The Rogue Returns.smashwords

by Leigh LaValle

  He glanced down at her hands. They were red and raw and pained her, but he could not know that.

  “You could bind your palms,” he said. “I have salve in my pack. It’s for a horse but should work fine, even for a lady.”

  She narrowed her eyes at him. “You don’t want me here when you find the money.”

  “So suspicious.” He shook his head, turned, and started digging another hole just in front of the last. The muscles of his back strained beneath his damp chemise, and his breeches pulled tight over his bottom as he worked. Such a vulgar thing, digging and sweating in the mud. But her breath hitched as she watched him. He was breathtakingly handsome and…virile and…manly. She had never seen anything like him before.

  “What are you doing here by yourself, with no brothers or servants? Did you just annoy everyone away?” he muttered as he worked.

  Helen took a deep breath and forced her eyes away from his…bottom. Truly, all this fresh air was muddling her brain. She was ogling him. “I was not alone, not until this morning, anyway. My maid and my footman ran off together last night.” Helen picked at the muddy skirts of her printed wrap dress and kept her eyes from the man bending over before her. “And I did not annoy them away. In fact, they left me a nice note. My maid in particular felt terrible about leaving me.”

  He grunted as he dug out a rock. The sound was guttural and sent a thrill singing though her blood. What was wrong with her? “They eloped?”

  “They are brother and sister,” she retorted, shocked. “No, it was more of an…employment dispute.”

  Roane glanced up at her. “How many months back wages are they owed?”

  Helen bit her lip and didn’t reply, embarrassed by the truth. They’d not paid the servants since Lent, and here it was the end of summer. But she had given them what items she could spare around the house.

  “That long? No wonder they ran off.” He ran a sharp gaze over her, from the tip of her bonnet to her muddy boots, leaving her hot beneath his perusal. “If money is your worry, marry someone wealthy. You are pretty enough, even if you have no care for your reputation.”

  As if she’d trade her soul for the highest bidder. “What good is a wealthy husband when one must forsake her liberty?” The last thing she wanted was another man destroying her hard-won sense of peace. “A man like you could never understand such a loss of freedom.”

  “You know nothing about a man like me, sweetheart,” he grumbled, then put all his attention into digging.

  The sun was setting in earnest now. Birds called to each other across the meadow, settling into their nests. Helen stood on tired feet and watched and tried not to stare.

  “Eureka!” Roane finally cried. He prodded something with his shovel—it sounded like wood—then dug a little more. Helen squashed the excitement rising inside her—she’d been through this exact scenario just that afternoon. But he threw the shovel to the side, yanked an object out of the earth, and her heart stopped.

  It was clearly a box. Not a rock. Not a chunk of wood. A box. With a lid and a lock and, one could only hope, a treasure of sixteen thousand pounds inside.

  The box was about two hands square and scraped from his shovel. Roane put it down between them and kicked away the largest clumps of mud. “I feel like a pirate.”

  He rather looked like a pirate, with his shaggy hair, tanned skin and billowing white chemise. But Helen did not tell him this; he would take it as a compliment.

  “I don’t suppose you have the key?” she asked, her hands over her heart like she was trying to prevent it from beating right out of her chest.

  Roane shook his head. “Step back.”

  She did, nearly falling into the hole behind her.

  He lifted the shovel and slammed it into the box with a huge crack. The wood splintered open, revealing a moldy velvet sack. Helen bent down and snatched the bundle before Roane could get his hands on it. The bag was quite small. And light. Not a good sign. Quickly, she untied the strings and withdrew the contents.

  Two sovereigns and a parchment scroll.

  “What the hell?” Roane muttered next to her.

  Helen unrolled the parchment and stared at the drawing. It looked like a map—a treasure map.

  They were to be pirates after all.

  The paper was in remarkable condition for having been buried. Other than a slight dampness and curling at the edges, it could have come directly from her brother’s library. It was covered in odd symbols that seemed to make no pattern.

  “Just bloody wonderful,” Roane swore as he studied the drawing.

  The map had been marked by her brother; she would recognize his writing anywhere. And there was a small poem of some kind on the bottom.

  No, not a poem. A riddle.

  “He’s moved the gold.” Roane was pulling his hair at the roots, clearly trying not to go mad.

  “Who has?”

  “James.”

  “James? But that is hardly possible.”

  “Before,” was all he said, but she knew what he meant. Before James had been lost to drink. Before he’d killed himself with gin.

  “But that is absurd. Why would James move the gold?” Her heart stopped. “Perhaps he simply took it and squandered it.” Like all the other money.

  Roane waved at the map. “There, on the bottom. The riddle.”

  “Once was mine was mine, and once was mine was yours.

  Now, once was yours is mine, upon the distant shores.” She looked up at Roane. His face was twisted, as if he’d caught an offending odor. “It’s a rather dismal riddle.”

  He dipped his chin. “Read on. Please.”

  “Upon this reading, your return. For that I’m in delight,

  Yet my fate, and my path of late, is the endless night.

  Dear friend, brethren of my blood, I must bid farewell

  But not before I share with you a bit of my fiery hell.

  For grace and curves and lips divine once I dreamed on me.

  Until you slithered in, you feckless friend, and on you was she.

  For that, there’s this, a game to end and begin

  You, a new start, me, a laugh, and all of us a sin.

  You will find the end of your rainbow, that I do swear

  And mine as well, for my kin, but I will not say where.

  North it is, then east, then west, then south once more,

  For you, a penance, a trial, a game is in store.

  A wound to heal,

  A hand to deal.

  Where there is a scar, there is a cover.

  A lace, a veil, sometimes a lover.

  Good luck, good luck, brethren and friend,

  One last quest for a friendship without end.

  Helen’s throat hurt from the effort of reading her late brother’s words. He’d been gone over a year, but her sorrow was undiminished. The riddle sounded so much like him. It was as if he were there, playing a joke, laughter in his voice.

  She glanced up at Roane and caught her breath at the anguished expression on his face.

  “He says your gold is safe,” she rushed.

  Roane snorted. It was not the gold that bothered him; she could see that now. He felt the same grief that twisted her heart. He had lost a friend. A good friend. A brethren of my blood, James had written. She was not sure when Roane had learned of her brother’s passing, but it was recent, judging by the letter he’d sent to their townhouse addressed to James.

  Roane scrubbed his palm over his face and turned to her with his hand outstretched. She thought at first he meant to escort her across the meadow, but then realized he wanted the map.

  Little chance of that.

  She knew she was being childish, but she thrust the scroll behind her back. Whatever her brother had meant, he had said his half of the gold was for his kin. For her.

  She wasn’t about to trust Roane with that.

  “Helen,” he grumbled.

  She
scowled, wondering how in the world she was going to keep the map from the rogue before her.

  ***

  Sneaky, bloody James.

  Roane could pull his hair out. He didn’t know whom he was more exasperated with at the moment: the woman standing before him, refusing to let him look at the map. Or James, for drinking himself to death while Roane had been unable to help. It was a damned shame James had thrown his life away—he was missed more than he would know. Sorrow hung heavy in Roane’s chest, the loss of his friend a grievous weight.

  Still, if ever he saw James again, he’d plant the bugger a facer.

  Roane could only assume James had been half out of his mind when he moved the gold and left behind this nonsensical riddle. That damnable affair with Janet had been ridiculous—the two of them with cock for brains, and her a woman bent on causing trouble.

  But Janet was long forgotten and James untouchable. Only Helen stood before him. Roane glared at her. She glared back, a look of mutiny on her face.

  “What is he talking about, lips divine?” she asked.

  He tugged harder on his hair. “It was nothing.”

  “It was obviously something.”

  “She was trouble.” Like you. He swallowed the words and held out his hand again. Even said, “Please.”

  She shook her head at him, infuriating woman. She had no idea what she was doing. A treasure map leading to sixteen thousand pounds was not something to bicker over. Aside from the fact the map was left for him, it could prove to be dangerous. Anyone passing by would notice the pockmark of holes in the meadow and know they’d been digging for something.

  They couldn’t stay here.

  A branch snapped and Roane froze. No other unusual sounds presented themselves. Just the rhythm and patter of the forest at dusk.

  He scrubbed a hand over his face. “May I at least look at the map? You can keep hold of it.” He felt like a ten-year-old, squabbling like this.

  Helen inched away, holding the map against her chest like a private love letter. “How do I know you will not try to snatch it from me?”

  “You have my word.”

  “And what good is the word of a scoundrel?”

  “On James’s grave, you have my word.”

  She must have seen the seriousness in his face, for she unrolled the map. “Very well, you may look over my shoulder. But I will hold it.”

  He stood behind her and peered over her shoulder. She smelled like roses, even out here in the dirt. It had been an age since he had last smelled anything so luxurious. So pampered. He forced himself to focus. Small “V” shaped squiggles marched up the paper like a snake. Or like a spine—the Pennines were a spine in the middle of Britain. Perhaps the symbols marked the bevy of caves in the hills? Other sketches seemed like nonsense, though Roane knew James had chosen them with care. The man had been too intelligent for his own good, with a wicked sense of humor.

  “What do you see?” Helen asked.

  Roane debated telling her, but she would never trust him with the map if he refused to share what he knew. “A spine. The Pennines.”

  “He’s buried the gold in the mountains?”

  “It seems that way.”

  “But where?”

  “That’s hard to tell. I suppose the riddle has something to do with it.”

  “However will we find it?” Her voice was quiet, more a thought than a real question.

  “I will find it.” And he would. There wasn’t a question. His entire future depended on his half of the gold.

  She glanced over her shoulder at him. “How?”

  “By looking, of course.”

  She scoffed. “There are hardly any details here. You will search the entire range of the Pennines?”

  “If I have to, yes.” For sixteen thousand pounds he would do that and more. “I will be safe in the forest.”

  “You’re not taking—”

  The metal click of a pistol being cocked split the air. “Stan’ an’ deliver yer money or yer life.”

  Chapter Four

  What? Unbelievable.

  Roane lunged forward and planted himself between Helen and the gun. No, make that guns. Two men stood at the edge of the trees, each wearing the black half mask of a highwayman. One held a pistol, the other a rifle.

  Anger flared within him, making his muscles tense. Roane’s first instinct was to fight, but he tamped it down. He needed to think straight, to first and foremost keep Helen safe.

  He narrowed his eyes on the men. They appeared simple enough. He’d try to confuse them first. Outtalk them. “The term is ‘Stand and deliver,’ or, alternately, ‘Your money or your life.’ You cannot combine them.”

  “Says who?” one of the men spat.

  “Says I.”

  “And who are you?”

  “Who are you?” Roane shot back.

  “Stop talking with him, Sam.” The shorter, rounder one glared at Roane.

  The two men approached, skirting the maze of holes left in the earth. They wore the coarse garb of laborers. Locals, most likely. Farmhands that broke their backs in the fields for a meager wage. They would be hungry, always hungry. And angry.

  Roane knew too much about anger. How it drove a man.

  “Yer money or yer life, then,” the shorter one snarled. “An’ I wouldn’t mind shooting you.”

  “I don’t have any money,” Roane said. These men would be simple, or so he hoped. Easily confused. He would wrap them around to bite their own tails.

  “The map, then.”

  Goddamnit. He looked between the two men, staring them both in the eye. “Who are you to demand anything from me?”

  “Stop arguing,” Helen whispered from behind him. He didn’t dare glance at her, didn’t dare take his eyes from the men pointing their weapons.

  Trust me.

  “Who am I?” The shorter man stepped closer, his eyes alight with anger. Good, the emotion would confuse him. “I am the Midnight Rider, a man of great cunning and danger.”

  Roane scoffed. He widened his stance and felt the solid English soil beneath his feet. “You, sir, are not the Midnight Rider.”

  “Yes, he is,” the other man argued.

  “No.” Roane shook his head. “He most assuredly is not.”

  There was something familiar about these two. Perhaps he’d met them before, Roane thought, in his decidedly lawless past.

  “Oh, I have heard wonderful things about the Midnight Rider,” Helen sang.

  Was the woman bloody daft? Roane twisted around to face her and considered covering her chatty mouth with his muddy hand.

  “I must tell all my friends I met you. They shall be green with jealousy. Why, there has been no news of the Midnight Rider for years. I’ll be coveted by every hostess.” She curtseyed—curtseyed!—to the robbers. Roane shook his head at her, hard, but she ignored him and kept smiling at the men. If she smiled any harder, they were certain to get ideas. Ugly ideas.

  “Helen,” he muttered with a dire warning in his tone.

  She made a sharp brushing away motion with her hand, telling him to be quiet. He clamped his teeth together so hard they hurt.

  “Certainly there has been some mistake here, gentlemen,” she continued with a forlorn look on her face. She was all softness and helplessness. An act, to be certain. “We’ve all been terribly fooled, and I don’t know what I shall do. My brother was fond of his drink, you see, and played a terrible trick on us. Now we’ve nothing and I shall simply faint…” She clutched her heart and swayed for effect.

  “Ah, the girl would like to be helpful. Good evening, missy.”

  “Good evening.”

  The shorter man paced to the side and Roane shifted, keeping himself between the gun and Helen.

  “Don’t move.” The man waved his weapon. Roane froze.

  The man kept walking until he had a clear shot at Helen. “I don’t think there has been any mistake. You have a
map. We want it.”

  “I see, but…” Her voice faltered and she sounded truly afraid now, not playing a part.

  Roane dared take his eyes from the gun to dart a glance at her. Her face was pale, her eyes wide as she stared down the barrel of the pistol. Something flipped over in his chest, worry or some other god-awful feeling akin to it.

  He was going to kill these men.

  Roane turned to the man who was aiming his weapon at Helen. “Sam, is it?”

  The robber said nothing.

  “Sam, do listen well. Point your gun away from the girl, and I will let you live. Keep aiming at her, and I will kill you before the night is out.”

  “You hear that, Billy?” Sam chuckled, but it was without humor.

  Roane’s fists ached. They held the weapons, yes, but he was dangerous. More dangerous than he wanted to admit. “I said lower your gun.”

  “You givin’ order to the Midnight Rider?” Sam spat on the ground.

  “If you are the Midnight Rider, I am the king of England.” Roane was tense, alert. He was a leaf bent and waiting beneath a drop of dew, ready to spring into action.

  “I don’t like him, Billy.”

  “Neither do I,” Billy agreed.

  Billy and Sam stepped forward as one. The dewdrop rolled from the tip of the leaf. Roane uncoiled his muscles and launched himself at Helen.

  She cried out as he pushed her to the ground and rolled, covering her with his body. Both men, angry and impulsive, deployed their weapons without proper aim. The bullets were lost in the mud.

  Roane leapt to his feet and lunged forward. He punched the shorter man in the nose, then kicked him in the gut.

  Helen cried out and Roane spun toward her. Sam held a knife to her lovely white throat, but his hand was shaking. Roane stalked forward, his eyes on the attacker. He would not look at Helen, he would not look at the knife.

  “You cut her, Sam, and I will string you up in the trees and let the birds eat your entrails.”

  The man glanced at his friend still lying on the earth. Blood gushed from his nose and poured over his hands.

  “Give her to me,” Roane said the words as calmly as he could. Once again, Sam’s wide eyes looked to his companion on the ground and back again. Then, suddenly, he let loose a sharp grunt of pain.