by Carola Dunn
Since Mariette had not expected him to raise a finger to help himself or her, that was no surprise. It dawned on her that he’d be suspected anyway if only the ring was stolen. “Better if you don’t come,” she said. “You must ride down to Plymton, or even into Plymouth, and go somewhere where they know you and can swear you were not on the road to Corycombe between nine and ten. Make it from nine till eleven to be safe.”
“But I’ll have to get up at eight,” he complained. “Oh, very well. You had best take Jim Groom with you.”
“No, it wouldn’t be fair to involve a servant and he might be suspected. No one will suspect a female. I’m tall enough to pass as a smallish man, in a mask and cloak and with my hair tucked up under a hat.” Dropping her book on the sofa beside her, she jumped up. “Come on, let’s go and see what you have in your wardrobe that I can wear. No, the gun-room first. I’ll need a pistol to wave at him.”
Ragamuffin bouncing after her, Mariette sped from the room, trailed by her reluctant cousin.
* * * *
The morning air was icy. When Mariette left the manor, the sun had not yet cleared the ridge of Grevin Moor, though to the north the sprinkle of snow on high Bell Tor already glistened in its slanting rays. She was glad of the warmth of Ralph’s outgrown greatcoat.
She glanced back at the house. Long and low, built of grey limestone with lintels and sills of granite and a slate roof, it seemed a part of the hillside. It showed no signs of life but the smoke from the chimneys. No one called her back.
Before Ralph set off for Plymouth he had entered a final token protest, a feeble attempt to persuade her to approach Lord Malcolm in a more conventional manner. Uncle George, already absorbed in contemplation of his pig/badger, had smiled absently when she kissed his cheek and told him she was going out riding. Jim Groom, saddling Sparrow for her, had made his usual offer to go with her but was unsurprised by her refusal; his old bones ached so early in the morning.
Only Ragamuffin did not fall in with her plans. She had intended to leave him at home, for he was well-known in the district. A report of a dog of his unique ancestry and distinctive colouring accompanying the highwayman would point to her as surely as a compass needle points to the poles. However, when she looked for him to shut him in, she could not find him. She added a length of cord to her equipment.
As if the dog had read her mind he was waiting for her, grinning, outside the gate to the stable-yard. Too late to take him back
He roamed ahead as she and Sparrow started up the rocky path behind the house. As soon as they left the shelter of the trees, the east wind hit them. The sure-footed gelding took the blast in his stride, never faltering. Mariette, clinging with both legs, was certain a side-saddle rider would have been swept from his back on the instant.
Fortunately she had thought to put her highwayman’s hat--an old chapeau bras rescued from the attic--in a saddlebag and to bring some extra hairpins. Though her own riding hat was firmly tied on with ribbons, her knot of hair escaped in no time and streamed in a matted mass about her shoulders. She’d never get a comb through it!
In the hollows between grey-green furze thickets and rusty banks of withered bracken, sheep huddled. Ragamuffin ignored them, intent on a rabbit trail. He followed it to the edge of Bell Brook, here a tumbling rill, then gave up in disgust and returned to Mariette and Sparrow. She was glad of his company.
The path forked. One branch twisted up the hillside towards the pile of massive stones topping Bell Tor. They took the other branch, slanting westward across the steep slope of Wicken’s Down. Gorse and bracken gave way to the dark green of heather and sparse, ochre grasses. Here and there the bare bones of the moor showed through in slabs of grey rock.
At the top the wind blew fiercer than ever, and colder though the sun shone in the pale sky. The air was crystal clear but shoulders of the hill hid both valleys from Mariette. Sparrow picked his way down until Corycombe came into sight, still far below. Mariette drew rein to inspect the scene.
She knew it well. The square, red-brick house stood on the lower slope with its back to her, facing west. The road to it ran along Cory Brook, mostly hidden by a grey haze of leafless trees. Farther south, where the valley widened, brick-red Devon cattle grazed the meadows around the straggling village of Wickenton.
At one point the road emerged from the woods to cross a low spur of the moor, skirting an outcrop of rocks. That was the best spot for an ambush, Mariette decided. The rocks were tall enough to hide behind, and the ground was fairly level for several hundred yards, allowing a quick escape. She turned Sparrow’s head downward again.
In the shelter of the outcrop she coiled her tangled hair and pinned it up. Concealing her face with a mask cut from a black silk stocking reluctantly surrendered by Ralph, she jammed the tricorne on her head and turned up the collar of her coat.
Ragamuffin watched, fascinated. As her face disappeared, he gave a questioning bark.
“Hush!” she said. “Come here.” She took him behind a large clump of heather, tying him to the tough stalk with what she hoped was an easily released knot. “Down and stay!” she ordered.
He gave her a disgusted look and flopped to the ground.
Mariette found a spot where she could peek between two rocks and watch the road to the point where it dipped behind the trees. Now, out of the wind and after the exercise, she was quite warm. Nonetheless she shivered. She wasn’t afraid, she assured herself, merely a trifle nervous. After all, she had never held up a coach before. Unconventional, perhaps, but vastly preferable to the alternative--wasn’t it?
The image of Lord Wareham’s sneering face flashed before her mind’s eye. Playing highwayman was infinitely preferable to such a mortifying scene!
Sparrow pricked his ears and a moment later she heard the jingle of harness and rumble of wheels. Four splendid bays came into view. They moved faster than she had expected, because they pulled not a heavy coach but a smart sporting curricle, moss green picked out in yellow, driven by a man in a multicaped greatcoat. Another man sat beside him, and a third up behind. A roan mare trotted after, tied to the rear.
Swinging hurriedly into the saddle, Mariette urged Sparrow forward. The distance was too short to attain a gallop, so she did not exactly thunder down upon her victim as she had pictured herself. However, she waved her pistol at the driver and shouted in her deepest voice, “Stand and deliver!”
The effect was gratifying. She had to admire the way the driver smartly pulled up his team, keeping control as he came to a halt right beside her. By his dress he must be Lord Malcolm Eden, the others his valet, perhaps, and a groom. Her plans had concentrated on the villain who cheated Ralph of his ring and she had not reckoned on so many. Training her gun on his lordship, she hoped the servants would not risk injury to their master.
She dropped the reins on Sparrow’s neck, thankful she had trained him to stand still. “Give me your purse,” she ordered Lord Malcolm gruffly, “and any rings or other baubles you are wearing or carrying.”
He stared at her, a frown creasing his brow. “You’re not...”
“Hurry, or I’ll shoot!”
Laying his whip across his lap, he reached into his pocket. “My purse.” He set it in her outstretched hand.
“M’lord!” the groom protested.
“Quiet.” Lord Malcolm’s voice was steady, unalarmed.
One-handed, Mariette loosened the drawstring, her gaze and her gun fixed on him. With his teeth he pulled off his right glove and showed her his bare fingers.
She nodded.
Transferring the reins to his right hand, he removed the left glove. Bare fingers again.
As she felt in the purse, he raised his chin and turned to the small, neat man beside him. “Padgett, pray remove my tie-pin for our friend.”
“Never mind.” She had the signet ring. Pocketing it, she tossed the clinking purse into the curricle. “My thanks, my lord.”
Laughter bubbled up at the sight of his puzzled f
ace. With a half-choked chuckle she kicked Sparrow into motion. They swung away from the curricle and raced for the shelter of the rocks.
Ragamuffin rose behind his heather bush and woofed a greeting.
“Oh damn!” She had forgotten him.
Flinging herself from Sparrow’s back, she swiftly unhitched the cord to set the dog free. Her foot in the stirrup, she sprang upwards just as a voice behind her yelled, “Don’t shoot, you fool!”
Crack! A fiery flail struck Mariette in the buttocks. She lost her balance, tottered, fell. Her foot slipped from the stirrup as the world whirled about her, then her head met solid rock and blackness closed in.
Chapter 2
“Numskull!” Malcolm raged. “I told you he was to be allowed to escape. Go to their heads!”
“But it warn’t the same bloke,” Jessup squawked, jumping down from his perch and hurrying forward to hold the bays. “I seen ‘im at the inn, m’lord, the fella you...”
“He returned my purse, didn’t he?” Malcolm vaulted from the curricle. “Never mind now. Padgett, come with me.”
He set off at a run across the uneven ground. Dammit, this could ruin his plans! Though Jessup was right in that the highwayman was too small to be Ralph Riddlesworth, he was undoubtedly an accomplice. Now how the devil was Malcolm to return the ring to Riddlesworth without arousing his suspicions?
A volley of barking halted him in his tracks. A skewbald dog stood over the sprawled body, lips drawn back to reveal teeth far more fearsome than its middling size warranted.
Malcolm advanced slowly but steadily, speaking in a low, soothing voice. “Here, boy, is your master hurt? I didn’t mean it to happen, I promise you. You must let me help him. Come on, there’s a good chap. I cannot claim to be a friend but I don’t want him to die any more than you do.” Such an outcome would thoroughly dash his hopes! “Good boy.”
The dog whined uncertainly, then backed off a few steps. Its anxious brown eyes watched his every motion. The horse, a dun gelding, had also moved off a short way and was cropping the meagre grass. He saw trickles of blood on its flank but his first care must be for its rider.
The highwayman lay on his back. His hat had flown off but face and head were hidden by a black silk mask except for closed eyes fringed by long black lashes. Malcolm had seen the shotgun blast take him from the rear, and the back of his head had hit the rock a glancing blow as he twisted and fell. Best to unbutton his top-coat and pull his arms from the sleeves before turning him over. He knelt down.
First he took the ring from the pocket where he had seen him put it--it would be too ridiculous to lose it among the heather. That was the best place for the pistol, though. He flung it away. Then he unfastened the buttons...
“‘Fore Gad, ‘tis a woman!”
The horrified exclamation burst from him as Padgett reached his side after picking his fastidious way through the scrub. Together they stared down at the slim figure disclosed by the opened coat. The man’s riding jacket she wore beneath could not conceal the swell of her breasts, rising and falling, thank heaven, and the slender waist. If that were not enough, close-fitting buckskin breeches revealed...
Malcolm tore his eyes away. “Let’s get her mask off. Gently, now. She hit her head in falling.”
The girl’s face was chalk-white. A young, attractive face, not beautiful but with a good bone-structure which would age well, Malcolm noted in a brief glance. Through a tangle of thick ebony hair he felt the back of her head.
“Not bleeding, but there’s already a lump and she’ll have a devil of a headache, if not a concussion. Help me turn her over.”
Streams of crimson blood seeped from countless small holes riddling the seat of her buckskins. Padgett gasped. “I’ll fetch some clean linen, my lord.”
“Good man. Hurry.”
The little valet sped away at a near trot, as close as possible to a run without irreparably injuring his dignity.
Jessup arrived, breathless. “I tied the bays to...” He stopped abruptly and stared down, aghast. “‘Twere only the lightest birdshot, m’lord!” he groaned.
“Just as well,” Malcolm said grimly. “See to her horse. Your birdshot nicked him, too, if I’m not mistaken.”
As he spoke, he took out his pocket knife and reached for the waistband of the girl’s breeches. The dog growled. Malcolm calmly continued, slitting the garment until he could pull it back to either side to examine the full extent of the damage. Whimpering, the dog came over and licked his mistress’s still face.
Beneath the buckskins, linen drawers were sodden with blood. Again Malcolm cut. There was nothing sexually inviting about the rounded buttocks he laid bare, besmeared with red like a painter’s palette. Blood still oozed from a score of tiny cuts, though he thought the flow must be slowing.
The trouble was, every cut contained a pellet of lead which would have to be dug out. He had to get her to Lilian’s house and send for a doctor.
Padgett returned with an armful of neckcloths and a flask of cognac. Without comment, he helped Malcolm clean and bind the wounds as best they could. Malcolm wondered whether to tip a little of the brandy down the girl’s throat, but he had a notion spirits were not a good idea in cases of concussion. She was still alarmingly inert except for an occasional tremor which he put down to the biting chill of the air.
He wrapped her in her greatcoat. With a soothing word to the dog, he hoisted her over his shoulder and started for the curricle. Despite his slight build and foppish façade, he carried her easily, which would be no surprise to the trusted sparring partners he met in a private room at Gentleman Jackson’s Bond Street saloon. The image he chose to present to the rest of the world was deceptive.
Jessup had led the girl’s mount down to the stream to bathe his side. They returned to the curricle as Malcolm approached with his burden.
“She’ll live, won’t she, m’lord?” the groom asked apprehensively.
“I believe so. What of the horse?”
“He’s all right.” Jessup stroked the gelding’s nose. “I dug out a couple o’ bits of shot but he didn’t give me no trouble. Reckon he won’t even scar.”
Malcolm’s lips twitched involuntarily. He had not considered the possibility of the girl’s being scarred, but if so at least it was not a part of her anatomy she’d ever want to display in public!
“You’d better ride for a doctor,” he said. “I don’t know if there is one in Plympton. If not, go on to Plymouth, and don’t return without one. Take the gelding as he’s already saddled.”
“Yes, m’lord!” Jessup mounted and a moment later galloped back down the road.
And a moment too late Malcolm cursed his stupidity. How the devil was he to lift the girl into the curricle and drive on to Corycombe without the groom’s aid? Padgett was by no means strong enough to be of much assistance.
In the end, he laid her on the seat and wriggled in under her so that she was stretched across his lap, bottom up, with her face turned towards the back of the seat. Padgett had to untie the bays and scramble up behind, not at all what he was accustomed to.
Malcolm started the team at a fast trot towards Corycombe. The dog loped alongside. As the curricle jounced over a pothole, the girl stirred and moaned. Glancing down, he thought he saw her eyelids flicker shut. A tiny frown of pain creased her brow and she held her body tense but she gave no other sign of returning to consciousness.
He didn’t blame her. In all respects, she was in an excessively embarrassing situation.
She was limp again by the time they pulled up in front of Lilian’s house. Padgett clambered down and ascended the steps to the front door, which was opened by a stiffly correct butler as he reached for the knocker.
“Good morning, Mr. Blount.” The proprieties must be observed even in extraordinary circumstances.
“Good morning, Mr. Padgett,” the elderly butler returned. “Welcome back to Corycombe, my lord. Does your lordship care to...Good gracious me! Surely that cannot be Miss
Mariette? But I should recognize Ragamuffin anywhere!”
The panting dog had his front paws on the footboard of the curricle, his tail wagging hopefully.
“I don’t know her name,” said Malcolm, impatient. He had a story prepared, as much for the sake of his mission as for the girl. Catching his valet’s eye, he lied, “We found the young lady by the road. She’s had an accident—peppered by a poacher, I suspect.”
Padgett’s grave nod conveyed comprehension to his master. He’d stick to the story and make sure Jessup knew what to say, not that Jessup was likely to be eager to broadcast the truth.
The same nod conveyed to the butler agreement with the poacher theory. “Gracious me!” said Blount again, shocked. “What is the world coming to?”
“My groom has gone for a doctor,” said Malcolm impatiently. “I need help to lift her down and someone to see to the horses.”
“At once, my lord.”
As the butler turned to summon aid, Lilian’s voice demanded, “Is my brother come, Blount?”
“Yes, my lady, but...”
“Malcolm!” she called, coming out onto the top step. Daintily diminutive in her habitual grey trimmed with white lace, a black shawl about her shoulders, she looked not a day older than five and twenty though she had passed that age by a decade. “My dear, how good to see you.”
His fifteen-year-old niece hovered shyly behind her mother, peeking over her shoulder. “Mama, is not that Miss Bertrand’s dog?”
But Lilian had already realized something was amiss. She hurried down the steps. Closer to, the lines engraved by grief were apparent, though no thread of grey showed in her fair hair. “Oh, the poor child!” she exclaimed. “What has happened?”
Malcolm gave his brief explanation as a hefty footman rushed from the house. Between them they carried her up to the Dutch chamber, prepared for Malcolm, and laid her face-down on the bed. Lilian came in, followed by her hatchet-faced companion, Miss Thorne.
“Thank you, Charles,” she said to the footman. “That will be all for the present. Malcolm, Mrs. Wittering is setting the maids to make up the green chamber for you. Will you go and see what you can do to calm Emily for me? She has made quite a mystery heroine of Miss Bertrand and is in high fidgets.”
