically at Lady Sherry. “Perhaps you might be interested in his story. It is not as good as a moldering castle—although the family owns the next best thing, an ancient mansion near Cavendish Square—but very interesting, nonetheless.” Without waiting for an answer, she gestured imperiously toward her sister’s box.

  Truth be told, Sherry had scant wish to make the acquaintance of the current Lord Grenville. She had been told before of stories that must fire her writer’s imagination and had found them uniformly tedious. She supposed she must make a show of interest now since Sarah-Louise obviously meant to be kind. Sherry girded her loins and prepared herself to be civil to the man who appeared in the doorway to their box. She glanced up—and choked.

  He was tall and muscular, swarthy of complexion, with dark hair and eyes that were very familiar and very green. His clothing was well cut and elegant in an understated manner, and he walked with the aid of a cane. This impediment was the result of a riding accident, explained Sarah-Louise, the accident that had kept Lord Grenville from coming forth sooner to claim his inheritance. His lordship, she added, was something of an adventurer and had spent many years exploring exotic lands and strange climes.

  Lord Grenville smiled. “You exaggerate. The sad truth of the matter is that I am the black sheep of the family.”

  Sarah-Louise tapped his arm with her fan. “Whatever you may call yourself, sir, you tell a rousing good tale! Come let me make you known to Lady Sherris Childe, who will be very interested. I warn you, be careful not to be too interesting or you may find that she has put you in a book.”

  He limped forward and bent over Sherry’s hand as Sarah-Louise performed the formal introductions. “Lady Sherry,” he murmured, “I am charmed. I have long been a great fan of your books.”

  The wretch! How dare he appear so brazenly in the box and speak to her, play off his games in front of a magistrate? “I did not know,” Sherry responded tartly, “that my little stories had such a wide readership that you might find them in even, er, exotic climes!”

  He released her hand. “Oh, yes. I daresay you would be surprised at the diversity of your readership. I am especially looking forward to your current novel, which I hear concerns a highwayman.”

  A highwayman! Now he was so bold as to walk up to her and speak of highwaymen! Andrew interrupted with a question, saving Sherry from having to make a reply. As unobtrusively as possible, she stared at Lord Grenville—also known as Captain Toby and Micah Greene.

  Her thoughts were in a whirl. Sherry was relieved beyond measure to see Micah hale and unfettered by the shackles of the law, and at the same time she wished to box his ears. What did he mean, parading himself like this for all the world to see? Didn’t he realize that he might be recognized? But perhaps in his very boldness lay safety. Who would expect a highwayman to pose as a peer of the realm?

  Intermission ended then, and Lord Grenville returned to Lady Cecilia’s box, and the members of Lord Viccars’s party turned their attention to the stage in anticipation of enjoying the performance. Mr. Kean did not disappoint. He paced and declaimed; his harsh voice cracked like thunder, turned gentle as a kitten’s purr. His eyes were fierce, frightful, melting—it was said that small, ugly Mr. Kean could express as much in a few moments as most actors could in a night.

  The audience responded with almost hysterical enthusiasm. Sarah-Louise clapped her hands and shouted as enthusiastically as if she’d been sitting with her servants in the gallery. Even Lavinia forgot about her queasiness and Andrew about his petite amie, and Sir Christopher conceded that this evening’s entertainment had been a bit of all right.

  Only Lady Sherry was lukewarm in her response, but this was not in response to any histrionic lack in the great Mr. Kean. Sherry’s thoughts were still of Micah, and her attention was more for him than for the actors on the stage. What a rogue he was! No doubt he would lay claim to a fair portion of the Grenville fortune and then disappear. He could not expect to carry off the imposture indefinitely. Yes, and if Micah was here, looking for all the world like the peer of the realm to whose inheritance he’d laid claim, then who languished in Newgate in his place?

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Lady Sherry retired to her book room early the next morn, inspired by these recent developments not to put pen to paper on behalf of Ophelia and Captain Blood but to drop her chin into her hands and stare gloomily into space. In this pursuit she was interrupted by Daffodil, who entered without so much as a knock. For this rudeness she may be forgiven: Daffodil’s attention and energy were entirely taken up in trying to exercise some degree of control over a large, exuberant, and very dirty hound.

  “Mercy!” cried Sherry, as she tried to fend off the beast, which seemed determined to knock her off her chair. “Wherever did he come from?”

  “Devil if I know.” In an effort to dissuade the dog from crawling into Lady Sherry’s lap, Daffodil grasped his plumed tail and yanked. “He turned up in the garden this morning. What’s more, milady, Ned did not!”

  “Yes, and I’m glad to see you, too!” Sherry tried, not entirely successfully, to fend off Prinny’s great damp tongue. What advice had Micah given her about controlling him? That it all depended on the tone of voice? Sherry made her own voice very stern. “Oh, do get down, you wretched beast!” To her surprise, the dog left off his demonstration of affection, and strolled across the room to collapse upon the settee.

  Sherry then returned her attention to her abigail. “Why should Ned have been in the garden? He’s not a gardener; he’s a groom.”

  “I know what Neddy is!” Daffodil retorted irritably. “None better, even though I would rather not. He should have been in the garden because he always is in the garden at that time of day.”

  Lady Sherry contemplated her abigail’s pink cheeks. “I see. The pair of you enjoy a little stroll together around the garden before embarking upon the arduous duties of the day.”

  “Something like that, milady.” Daffodil saw no need to explain that those gentle strolls were generally not strolls at all and took place in the gardener’s shed. “But he wasn’t there today, nor is he anywhere else to be found. No one’s seen hide nor hair of him since yesterday. You’d given him the evening off, and he set out for that boozing ken he’s partial to and never did come back.”

  “You’re certain?” asked Sherry. Daffodil vigorously nodded her head. Her source of information was unimpeachable, she claimed.

  “Something’s happened to him!” she added. “I know it. Neddy was mighty wishful of getting a hold of that money. He wouldn’t play least-in-sight when he knew there was a chance of him getting paid.”

  Lady Sherry had to agree with her abigail’s assessment of the situation. “It’s early yet. Perhaps he drank more than was wise and is sleeping off a sore head. He may yet turn up. We’ll wait awhile and see.”

  Daffodil nodded again, this time less vigorously. “And if he don’t turn up, milady?”

  Sherry sighed. “Then I suppose we’ll have to tell Christopher.’’

  Satisfied, Daffodil left the room and went in search of consolation from her unimpeachable source of information, namely the recently hired footman with the shapely calves. Lady Sherry contemplated Prinny, who was dozing peacefully on the couch. What a strange coincidence that Prinny should appear in one moment and Ned disappear in the next, as if one had turned into the other as in some fairy tale. This was not a fairy tale, of course, and the exchange—however desirable from Sherry’s point of view—could not have been so pat.

  Where could Ned have gotten to? Sherry could not think that his disappearance boded well. She wondered if a diabolic spirit might be at work against her. The thought of diabolic spirits recalled her current manuscript. In search of distraction from her unhappy thoughts, Sherry reached for paper and pen.

  Some time passed. The book room was silent save for the sound of Prinny’s snores and the scratching of Sherry’s pen. Then a tap sound
ed at the door. Definitely a diabolic spirit was at work, or else Sherry would not have been interrupted at a moment when she was at last at charity with her manuscript.

  “Come in!” she called, assuming that it was Aunt Tulliver who interrupted. “You may help me to decide whether I wish to dispatch Barnabas by way of a particularly nasty poison or whether I prefer to bludgeon him to death with a blunt instrument.”

  Tully made no comment. Sherry set down her pen. “Have you brought word of Ned?” she asked as she turned toward the door. Not Aunt Tulliver stood there, or Daffodil, but Micah. He was smiling. “Oh!” cried Lady Sherry, and then flung herself away from the table and into his arms, knocking over her chair in her haste. “You terrible, terrible wretch! To leave us like that! I feared that you’d been captured or were dead!”

  Micah responded to this outburst in a most appropriate manner. So very close did he hold her that Sherry could hear his heart beating against her breast. Then he bent his head and captured her lips with his.

  The embrace was every bit as wonderful as Sherry remembered it, and perhaps even more. When Micah would have released her, she put her arms around his shoulders and drew his face down to her again.

  Prinny regarded these proceedings through one half-opened eye. He had been wakened from his nap by the sound of Lady Sherry’s chair crashing to the floor. It was very bad of his friends to wake him, but he knew how exciting these reunions could be.

  Prinny decided he should add his own little bit of welcome. He lumbered down from the settee and, tail awag, padded across the floor. When his friends continued to ignore him, he inserted his head between them and emitted a reproachful whuff.

  Sherry was thus recalled to the present by a damp, cold canine nose. “I suppose we are to thank you for bringing Prinny back. Or perhaps for taking him in the first place. Why did you? I cannot imagine that he facilitated your escape.”

  “Facilitated? Hardly.” Micah brushed a stray curl off her cheek. “It has been most interesting, lying low in London accompanied by a great brute of a hound.”