Midnight Raider

by Thacker, Shelly

  A bolt of panic shot through Elizabeth. “My son. Georgiana, where is my son? Give me my son!” She struggled to sit up, but her weakened body wouldn’t respond. Anguish and terror filled her before she even heard Georgiana’s next words.

  “I’m sorry, lamb. He was so small. He lived only an hour.” Tears rolled down Georgiana’s full cheeks. “He was just so small—”

  “No!” Elizabeth shook her head, fighting to pull her hand out of Georgiana’s. “No! It’s not true! Nell, where is he? I heard him cry. I held him in my arms. He can’t be dead.” Her frantic words came faster and louder as she tried to convince them. “He can’t. He can’t be dead!”

  Georgiana and Nell exchanged a look, then Nell nodded, grief marring her pretty features. She lifted a small bundle from beside her and gently placed it in Elizabeth’s outstretched, empty arms.

  Elizabeth’s mouth opened on a wordless cry. She took the tiny form and cradled him to her breast. The ten perfect toes and ten perfect fingers were still, the cherub’s face cold as a statue’s beneath her fingertips. His eyes would never open. He would never smile up at her. A sound began deep in Elizabeth’s chest and came out as a single, strangled word.

  “Liam.”

  Too weak to hold onto him, she let Nell take her son from her arms. She stared up into the darkened cell, her joy shattered, her hope shredded like the tatters of the woolen gown she wore. Hot tears spilled down her cheeks. She felt them on her skin, but not in her heart.

  Her heart lay cold and numb as a stone in her chest. As cold and numb as her son’s dead body.

  As cold and numb as the silver in Charles Montaigne’s overflowing coffers.

  Nell squeezed her shoulder. “Be brave, me girl, save yer strength, now, Bess. Ye’ve lost a bit of blood, and ye need yer rest.”

  Elizabeth didn’t respond. As if from far away, she heard another prisoner’s voice in the darkness.

  “I get them shoes o’ hers when she dies.”

  Nell rounded on the woman. “Shut up or ye’ll get me fist in yer nose, ye stinkin’ whore.”

  Georgiana stroked Elizabeth’s ragged hair. “Don’t you listen to that, Elizabeth. You just be strong and get well.”

  Elizabeth didn’t respond. She stared into the darkness, not even blinking. “Seven shillings,” she whispered. “He’s wealthy as a prince and he did this to me for seven shillings.”

  She saw the worried look Nell and Georgiana exchanged, but she felt very odd, as if she were floating above her body, merely observing what was happening in the cell without being part of it.

  “Rest now, lamb,” Georgiana said.

  Elizabeth closed her eyes obediently, but sleep did not come. She was aware of every sound and movement around her, every grunt and grumble, every nuance of life in this cell in the depths of Fleet. She felt cold and began to shiver, despite the fact that Nell and Georgiana had covered her with their own cloaks. She thought of telling them she was cold, but couldn’t see the point.

  She was dying, she thought calmly. She was dying and could find no will to fight it. What had she to live for now? Her son was dead. And her parents. Geoffrey had killed himself with gin. Her sister hadn’t replied to any of her letters in months.

  Everyone she once loved was gone. To live would mean spending day after day in this fetid cell, with no hope of escape, until she died—or until Montaigne came to fetch her, to sell her to one of his wealthy friends.

  No, she would say nothing to Nell and Georgiana. Better to die quietly.

  ~ ~ ~

  She knew it was morning when the others in the cell began to stir. They shoved their way closer to the door, the stronger ones elbowing the small and the weak out of the way. Each was eager to be first to get the watery gruel offered for breakfast.

  Georgiana, who had kept watch over her through the night, placed a hand to Elizabeth’s forehead. “How do you feel?”

  Elizabeth looked up into her friend’s gentle face. “Please don’t… worry… about me,” she whispered, scarcely able to find enough strength to speak. “You and Nell… take care of each other… promise?” She closed her eyes again, missed Georgiana’s response, drifted…

  At ten o’clock the crier came through the prison as he did every morning, with his daily report of London news.

  “I bring you good tidings this Christmas Eve,” the man began in a booming voice.

  Christmas Eve, Elizabeth thought. How ironic to die on a day that celebrated birth.

  The crier continued as he moved along the corridor, though he sounded oddly formal, as if he were reading from a scroll. “To mark this most joyous season, and to relieve the conditions in the Fleet, which has become most disagreeably overcrowded as a result of the large number of insolvent debtors in it, His Majesty King George the Second has in his most Christian generosity signed a proclamation—”

  The man was almost drowned out as a murmur among the prisoners grew into anxious shouts of joy and disbelief.

  “—forgiving the debts of all women prisoners, and those girls and boys aged less than seven years. They are to be set free on Christmas morning. God save the King.”

  The cheers in the cell rose to a deafening level, shaking Elizabeth from her detachment. “W-what… was that he said?”

  “We’re free, Bess!” Nell cried. “The King himself says we’re to be set free tomorrow mornin’! You and me and Georgi, we’ll be all right.”

  “You hold on now, lamb, and we will get you to a physician.” Georgiana leaned down and gently hugged Elizabeth. “We shall take care of you. All of us will have a chance to start anew.”

  Elizabeth clung to those last words. To start anew? A new life?

  Yes, she thought suddenly, and spoke with a voice much stronger than she would have thought possible. “There’s only one thing I want from my new life.”

  She stared up at her friends, seeing not their faces, or the dark prison cell around them, but Charles Montaigne sitting in his elegant study.

  “Vengeance.”

  Chapter 1

  Marcus Worthington, thirteenth Earl of Darkridge, slowed his horse to a trot, studying the moonlit expanse of Hounslow Heath. A touch of dampness in the May night had strengthened into a steady drizzle within the past hour. He pulled his tricorne lower over his forehead, flipped up the collar on his greatcoat and buttoned it against the chill.

  Then he adjusted his black mask.

  It was too dark to check his pocket watch—a silver beauty he had nicked from the Prince of Wales in younger, more reckless days—but he guessed the hour to be long past midnight. The bloody coach was late.

  Unless it had already been waylaid… by a certain rival outlaw.

  He swore, his breath forming puffs of steam that frosted his collar. If Swift had struck again, he might just beat him to a pulp and forget the three hundred pounds’ reward.

  Marcus only rarely attacked Charles Montaigne’s coaches, but the highwayman who called himself Blackerby Swift had been raiding them regularly for three months now. Montaigne was getting nervous—and that was the last thing Marcus wanted. If his own plan was to succeed, he had to stop the daring Mr. Swift.

  He drew one of the two flintlock pistols he carried in holsters on his saddle—the weapon that had taken his father’s life. The weight of it in his hand filled him with a burning determination.

  For ten years, he had used the gun to wreak havoc on the men who betrayed his father in their West Indies investment scheme. In the beginning, he’d been barely more than a lad, mindless with grief and fury. But experience had taught him the wisdom of patience, and caution. Soon he would have enough money to reclaim all the estates stolen from the Worthington family.

  He had succeeded in ruining three of his father’s former partners thus far. He intended the fourth’s destruction to be particularly slow and humiliating.

  Marcus wanted Charles Montaigne to suffer. To know the pain that his father Thomas Worthington had endured. To feel the desperation he himself had felt
, that night when Montaigne claimed Worthington Manor and turned a fifteen-year-old boy and his grieving mother out into the streets.

  In the end, Marcus hadn’t been able to save her… any more than he had been able to save his father.

  Slowing his horse to a walk, he listened to thunder rumble in the distance and watched as brief flashes of lightning lit the clouds.

  Soon, Montaigne, he thought, running his thumb over the cold metal of the pistol. Soon.

  First, he had to capture Blackerby Swift and turn him over to the authorities—before the upstart could interfere further with Marcus’s plans.

  He wondered where his elusive quarry was. The newspaper reports of Swift’s exploits placed him most frequently here, at Hounslow Heath. Then again, the Heath was a favored haunt of many highwaymen, who relied on its woods for cover and its relatively good roads for fast escapes.

  But coach drivers also knew how popular the Heath was, and armed themselves accordingly. They would be especially wary on a night like this, with a new moon. Darkest night of the month.

  Marcus looked up at the scant rim of light just visible in the sky. “How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank,” he murmured, one of his mother’s favorite lines from Shakespeare.

  He shook his head at his own foolishness. This was not a night for poetry; when it was this dark, coachmen would likely shoot at anything that moved. Only the mad or the reckless would be out tonight.

  “And which are you?” he muttered ruefully. To hell with it. Three hours was long enough to hunt. Swift obviously wasn’t going to show tonight, or the rogue had already taken the coach closer to London. Marcus holstered his pistol.

  “I don’t know which y’are, guv’nor, but I got a claim on this ’ere bit o’ road, I ’ave.”

  Marcus froze, one hand on his reins, the other still on his pistol. The husky voice came from behind him, speaking in the thickest Cockney accent he had ever heard. His memory quickly skimmed over the newspaper reports on Blackerby Swift. He could remember no mention of the man’s voice.

  “Out o’ the saddle, guv. And I’d like to see some air ’round yer ’ands, if ye don’t mind.”

  Making no move that might get him shot, Marcus swung one leg over his horse and leapt to the ground. “Many hands make light work,” he offered in a friendly tone. “What say we take the coach together?” He slowly turned around to size up the interloper, raising his hands slightly so that his left was only inches from his holstered pistol.

  With a mixture of disappointment and annoyance, he knew at once that he was not facing his rival. This was clearly a lad, no more than sixteen or so. The youngster stood about three yards away, holding a pistol aimed dead center on Marcus’s chest. He wore a greatcoat that swamped him, the collar wisely pulled up to conceal his identity. Marcus couldn’t make out much else, other than a rakish tricorne and black mask. For one so young, the boy had courage to pull a gun on a much larger man—courage likely born of desperation.

  Marcus returned the lad’s steady gaze with an unyielding stare, a look that had unnerved more than one prison-toughened criminal and made many a sweet young innocent swoon. The boy did not waver.

  Marcus frowned and raised his hands higher. Courage and desperation made a volatile mix. “There’s no need to be greedy, lad. Half the spoils for half the work. What say you?”

  The boy cocked the weapon, ready to fire. “I’m not of a mind t’ share.”

  Though he had been ready to leave, Marcus began to get irritated. He had spent three hours in this miserable cold and drizzle. And though he had come here in search of Blackerby Swift, not Montaigne’s silver, he didn’t relish the idea of going home entirely empty-handed.

  And Marcus Worthington was not about to take orders from a wet-nosed urchin with more grit than sense.

  On the other hand, he didn’t want to get killed by a wet-nosed urchin with more grit than sense, either.

  The boy impatiently waved his pistol toward the road. “Ye don’t own the whole ’eath. Unless ye want me to blow a new buttonhole in yer nice coat, I’d be on me way. Who d’ye think y’are, anyway?”

  Marcus coolly gave the boy a serious answer to his sarcastic question. “The London newspapers call me ‘the Midnight Raider.’” He began moving toward him, slowly. “Rather fanciful… but accurate.”

  The boy went silent for a moment.

  Then he backed up a step. “The man who killed Fast Jack Figgs?” He took another step back. “And once robbed the Sheriff of London himself? And took a mail coach on the Dover Road last summer, single-handed against five guards?”

  “The same.” Marcus kept advancing, and noticed that the boy had lost his accent.

  The lad recovered quickly. “I don’t give a pig’s arse who ye be. This coach is mine. Be on yer—” The unmistakable sound of horses and a carriage interrupted him. The boy’s attention—and his aim—wavered for a critical second.

  Marcus lunged for the weapon. It went off with a burst of fire and Marcus grunted in pain as the bullet struck his arm. In the sudden flash of light, he was staring straight at the lad’s face. He caught a glimpse of a delicate jawline. Pale skin.

  And the most striking violet eyes he had ever seen, staring wide with surprise at the roaring pistol.

  The force of Marcus’s forward motion threw them both to the ground. He landed on top, cursing, his left arm burning just above the elbow. And he knew at once that trying to disarm his opponent wasn’t the only error he had made tonight.

  This was no lad.

  Despite the heavy greatcoats they both wore, there was no mistaking the lush curves of the body beneath his, the softness in all the right places.

  “Bloody hell!” Ignoring the pain in his arm, Marcus knocked the pistol from her hand, taking her by the lapels. “What in damnation do you think you’re playing at, woman?”

  Trembling and wide-eyed, she opened her mouth to answer, but before she could say a word, they heard the startled orders of the coachman—and she seemed to forget her current position.

  “Oh Lawks!” she swore, pushing at him with her gloved hands. “Let me up! The shot scared them off!”

  Marcus glared down at her with a mixture of astonishment and annoyance. Then he let her go. Leaving her lying in the mud, he jumped up, grabbed his fallen tricorne and ran for his own horse. “They haven’t gotten away yet.”

  “I told you, I’m not of a mind to share!” she yelled after him.

  Marcus ignored the dangerous little chit. He vaulted into the saddle and kicked his horse into a gallop, intent on getting something to show for his trouble this deuced night.

  The woman took to her own horse and quickly caught up with him. “Very well,” she called out, “we’ll take it together, then.”

  Marcus didn’t respond, concentrating on the vehicle that was racing away ahead of them, its lanterns sending crazy slices of light dancing across the dark hills. It was a tall, broad wagon with a cloth covering, meant for transport rather than speed. Oddly, there were no men riding the rear axle, only a driver and a guard up front. He couldn’t tell how they were armed.

  Marcus dropped his reins and drew both his pistols. His well-trained stallion galloped faster once given its head. Only a few feet separated him from the coach’s rear wheels now. He darted a glance to his left. The woman was right beside him, her tricorne back on her head, empty pistol in her hand.

  The guard fired. The shot whizzed through the air between their horses.

  “If you want to be helpful,” Marcus shouted at her, “go to the left side, damn it!”

  She quickly complied, guiding her mount to the left and disappearing on the far side of the coach.

  Marcus spurred his stallion into a final burst of speed and came alongside the driver. “Stand and deliver!”

  Looking at the highwaymen on his left and right, the coachman reined in his team. He raised his hands and elbowed the guard in the ribs. “It’s not worth getting killed for.”

  The guard re
luctantly threw down his flintlock and raised his hands as well. “We don’t want any trouble.”

  “Good, then you might just live to see the sun come up.” Marcus aimed a pistol at each. “Throw down that little chest there between you.”

  The driver quickly unstrapped it and made to toss it down to him.

  “Wait.” Marcus hesitated. His wounded left arm was throbbing so painfully, he found it difficult to hold his gun—never mind the heavy box of silver. He thought of the woman, but she was on the other side of the coach, where he couldn’t see her.

  He decided to take the chance. Surely she had more sense than to try and cross him. “Throw it to my partner there, on your other side.”

  The man did as Marcus bade, then gasped. “God’s mercy. It’s the one what robbed me last month. It’s Blackerby Swift!”

  Marcus thought the night air must be playing tricks with his hearing. That slip of a female could not possibly be the notorious Blackerby Swift. The man had to be mistaken. One highwayman looked more or less like the next in a tricorne, mask and greatcoat.

  As if reading his thoughts, the man yelled out again, addressing his companion. “He’s got that same silver-plated pistol. I’m the one what told the Daily Post ’bout that.”

  A husky voice uttered an oath on the far side of the coach. “Never mind who we are, ye cove. Get yer team movin’ ’fore we really give the papers something t’ write about.”

  Marcus brandished his own pistols. “Yes, like two coachmen found dead on Hounslow Heath.”

  The driver needed no further urging. He picked up his reins and whipped the team into a gallop. Marcus gritted his teeth and kept his weapons drawn. He had a few questions for his mysterious partner.

  But as soon as the coach sped away, he saw that he had made his third mistake of the night.

  She was gone.

  Astonished, he peered into the darkness. She couldn’t have slipped away across the fields so quickly. He looked up the road, seeing no sign of her. He only guessed her ruse when he looked in the direction the coach had taken.