by Sara Bennett
“Coombe wants to see you, Miss Dupre.” She was breathless from the stairs and all the knocking. “He’s downstairs in the kitchen. I told him such a request in the middle of the night is very irregular but he says you’ll agree to speak to him.”
“Coombe?” Antoinette tried to gather her wits.
“Do you want to see him?”
“I…yes. I do. I’ll be down directly.”
Coombe was wanting to see her? He must have made up his mind about her request for help to return to London. Why else would he be here? And yet why respond so dramatically? He’d had plenty of time to ponder the matter. Surely his decision could have waited until the morning?
Something must be very wrong.
With a sense of urgency Antoinette pulled on a dress and swung her scarlet shawl around her shoulders. She twisted her hair into a knot and stuck in some pins to hold it. Her gaze slid involuntarily to the window and the dark woods beyond. No light tonight. But of course it was late, and even the highwayman needed his sleep.
Had he tried to visit her and found his way barred? Probably not. She’d likely dragged that heavy dresser about for nothing, and when he heard what she’d done he’d be laughing. “There’s always the window,” he’d say. His voice in her head was so exact that it gave her a start and she glanced behind her, wondering if he was right there in the room with her. Of course he wasn’t. The room was empty; she was alone.
Coombe was hunched before the kitchen fire, attired in his familiar smelly jacket and muddy boots. When he saw her he stood up. Antoinette was surprised Mrs. Wonicot allowed all that dirt in her kitchen, but the formidable cook seemed to have a surprisingly soft spot for the groom. Cautiously she sat down a short distance from him and waved her hand for him to resume his chair.
“What is it, Coombe? What do you want to see me about?”
He was watching her, the firelight shining in his eyes in the shadow of his cap and that atrocious hair. “We need to go tonight, miss,” he said. “His Lordship’s on his way. You said you wanted help to get away, remember? Well, we need to do it now.”
“Now…?” The full meaning of his words struck her like a dash of cold water. “Lord Appleby is coming here!” she cried, jumping to her feet, ready to run.
“Calm yourself, miss,” he said sharply, in a very un-Coombe-like voice. “We’ll manage it, don’t you fret.”
“How will we manage it? He will find us and—” She stopped herself, not wanting to tell Coombe what Appleby had in mind for her. The less he knew, the better for them both.
“I know this countryside,” Coombe said with smug self-confidence. “Lord Appleby’ll never find us. Now, you go and pack. Not much, mind. Just the one bag.”
She nodded a little wildly. “Yes. Yes, of course. One bag.”
“That’s it, miss.”
Antoinette hesitated. The highwayman didn’t know she was leaving, and she realized she couldn’t tell him. Being Appleby’s man, he’d be obliged to stop her and tell his master, and she couldn’t allow that. It was more than likely she would never see him again.
“What is it, miss?” Coombe was looking at her strangely, as if he read her mind. “Is there someone…something you’ve forgotten?”
Antoinette shook her head with finality. “No, no one and nothing.”
“Well, don’t fret,” he repeated as she bolted out of the room.
Something about his tone struck her as so familiar, like the dream she’d had earlier, but Antoinette didn’t have time to consider why that was. There was just too much else to think about. Once in her room she turned into a whirlwind, throwing her belongings about, cramming a few bits and pieces into her carpetbag, hardly aware of what she was doing.
Until she remembered her most important possession of all.
The letter.
She swung her cloak around her shoulders and fastened it at her throat—the attached hood would help to disguise her. A last glance about at the chaos of her room, and she was snatching up her carpetbag and hurrying for the stairs.
The Wonicots were huddled together in the entrance hall but they stopped speaking as soon as they saw her. What were they planning to do? Tell Lord Appleby where she was going? Well, she could hardly stop them. Right now it was everyone for him- or herself.
Antoinette rushed past them and into the library. The letter was where she’d left it, and with an exclamation of relief she tucked it down inside her bodice.
She was ready.
Back outside in the hall the Wonicots were still standing together, rumpled from sleep, but now Coombe had joined them. He didn’t look any different, and, obviously, washing before he set out on their journey wasn’t one of his priorities. But Antoinette said nothing. He was helping her to return to London with her precious proof of Appleby’s evil intent, and in the circumstances she wouldn’t have cared if he had two heads.
There was a sound. Startled, Antoinette turned and noticed Mary for the first time. The girl was sitting in a chair against the wall, smothering a yawn with the back of her hand, her fair hair spilling out from beneath her crooked mobcap.
She jumped up and dropped a little curtsy. “I wanted to wish you good luck, miss,” she said, with a flicker of a glance at Coombe.
“Why, thank you, Mary.” Antoinette smiled, touched by the girl’s kindness. Ever the organized chatelaine, she had set aside some coins for the moment of her leaving, and somehow she’d remembered to bring them with her. Now she handed them out among the grateful Mary and the unwilling Wonicots.
“Thank you, I’m sure, miss,” Sally Wonicot sniffed, while he husband gave a quick nod of his head.
“I’m sorry my stay here wasn’t under happier circumstances,” Antoinette said, and then she turned and walked to the door to wait for Coombe. There were murmurs from the group behind her and a muffled sob from Mary. This seemed surprising—the girl had never shown any partiality for the groom—but again Antoinette didn’t have time to think too hard about it. A moment later Coombe was by her side, throwing open the door, and she was setting off for the stable, with him slouching along beside her in the darkness.
“Is Lord Appleby really on his way?” Antoinette turned to ask him. “How do you know?”
“I do know, miss. Trust me, we’ve no time to waste.”
“No, of course we don’t,” she murmured, and tried to shake off her doubts. Suddenly she smiled. “I was dreaming about you tonight, Coombe.”
He seemed startled. “About me, miss?”
“Yes.” She heard herself give a very uncharacteristic nervous giggle. “In the dream you saved my life. Perhaps it was an omen. What do you think?”
He was as silent as he was probably wishing she was.
“Anyway,” she went on, unable to stop herself—his lack of conversation seemed to cause her to want to talk twice as much, “I think it bodes well for our journey. I was running through the woods and…” Suddenly a thought occurred to her and she frowned. “Do you know about the witch who once lived in these woods, Coombe? Her name was Priscilla Langley. Did she have a son?”
“I don’t know nothing about no witch, miss,” he muttered in a tone that suggested she was losing her mind.
Perhaps he was right, but what if the highwayman was Priscilla’s boy? Something about the way he behaved, apart from his verbal hints, the familiarity he displayed with the manor and the cottage and the woods that surrounded them. As if he belonged here. If he was Priscilla’s son, then he would be a bastard with no real claim to the Wexmoor estate, but Appleby might use his hopes to force him to obey his orders. Get me the letter and I will give you Wexmoor. That sort of thing.
It was a stretch of the imagination, Antoinette thought, as she blew warm air into her gloved hands, and watched Coombe saddle the horses. She was trying to turn the highwayman into an angel, a good man who’d been forced to act out of character under difficult circumstances. Antoinette knew she’d feel far less guilty about their encounters if he was such a man.
But
did it really matter what motivated him? She was never going to see him again. And just as well! He’d end up hurting her, abandoning her, and leaving her heartbroken. Then he’d go off to this Marietta woman, and Antoinette would be left at the altar with Lord Appleby.
“Let me help you, miss.” Coombe reached for her arm. “Miss?”
She was still lost in her thoughts, but at his touch she found enough strength to give a brusque nod. Once she was in the saddle, she settled herself, waiting for him to finish attaching her carpetbag. As they rode from the yard, Antoinette glanced over her shoulder and saw a flickering light in one of the manor windows. A moment later it was extinguished, and the old house lay in complete darkness.
Antoinette turned her face resolutely forward, telling herself that whatever had happened to her here was finished, and now she must learn to forget.
Gabriel rode as fast as he dared. Fortunately Antoinette was a good horsewoman and could keep up, although she looked tired and pale, with lines of strain about her eyes and mouth. He had a sudden urge to take her in his arms and promise her he wouldn’t let anything bad happen to her, and whatever she was frightened of, she could tell him and trust him.
Of course he didn’t.
She’d probably scream and scratch his eyes out, or freeze him with one of her looks. He’d have to be very careful not to slip out of his Coombe character so she didn’t suspect anything until they reached their destination. When she was nice and safe with no chance of escaping, he’d reveal himself.
He was looking forward to it.
They had been riding for almost an hour, the dawn light beginning to envelop them with birdsong as the new day appeared, when ahead of them the growing rattle and trot of a horse-drawn vehicle announced someone approaching them at speed.
Before Antoinette could say a word, Coombe grabbed hold of her reins and dragged her off the road and into a field. There was a high stone wall, and they slipped off their mounts and crouched down behind it. Coombe seemed to expect her to protest, but she didn’t. They were barely in position when the vehicle came around the corner and rushed toward them. Four horses and a coach with lanterns still lit on either side; someone was in a hurry to reach his destination. And the only destination she knew of in that direction was Wexmoor Manor.
“Lord Appleby,” Antoinette whispered.
“Aye. He’s in a right hurry.”
“We only just left in time.” Her relief was obvious.
Coombe gave her a sharp sideways glance. “I thought you was His Lordship’s lady. Why don’t you want to meet up with him?”
Antoinette watched as the coach raced into the distance. “There are some things I’d rather he didn’t know,” she said. “If I come face-to-face with him, then I’d have to tell him.”
It sounded like nonsense, and he wasn’t being put off that easily. Damn it, he wanted to know. “What things?”
She turned to look at him. He could see her making up her mind whether to tell him the truth or to lie, but when she finally spoke, he still wasn’t sure which option she’d chosen. “He—he is a very jealous man. I—I have someone else in London, another gentleman. That is who I am going to, you see. Lord Appleby will be very angry with me. He probably already knows about this other man, and that is why he has come to Devon. Now do you understand why I can’t see him, Coombe?”
“Another man, miss?” Gabriel didn’t believe her; he didn’t want to.
“Yes.”
“And is this one a lord?”
“No, he’s a duke,” she retorted. “I am making my way up through the peerage.”
He stared at her a moment more, then turned away, and Antoinette noticed a hint of disgust in the set of his shoulders. Was Coombe sitting in moral judgment upon her? She told herself it didn’t matter what a groom thought of her. As long as he did as she asked and helped her to escape, he could despise her all he wished. When the time came he’d have his reward, she’d make certain of that, and they’d go their separate ways with relief.
When the noise of the coach had faded completely, they remounted, and Coombe led her back onto the road. She noticed after that, he dropped the courtesy “miss.” She didn’t care; this was hardly the time for social niceties.
“We need to hurry,” Coombe said, kicking his horse into an urgent gallop. “Once His Lordship reaches the manor and finds us gone he’ll come after us. If you really don’t want him to catch you…?”
“I really don’t.”
They set off, Coombe in front and Antoinette following, trying her best not to think about Lord Appleby in hot pursuit. With luck they would reach Barnstaple and be long gone before Appleby discovered in which direction they’d traveled.
She pressed her hand to the letter inside her bodice and felt reassured. She was on her way to London, to save herself and Cecilia. All other considerations, even men who wore masks and made her body sing like an angel, must be forgotten.
Forever.
Chapter 23
Antoinette remembered little during the ride that followed, just the ever-present fear they would be caught. Now and again Coombe would glance behind him to make sure she was keeping pace but she always was. Soon they left the main road, following a maze of smaller lanes and paths until she was completely turned around. Sometimes it seemed to her that they were heading west rather than east. Once she questioned Coombe about that, and their present whereabouts, but he just shrugged and said that as far as he knew they were going in the right direction.
“Don’t you trust me?” he said.
Do I have a choice? Antoinette thought her dream, as far as he was concerned, hadn’t been as clear-cut as she’d pretended this morning. But there was no point in antagonizing her only friend by suggesting he was taking her in the wrong direction.
“Yes, of course I trust you, Coombe,” she said, forcing a smile. “I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t.”
After a while she realized that the smell of salt on the wind had grown very strong. They must be closer to the coast than she’d thought. She drew in a deep breath, weary and yet determined not to ask Coombe to stop for her.
It was only when they came to a village that it occurred to her they’d been avoiding towns and villages up until this point. As they rode slowly down a steep cobbled street past cottages huddled on the hillside, Antoinette looked up and saw the sea. The screech of gulls filled her head and she blinked, taking in the harbor with its curved protective wall around the flotilla of moored boats, and beyond the green water, stretching as far as she could see.
“Coombe,” she said cautiously, shading her eyes against the glare. “This can’t be Barnstaple.”
“No, ’tis St. Nells,” he replied calmly, as if it was perfectly fine to have changed his plans without telling her. “I didn’t expect Lord Appleby to get here so fast. He’ll be after us now, and he’ll catch us on land. We’re going by water. Water’s the only way.”
What he said made sense so she smothered her doubts. “Do you know someone with a boat?” she asked anxiously, knowing even as she spoke that he wouldn’t be so foolish as to come all this way to the coast if he didn’t have a means of sailing away.
“Aye.” There was a note of amusement in his deep growl, and his mouth curled in the shadows of his upended jacket collar.
Again that sense of recognition came over her, stronger than ever, and with it a confusion of other emotions. But once again there was no time for it to make sense. Down at the harbor, boats, large and small, bobbed within the safety of the stone wall, and Coombe dismounted and helped Antoinette down. Her legs gave way as they touched the ground and she stumbled, clinging to him. He was big and strong, his hands firm about her waist, his shoulders broad beneath her grasping fingers.
As her nose pressed into the vee of his shirt it occurred to her that he didn’t smell so bad after all. It was the jacket that smelled, not the body beneath it. But a moment later he was grasping her hand and tugging her along behind him, toward a small tavern
facing the sea.
He turned to her. “Wait here.” He spoke as if it was an order and he was used to giving them.
Surprised, confused, she nodded without answering. He disappeared inside. Antoinette stood, aware of the smells of hot food and ale, mingling with those of the harbor. She was weary and she would have loved something to refresh her, not to mention a hot bath, but she didn’t want to risk lingering if it meant Appleby might catch them. For all she knew he could be on the outskirts of the village right at this very moment.
A short, bowlegged man appeared from the low doorway with Coombe following. Coombe handed him the horses’ reins, and a murmured conversation took place. At one point the man shook his head and laughed. Finally, with a glance at Antoinette, the stranger led the horses around the back of the tavern and Coombe rejoined her, carrying her carpetbag in one hand and his saddlebags in the other.
“The boat is ready,” he said. “She’s tied up at the jetty, so we won’t have to row out to the mooring.”
Antoinette tried to read his face but he kept it lowered, his coarse hair flopping over his forehead and into his eyes. She needed to ask questions, but even as she opened her mouth he was turning and moving away, calling over his shoulder that the boat was in that direction.
Coombe walked swiftly. She panted along behind him, holding up her skirts with one hand to prevent herself from tripping over them, and holding her bodice with the other, as if afraid the letter might fly out and sail away over the sea. By the time she reached him he’d jumped down onto the deck of a boat tied up to the narrow wooden jetty that ran along the harbor front.
Except the boat wasn’t just a boat. It was a yacht, built on sleek lines, the timbers glossy from the care lavished upon them, ropes carefully coiled and sails lashed to the masts. As her gaze took everything in, Antoinette’s mouth fell open in astonishment.
Coombe had already jumped down and was standing on the deck, his feet apart as the vessel rocked, like an old sea dog. He reached up his hand. Instinct caused her to give him hers, and the next instant she felt his strong grip. Almost at the same time she experienced a sense of danger so intense that she tried to pull away. But it was too late. He gave a hard tug on her hand, and with a shriek she fell forward. He caught her, hands gripping her waist, and swung her down onto the deck beside him.
