The Highwayman's Lady (BookStrand Publishing Romance)

by Karen Lingefelt

  He was. She rang for some tea and a plate of sandwiches. Jack was so hungry it was all he could do not to stuff the food into his mouth at once, as he’d often done when he was a child. He tried to distract himself by admiring his sister, her sandy blonde hair piled on her head. Pearls gleamed around her neck and from her ears, and he’d never seen her in a gown so fine, a concoction of pale blue trimmed with creamy lace.

  She smiled back at him. “You look as if you can’t believe it’s really me.”

  “I know this sounds absurd, but you look like a countess,” he said lamely.

  “That’s not so absurd,” said Gabriel. “That’s just what I for one want to hear. I’ve been wanting her to look like a countess ever since we met.”

  “Jack, I know what you’re really thinking,” said Samantha. “You never thought I’d marry an earl. Well, neither did I until it actually happened barely a fortnight ago!”

  Jack tucked into a sandwich, trying not to devour it too avidly. “That was quite a letter you wrote to me last week about how you came to be the Countess of Ellsworth and, for that matter, how your husband came to be the earl. To think you were both only playing at it.”

  “We certainly thought so, until I learned I really was the earl,” Gabriel replied. “After that there was nothing else to do but persuade Samantha that she should really be my countess.”

  “And here I was pretending to be your uncle’s countess,” she said with a warm, loving smile before glancing back at her brother. “Oh, and speaking of uncles, Jack, I’m afraid Uncle Crispin will be here for dinner tomorrow. It was already settled before we knew you were coming.”

  “That’s quite all right, since I can’t avoid him forever.”

  “Is that why you were in Sussex all this time? What took you so long to return to London—and, I might add, quite suddenly, as if a matter of great urgency brought you here? You could wait to see Crispin—that I understand, having finally met him myself recently—and you could wait to see me, which I suppose is just as well since an earlier visit might have complicated matters between me and Gabriel…”

  “You might have called me out,” said Gabriel.

  “Nonsense,” Jack scoffed. “You married her without any prompting from me or anyone else, didn’t you?”

  “He did,” Samantha assured her brother. “So why so long in Sussex and suddenly in London?” She threw Jack a mischievous smile. “I don’t suppose it’s a lady?”

  Jack opened his mouth to respond, but Gabriel was quick to speak first. “How can that be, if she’s been in London all this time and he’s been in Sussex since returning from the Peninsula?”

  Since Jack’s mouth was still open, he filled it with another bite of sandwich.

  “Maybe she was also in Sussex, but now she’s in London,” Samantha surmised. “Only the Season is almost over. Or perhaps she’s already found a prospective bridegroom and has come to London to marry him, but Jack is in love with her and means to woo her away.” She glanced back at her brother, arching her eyebrows.

  He swallowed his food. “I wouldn’t say that.”

  She gasped and straightened in her chair. “Then it is a lady!”

  “Yes, but she hasn’t come to London to marry anyone else. I don’t even know if she is in London, or if she is, for how long. She may be leaving as early as tomorrow morning.”

  “For where?”

  “I’ve heard she may be going to Northumberland.”

  Samantha set down her teacup. “Good heavens, why would she go all the way up there, unless that’s where her family has found a husband for her, or worse, she’s being—” She snatched up a napkin and held it over the lower part of her face, as if she meant to conceal whatever reaction she might be having to whatever she couldn’t say.

  “Being what?” Gabriel asked.

  Samantha lowered the napkin again. “You have no idea how much I feared a similar fate had I failed Aunt Aurora in her scheme to make me play the countess. She blackmailed me, you know. She could’ve bribed me. I would’ve been happy to do it for bribery. But nooo, she had to resort to blackmail instead.”

  “Bribery would’ve meant Aurora had to give you something,” said Jack. “And I’ve never considered her a giving person—not even given to bribery. But I do believe you’ve hit on the reason this particular young woman might be going to Northumberland or someplace equally remote.”

  Gabriel peered at his brother-in-law. “Do you mean she’s being…?” Even he couldn’t say the word.

  “What did she do that now she’s being…?” Samantha looked anxiously at Jack. “Surely it has nothing to do with you?”

  Jack couldn’t help it. He burst into laughter.

  “Methinks it has everything to do with him,” Gabriel remarked.

  “Jack! What did you do? And why is she being—you know—instead of marrying you? Or is she being—”

  “Honestly, Samantha.” Jack thunked down his own teacup as he shook his head, though he still favored her with a brotherly smile. “Why are you having such trouble saying that word?”

  “What word?”

  “You know what word.”

  “Indeed?”

  “No, not that word—in fact, I believe that’s the first I’ve heard you say indeed since I walked through your front door.”

  “No, that’s not the word, either. You didn’t let me finish what I was saying.”

  “My dearest sister, I’ve given you ample opportunity to finish your sentences, but you always come to a full stop after you say being, as if you can’t bear to say the next word, as in she’s being—” And just like his sister, Jack came to a full stop.

  “That’s not the sentence that you didn’t let me finish. You didn’t let me finish what I was going to say right after indeed.”

  Gabriel piped in, “You know, I think I’m starting to understand why your Uncle Crispin decreed you two should grow up in separate households.”

  To Jack’s delight, Samantha didn’t look at all exasperated. From the smile on her lips and the twinkle in her eye, he could see she was enjoying this as much as he was. She jabbed a long finger in his direction. “I was going to say, ‘Indeed? Well, you can’t seem to say the word, either.’”

  “Of course I can. Indeed, indeed, indeed.”

  “Not that word, goosecap. What’s happening to this lady you’re pursuing? She’s being—being…?”

  “Banished. Exiled. Cast out. Sent to the remotest place her family can keep her where they won’t have to think about her ever again. And they just happen to have some sort of dilapidated farm in Northumberland.”

  “Heavens.” The word came out of Samantha almost as a breath. “I don’t even know where I would’ve gone if I’d been—been—”

  “Banished, exiled, cast out,” Jack repeated.

  “Uncle Crispin had already turned me away years earlier, simply for the crime of being yet another useless girl. This young woman you seek—what was her alleged crime, and what did you have to do with it? And mind you, Jack, I’m a married woman now, so don’t tell me it’s something not fit for my tender ears.”

  “But they’re such tender ears,” Gabriel put in with an equally tender smile gifted upon her.

  “She did absolutely nothing wrong,” Jack declared. “She only did something very foolish.” He sighed heavily and picked up his teacup again. “As did I.”

  “Tell me!” Samantha all but bounced in her chair.

  He drained the teacup and set it back into the saucer. “As you know, I’ve been staying at Howland Hall. With Howland. And Rollo.”

  She stiffened in her chair. “What scrape did those two reprobates lure you into this time?”

  “They didn’t exactly lure me. They only told me what they were plotting and persuaded me that I was the best person to carry it out.”

  “On what basis?” Samantha didn’t sound at all amused now. To Jack’s chagrin, her voice and even her eyes had turned cold. “Because you’ve been away from England for
such a long time, they fancied you wouldn’t be recognized right away?”

  Jack stared back at her, stupefied. “How did you ever guess?”

  “Gabriel was chosen by his uncle to uncover my own scrape for much the same reason. What exactly did you do, and why?”

  “I did it for the same reason we usually do these things.” He wished he didn’t feel as sheepish as he sounded—and feared that he looked.

  “In another words, no particular reason? Just for the thrill and the possibility of being caught and—and—”

  “Banished?” Gabriel suggested.

  “Only if Jack were female,” Samantha grumbled.

  “Well, I daresay by now he and his cohorts are a little too old to be caned.”

  “But not to be jailed,” she said. “Or transported.”

  “Or even hanged,” Jack mumbled.

  “What?” she burst out.

  Gabriel said, “I do believe he said—”

  “Hanged!” Samantha glared at her brother. “Maybe you think I wouldn’t hear because you mumbled, Jack Jordan, but I heard all the same. You said hanged. Jack! What did you do to this young woman that you could be hanged for it? Jack?”

  “Stop repeating my name and I’ll tell you.”

  Silence swept across the drawing room like the gust of an ill wind before he took a deep breath and said, “I waylaid her carriage and stole her betrothal ring.”

  His sister now looked at him as if he belonged in Bedlam. Or Newgate. Or Australia. Or even on the gallows itself. “Why on earth did you steal her ring?”

  “Because that was all anyone in the carriage had to give me.”

  “Jack!” Skepticism weighted Samantha’s voice. Apparently she didn’t find his response to be at all amusing or clever.

  “Rollo thought it might liven up the house party if just one of the guests’ carriages was waylaid,” he explained. “You know how dull house parties can be. Their only real purpose is to match up people who haven’t been matched. Gentlemen on one side of the dance floor and ladies on the other.” He thought of Renton and Miss Griffin standing on opposite sides of the ballroom last night—and they’d long since been matched! “Gentlemen on the archery field, ladies sitting to one side twirling their parasols and trying to look fascinated by the proceedings. Speaking of which, there was supposed to be archery today, weather permitting, and I was rather looking forward to it. Anyway, he wagered if just one carriage was waylaid, that the guests would talk of nothing else for the remainder of the house party. Unfortunately for the young lady whose ring I stole, that’s exactly what happened. No one at Howland Hall has talked of anything else since and she was finally forced to leave.”

  “Do you mean to say Lord Howland cast her out himself, when he was party to this?” Samantha snatched up a knife from the sandwich tray, as if eager to use it on Howland or Rollo. Or maybe even Jack. She certainly didn’t look as pleased as she had nearly an hour ago when they were reunited.

  In fact, at this moment she reminded him a great deal of Uncle Crispin. Scowling. Scolding. Disapproving. And always wielding something slightly less lethal than a knife.

  If only his uncle had touched Jack for some reason other than punishment. Other than to remind him that he wasn’t good enough for the title that would one day be his by an unfair quirk of fate. That the only reason he would be Viscount Lockwood upon Crispin’s death was because Crispin’s wife could only give birth to girls, who by law could never inherit.

  He kept getting into trouble at the behest of Howland and Rollo, the only two at school who would be friends with the son of a second son, because staying out of trouble did nothing to win his uncle’s approval. He’d decided if he was going to always be treated as a miscreant, he might as well act the part. At least he knew then that he deserved whatever his uncle served to him.

  “Of course Howland didn’t cast her out,” he told his sister. “’Twas the young woman’s fiancé who asked that she be sent away.”

  “The cad!” exclaimed Samantha. “Why didn’t he call you out?”

  “And shoot me? You sound disappointed that he didn’t. Indeed, you sound like Uncle Crispin.”

  “I’m disappointed that you didn’t have the chance to shoot him for treating her in such a beastly manner. And that you would compare me to Uncle Crispin.”

  “In any event, Howland’s mother and this lady’s aunt agreed that she should be sent away to avoid any further gossip. I wouldn’t be surprised, however, if the scandal is still very much the main topic of conversation back at Howland Hall.”

  “So what makes you think she’s in London, if she’s being banished—there, I can say that word—to Northumberland?”

  “I’m told that her aunt sent an express to her cousin, the Duke of Halstead, warning him that the young woman is coming to London on this date, and that he should make arrangements to have her sent north as soon as possible.”

  “Halstead? I’ve met him since returning to London myself,” said Gabriel. “Unfortunately, I can’t tell you much about him, in terms of how he might react to the arrival of his lady cousin and her reasons for doing so. I can only say I’ve met him, and that he’s about our age. Oh, and that he shares his Mayfair residence with his mother, who happens to be American.”

  Samantha refilled his teacup. “So her fiancé ended their betrothal because you stole the ring he gave to her?”

  “I don’t like to say I stole the ring from her, because she surrendered it quite willingly,” Jack countered. “One might even say eagerly.”

  “What did it look like?” Samantha held up her left hand, turning it this way and that to allow the gems on her own ring to catch the light. Jack glimpsed crimson fire on her third finger. She stretched out her hand, palm down, to afford him a closer look. “This is a ruby, flanked by diamonds, and it belonged to Gabriel’s grandmother.”

  “At first glance I thought it looked like this young woman’s ring, except yours catches the light. Hers was a garnet with no diamonds.”

  “Was, you say? Where is the ring now?”

  “I gave it to Howland, and supposedly he gave it back to her fiancé.”

  “Yet the fiancé ended their betrothal anyway? Was he offended by the knowledge that she valued her own life over a mere garnet?”

  “Her life was never in any danger,” Jack insisted.

  “But he couldn’t have known that,” argued Samantha. “Or could he?”

  Jack stopped eating and stared at his sister for a long moment. Now that he was far away from the scene of the crime and better able to contemplate all that happened that night, he realized there were a few elements that simply didn’t make sense. Miss Griffin herself had pointed out at least one of them while making her entertaining case against Lord Renton.

  For instance, how was he able to stay behind the ladies in a newer carriage drawn by four horses to their two?

  Far enough behind that Jack had plenty of time to do the deed before Renton appeared at the inn shortly thereafter.

  And then there was the dissolution of the betrothal the next day. Renton wanted Miss Griffin to leave, and got his wish.

  What did Howland and Rollo know about this apparent prank that Jack didn’t?

  And why was Jack never let in on the secret?

  He swore he could feel his heart shivering, as if caught in a sudden, icy grip.

  Samantha slid into his dark reverie. “Had the highwayman been anyone else but you, she might well have been in danger. I daresay her fiancé’s concerns on that front were valid, but scarcely grounds for casting her aside.” Oblivious to what he knew must have been a dismayed expression on his face, she smiled slyly. “Or did you make her a scandalous offer that might have allowed her to keep the ring, and by extension her fiancé?”

  He tried not to look so dismayed. “Oh, you mean like demanding a kiss?”

  She lifted her teacup, green eyes gleaming mischievously over the rim. “Yes, like that.”

  “That’s the odd thing. S
he gave me the ring, while the other two ladies had nothing to hand over—or maybe they did, but I wasn’t about to press them any more than I pressed her. But once I had the ring in hand, I walked away thinking that was the end of it, and I was about to remove my mask and mount my horse—”

  “What sort of mask?”

  “Oh, an old Venetian bauta. I could barely see a thing in it. I swear it was originally made for someone with one eye in the middle of his forehead and the other hanging from his left earlobe. I was well behind their carriage, about to doff it when she popped out and wanted to know if that was all.” Jack sat up and stared at some indeterminate spot on the wall behind his sister as he raised his voice to a near falsetto and chopped his hands in the air for emphasis. “‘That’s all, Mr. Highwayman? Are you just going to leave without—without—’”

  “She actually called you ‘Mr. Highwayman’?” Gabriel nearly slid out of his chair as he roared with laughter.

  “Well, no. But she’s the one who kept saying ‘without—without.’” He paused, then added, “Without ever specifying what it was she thought I was leaving without.”

  Gabriel still chuckled. “Did you forget something—like your loot bag?”

  “I didn’t leave anything behind.” Jack glanced back at his sister. “What could I have forgotten? Was I supposed to—to—” Even if his sister was married, he still didn’t feel comfortable saying the word he wanted in front of her.

  “She probably thought you should’ve tried to kiss her.”

  “Why, in heaven’s name?”

  “Because that’s what highwaymen do in novels,” she said airily.

  Jack was flabbergasted. “In novels, yes! But they don’t do that in real life! In real life they kill you if you don’t meet their demands. And sometimes they kill you even if you do.”

  “Is that why you’ve come after her? Because she came after you? And did you kiss her?”

  “Of course not!” He paused again, before amending rather sheepishly, “At least not then. We’d only just met. But I may have kissed her this morning.”

  “May have? You don’t know?”