The Marsh Hawk

by Dawn MacTavish

  He took another swallow—just to be sure that heat was doused—and grimaced again. No, not quite. And if this poisonous stuff couldn’t do it, he was doomed. Would nothing quench the damnable fire? In that wretched, turgid moment, if he were a betting man, he would have wagered heavily against it.

  Phelps was nearly upon him before he saw the straight-backed valet threading his way through the crowd. He tapped the dead ash from his pipe against a salver on the table, and tucked the pipe away inside his waistcoat pocket as he got to his feet, scudding the chair out behind him.

  “Well, it’s about time!” he complained. “What kept you, man? It will be dark in an hour, and we’ve a long ride ahead. Who’s driving the coach?”

  “I haven’t got the coach, my lord,” said Phelps. “There is a graver press.”

  “What ‘press’? What’s happened now?” he queried, with a hitch in his stride as he led the valet toward the taproom door.

  “The countess has taken it upon herself to run off to Thistle Hollow, my lord.”

  “And?”

  “Alone,” Phelps pronounced, his eyebrow inching up in its inimitable manner.

  “Bloody hell!” Simon spat through clenched teeth, steering the valet outside into the warm, late afternoon haze. “How has she gone, Phelps?”

  “Barstow drove her into Newquay in the coupe. Mister Nast said she planned to hire a coach there to take her on to Launceston.”

  “Alone and unchaperoned—with night coming on? And he couldn’t stop her, go after her?”

  “Evidently not, my lord. A burial has detained him, that’s why he sent me to bring you. He was most distressed, my lord. He said for me to tell you that no matter what your feelings for my lady, neither of you needs her meeting with foul play upon your conscience. Begging your pardon, but what did he mean by that, my lord?”

  “Never mind!” Simon snapped. “Go round back, fetch my horse and follow me. I’m taking yours. We’ve got to make some time by nightfall.”

  “Oh, no, my lady, I’ll not hear of it!” Barstow barked, hat in hand. Decked out in full coachman’s regalia from red woolen scarf and caped coat, to cord knee breeches and painted top boots, he was facing Jenna beside the carriage house at the coaching station in Newquay. His outburst had turned more than one head as he argued with her. “I know my place right enough,” he said to her indignant sputtering, “but I also know my duty, and you’ll not be going on to Launceston in the dead of dark all on your own. Why, the master’d kill me if I let you! He’d skin the hide clean offa me if I ever let you go off alone with night coming on. You was raised here in Cornwall, my lady, you know night comes quick on the coast. You see that sky up there? It’ll be black as coal tar pitch in an hour.”

  Jenna stamped her foot in defiance. She didn’t want Simon’s coupe or his groom or anything that belonged to him. That was all supposed to end right there at the Newquay Coaching Station. She needed no reminders of her broken heart.

  “You don’t seem to understand,” she said, aiming for restraint in her fractured tone. “I’m not coming back, Barstow. I’m going home for good.”

  “That’s between you and the master,” he said with a shrug. “This here is between you and me, and I’ll not have you spoil my sleep for worrying over what’s become of you. I’m taking you on to Launceston, and that’s the end of it. I’ve got old Effie up top; she’s loaded and at the ready, and I’ll use her if needs must to get you where you’re going safely. It’s a pretty rough stretch between here and Launceston, my lady. If I’d known this was what you was planning, I never would have stopped. I’d have drove right through!”

  “Barstow, please,” Jenna pleaded. “I know you mean well, and I bless you for that, but I really want to go on alone.”

  “You’ve got enemies, my lady, I seen it myself, and you can’t deny it,” the groom argued. He folded his arms and thrust his bearded chin out stubbornly. “You can hire yourself a carriage if that’s your pleasure; I can’t stop you, but you’ll be wasting your blunt, since I’m going to follow right along after you. So you might as well get right back into this coupe here.”

  As frustrated as she was, Jenna almost smiled. Barstow had an endearing quality about him; she had recognized and bonded with it at their first meeting. His incontrovertible demeanor told her that he meant every word. Considering his point, she had to admit that his presence was a comfort, and so was his trusted flintlock, Effie. The light was fading fast. Soon it would be full dark. She dared wait no longer to set out for the south, and she took a ragged breath that brought her posture down.

  “Very well, Barstow, you win,” she conceded.

  “Give me your valuables,” he said, holding out his leathered palm; it looked as though it belonged on a man twice his age.

  “Excuse me?” she murmured.

  “Them earbobs there, and your rings, my lady,” said the groom. “I’ll not lie to you, the roads hereabouts are crawling with thatchgallows. Unless you want to be donating those doo-dads to the first brigand that stops us, you’d best let me hide them away up top.”

  She glanced down at her hands. She had meant to leave her jewelry behind with everything else Simon had given her, but she’d left in such a hurry she’d forgotten all about it. She took off her earbobs, and the beautiful ruby and diamond ring Simon had slipped on her finger when he proposed, and handed them over without batting an eye. But when she came to her wedding ring, she hesitated, clouding, before she yanked it from her finger and thrust it toward him also.

  “Better give me what’s in that reticule, too,” Barstow prompted, gesturing. She held the purse out toward him, but he fended it off with a raised hand. “No, my lady, leave a pound or so, and whatever coins you’ve got in it, and give me the rest to hold for you. If we are stopped and the gallows dancers find your purse empty, they’re bound to be suspicious, and it could get ugly. It’s best to let them have a little if it comes down to it, rather than suffer a search of your person for the lot they think you’ve put by, if you take my meaning, my lady.”

  Jenna gulped and handed him the notes. Was that the sort of thing Simon would stoop to on his forays? She shuddered to wonder, but the picture it painted in her mind caused jealousy to arise right along with disdain.

  “There’s a space under the seat—a false bottom so to speak,” Barstow explained. “The master had one built inta all his coaches. Your notes and gewgaws will be safe enough up top under my arse. Begging your pardon, my lady.”

  Jenna didn’t reply. The blood drained away from her face suddenly. He was right, of course. It all seemed like a nightmare, and she prayed that she would wake beside her husband in the spacious mahogany four-poster. She prayed there would be no wound in his shoulder, no highwayman costume in the tower, and no pistols—still warm, smelling of gunpowder—in the drawer of the chifforobe there. But the nightmare was real, and she climbed into the coupe and leaned back against the padded leather squabs in defeat, while the groom snapped the whip and set the horses in motion.

  It wasn’t long before darkness fell and Barstow lit the carriage lamps. Clouds hid the moon, bringing to Jenna’s mind another night, dark and still—perfect for highway robbery. Cold chills played along her spine upon making that comparison. She couldn’t help dwelling upon Barstow’s precautions. Was she being unduly overset and he overly cautious? She wanted to believe it, but she still wished she had the sort of security one of the weapons from her father’s collection would have provided.

  Nothing was visible through the isinglass windows of the coupe. Tall oaks and ancestral chestnut trees formed a natural arbor over the road for long stretches, barring what stingy spurts of moonlight the clouds begrudged now and then. There wasn’t even the flicker of lantern glow from the coaches of fellow travelers to comfort her; the road ahead and behind was deserted.

  Now and again she heard Barstow’s scratchy voice asking after her comfort as the milestones zipped by unnoticed in the dark. In spite of herself, she was glad that she
’d given in and let the faithful groom convey her after all. She felt safe with him in the driver’s seat, and it wasn’t long before the rhythmic clopping of the horses’ hooves and the swaying of the coupe as it sped over the highway began to nudge her toward sleep. Finally, she gave in to it.

  Soon, however, another sound bled into that sleep, touching off strange dreams of cracking whips and mad commands to horses that seemed suddenly to fly, their hooves scarcely touching the ground. All at once it seemed as if she were cast adrift in a rocking boat instead of the compact two-seater coupe, listing this way and that as it careened around the treacherous hairpin curves of her dream. Then came the gunshots at close range, and Jenna tumbled out of her nightmare and into heart-stopping reality as she pitched forward off the seat and landed in a heap on the floor of the carriage as it pulled to a creaking, shuddering halt in the darkness.

  “Stand and deliver, I say!” a strange voice boomed gruffly, close beside the shuddering coach window.

  The acrid stench of gunpowder rose in her nostrils. Barstow’s voice was barking something that she couldn’t make out over the frantic snorts and nervous shrieks of the horses prancing and pawing the ground. Before she could collect herself and regain her seat, the coach door was yanked open by a black-gloved hand, and she was lifted to the ground.

  “Let go of me!” she shrilled, struggling against the man’s vise-like grip. She cried out in earnest as he jerked her to a standstill.

  “Make no resistance, my lady!” Barstow warned her from the driver’s seat. “Do as the bounder says!”

  “Wise words,” said the highwayman to Barstow. “I told you to get down from there! Step lively, old man.”

  “Do you want to get trampled?” Barstow shouted, struggling with the reins as the horses reared. “These horses will bolt if I do!”

  “Toss down your weapons, then!”

  “I’ve got no weapons. Hurry it up and get on with it. I can’t hold these beasts, I’m telling you.”

  All at once the pistol fired again, and Barstow’s low-crowned coachman’s hat went flying as the bullet ripped a gaping hole in its wide brim.

  “The next will put your lights out,” the highwayman snarled, his voice raised over Jenna’s scream. “Now, like I said, throw down your weapons.”

  Jenna’s heart sank as Effie came crashing to earth at the high-wayman’s feet.

  “That’s all I’ve got,” Barstow shouted. “Come and see if you don’t believe me.”

  “Keep those hands high, then,” the man charged, meanwhile shoving Jenna’s bonnet back from her face with the tip of his pistol barrel. He raked her with familiar eyes.

  She gasped, watching the highwayman slip his pistol into his greatcoat pocket and withdraw another gun—one more familiar to her. Even in the darkness, with no light but the coach lamp to illuminate it, she recognized it at once. She’d seen it often enough in her father’s gun case in the trophy room at Thistle Hollow. It was the army service pistol that had bludgeoned him to death. There was no question. She recognized the notches and initials her father had carved in the stock.

  She took the man’s measure then, and her breath caught again. It could have been Simon standing there. The tricorn hat and dark clothes were nearly identical to those she’d discovered in the round tower in the orchard at Kevernwood Hall. Was the man emulating Simon—riding on his coattail, as it were? Was he sullying the Marsh Hawk’s benevolent reputation to safeguard himself from making his own? Whatever the situation, it was easy to see how Lionel had mistaken this brigand for the true Marsh Hawk. The likeness was substantial.

  The man’s dark eyes held her relentlessly. He smelled un-washed, and of strong whiskey; his breath was fetid with it. He groped for her reticule and ripped it from her arm. Examining the contents, he did not remove the notes and coins inside, but rather crammed the little purse into his pocket and examined her hands for jewels.

  “I have nothing else,” she snapped in defiance.

  “Nothing, eh?” the man scoffed. “Off with the spencer. I’ll see for myself, me lady.’”

  She fumbled with the buttons on her jacket. Impatient, the highwayman helped her out of it with rough, pinching hands, removed her bonnet, and spun her around. Pearl combs held her neat chignon in place. He ripped them out, and her hair tumbled over her shoulders.

  “Nothing, eh? What’s these, then, me lady?”

  “Take them!” Jenna shrilled.

  “I’ve got them, little ladybird. What else have ye got, eh?”

  “N-nothing else. No! Let me go!”

  “Here! Let her be!” Barstow erupted. “Have my watch, ’tis gold.”

  The groom tossed it down, and the highwayman caught it in flight.

  “Thank ye!” he blurted, tossing it in his hand before he jammed it into his pocket fob, alongside Jenna’s reticule.

  If she hadn’t been so paralyzed with fear, she would have recognized the earth trembling beneath her thin leather slippers as the vibration of horses’ hoofbeats. Instead, she took it for her own helpless trembling, until another pistol shot rang out, ripping through the darkness.

  Muttering a string of curses, the highwayman let her go, snatched his horse’s reins draped over the branch of a sapling by the roadside, swung himself into the saddle, and galloped off into the night.

  Jenna scarcely blinked before Simon leapt off his lathered mount and reached her side in two long-legged strides. She could have sworn he didn’t even limp. Phelps was nothing more than a blur streaking past them in pursuit of the highwayman, his own pistol blazing.

  “Are you all right, my lady?” Barstow queried, attracting Simon’s attention. “I did my best to outrun the bounder. When I seen he’d stopped another coach up around the bend, I spun this buggy clean around—almost upset her tryin’ to put some distance between us. But he was too quick for me.”

  It wasn’t until then that Jenna realized they were facing in the opposite direction, toward Kevernwood Hall. Choked with emotions, not the least of which were raw fright, relief, and gross embarrassment, she read the look in Simon’s blue-fire eyes, and looked away. They were searing her at close range, and all she could manage was a nod.

  Though he stood so close that his warm breath puffed on her face, Simon hadn’t touched her. One glance toward the white-knuckled fists clenched at his sides made her glad of it. When he spoke, it was not to her, but to Barstow, though it took a moment for him to switch his glower toward the driver’s seat during the delivery.

  “You and I have issues”—he launched toward the groom, whose brow had become pleated in a frown—“and you can bet your blunt we’ll have them out when we get back to Kevernwood Hall.”

  The last place Jenna wanted to go was Kevernwood Hall, and a protest caught in her throat. If he noticed, he showed no evidence. Taking her elbow, he steered her unceremoniously toward the coach without a word.

  She was just climbing in when Phelps rode back alongside. Simon jutted a granite jaw in the valet’s direction, posing a silent question, and the look ran Jenna through. She’d seen it before, in the anteroom at Moorhaven Manor, when she’d come around after she’d fainted; Simon had addressed Lord Eccleston with that look. It had thrilled her then. The memory brought tears to her eyes now. She refused to let him see them.

  “I lost him in the wood, my lord,” Phelps said, with a regretful wag of his head. “His mount was not so worn to a raveling as this beast of yours underneath me.”

  Simon snatched the reins of the horse he’d arrived astride, and thrust them toward the valet, directing him with a nod, and followed Jenna into the coupe. Taking his seat opposite her, he struck the roof of the coach a vicious blow with his pistol barrel, signaling Barstow to move on. Then, leaning back against the squabs, he folded his arms across his broad chest, his eyes smoldering toward hers.

  Jenna averted her gaze, unable to bear that riveting look.

  “Are you . . . hurt?” he queried after a painfully long hesitation, in a tone that utte
rly contradicted the feral look in those sizzling eyes. “He didn’t . . . harm you?”

  “No,” she murmured emptily, shaking her lowered head. “He was . . . the one.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  “Am I to be kept prisoner here, my lord?” his wife asked coolly as Simon ushered her inside the master bedchamber at Kevernwood Hall.

  He did not cross the threshold. He hadn’t spoken another word to her the whole distance to the estate. Halfway there, Robert Nast joined them on horseback, at which point Simon left the coupe and rode behind it alongside Phelps and the vicar the rest of the distance. He needed time to order his thoughts, which were all tangled up with his urges.

  “You cannot think to keep me here against my will,” she said to his silence.

  “I prefer to call it ‘protective custody,’” he returned succinctly. “It’s clear that you aren’t able to manage on your own.”

  “How dare you!” she shrilled.

  “Oh, I dare, my lady? I have to dare. I cannot afford the luxury of trust here now. Too much is at stake.”

  “You think I mean to expose you,” she breathed.

  “Suffice it to say, my lady, that until I’ve taken steps to protect myself, I cannot afford to take the chance that you might.”

  “You do not know me very well, my lord.”

  “And you, my lady, do not know me at all!”

  Blue eyes dueled with silver. What had ever made him think he could lead a normal life—marry, and live a peaceful existence? Yes, he needed time. Those beautiful eyes—even in anger—dissolved his heart.

  “Good night, my lady,” he said, the words clipped and unequivocal.