The Highwayman and The Lady (Hidden Identity)

by Colleen French

  Meg used the creaky wooden steps to mount the nag. It wasn't much of a horse, but she was grateful for Clancy's help. "I'll be back in a day or two. Promise."

  Saity stuffed the biscuits into a small leather bag hanging from the back of Meg's saddle. "Good luck to ye, then." Saity kissed her hand and then lifted her palm in farewell. "See you in a few days."

  The morning sun was just beginning to rise in the east behind her when Meg rode off, headed for Kent and Rutledge Castle.

  Kincaid opened his eyes and squinted in the bright morning sunlight that poured through the draped windows. He'd slept later than usual. Exhausted from the last few days of mental turmoil, he guessed.

  Sitting up in bed, he ran his fingers through his hair, pushing it back off the crown of his head. Yesterday had been a hell of a day. Monti was dead. He could barely believe it. And it still made no sense.

  But what did make sense in his life these days? He had gone to Rutledge Castle looking for clues concerning his stepmother, Margaret. He had expected to come home hating her even more. Instead, he almost felt a kinship with her. It was eerie. He hated her for killing his father, but he felt sorry for her at the same time. Having grown up in that household, seeing how his mother and stepmother had been treated, he could guess how it had been for young Margaret. Just the thought of his father bedding the pretty, shy young girl with her blond wisps of hair made him sick.

  When Kincaid thought about his father's death and his declaration that he would find his killer, he realized now that he was doing it for himself. Not for his father. After all these years he was still trying to make his father love him. Even in death he was still trying to please the man who could never be pleased.

  So why not just give it up, he thought, a tremendous weight seeming to lift from his shoulders. If the earl wants to be vindictive, let him find her. Let him have her thrown into Newgate and convicted. All I really want now is Meg and a new life.

  Kincaid glanced at the empty place beside him in the bed, then around the room. "Meg?" He was quiet for a moment, listening for movement in one of the other rooms. Then he called louder, "Meg, you here?"

  When she didn't answer, he climbed out of bed and reached for a crumpled pair of breeches on the floor. "Where are you?" He walked down the hallway, past Monti's room. On the off chance she was there, he looked inside. She wasn't. He closed the door again, unwilling to linger there this morning.

  He checked both withdrawing rooms next, and lastly the small kitchen to the rear of the apartments. She was nowhere to be seen.

  Gone to get something to eat, I suppose. He poured himself a small bucket of water from a pitcher to carry back to the bedchamber to shave. As he was leaving the kitchen, he heard footsteps on the back stairway.

  That was odd. She never used those steps. Maybe she was looking for one of their hired servants that slept in the attic on the top floor. He turned around, smiling. "Meg?"

  The door opened and young Amanda, the coachman's wife, looked back at him, startled. "Morning, sir." She turned away, obviously embarrassed by his state of undress.

  "Morning." Kincaid frowned. "You haven't seen your mistress, have you?"

  Amanda shook her head. "Ain't seen her since I came down this morning and that was just after dawn. Made biscuits to go with the jam I done up yesterday. You want for me to bring you a tray?" She kept her back to him.

  "Whatever." He went back down the hall to his bedchamber, now concerned.

  Had Meg gone to claim Monti's body on her own? Surely she'd be smart enough to take her own advice. She'd been right that someone else unconnected with the infamous Captain Scarlet needed to do it.

  Pouring the water into his washbowl, he dipped a sliver of shaving soap into the water and began to lather his face, standing at the window, looking down on the street below.

  "You shouldn't have done it, Meg," he said to himself.

  But he knew how much she had cared for Monti. As much as Kincaid himself. Monti had been a brother to her, a friend. He'd been a good friend to them both.

  Kincaid lifted his straight razor to his chin and began to stroke away yesterday's shadow of a beard. He guessed he'd dress and check a couple taverns. Perhaps there would be gossip concerning yesterday's shooting. Maybe one of Monti's friends would know what had happened to his body.

  Staring into the small mirror propped on the washstand, Kincaid caught a reflection of his writing desk on the far wall behind him. A piece of parchment on top caught his eye. It wasn't his writing, which was odd because Meg rarely used his desk. She preferred to sit in a comfortable chair with a book and paper on her lap.

  Razor still in hand, he padded across the room. His gaze settled on the note. He read it once, his breath catching in his throat. Then a second time.

  There was a buzzing in his ears as he came to the realization that she was gone. That she had fled after she swore she wouldn't.

  "Son of a bitch!" he shouted throwing the razor at the wall. It hit the chair rail, splattering shaving soap before it fell to the floor and went skittering under her clothes press.

  "Son of a bitch, you did it anyway!" He felt as if someone had kicked the wind out of him. He felt utterly betrayed.

  Not Meg. Not my Meg . . .

  He lifted the note for more careful inspection, noting the blots of ink where something wet had hit the writing. Her tears?

  "Why, Meg? Why?" he whispered.

  Suddenly a strange feeling came over him. The handwriting. It was familiar. Yes, it was Meg's, but there was something else familiar about the writing. He'd seen it elsewhere before. Recently.

  Then it hit him, as hard as a lead musketball to the chest.

  Tossing the note back on the table, he spun around. His saddlebags, where the hell were they? He'd just brought them home last night, having never unpacked them from his trip to Rutledge.

  He ran to his clothes press and threw it open, tossing clothing over his head as he dug for the leather bags. Stockings, breeches, feathered hats, and lace-cuffed shirts. Nope. The bags weren't here.

  He turned back, staring at the room, wracking his brain. "Where the hell are they, Meg?" he said aloud, hearing the tremble in his own voice.

  "Amanda! Amanda!" He ran out of the room and down the hall.

  She met him at the inside kitchen door, drying her hands on a blue and white towel. "S . . . sir?" She stared at him wide-eyed and frightened.

  He grabbed the kitchen towel from her hands and wiped at the shaving soap still on his face. "Where are my saddlebags? I can't find them."

  She followed him back down the hall. "I . . . I don't know, my lord. I . . . I haven't seen them."

  Kincaid kicked open his bedchamber door. "You clean in here, right? So, where are they?"

  She clutched her hands, trembling. "I didn't clean here this . . . this week, my lord. I didn't touch them. I didn't touch anything. I swear I didn't."

  "Well," he boomed. "They sure as hell have to be somewhere! They didn't just sprout legs and—"

  He halted mid-sentence, his gaze settling on the bed he and Meg had shared. There they were. The saddlebags. Right where Meg always hung them after he left them on the floor by the door. Hanging on the bedpost. He almost laughed. The little jade had straightened up before she fled!

  "You're dismissed, Amanda," Kincaid flung over his shoulder, heading straight for the bed. "Shut the door behind you!"

  He barely heard the sound of the closing door as he lifted the worn saddlebags from the bedpost. He stroked the oiled leather. He'd had these bags for years, since his days in Paris with Monti.

  Monti . . . Meg . . . My life is crumbling before my eyes.

  Kincaid thrust his hand into the bag and felt for the journal he hoped was still there. What if the crafty witch had found it and taken it with her? At this point he'd have believed anything.

  "Ah, ha!" His fingers hit the sharp edges of the book and he pulled it out of the bags, letting them fall to the floor without heed.

  Ki
ncaid strode to the writing desk to retrieve the note Meg had left. If he wasn't mistaken, and he didn't believe he was, he knew the handwriting would closely match. True, one had been written years earlier by an immature hand, but handwriting didn't change that much over the years.

  No wonder the damned writing in the journal had looked so familiar to him. . . . How could he have been such a fool not to have realized it two days ago at Rutledge?

  He flipped open to a page in the journal. The earl followed me in the garden again today . . . it read. He lifted the note Meg had left him to compare it to the journal page. What he saw made his heart skip a beat.

  "No," he whispered, staring in disbelief, knowing it was true, wishing beyond hope that it wasn't.

  "How could I have been so stupid? You were a blonde then, but blondes turn dark with age, don't they Meg?" he said aloud to himself. "I was stupid and you were smart."

  "Meg. Margaret. Dead baby. I never made the connection."

  He let the journal and the note drop onto the desk. "You love me? Right. How could I have been so foolish?" He hit his forehead with the heel of his hand. "How could I have been so blinded by your beauty, your body?"

  He hit the closest chair with his hand, knocking it over, enraged. "You set me up, didn't you, Margaret? You set me up right from the beginning?" he shouted at the empty room. "You never loved me. You were just trying to save your own skin."

  He grabbed a pair of dirty stocking and his muddy boots. "Well, you may be chuckling now at your clever move. You killed my father, cuckolded me. But we'll see who laughs last, Margaret Randall. We'll just see."

  Twenty-seven

  Kincaid bounded up the steps to Saity's shop and hit the door with his closed fist, knocking it open. "Where the hell is she?"

  Saity turned from the hearth, a dripping wet shirt in her hands. "What?" She looked only a little startled . . . as if she'd been expecting him.

  "I said, where the hell is she?" He pointed. "And don't try to pretend you don't know. Who else would she come to?" His tone was bitter. "Who else would have aided in this deception, but another woman?"

  Saity lifted an eyebrow. "Excuse me, but you got no right to come into my place of business and start shoutin' at me!" She was a small, comparatively frail woman, but her voice was commanding. "Now you want to talk to me, you talk to me with a civil voice, else"—she let go of one sleeve of the shirt to point—"you get out of my shop!"

  Kincaid looked away from her, wiping his mouth with the back of his gloved hand. He was so furious he could barely control himself. Perhaps Saity was right. He shouldn't talk to her that way, but damn it, his life was falling apart!

  When he spoke again, he made an effort to keep his voice even. "I want to know where she is. Here?"

  Saity played the innocent. "Is who here, sir?"

  "You know who the hell I mean! Meg!"

  Saity turned her back on him, dropping the shirt into the bucket of water at her feet. "There you go, shoutin' at me again. I'm tellin' you, Kincaid, friend or not, you won't get nowhere tryin' to bully me. The days of Saity Nutter bein' bullied are long gone." Her back to him, she added a bit of soap to the water and began to rub the shirt against the washboard. Apparently she was unintimidated by his physical appearance or gruff voice. Apparently she meant what she said.

  Kincaid rested his hands on his hips, taking a deep breath. He knew Saity had something to do with all of this, he just knew it. If Meg wasn't here, Saity knew where she was. He just had to get her to talk. "I need to know where she is, Saity," he finally said quietly.

  "Why?"

  "To talk to her, damn it!" He kicked at a stool and knocked it over, sending it rolling across the uneven floorboards.

  Saity watched the stool roll away with exaggerated disinterest. She glanced up at him. "You don't sound like a man who wants to know where a woman is so you can talk to her." She dropped the shirt into the wash water and faced him, crossing her arms over her chest. When she did so, she left a wet spot on her blue apron. "You sound like a man who's lookin' fer a woman so he can rough her up. I know all about that. Remember? I been there. Had them black eyes."

  "I'm not going to rough her up!" He made a strangling motion with his hands. "I'm just going to kill her."

  Saity frowned. "Oh, so I should tell you where she is so you can kill her?"

  The way she stood there, her arms crossed over her chest, speaking so matter-of-factly, made Kincaid just a little ashamed of himself. He was behaving badly. He knew it. It was just that he was so damned angry. So damned hurt . . .

  He stared at his boots for a moment, then looked up. "She can't just leave like this. I know who she is and I want an explanation." He hit his chest with his fist. "Don't you think I have a right to that?"

  "You know who she is? So what explanation do you want?" She shrugged. "That she accidentally came upon her stepson after killing his father in self-defense. Only she didn't know it was her stepson until after she'd fallen in love with him?" She lifted a hand. "There. There's your explanation. She killed your father only she didn't know it was the father of the man she'd fall for later. So she left."

  "Accidentally my lily white ass! She set me up. She killed my father. Then she hid in the one place she knew my uncle . . . I would never look."

  Saity rolled her eyes. "Oh, please! Just like a man to think he's always in the middle of everything. Do you hear what you're saying?" She took a step closer. "You're saying she ran out of that castle, bleedin' down her legs, and tracked you down? You're sayin' she fainted in your path, knowin' you'd pick her up? Knowin' you'd get arrested and have to stay together for weeks in Newgate Prison? You're sayin' she knew you'd fall in love with her and that way save her own skin?" Saity burst into laughter. "That's the best one I heard this week!"

  Kincaid picked up the stool and righted it, trying to ignore Saity's laughter. He didn't want to hear this. He didn't want logic. He was too angry for logic. He wanted revenge. Blood.

  "So it does sound a wee silly to you, eh?" Saity said after a long moment of silence.

  Kincaid looked up at her.

  "Admit it. It does sound stupid, doesn't it? Only real things can turn out this strange."

  He looked Saity straight in the eyes. "Is she here?"

  "No." She lifted her hand. "But you're free to look around. You can hang out them shirts on the line whilst yer in the back, if you like."

  Kincaid started for the door that led to the attic stair, than spun around. "Ah, the hell with it!" He threw up his hands. "I don't want to talk to her. I don't want to see her. She lied to me. She betrayed me. The little conniving witch never loved me. She just—"

  "Now wait there one second." Saity shook her finger angrily. "There's some things you can say. Yea, she told some lies, but she loved you, you jackass. She loved you more than anyone on this blessed earth will ever love you." She set her jaw. "So you tell yourself what you want, but don't be sayin' she didn't love you 'cause it just ain't true. Why the blast do you think she took off?"

  "What am I doing here?" He stomped toward the door. "What could have ever made me think you'd be any help?" Before Saity could say another word, he walked out of her shop and slammed the door behind him. To hell with Saity. To hell with Meg. To hell with his uncle. To hell with them all! He was getting drunk.

  Meg rode the nag along the path she'd traveled six months before, thinking of how funny it was that a woman's life could change so greatly in such a short time. What was six months? A growing season? The time it took to sew a quilt or embroider a table linen? For heaven's sake, it took more than six months to grow a child in a womb.

  She brushed her hand absently over her abdomen that she knew would soon begin to swell with new life. Six months was nothing compared to the time she had spent at Rutledge Castle. And yet look at how differently life was today than it had been six months ago. In that short period of time she had given birth and lost her child. She had murdered a man and lost her husband. She'd spent time in jail a
nd time in the arms of a man who loved her. She'd loved and been made love to. It had been a tragic six months, a glorious six months.

  She couldn't help wondering where the next six would lead her. A new world, a new life, as a new person. The thought was overwhelming, and yet it gave her hope. What she carried in her womb gave her hope.

  Meg peered up at the sunshine pouring through the ancient pin oak trees overhead. The warmth felt good on her face.

  Considering the distance she'd traveled, she guessed Rutledge couldn't be much farther. She was anxious to get there, anxious to see her baby's grave. And anxious to get away.

  Kincaid may have felt the need to walk the cold stone corridors of the castle that had been his home for so many years, but Meg didn't. She wished she could burn the damned place to the ground and end its curse.

  Less than half an hour later the road began to look familiar. She'd never been permitted to travel far from the castle. Philip always believed her place was at home where he could keep an eye on her, but she'd been this way before, to a county fair. That was in the early days of their marriage, when he was at least occasionally kind to her. She studied the countryside as she rode along at a comfortable pace. She remembered the trees, the turns in the road, the thatched cottage up the hill with the sheep that surrounded it.

  Then the sky began to cloud overhead. "Oh, no," Meg muttered, urging her mount a little faster. "Not rain."

  The storm moved in quickly. One minute the sky was bright with sunshine and hope, the next minute it was dark and foreboding. "An omen?" she wondered aloud, staring up at the ugly clouds rolling in. Then she laughed at herself and her foolishness. Perhaps more of Monti's superstition had rubbed off on her than she'd thought.

  Monti. She'd tried not to think about him all day. She still couldn't believe he'd betrayed Kincaid for money. Greed. Her grandmother had always said greed was the downfall of many a noble man.

  Another quarter of a mile and the rain began to fall. It was as if God had lifted a bucket of well water and poured it over the earth. "Oh, no," Meg moaned, huddling beneath her cloak. Despite the fact that it was May, it was still cool. And once the sun was gone, she was chilled.