“Felicity!” her aunt exclaimed. “What in heaven’s name are you doing?”
Felicity leaped out of the carriage and nearly tripped over the coachman as he sawed his knife through the groom’s bonds. She caught a glimpse of white a short distance beyond and called out, “Wait! Highwayman!”
He turned, making a hasty adjustment to his mask, as if he’d been about to doff it when she spoke. Blast!
She might have seen what he looked like. She wondered if his face matched his voice. Pleasant. Charming.
As if he might be a gentleman.
“That’s all?” She stumbled up to him, her muscles still cramped. “You just close the door and leave without...without—” Blast it, without what?
“Without shooting you?”
“No, not that. Why would I come out here to complain that you didn’t shoot me?”
“Ah, so you are complaining about something. Something I didn’t do. Well, if it’s not that I didn’t shoot you, then where else could I be remiss? Perhaps you’re vexed because I left without saying farewell? I suppose that was rude of me, as if nothing else was.”
Felicity’s mouth snapped open and shut as she stared at that implacable mask that betrayed no expression.
“I’m supposed to be a highwayman,” he reminded her. “Highwaymen are not polite people who linger to bid farewell once they’re done robbing you. Surely that’s not what you expected? Or maybe you did. Your older companion seemed to think we should’ve been formally introduced first. What sticklers for formality you ladies are!”
She finally found her voice. “Why are you doing this? I mean, what drove you to become a highwayman? Surely a man as well spoken and mannered as you could do better.”
“Oh, no,” he grumbled under his breath. “Of all the people I could’ve robbed this evening, I had to waylay a do-gooding reformer. I suppose you’d like me to come home with you so you can burn my clothes and make me take a bath and don your papa’s castoffs, all so you can fool the patronesses of Almack’s into thinking I’m a gentleman.”
“You certainly sound like one. What drove you to this? You don’t seem as if you belong here. You sound educated. You could be doing something more respectable.”
“You mean like your betrothed? I’m sure he’s the portrait of respectability. Where is he, by the way? Oh wait, now I understand. You’re only trying to stall me until he arrives to play the hero. How resourceful of you.”
She sighed with relief, silently blessing him, for she still couldn’t think of a reason for leaving the safety of her carriage to confront him. But stalling for time would do. “You’re absolutely right. Surely you didn’t think I really, truly was offended because you left without saying good-bye.”
“Actually, I did. I thought you might even want a kiss.”
She gasped and reeled back a step or two. Did he just say what she thought he’d said? The mask muffled his words. “Did you just say—?”
“Blast this mask, eh? It disguises my voice as well as my face.” He tugged a bit at the bottom of his mask and raised his voice. “Do you want a kiss?”
Then he did say what she thought he’d said. “Pray, why would I want a kiss?”
“Oh, I don’t know—so I’ll take off my mask and you can see who I am, and then you’ll be able to provide a detailed description to the authorities so they can track me down and hang me from the nearest gibbet. Or to make your fiancé jealous, if he ever deigns to show up. I wonder which would give you the greatest satisfaction?”
Felicity wondered how Lord Renton would react if he thought the highwayman had stolen not only her ring, but her kiss.
“Or maybe you’d like me to kiss you because you’ve never been kissed before?”
How could this rogue know that? That is, that she’d never been kissed before? “Oh! Be gone, you—you—”
“Highwayman,” he cheerfully sang out.
She balled her hands into fists. “Go—before I scream.”
He chuckled. “It’s a little late for that, isn’t it? Not to mention one of your companions screamed several times to no avail, unless she meant to deafen me. Besides, I was just leaving when you summoned me back. Typical female, can’t make up your—”
“I’m warning you, I’ll scream.”
“I’ve been warned.” Yet he continued to stand there. “Scream.”
Felicity took a deep breath and opened her mouth wide, wondering how in heaven’s name this came so effortlessly to Lydia.
“Well? I don’t have all night. Is this another ploy to stall me until your beloved arrives to save the day? Come, you can do it.”
What was wrong with Felicity that she couldn’t scream? She stood rooted to the ground, her fists clenched as she lifted her head, closed her eyes, and took one deep breath after another, her mouth agape, but she simply couldn’t bring herself to scream.
“Would it help if I grab you?” His voice merrily bubbled with barely suppressed mirth. “Seize you in a passionate embrace such as you’ve never known with your beloved?”
How did he know that? Frustration, and not her “beloved,” finally saved the day as Felicity let loose with a scream that echoed over the surrounding countryside, and set the clouds trembling in the sky, for when she tilted her head back, she felt a raindrop pelt her face, followed by another. It was about to start pouring.
When her scream finally dissipated, she opened her eyes, but the masked stranger was nowhere in sight. As she took a deep breath to replenish her lungs, she heard the thunder of horses’ hooves fading away.
Once again, he’d left without further ado. Without...without...she threw up her hands and returned to the carriage. The groom was back on the tiger’s seat and the coachman on the box, as if none of this had happened. She climbed inside to find Aunt Cordelia and Cousin Lydia huddled together, both ashen and saucer-eyed as she took her seat across from them.
“Felicity, what happened?” her aunt demanded. “I thought I heard another scream, and it wasn’t from Lydia this time. It was most decidedly from outside the carriage. Was that you?”
“Of course it was me. Surely you don’t think it was the highwayman?”
“But why did you scream? Did he—did he—?”
Did he what? The question was as burning as the one of what he’d left without. Felicity wondered if the elusive answer was the same.
“Well, did he?” Cordelia prodded, as the carriage lurched into motion.
“What do you think he did?” Felicity thought the better of confessing to her aunt that she’d gone after him because he didn’t, in which case, maybe there wasn’t a single answer to the two questions. “If you mean did he finally leave, the answer is yes, he did.”
“That’s not what I mean, and I believe you know it. Why did you scream, Felicity? It wasn’t because he left.”
Felicity couldn’t help smiling. “’Twas quite the reverse, Aunt Cordelia. You might say he left because I screamed.”
Lydia sat up. “How can that be, when I must’ve screamed several times and he wouldn’t go away?”
“All I know is when I was out of breath, he was gone.”
“I don’t believe it! Not after I screamed so many times. Do you believe it, Mama?”
“Certainly not. Mercy, Felicity! What shall Lord Renton say when he finds out?”
“I’m hoping he’ll say that he’ll buy me another ring. At least this time he should present it to me himself.” His mother had given her garnet ring to Felicity before she fell ill with the fever that swept through her family and unexpectedly elevated her son to the rank of earl.
“No, I mean what will he say when he finds out you were—you were—”
“I was what?” Goodness, could Aunt Cordelia never complete a sentence without fumbling for just the right word?
“Never mind, say nothing more. We must protect Lydia’s tender ears.”
Felicity tugged at an earlobe. “After all that screaming she did, what about our own?”
; “He tried to kiss you, didn’t he?” asked Lydia, her tone accusing.
Cordelia gasped. “Lydia!”
“But that’s what we’re all thinking, isn’t it? Why else would she have screamed?” Lydia bounced on the seat across from Felicity. “I’ve heard of such things. Of highwaymen who demanded kisses from lady travelers because they had no jewelry or coin to give up. I was in constant fear he’d demand a kiss from me because I had nothing to give him.”
Felicity had heard of such things, too. She’d read them in the gothic novels her aunt deemed rubbish. At school, the girls had whispered lurid tales after dark, of dashing highwaymen who demanded kisses from their female victims as a penalty for not having any coin or jewelry to give them. Could that be the ado he’d left without?
Could it be she’d gone after him because he’d forgotten to demand the kiss mandated by gothic novels and silly, whispering schoolgirls?
She shook her head and blinked her eyes rapidly, as if doing so might clear the clouds fogging her brain. She hadn’t thought of offering a penalty on behalf of her aunt and cousin.
No, she’d gone after him because he’d charmed her, fascinated her…thrilled her, all in ways she’d never been charmed, fascinated, or thrilled before. Why did he just march off without demanding a kiss, without dragging her out of the carriage and taking her into his arms for that “passionate embrace” she’d never known in the arms of her betrothed?
That, and his unexpected appearance was the most exciting thing that had happened to her in years—perhaps in all of her life. After years of mourning one departed relative after another, she longed to break free and seize life before death cast another shadow.
Cordelia tore into her reverie. “That savage villain might have killed us all!”
“He was hardly savage,” Felicity countered. “Didn’t either of you notice he was unusually well spoken, as if he could’ve been a gentleman instead of a common criminal?”
“Obviously he’s robbed enough members of good society to have picked up some of their speech and mannerisms.”
“I think not. He seemed dreadfully inexperienced, as if he’d never done it before.”
“And how would you know an inexperienced highwayman from a seasoned one, missy?”
“He forgot to bring a knife to cut off your finger for your ring. He didn’t try to take our reticules for whatever paltry amount of coin we might carry. He didn’t even think to ask for any jewelry beyond our rings. And he didn’t demand kisses. Lydia screamed several times, and not because he kissed her.”
“Oh, what does it all matter?” Cordelia wrung her hands and fluttered her handkerchief. “You left the carriage and you screamed. Don’t you know what that means, Felicity? You’ve been ruined. Ruined!”
“Oh, Felicity,” whispered Lydia, holding a pale, trembling hand over her mouth. “Ruined.”
Felicity pressed both hands over her face and bent over, unable to suppress the heaving sounds in her throat. They poured forth in long howls as she trembled all over, and finally the tears began streaming from her eyes.
She’d never laughed so hard in her life.
Chapter Two
Captain Jack Jordan vaulted into the saddle of his waiting horse and set off at a gallop before that woman stopped screaming long enough to come charging after him—and he wouldn’t put it past her. What had she been thinking to leave the safety of her carriage and confront him, when—despite her correct assertion that he would never dare do so—he could have shot her?
Any other highwayman might have shot her, or even ravished her right there on the dark roadside. All Jack would have done—if only he hadn’t had to keep his face concealed, and if only she hadn’t already been betrothed to another—was steal a kiss.
He would have liked that more than her ring, because he didn’t really want her ring. She would get it back. But he couldn’t dwell on that now. Her forced, halfhearted scream had finally dissipated, and God only knew what she would do next to try and detain him or even unmask him. Unlike her companions, she’d seemed more curious, even intrigued, than panic-stricken—almost as if she correctly suspected the whole debacle was really just a foolish prank. Jack wondered if that was good or bad.
He slowed the horse to a trot, then tore off the borrowed mask—an ill-fitting, sweaty nuisance—and shoved it inside his cloak, followed by the mouse-chewed tricorne and wig that looked more like a dead hedgehog than something his late father might have worn. The woman her companions had called Felicity wasn’t likely to run this far to confront him again.
Not likely, but it certainly wasn’t outside the realm of possibility.
He marveled at her recklessness that matched his, even if it wasn’t as dangerous as what he’d seen on the battlefield—or was it? Had it been a carriage full of men and not women, or the coachman better armed, Jack might well have been the one shot.
He kept to the main road back to the village only a mile away, and did not meet any other carriages or horsemen traveling in the opposite direction to nearby Howland Hall. What could have happened to her betrothed? Fresh anger burned through Jack. Why had the man insisted on traveling in a separate conveyance? Felicity was obviously well chaperoned, just not well protected. Jack had recognized their coachman’s pistol as a very old and unreliable contraption that would have been more effective as a club. Not surprisingly, the man had been more cooperative than Jack had expected.
The circumstances were certainly a lot more ideal than they’d been when he was on the Peninsula. Not only had he been astride a galloping horse, but he’d also been dodging gunfire. And while it hadn’t been as dark on the blood-drenched battlefield as it was now, his vision had still been horribly obscured by the thick clouds of acrid smoke that stung his eyes and clogged his throat and lungs. At that thought, he took a deep breath of the wonderfully cold English air. No smoke. No bloodshed. No deafening gunfire. Just cool raindrops that pelted his face.
Upon reaching the stables behind the inn, he patted his horse in thanks for a job well done before slipping a coin to the hovering groom. He was about to cross the stable yard when a magnificent carriage entered and immediately took up nearly every last square foot of space. He had to press himself against the half-timbered wall to avoid being trampled by the carriage’s outriders.
“Make way for Lord Renton’s carriage!” one of them yelled.
The betrothed.
So he did exist—and in great style, it would seem.
Jack felt anger rising like bile in his throat. Had he not already made the acquaintance of Renton’s intended, he might have covetously admired so fine a conveyance, pulled by four beautifully matched grays, driven by not one but two coachmen, with a matching pair of grooms dangling rather elegantly off the other end.
And of course the armed outriders charged with keeping its path clear of all debris, human or otherwise.
The coach itself could easily hold four people. Even six could ride in relative comfort. Jack thought of the plain battered carriage he’d just waylaid, with the three innocent ladies crammed within, and nothing to protect them but the wits of the one they called Felicity.
He felt inside his waistcoat pocket for the only spoils of that confrontation. The garnet ring was still there.
Renton owned all this—yet had given his betrothed nothing but a tiny garnet. Jack longed to march up to the carriage door, throw it open, then hurl the ring in Renton’s face before following suit with first his right fist and then his left, then his right fist again and maybe the toe of his boot in the popinjay’s groin.
But he already knew Renton was no longer in there. He would have disembarked in front of the inn. He squeezed around the equipage, the horseflesh, and the menservants to enter the inn from the back.
Once inside, Jack proceeded to the private parlor where his two friends waited for him, swilling brandy and puffing on cheroots. He tossed the mask onto the table that was covered with coins, cards, markers, and brandy snifters. “I could barely s
ee a damned thing through those eyeholes. I should’ve just tied a rag around my nose and mouth.”
“And risk being recognized by one of your victims at my mother’s house party?” said Viscount Howland. “Even a domino mask would’ve been too dangerous, Jordan, what with that cleft in your chin. You and I and Rollo have known each other for twenty years, and since our school days, I’ve gone prematurely bald, Rollo’s gotten fat, but you merely acquire that cleft! So!” He slapped both palms on the edge of the table. “Did you manage to waylay that carriage that passed through the village a half hour ago?”
“I did indeed.”
Howland’s mother was expecting more guests to arrive this evening, and the three friends had been waiting at the inn all evening for one of those carriages to pass by en route to Howland Hall only a few miles away, where Jack had been a guest since returning from the Peninsula last month. The house party was horribly dull, partly due to the English weather he’d missed and the fact that the rest of the world was in London for the Peace Celebrations commemorating the end of a war he didn’t miss. Howland and Lord Rollo had persuaded Jack that waylaying the new guests would be one way of relieving the ennui.
Jack thought another way would be to stop hiding in Sussex as if he feared his relatives more than he did the French, and go to either London where his newly married sister was, or Lockwood Hall where his uncle would simply make him wish he’d remained in Sussex.
So in Sussex he remained.
He reached into his waistcoat pocket for the garnet ring, and set it down before Howland with as much reverence as if he were presenting him with St. Edward’s Crown, used at coronations. Now stealing that would have been a lark—as well as his death sentence.
Howland grinned as if it were St. Edward’s Crown, while Rollo stared at the ring with furrowed brow. “What is that?”
“A lady’s betrothal ring. A garnet, to be precise.”
“You mean this is it?” Rollo sounded thoroughly disgruntled.
“Surely you weren’t expecting me to return with bags of gold,” Jack snapped back. “And even if I did, surely you weren’t expecting to keep a share of the spoils?”
The Highwayman's Lady (BookStrand Publishing Romance) Page 2
