* * * *
By now the sun was well below the treetops as Jack hovered in a thick copse at the end of the turnoff that led to Lockwood House. He liked this mask—a simple domino—much better than the stiff bauta. The bauta was touted for allowing the wearer to eat and drink, but not to breathe or see anything properly.
Nor was it designed to allow the wearer to steal a kiss. The more flexible domino was.
Every time he heard the rumble of horses’ hooves and carriage wheels, he peered through the foliage, but every vehicle he’d seen thus far had driven past the turn.
Some of them had outriders. Had he chosen to confront those, he probably would have been shot immediately. He’d brought his pistol, but it wasn’t loaded any more than it’d been loaded the first time he’d played the highwayman.
Now, as then, he was confident he wouldn’t need it.
He tensed as he heard another rumble. As the noise drew closer, the rumble broke down into assorted sounds. The dull grinding of the wheels as they rolled on the road. The clip-clop of hooves. They came faster than some he’d heard already, meaning there were probably more than two horses. He detected a certain rhythm to their canter that told him the horses pulling the carriage were the only horses—no outriders.
He had only to wait and see if the carriage turned. Oh, and to confirm the crest on the carriage door. He had to make certain he waylaid the correct carriage.
Because if he confronted the wrong one, he might very well end up dead.
As it came into view, he saw it was a fine carriage, as fine as Renton’s, only minus the outriders. It was indeed drawn by four horses, all perfectly matched grays.
It was a carriage fit for a duke—and sure enough, there on the door was the Halstead crest. Jack barely recognized it in the fading daylight. Two liveried grooms rode on the tiger’s seat.
He waited until after the carriage made the critical turn and rolled past his hiding place before swinging into the saddle of his mount. He urged his horse into a gallop after the carriage.
Both grooms turned to gawp at him. One shouted for the coachman, while the other looked as if he wanted very much to leap from the tiger seat and then flee for his life—assuming, of course, that he didn’t break a bone in his jump from a moving carriage, or that Jack’s horse didn’t trample him. For that reason Jack took his horse on the other side of the carriage, racing past the vehicle, the driver’s box, and finally the beautiful grays before he pulled on one side of the reins to make his horse turn and allow him to face the whole conveyance head-on, giving the coachman just enough room to make a safe stop.
Jack’s horse neighed and rose up on its hind legs as he pulled out his pistol and held it high. “Stand and deliver!”
All four grays stirred and kicked in their traces as the coachman deftly kept control of them. Jack steadied his mount and rode up next to the driver’s box, level with the coachman.
“Come up here and hold these horses!” he barked at the grooms, who by now had leaped off the tiger’s seat and looked ready to scamper down the road in the opposite direction. “How do you know I don’t have confederates waiting in the shrubbery to attack you if you run? And even if I don’t, do you honestly believe His Grace will keep you in his employ after this?”
The grooms sheepishly turned back, shoulders slumped.
“For pity’s sake, be proud of your position!” Jack berated them, feeling as if he were back in uniform, rallying his subordinates before a battle. “Stand up straight, and as long as it’s on your way, open the carriage doors for His Grace and his fellow passengers!” He shook his head as he glanced at the coachman. “Are they always this much trouble?”
“Aye,” the coachman replied. “Are you, sir?”
Jack grinned. “Ah, touché.” Once the two grooms were positioned in front of the grays, he dismounted and pointed his pistol back at the coachman. “Now do me a favor, if you would, please. Climb down and hold my mount for me.”
The coachman obeyed as Jack approached the nearest open door of the carriage. The first two people he saw were Lady Tyndall and the Duchess of Halstead.
“Not again—and so close to our destination!” Lady Tyndall cried. “Just like last time.”
“Last time?” echoed the duchess.
“At least this one isn’t wearing that horrid white mask. Oh, how it frightened me and Lydia half out of our wits.” Lady Tyndall scowled at someone seated across from her. “Why are there no outriders? I should think that after what happened to me and my daughter a fortnight ago—oh, and I suppose my niece, too—who also happens to be your niece, Dolly—well, I should think you would take greater care after that and have outriders this evening.”
“I didn’t think they would be necessary between Mayfair and Hampstead Heath,” replied the Duke of Halstead. “This used to be such a safe place.”
“On the contrary, it’s supposed to be a safer place than it used to be. Or so I keep hearing, but obviously not.”
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Jack cut in. “I do so hate to interrupt your quarrel, but—”
“Then why don’t you be gone and let us press on?” Lady Tyndall demanded.
“Now what sort of highwayman would I be if I stopped your carriage, only to let you go because I didn’t want to interrupt your quarrel?”
“He has a point,” came Felicity’s voice from inside the carriage. As before, she occupied the rear-facing seat, this time with Halstead. “Why, he might be expelled from the highwayman’s guild if he waved us on for such a paltry reason, and without first robbing us.”
Jack’s heart leaped at her words. She remembered their exchange from that first night! And she knew it was he.
But what would she do this time?
“Come, ladies,” said Halstead. “We don’t want any trouble. Let us surrender all our valuables, and he’ll let us go.”
To Jack’s surprise, the duchess promptly commenced plucking all of her jewelry from her person, as if this were part of her daily routine, or even as if none of her jewelry meant anything to her. Perhaps because she was an American, he’d been halfway expecting more trouble from her than he was getting from Lady Tyndall, and almost as much as he’d gotten from Felicity since the moment they met. On the other hand, perhaps her son had warned her about what would happen so she was confident of recovering her jewels.
Lady Tyndall, meanwhile, made the same old halfhearted show of tugging on her wedding band. “But I can’t remove this ring! It’s been stuck on my finger for the past twenty years.”
“That’s quite all right,” Jack replied. “I have a knife.”
She froze and stared at him with wide eyes. “Merciful heavens! I was hoping you might have forgotten it. The last highwayman did.”
“He was clearly a novice,” said Jack, who suddenly caught a twinkle from the corner of his eye, and across from Lady Tyndall.
It was a diamond ring Felicity held out to him. He bent his head to get a better look at her, and enjoyed a clearer view than he had the night they met, when all he’d been able to glimpse through the eyeholes in the ill-fitting bauta mask was a bonnet. Tonight he saw russet curls piled on her head and dripping around a heart-shaped face with round pink cheeks and eyes of deepest, darkest green.
“Oh no, miss,” he said. “That’s obviously a betrothal ring. I couldn’t possibly take that away from you.”
Before Felicity could respond, Lady Tyndall said, “Oh, but you think nothing of cutting off my finger for my gold band, which I daresay is worth even less than her diamond.”
“You’re right, my lady, I think nothing of that at all.” Jack pulled a bag from inside his cloak and thrust it inside the carriage toward the duchess. “For your convenience, Your Grace.”
She eyed him askance. “How do you know I’m a duchess? You must, if you address me as ‘Your Grace.’ For that matter, how do you know to address my sister-in-law as ‘my lady’? And I must say, you’re very well spoken for—”
“Dolly
, you’d do best not to say a word to him,” Lady Tyndall cut in.
“Especially when you haven’t been properly introduced,” Felicity finally said.
“You will hold your tongue,” Lady Tyndall chastised her. “Just put the ring in the bag. Howland will surely buy you a new one.”
“He doesn’t have the money to buy me a new one,” Felicity said flatly.
“He will, once Blake signs over your dowry to him. Besides, you keep complaining about how that ring really belongs to the mother of the Duke of Ainsley.”
“So why would she willingly surrender it to me?” Jack inquired, grabbing the open bag from the duchess before Felicity could drop the diamond ring into it. “No, you mustn’t give me that ring, Felicity.”
“How do you know her name, when you haven’t even been properly introduced?” Lady Tyndall demanded.
“He must’ve learned about me from that other highwayman,” Felicity said blithely. “My reputation precedes me. I wonder who could be responsible for that, Aunt Cordelia?”
“And that’s why I can’t take your ring,” said Jack.
She looked more than just appalled by that. She looked stung, her eyes glistening with the threat of tears.
“Instead I’ll take something else of yours,” he added.
“Merciful heavens!” Lady Tyndall cried. “Not her virtue!”
Jack gifted Felicity with an arch smile that he hoped she would correctly interpret to mean, Too late for that, eh?
“You may give me that ring, or you can climb out of the carriage and give me a kiss.”
“Give him the ring!” Lady Tyndall shrieked.
“I don’t want to give him the ring,” Felicity replied. “I want to return it to Lady Martha.”
“And you believe that will get you out of marrying Howland?”
“No, but a kiss from this rogue might.”
“Not necessarily,” Halstead piped up. “Surely there’s no need for Howland to know about this if we all agree to keep quiet about what happened.”
“That’s no trouble for me,” said his mother. “But I fear it might be asking a bit too much of Cordelia here.”
“Won’t you step out of the carriage?” Jack softly asked Felicity.
“No, don’t!” Lady Tyndall cried. “Blake, you must stop her.”
“I dare not. He has a pistol.”
“He’ll have to put it aside in order to kiss her, won’t he?” asked the duchess.
“Why on earth would he have to do that just to kiss her?” demanded Lady Tyndall.
“In case he wants to do to me all those other things you think the last highwayman did,” Felicity said. “And that you told everyone at the Howland house party with the result that Lord Renton ended our betrothal.”
“Nonsense! You ended it because you fancied yourself in love with that highwayman—and I daresay you still do!”
“So what if I do?” Felicity shot back, and Jack thought he felt his heart floating upward, as if it were suddenly lighter than the air he held in his lungs. “I just wonder if he knows that in the days since I gave him that garnet ring, I’ve longed to give him something even more precious—and indeed, he holds it even now though he may not realize it.”
“Oh, I think he does,” Jack said.
“You mean his bag of loot?” Halstead drawled.
“If that’s how you feel about that highwayman,” said the duchess, “then why are you alighting from the carriage to kiss this one? Or is he the same one?”
“He can’t be!” Lady Tyndall cried. “The other one wore a frightful white mask that covered his entire face, and flared out like skirts did in the last century. And he didn’t carry a knife.”
“Well, as your niece so astutely pointed out the last time we met,” said Jack, “I was rather new at the whole thing but now I know better.”
“Felicity, kiss him and then let’s press on,” said the duchess. “Assuming, that is, that he won’t make any other demands.”
“Yes, kiss him before Howland’s carriage catches up, which I’m rather surprised it hasn’t done by now,” said Halstead.
As if on cue, the Howland carriage turned off the main road. Jack dropped his pistol to the ground before helping Felicity out of the carriage and into his arms. Her fragrant, soft warmth enveloped him with magic tendrils of joy.
“You’re all I want,” he murmured. “Not the duchess’s jewels, or the duke’s stickpin and cufflinks and watch, and certainly not Lady Tyndall’s gold wedding band—especially if I have to chop off her finger for it.”
Felicity’s eyes shone in the light of the carriage lamps—the only light there was, now that the sun had sunk well beyond the trees—and her mouth hung wide open.
“I hope you’re not trying to catch flies,” he whispered.
“Only you and your heart.” She threw her arms over his shoulders, pressing the wonderful softness of her body against the hardness of his as he covered her mouth with his own.
Oh, she had his heart. It had weighed so heavily in his chest since the last time he saw her, and now, with Felicity in his arms, it felt so much lighter that Jack swore it could only be because she possessed it.
One of her aunts declared that was enough, now could they please move on before Howland saw. But then he heard the voice of Howland’s mother. “I don’t believe it. Well, I suppose I do, after all Cordelia told me about her. Miss Griffin will throw herself at any man if he’s wearing a mask and stealing her ring. Coachman, where is your pistol?”
Jack wasn’t too worried, since Howland had assured him while they planned this with Halstead that his own coachman wouldn’t be armed, either.
“Miss Griffin, step away from him at once,” Howland commanded.
At those words, Jack, who’d been quite certain his heart was safe with Felicity, now felt it heavy in his chest once more, and he broke the kiss to see Howland.
With a pistol in his hand.
Pointed straight at Jack.
Whose own pistol was lying somewhere on the grass. Not that it would do him any good now even if he could find it in the rapidly spreading nightfall. It was, as usual, unloaded.
He trusted Howland’s was, too. Howland must’ve brought it to pacify his mother. He looked quite convincing as he glowered at Jack, gripping the pistol in his outstretched hand.
“Miss Griffin, I mean it,” Howland bellowed. “Step away from the highwayman. My aim isn’t as good as his. If I shoot there’s a very good chance I’ll hit you instead and I’d rather not. It just so happens I really need your dowry.”
“My lord, you do know this is Captain Jordan, don’t you?”
“I do. And I’m sorry, Jordan. But I meant it when I said I really need her dowry.”
Only then did Jack realize that his friend—or who he’d always thought was his friend—had double-crossed him again.
Naturally he felt like a fool for giving Howland another chance—but not so foolish that he didn’t think to put Felicity out of harm’s way. He let go of her. “You must do as he says. Step away from me.”
Yet she charged right back at him. “I won’t! If he wants to shoot you, then he’ll have to risk shooting me—and losing my dowry.”
“I can’t let that happen to you.” Much as he hated doing it, with all his strength he pushed her away from him—and with any luck, well out of Howland’s dubious line of fire.
“Why can’t you let it happen to me?” A sob caught her voice. “Do you really want me to marry him, just so he can have my dowry?”
“Shoot him, already!” Lady Howland urged her son.
Felicity went on, as if Lady Howland hadn’t interjected. “Do you think I want to share his bed after Aunt Cordelia’s been in it?”
“What?” Several people said that, one of whom was Jack.
Just like that, Lady Tyndall flew out of the carriage as if she’d been hurled from a catapult. “How did you know about that? Felicity! Where are you?” By now it was too dark for anyone to see anything
unless they happened to be standing right next to the carriage lamps.
“Then it is true!” Lady Howland tore the pistol from her son’s dithering grasp. “I knew one of my friends seduced my son—I just didn’t know which one, but now I do!”
The words were barely out of her mouth when she fired the pistol. Jack jumped and his heart jolted at the blinding flash and deafening crack as the frightened horses thrashed in their traces amid women’s screams.
And then his own as he saw Felicity crumpled on the ground.
The horror of what just happened smashed his heart as he knelt down next to her, oblivious to the pandemonium storming all around him as one ghastly thought penetrated his turbulent mind and paralyzed it so he couldn’t think of anything but that thought.
I never told her how much I love her.
Chapter Twenty
Felicity had long been afraid that if she ever dared to say anything about her suspicions regarding Aunt Cordelia and Lord Howland, she would go straight to the Devil for it.
She’d always heard his domain was hot and blazing and reeking of sulfur, with the condemned souls screaming in eternal agony.
Instead it was cold and damp and reeking of gun smoke. At least the souls were still screaming, but they sounded uncannily like Cordelia and Lady Howland. It was no mystery how either of them ended up alongside her—Cordelia was clearly an adulteress and Lady Howland was Felicity’s killer. Only how did they die?
For that matter, why was Jack here—unless it was for his two stints as highwayman—and how?
She’d wanted to live happily ever after with him, but not in Hades.
“What’s the matter with you two harridans?” he shouted.
“What did you just call me?” Cordelia cried at the same time Lady Howland snapped, “How dare you call me that!”
“Then you both agree I wasn’t addressing the Duchess of Halstead and Miss Griffin.”
“Well, I never—”
The Highwayman's Lady (BookStrand Publishing Romance) Page 26
