by Rebecca King
Clarissa and Bessie frowned at each other. They both knew that Rosamund had no idea that she had just told them how unsafe she felt in the house.
‘So you are going to leave this house, which is out in the middle of nowhere, to go and live with your cousin, who also lives out in the middle of nowhere, so you can have some adventure in life,’ Bessie repeated, frowning a little as she stared blankly at the tabletop and tried to find the logic in Rosamund’s decision.
‘Well, yes. I know it isn’t much adventure for either of you but for me that will be an adventure,’ Rosamund said a little defensively. Unfortunately, her cheeks flushed, warning both Clarissa and Bessie that she was embarrassed at being caught lying.
‘I am not saying there is anything wrong with it. If you wish to travel, then you must. You do, after all, only have one life. However, don’t be disappointed when you get there and find it is not all that much different to where you have been,’ Bessie warned.
‘Oh, but it will be much different,’ Rosamund insisted.
Bessie slid a look at her niece and asked. ‘Oh? How?’
‘Well, Scotland doesn’t have highwaymen, does it?’ Rosamund replied simply.
Bessie’s started to argue but she then realised that there really wasn’t much she could say. No, there wasn’t any highwaymen on the doorstep in Scotland.
‘Of course, you are free to go as you wish, with my blessing of course,’ Bessie announced kindly. To her amazement, Rosamund launched out of her seat and hurried to the door as if she couldn’t wait to get out of the house. ‘Before you leave, come and find me for that reference,’ Bessie called after her only to find herself staring at an empty doorway.
‘When she decides to do something, she really doesn’t waste time before doing it, does she?’ Clarissa mused, staring after her. ‘I wonder if she will remember to draw sketches of the highwaymen she saw last night for the Star Elite.’
‘I don’t think that has crossed her mind,’ Bessie sighed. ‘She is just like you really, although I didn’t think she was as reckless,’ Bessie warned.
‘We are nothing like each other,’ Clarissa cried. ‘Crikey, she is at least ten years older.’
‘I didn’t mean that she looks like you, dear. Rosamund wants an adventure,’ Bessie replied with an inelegant snort. She looked at her niece and shook her head. ‘She is a lot like you in many ways. It is a shame that people don’t appreciate your need to be free of their expectations, I will grant you that, but one can never change one’s blood. If it is in someone’s character to be a certain way there is nothing anybody can do about it. That is one of life’s lessons I learnt a long time ago.’
‘Here we go again,’ Clarissa muttered beneath her breath as she helped herself to another slice of toast and began to slather it with butter. She froze when Bessie’s finger appeared beneath her nose and started to wag.
‘Don’t start that with me, miss. You know as well as I do how few people accept other people’s character traits if they don’t fit in with everyone else’s. If there is anything they perceive as being uncouth or unusual, the aristocracy in this country have no qualms about letting everyone know about it. Doors are slammed shut in faces with more ignorance and scorn than any normal person should show to the world, yet the aristocracy do it because they consider themselves above everyone else. The cold hard reality is, my dear, that those intolerant scoundrels are more condemning, ruder, more brash, and arrogant, than the rest of the world they deem to be abnormal. We are all people, and all deserve to be treated with respect and dignity.’
Clarissa rarely heard her aunt rant like this. It was a warning that Bessie was either deeply upset about Rosamund leaving, or something had happened.
‘What’s wrong?’ she demanded, dropping her toast onto her plate so she could sip her hot chocolate again.
Now that the worst of her annoyance had been vented, Bessie fell silent and studied her. There was a sadness in her eyes that warned Clarissa that she wasn’t going to like what Bessie had to say next. She was right. She didn’t.
‘Your father wants you to go off to stay with your Aunt Carlotta.’ Even as she said the name, Bessie’s lip curled. ‘He thinks that I am a bad influence on you, and that is before last night.’
‘What?’ Clarissa frowned. She contemplated the meal she had shared with her father last night. ‘He never mentioned anything to me when I was there. He was just as reluctant as usual for me to return home, but he didn’t try to ban me from coming here. Moreover, he didn’t even mention Aunt Carlotta.’
‘No, he was waiting for me to tell you because he is a snivelling coward and wants to make me out to be the bad man.’ Bessie dropped a note onto the dining table between them. ‘The oaf got Arthur to give Frederick that to hand on to me. Frederick left it on my desk in the study. I read it first thing this morning.’
Clarissa lifted the note up and looked askance at her aunt. When Bessie nodded, Clarissa quickly unfolded the letter and read it.
‘Abhorrent behaviour? Whose? What have you done?’ Clarissa cried in disgust.
‘It isn’t me. It is your abhorrent behaviour he is angry about. He just didn’t have the gumption to tell you to your face. He expects me to do his dirty work for him,’ Bessie snarled. ‘Your father has always been as limp as a wet dish rag.’
‘Abhorrent behaviour,’ Clarissa murmured. ‘What have I done?’
‘He thinks you speak out too much and are too bold and brash. He doesn’t like the fact that you don’t behave like a proper, well-bred lady should,’ Bessie snorted. ‘Although God only knows there are already enough stuck-up snobs in the world. He wants you to join them.’
‘I would rather die,’ Clarissa snorted, dropping the letter back onto the table as if it were burning her fingers.
Her aunt glared at her. ‘If you keep haring around the country so late at night that will be easier than you ever expect. That was a close call with the highwaymen, don’t you think?’ Bessie sat back to stab at a piece of bacon on her plate. ‘While we can stop Rosamund telling anybody about it, especially if she is going to Scotland, there is nothing we can do about Frederick mentioning it to the staff at your father’s house when you visit next. Nor can we stop the locals from gossiping if they saw you.’
Clarissa smirked at her aunt. ‘I told Colin that I shall not be going to see him again for the foreseeable future, not until the highwaymen have been caught in any case. He was annoyed but had no choice but to accept my decision.’ Her smile fell. ‘Of course, you know what he is like. He then tried to invite himself here.’
‘What?’ Bessie looked horrified.
‘I told him that it wouldn’t really solve the situation given he would then be in danger, but you know how he is,’ Clarissa sighed. ‘For now, he has to be told that I am too old for him to send me anywhere. I am not under his guardianship anymore. Unless you are prepared to go along with what he tells you to do there is really nothing to worry about.’
‘I am not having that buffoon come in here and tell me what to do in my own house,’ Bessie snapped.
‘There you go then. We just have to brace ourselves for when news gets out that another carriage was stopped last night. He will wonder if it is us. I shall have to write a letter and post it at Simmerton. Hopefully, it will arrive before he hears what happened and comes to check on us himself.’
Bessie shuddered theatrically.
For a few moments, a companionable silence fell between the women. Unfortunately, it couldn’t last because Clarissa had more to tell her aunt.
‘I think you should know that the Star Elite are still here,’ Clarissa murmured. ‘Or they were as of last night. They did say that they were coming to speak with you this morning.’
Bessie glared at her. ‘Where are they?’
‘I think they are in the barn,’ Clarissa replied, and watched her aunt’s brows shoot up before dropping into a deep scowl.
‘I didn’t see them.’
‘Well they wouldn�
��t be Star Elite if you could, would they?’ Clarissa replied.
When Bessie spoke, her voice was ripe with concern. ‘Do they really think you are in danger?’
‘We are the only people alive who has seen them all and can attest to what the highwaymen look like,’ Clarissa replied.
Bessie heaved a deep sigh. ‘It might be best if Rosamund went to Scotland then. At least she will be safe there.’
‘I am not going to Aunt Carlotta’s,’ Clarissa bit out before Bessie could even begin to contemplate sending her. ‘I would rather face the highwaymen again.’
Bessie huffed a laugh, but it died quickly. ‘I cannot blame you. If it isn’t a lifestyle you are interested in then forcing yourself to endure it will only make you utterly miserable. I won’t force you to go Clarissa. I don’t see the purpose of it.’
‘Thank you.’ Clarissa’s words were heartfelt when she breathed them.
When she met her aunt’s kindly gaze their connection solidified. They both felt it. While her aunt wasn’t usually one for open displays of affection, she reached out and settled a hand over Clarissa’s. Clarissa turned her hand over and held her aunt’s hand for a moment, but when tears loomed forced herself to release it again and focus on her food.
‘Of course, your father isn’t going to be best pleased and won’t take your rejection of his orders easily. It is going to be a battle to stop him trying to force you,’ Bessie sighed.
‘I am six and twenty years old. I wish he would remember that.’
Bessie patted her hand again and stood up. ‘You go and write that letter to him and I will get Frederick to take it to Simmerton. Then I think you had better see what you can do about sketching those highwaymen, eh? Meantime, I think I have a few words to pen to my brother myself.’
She patted Clarissa on the shoulder when she passed her chair and was half-way across the room when she glanced outside. Bessie patted the table. ‘I do believe there is trouble afoot.’
Clarissa looked askance at her aunt and watched Bessie nod outside. Launching out of her seat, Clarissa raced to the window. It was annoying that the first person she thought about was the handsome rider who had been in her bed chamber last night. Her heart hammered with hope as she peered at each of the riders. Her mouth fell open when her gaze immediately sought him out amongst the rest. She knew it was him. She would recognise him anywhere.
‘Now, tell me, are they highwaymen or the Star Elite?’ Bessie asked from her position beside the window on the other side of the hearth.
Clarissa studied the men closely. ‘They are the men who claimed to be the Star Elite.’
‘Claimed to be the Star Elite? You don’t know for definite if they are then?’ Bessie squinted at the men before looking carefully at her niece, but Clarissa was too absorbed in looking at the riders to notice. For a moment, there had been a brief flash of something bright, something hopeful on her niece’s face. It had been so instinctive, Bessie looked at the approaching riders just a little more carefully. With so many of them, all looking as dangerous as the next, it was difficult to pick out which one had captured Clarissa’s attention. ‘We shall have to find out if they are Star Elite before we trust them too much, don’t you think?’
Clarissa blinked at her. It took her a moment to realise what her aunt had just said but before Clarissa could reply, Bessie walked toward the door.
‘Wait! You are not going to let them in, are you?’ Clarissa gasped, chasing after her.
‘Well, we cannot leave them on the doorstep. They will have seen us peering out of the window at them. Aren’t you curious to know what they want from us, besides the sketches of course?’ Bessie didn’t wait for Clarissa to reply. Instead, she headed toward the front door and was on the doorstep by the time the men reined their horses to a stop at the base of the front steps.
CHAPTER EIGHT
‘Good morning,’ Al called when a lady in quite unusual attire stepped out of her house and stood on the top step to watch them. The woman nodded but her face remained an implacable mask of politeness that was difficult to read. Al didn’t doubt that, strange attire aside, she was the lady of the house. ‘Might I speak with the master of the house?’
‘What do you want?’ Bessie asked bluntly with nothing more than a brisk nod of greeting. Dressed as she was, she certainly wasn’t going to curtsey to the man.
Al turned to look at his friends. ‘I – we – would like a private word with the owner of the house,’ he amended.
‘I own this house,’ Bessie replied firmly. ‘Like I have asked you already, what do you want?’
‘We need to have a private word with you.’
‘About?’ Bessie lifted her brows and gave the man a cold look before turning a curious gaze on each of his friends. While she tried not to be obvious about it, she was looking for the man who had captured Clarissa’s interest, and felt she found him when she caught him gazing steadily into the house. Bessie didn’t need to look over her shoulder to know that Clarissa was there, hovering and listening to what was being said.
Al tipped his head to look at Clarissa. ‘It is about something that happened last night. To your niece and her companion.’
‘You know what happened last night seeing as you were there at the time,’ Clarissa replied from behind her aunt. She stepped out of the house and did everything possible to avoid having to look at the handsome stranger, but her gaze was compellingly drawn to him anyway.
‘Did you watch the robbery?’ Bessie asked. She made no attempt to wave the men into the house not least because she wasn’t at all sure if they were the Star Elite. It was difficult to decide what she had expected them to look like, but it wasn’t the tall, dangerous looking men who stood before her now. While they were polite, she didn’t miss the presence of the heavy guns on their hips, visible for the world to see. There was an arrogance about them that was tangible and hung over them like a sinister warning. She didn’t doubt that they could be lethal if prompted. Bessie just hoped that they weren’t the real highwaymen, or the entire household was in terrible danger.
‘We arrived as they were being robbed,’ Al said. ‘Hasn’t your niece explained what happened?’
‘Yes, she did,’ Bessie replied. ‘And one of you was shot.’
‘Not us, miss. The highwaymen were shot,’ Morgan corrected.
Bessie squinted at him but didn’t move not least because she was standing on the top of the stone steps while the men were on the driveway. They had to look up at her and in doing so were less intimidating.
‘Yet you couldn’t stop them being robbed. If you couldn’t do anything about the robbery while you had the highwaymen before you what makes you think that you could do something about it now?’ Bessie challenged.
Zach shared a rueful look with Morgan. He doubted that anybody as hostile as these two women were would ever let the Star Elite use their stables as a base while they investigated the highwaymen, but it was evident that Al was going to try to persuade them anyway.
‘We are working to catch the highwaymen, ma’am,’ Al replied calmly. ‘But we have to arrest all of the men’s helpers not just the highwaymen themselves.’
‘And they are free to keep robbing people in the meantime,’ Bessie asked in dismay.
‘No.’ Al sighed. ‘I-we-have followed one of the highwaymen. Zach, here, is our tracker.’ Al looked at Zach whose gaze remained locked on Clarissa.
She stared at him in return while she contemplated his name. It suited him. It was firm, abrupt, a little softer around the edges, just like him. She quite liked it.
He looks like a Zach, she mused. If it is at all possible for someone to look like a name.
Clarissa listened intently when Zach began to talk.
‘We followed the injured man to Simmerton,’ he explained. ‘We think that at least one of them is a local.’
‘I don’t think so,’ Clarissa snorted. ‘We would have recognised them, don’t you think?’
‘Did you see all of t
heir faces?’ Zach challenged.
‘Well, no because not all of them approached us,’ Clarissa reasoned.
‘How many do you think you saw properly?’ Everybody else remained quiet while Zach talked exclusively to Clarissa. It didn’t occur to Zach to try to encourage his colleagues to join in. He only had eyes for the woman whose appearance in his life had left a deep and abiding impression on him.
‘At least four,’ Clarissa replied. ‘I can definitely remember four of them, but the others hung back.’
‘I saw two, and I think your friend may have seen a couple of others. That is why we are here. Have you managed to draw their faces yet?’
Clarissa shook her head. ‘I was going to do that next. I have a letter to write and I was then going to draw the men I saw.’
‘It wasn’t any of these gentlemen,’ Bessie murmured, turning to look at Clarissa over her shoulder.
Clarissa shook her head.
Bessie sucked in a deep breath and looked at the men on her doorstep with considerably less suspicion than she had when they had arrived. ‘You had better come in then.’
The men waited for the women to enter the house first, and then followed close behind. Bessie led everyone to the study and waved the men into chairs. Clarissa stood beside her aunt’s desk and did her best to appear as unaffected by their presence in the house as possible, but inside she was a dithering mass of nerves.
‘Do sit down, gentlemen,’ Bessie intoned.
Rather than take a seat beside the desk, she propped her breeches clad hips against the table and folded her arms in a stance that suited her manly attire. She knew she was drawing curious looks from the men and waited for them to question her about why she was dressed the way she was. A few minutes ticked by. Bessie knew that this was usually the time when polite women would ask her if she needed to change, or gentlemen would ask her if there was some sort of social function going on where people were dressing up. But none of the Star Elite mentioned it, and that made her wary of them because she knew they weren’t likely to do what she expected when faced with other issues as well.
