Definitely the voices were louder now. Sherry recognized one of them as Captain Toby. She pushed open the cupboard door and stared into the door.
It was a large room and so brightly lit that Sherry squinted in the sudden light. Here at least King Cobweb did not reign supreme, not in the corners of the ceiling that displayed the twelve signs of the zodiac, or in the chimney piece that was a network of carving displaying the judgment of Solomon, or the mantelpiece lush with monkeys and birds and fruits. The mermaids and dolphins and arabesques on windowhead and wainscoting and plasterwork appeared freshly scrubbed, as did the intricately glazed windows in which clear panes contrasted with stained glass. The heavy oak furniture—delicately inlaid with pearl and hardwoods of different colors, and carved with intricate animals and flowers— gleamed as if recently polished.
As did Captain Toby’s pistol, which he was brandishing in a very menacing manner at the cupboard door. “Damned if you ain’t a plaguey one!” he snarled. “I thought I’d done for you at least upward of an hour. So there’s an opening to the passage in that closet, eh? Mayhap both of you might wish to explore. Here, my lad, up with you!” He moved aside then, allowing Sherry to see Micah, who was sprawled in a chair.
At first she thought that he was drunk and felt very much like scolding. Of all the ill-advised times to overindulge in the grape! Then she realized that the amount of liquor required to reduce a man to such a condition would most likely have also put him in his grave. “What have you done to him?” she cried as Captain Toby dragged Micah to his feet. And what had he done with the people who had been hammering at the back door not many moments past? No doubt when they had received no answer they had simply gone away.
“Climb down off your high ropes!” Captain Toby grunted. Perspiration stood out on his brow as he sought to balance Micah’s weight. “I told you I was wishful of going to ground for a while. Lord Law-Abiding here was going to queer my pitch, so I had to put out his lights. Now, ma’am, don’t nab the bib! It ain’t permanent. I just dosed him up with laudanum.”
Sherry had no inclination to nab the bib—to weep, in a gentler parlance. She was far too angry and indignant to find solace in her tears.
Captain Toby had slung Micah over his shoulder like a sack of meal. Sherry looked anxiously about for a weapon and encountered the gaze of a pair of green eyes. Micah wasn’t unconscious! She could have truly wept then, with relief. What was he frowning at so intently? Sherry followed his gaze to the display of ancient weapons that hung upon one wall.
Dared she? Sherry sidled toward the weapons. “And just where do you think you’re going?” Captain Toby demanded suspiciously. “Oof!” he added as his burden came to life suddenly and kicked him in the stomach. Sherry hesitated no longer but yanked a broadsword down from the wall and applied it to the highwayman’s head. Captain Toby collapsed with a groan.
Some few moments passed as Sherry helped Micah to disentangle himself from Captain Toby and broadsword. “Oh, Micah! Are you all right? You look so pale. I didn’t kill him, did I? Although it would have served the wretch right! Which reminds me, I came to warn you that Christopher knows all. I had to tell him! And now you’ll go to jail and it’s all my fault!”
This pretty speech had a reviving effect on Micah, who was not half as ill as he looked, having previously relieved himself of a considerable amount of the laudanum by the simple expedient of sticking his finger down his throat. “Don’t cry, my brave darling!” he murmured as he offered her, in lieu of a handkerchief, his sleeve. “Everything will be well.”
Sherry cried all the harder. She didn’t see how anything could ever be well again. Before she could say so—indeed, as if to bear out her apprehensions—the door burst open and a group of people spilled into the room: Sir Christopher and Lavinia, Jeremy and Ned, Lord Viccars and Marguerite.
“Aha!” said Sir Christopher. “Caught you red-handed, you rogue. Good for you, sis! Although you might better have left the business to Bow Street!”
“I didn’t!” Sherry left off wiping her damp face with Micah’s sleeve and instead clasped him to her breast. “He’s not! Christopher, you must listen to me. It’s that man you want!” She pointed to Captain Toby, who was clutching his abused head and muttering beneath his breath. “That’s your highwayman! And this—” She glanced at Micah. “Well, I don’t know who he is!”
Micah removed himself, with reluctance, from Sherry’s breast. “Grenville,” he said with a little smile. “At your service, milady. If you arrest me in this devil’s place, Sir Christopher, you’ll be repeating a mistake for which I already damned near hanged!”
Impatient as he was to carry out his duties, Sir Christopher was a fair man, and there remained the to-do attendant upon the mistaken arrest of a peer. He looked at the man sprawled out upon the floor and then at the man whose sleeve Sherry clutched. There was a definite resemblance between the men. “Then let’s have the straight of the story without circumlocution!” he said judiciously.
Sherry could not bear to listen to the tarradiddles Micah spun for her brother’s benefit. She released him and turned toward Lavinia, who was looking daggers at her. And who was that scantily clad female hovering near Andrew?
Andrew. Sherry had an apology to make to Lord Viccars. As well as a few choice words to say to Ned. She walked across the room. “Andrew, I am very sorry and I did mean to make you very happy, but it seems fairly obvious that we should not suit.”
“Not suit!” Lavinia had withheld comment already for longer than seemed humanly possible and could no longer refrain. Anyway, Christopher was too preoccupied with Lord Grenville to overhear and scold. “Sherris, when did you become a bedlamite? Rubbing shoulders with highwaymen! Paying off servants to keep your secrets! And now, to not marry Viccars! You have sunk yourself quite below reproach. Not to mention the rest of us, you wretched girl! How ever will we wrap this up in clean linen? I never was so shocked by anything in my life!”
No one made an immediate response to this tirade. Jeremy had wandered across the room to better hear the exchange between Sir Christopher and Lord Grenville, and Ned was deep in silent lamentation of his lost opportunities, his presence in the chamber attendant only upon Lord Viccars’s firm grip on the collar of his shirt. In his turn, Lord Viccars looked embarrassed, and Lady Sherry abashed.
Less prey to polite or servile scruples, Marguerite contemplated Lavinia, who was dosing her shattered nerves alternately with vinaigrette and fan. Much as Marguerite might resent her rival, she rather admired Lady Sherry for taking up with a highwayman. Too, Lady Sherry had just broken off with Marguerite’s protector, which left her feeling very charitable toward her.
“Ma foi!” she said, therefore, to Lady Sherry. “What a cat that one is. If she was forever ripping up at you like that, then it is no wonder you kicked over the traces, chérie! I wish you would tell me all!” She turned a speculative gaze on Captain Toby.
Sherry had no notion of this female’s identity—save that she certainly seemed to know Andrew well—but there was no doubting her good heart. “Thank you,” she murmured, for want of a more appropriate response.
Lavinia gazed somewhat less appreciatively upon Marguerite, who had been so eager to witness the outcome of these perplexing developments that she had merely flung a cloak over her peignoir before rushing out of her house. “And who are you?” Lavinia snapped.
It was meant as a rhetorical question, perhaps, but Marguerite chose to respond. She explained very kindly to Lavinia that she was Lord Viccars’s petite amie. Lavinia gasped, fell back, and fanned herself all the more vigorously.
Startled as she was by Marguerite’s outspokenness, Sherry could not help but be amused by Lavinia’s shocked expression. She met Andrew’s apologetic eye. “Now I know we should not suit!” she said frankly as she gave him her hand. “Christopher has your five hundred pounds and will restore it to you. I can only say I’m sorry for all the trouble I’ve put you to.” She turned toward Ned. “And you ma
y look for a new position straightaway. Don’t ask me to give you a reference; you may be grateful that I don’t have you thrown into jail!”
Ned might have thanked Lady Sherry for her kindness then—certainly he should have done so—but the opportunity was denied him. The mention of five hundred pounds brought Captain Toby to his feet, in his hand the sword-stick that he had plucked from Jeremy’s limp grasp. “I’ll just have that five hundred pounds, my covy!” he said. “Or the rest of you may watch this fashionable fribble get his throat slit!”
Clearly, Sir Toby meant business. No argument was raised. Sir Christopher handed over the requested sum. The others moved away as he backed toward the door, drawing Jeremy with him, sword tip still pressed to that ashen individual’s throat.
He pushed Jeremy away from him and opened the door. “For the record, Micah here ain’t never taken to the road in his life. He was arrested in my place and so I felt obliged to interrupt his hanging. But since I don’t intend to adorn the gallows in my own turn, I suggest you all—”
The highwayman’s suggestion was never completed. Prinny pushed past him and into the room. From his mouth dangled a very large rat. Lavinia was of far too delicate a constitution to endure such a shock. She swooned.
“Mon Dieu!” cried Marguerite, into whose arms Lavinia fell. Meanwhile, Jeremy was feeling none too well himself. He scrambled for possession of Lavinia’s fan and vinaigrette.
The cause of all this confusion failed to understand why his friends refused to appreciate him for showing them his prize. Perhaps they failed to realize that it was quite the plumpest of all this old house’s rat population that dangled from his jaws. Prinny decided that he would never understand humans. He sighed and collapsed upon the hearth.
Sir Christopher and Marguerite being engaged with ministering to Lavinia, and Ned to Jeremy, Micah took advantage of this opportunity to speak with Lady Sherry. “A neat-enough ending,” he murmured as he drew her down beside him in a chair. “They’ll never catch Toby now, not in the maze of old drains beneath this house.”
“You must be glad of that.” Sherry was feeling very shy. “No matter how richly deserved, one wouldn’t wish to see a member of one’s family hanged!”
“I suppose not.” Micah stroked Sherry’s arm. “Tell me, what do you think of the house? I purposely didn’t have most of it tidied up because I didn’t know what you would like.”
“What I would like.” Lady Sherry stared at him. “Surely you don’t mean to— I mean, it isn’t yours!”
“My foolish darling, of course it’s mine.” Micah’s smile was warm. “I tried to tell you I wasn’t a highwayman, but you wouldn’t listen, if you will recall. This house is mine, along with the title. I was en route to claim both when I was arrested in Toby’s place. I hope you are not too disappointed. Toby told me a great many of his adventures, and between us we must surely have enough imagination to fill in the blanks. What a grand time we shall have, love. Or should I say, Ophelia will, and Captain Blood?”
Could it be? Dared she believe? “You can’t mean that—” Sherry murmured, then broke off, aghast at the audacity of her thoughts. “Er, I would be happy to give you what advice I may about your house. And I would be pleased to have your advice about my book, Mi— Lord Grenville!”
“Peagoose!” responded Micah. “It’s not your advice I want!” And then he proceeded to kiss Lady Sherry so thoroughly that any doubts she retained about the nature of his feelings were laid forever to rest. Indeed, so thoroughly did Micah perform this pleasurable task that it caught the attention of the other occupants of the room. “Tres bien!” said Marguerite admiringly, while Lord Viccars looked embarrassed again and Sir Christopher fond. Ned and Jeremy ignored the incident altogether, the latter pondering how this adventure might be put to the best use and the former lamenting the loss of five hundred pounds. Lavinia, who had just recovered from a swoon, threatened to succumb to another. “Christopher!” She gasped. “How can you just stand there and watch your sister being compromised?”
“Compromised?” echoed Micah, who had taken Lavinia in dislike. “This is nothing, ma’am. If you had a notion—after all, I did spend several days in Lady Sherry’s book room.”
Here Sherry felt obliged to add her own wicked comment. “Reading The Giaour.”
Micah cast her a fond glance. “And—but I won’t make you blush! There’s nothing for it that I can see but that I must marry her to save what’s left of her good name.”
“Oh, Micah!” Sherry whispered as Lavinia sputtered with outrage, torn between horror at the notion of illicit goings-on beneath her roof and profound curiosity as to just what those goings-on had entailed. “Are you certain you wish to marry me?”
“I have no choice,” Micah replied manfully. “You have been closeted alone with me while I was without my shirt!” Marguerite giggled, Lavinia gasped, and the gentlemen remained tactfully silent while Lord Grenville kissed Lady Sherry yet once again.
And so our adventure draws to an end, with Lady Sherry in happy prospect of union with the lover of her choice and Lord Viccars reunited with his; with Lavinia’s horror at the goings-on beneath her roof being soothed by Sir Christopher, who had in mind some goings-on of his own when they returned to Longacre House and never mind if it was the middle of the afternoon; and Prinny snoozing on the cold hearth with his plump prey clutched between his front paws. It was an adventure that would be long remembered by all even peripherally concerned: by the ladies Throckmorton and Dunsany, who would long speculate in the presence of a silent Lavinia on how Lady Sherry had made so sudden and so brilliant a match; by the ladies Cecilia and Sarah-Louise with regret and relief; by Williams and Briscoe, who by tacit agreement with their employer never discussed the events of a certain night; by Sir Christopher, who recalled with fondness the afternoon when his Livvy had been persuaded to broaden her knowledge of conjugal affairs. Daffodil, too, would remember the business that led her to break off altogether with Ned, who was no sooner turned off from Lady Sherry’s employ than he was hired by Jeremy, who had discovered in himself a sudden desire for a new groom, and which in turn led Daffodil to console herself in the arms of the strong-sinewed footman whom she was eventually to wed.
Aunt Tulliver continued in Lady Sherry’s employ until her death many years later of nothing more dramatic than a peaceful old age. Marguerite continued as Lord Viccars’s petite amie for many years, until his second marriage, at which time she passed without regret from being a femme entretenue to the proprietor of a most exclusive bordello.
After their marriage and a prolonged and very blissful honeymoon abroad, Lord Grenville and Lady Sherry took up residence in the family’s ancestral house. Although Lady Sherry did not emulate her sister-in-law by turning out a prodigious number of progeny, she did continue to write novels, and Ophelia and Captain Blood remained a very popular edition for several years. Prinny took up residence with them and enjoyed himself immensely, terrorizing the rat population and his surrogate mama when she came to call. Once they no longer had to dwell together beneath the same roof, Lavinia and Sherry discovered that they liked each other very well.
As for Captain Toby, the rogue who set in motion this whole tale, no word was ever heard of him again. Although there were certain periodic rumors of a brigand who plagued the Continent for some years thereafter, who never offered harm to a lady, and who—
But such speculation is pointless. Suffice it to say that Captain Toby graced no English gallows under his own or any other name.
Copyright © 1986 by Maggie MacKeever
Originally published by Fawcett Coventry (0449208052)
Electronically published in 2007 by Belgrave House/Regency Reads
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
No portion of this book may be reprinted in whole or in part, by printing, faxing, E-mail, copying electronically or by any other means without permission of the publisher. For more information, contact Belgrave House, 190 Belgrave Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94117-
4228
http://www.RegencyReads.com
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This is a work of fiction. All names in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to any person living or dead is coincidental.
Lady Sherry and the Highwayman Page 20
