by Edith Layton
It was after a stop on the long, deserted road down from Blindley Heath that the coach door opened and Warwick joined her. He looked at her exhausted face and almost left her again, with advice that she should sleep, but she begged him to come in and keep her company. When he entered the coach he asked her straightaway about her weariness, and too weary to dissemble, she admitted to her crazy-quilt night of dreams. He nodded, as though he understood her very well, and then, pointing out the dozing Millie, and claiming in a whisper that their friendship transcended propriety, he began to extoll the benefits of his shoulder as a pillow. He’d gotten around to vowing that his left shoulder had actually been written up in a learned scientific journal for the amazing soporific qualities it possessed, when she submitted on a low chuckle and laid her head against him and closed her eyes at last, feeling, if not precisely safe, then at least comforted, at last.
Yet as the coach rolled on, her eyelids rolled up. She couldn’t sleep. She was too acutely aware of where she was. His shoulder was hard and wide and reassuringly firm, and the velvet jacket she laid her cheek against was soft, yet she couldn’t ignore the fact this was a breathing pillow she rested against, and she breathed in the slight spice of the woodsy fragrance she associated with him with every breath she drew. She found herself wondering what his expression was, what he was looking at now. She soon found that being close to Warwick prevented the relaxation she’d expected, and she was about to raise her head when she thought, in some confusion, that she was only dreaming that she was about to raise her head from that shoulder.
It took a second more before she was entirely sure that what she had heard was real and not another of the disjointed dreams claiming her once more. But the pistol shot was clear and loud enough to rouse the dead and shake off any fantasy. Yet the words she heard next were the very stuff of her nightmares.
“Stand and deliver,” the voice called out, as cold as truth, as fantastic as a dream.
20
The coach halted on a stretch of the dusty country road just where some ancient oaks touched branches above it to give shade to what went on beneath them, and just where the land otherwise stretched away to endless heath after that one verdant pause, giving a clean sight line to whatever else passed up or down the road. It was an excellent place for a highwayman to ply his trade, it had always been so. Gentleman Jones himself had been hanged and gibbeted on a high branch of one of the ancient oaks to commemorate his favorite haunt. But the grisly crop the tree had borne didn’t seem to discourage the two men who sat astride their horses beneath it, pistols at the ready, waiting for the passengers to step out and deliver all their goods into their hands, as ordered.
Susannah watched in dreaming wonder, the thought of what was happening too fresh and incredible to be terrifying as yet, even though she’d heard a shout and a scuffle soon after the voice had called out. She gazed in silent wonderment, not fully comprehending, as Warwick reached for a pistol he’d concealed in a pocket in the side door.
But then, as though the walls of the coach were glass, she heard the same voice command from without, “I hold a primed pistol at the ready, so pray cast yours out on the ground before you set a foot out the door. Otherwise, the weapon aimed at the jolly coachman goes off even as you go out. Fair enough, sir?”
Warwick was tight-lipped and his eyes blazed contempt, but he threw the silver-handled weapon out the half-open window. As he rose, and bent to step out the door himself, the voice cried again, “Bravo! Encore, encore!” and after a pause, went on glibly, “I know there’s more, my lord. You’re too cautious a gentleman to trust to only one firearm. But I see. You’ve had a squabble with your handsome coachman. Ah, well then, where should you like me to give him his due: in the heart, or face, or have you some other preference? Ah!” the voice shouted in triumph as the second pistol followed the first, to hit the road in a small puff of dust. “Well done, your grace, how gracious. I await you. Come, come. I haven’t all day.”
“Stay here,” Warwick commanded Susannah in an urgent whisper as he stepped out into the road.
She didn’t move, since it was still the case that none of this had reality to her. It wasn’t only the shock of it that made her doubt her senses, it was the fact that daylight highway robbery wasn’t a thing one expected to meet up with any longer, at least not on any of the Brighton roads.
Traveling was no easy undertaking, a thousand bad things might happen on a long coach ride, the price paid for the modern luxury of speed was often too high: the horses could bolt, the carriage itself might tip over, axles could break, wheels could spin off to send one spinning off the road, accidents with other, reckless drivers were legion, there were floods and bridge-outages to worry over, but highwaymen, at least on these near roads from out of London, were now more a memory than a threat. The horse patrol Bow Street had established had chased them from their favorite haunts years before. Not only had they gone further afield, even their numbers had shrunk amazingly since the high days on the high toby, the days when such notorious bold rogues as the Cavalier Captain Stafford, the rapist Captain Howard, the ladies’ joy and grief—courtly young Claude Duval, foolish Jack Sheppard, foppish Sixteen-string Jack, the legendary Dick Turpin, and Gentleman Jones himself—had prospered. These days such fellows were only the stuff of ballad and fable, and Susannah hadn’t expected to encounter any of their sort, any more than she believed she’d ever meet up with any of the dragons and unicorns that she’d also been taught once had roamed her England.
Now Warwick Jones, descendant of one of the most famous of that ilk, stepped unarmed from out of his coach to face a modern man of the fraternity. But surely, Susannah thought, her confusion being dissipated by her feverish reasoning, surely this road pirate would accord Warwick the same courtesy those of the Spitalfields slums did upon hearing his name, if only for sentiment’s sake, if only as a tribute to that odd kindred ancestry. Then she heard the highwayman’s laughter as Warwick approached him, and then she knew there would be no honor of any sort in this, and certainly no mercy.
Nor was she surprised when the glad voice called again, “Miss Logan, sweet slut, come out, come out, wherever you are,” and above Warwick’s imperative order of “No!” the voice sang, “Yes, I insist, or I’ll kill them both first and then you, my dear. Don’t you want to plead with me? Don’t you care to beg me for favor? I might, I might relent, if asked sweetly enough. But you’ve no choice, Miss Logan. Cowering, you’ll die cowering. Brave, you might yet brave it out. Come,” he said approvingly, nodding as he sat his horse and watched with satisfaction as Susannah descended the coach’s stair, head held high, “join the grand finale, Miss Logan, you and your maid both, yes, do.”
He’d gotten a length of black silk and cut eyeholes in it, and wrapped it about the upper portion of his face. But it clung to his features, outlining them so there could be no mistaking his identity even if she were deaf and so couldn’t recognize the variable, exultant voice, she thought, looking up to meet Lord Moredon’s glittering eyes. He wore a greatcoat and a beaver hat, and his boots and linen and fine steed bespoke the gentleman. Even wearing his mask and with his pistol now aimed at Warwick’s heart, he looked more like he was on the strut at a masquerade in Vauxhall than in all deadly earnest upon the deserted heath. His companion wore a stained bright handkerchief about his face, but the unkempt, ill-cut strawberry thatch of hair, his shabby garb, and his pied farmhorse made him seem a deliberate parody of his companion, like the satire that follows the tragedy at the theater. But there was nothing amusing in the way he kept his pistol pointed straight at Julian on the driver’s seat.
The footman who’d ridden guard, Susannah noted with the first real jolt of horror she’d felt since the mad interruption of her journey had begun, lay senseless or dead in the road near the coach, the blood trickling from his forehead testimony to e blow which had felled him from his high perch. Millie, who’d crept out of the coach in her mistress’s train, took one look at him and then f
ainted dead away in a heap on the round.
“She’s yours to dispose of when I’m done,” Lord Moredon aid negligently to his companion, before he turned his attention fully on the three remaining conscious members of the party.
“Oh, this is wonderful,” Lord Moredon said with a great sigh of happiness. “The only problem I have is as to which of you I should remove from the world first. It is a question if consequences now,” he said ruminatively.
“Speaking of consequences, the horse patrol guards this patch,” Julian spoke up then, and though Susannah could swear she saw Lord Moredon’s eyes flicker, he didn’t look away from Warwick to answer him.
“Of course they do,” he said in a harsh voice, “none know that better than I, Hazelton, I, who summoned them, or rather, who warned them of the danger I might face on his road this afternoon. Danger from that rascal highwayman seeking to emulate Gentleman Jones upon this road these past weeks. Oh heavens,” he said, smiling wolfishly, “just look, why, here he is, just as I paid him to be for all these weeks! The, wicked highwayman, spare me, do,” he begged, pursing its lips to suppress his laughter, as the ragged redheaded youth grinned shyly at his mockery.
“My ancestor!” Warwick exclaimed, with what Susannah thought was, under the circumstances, unnatural calm, as he stood on the dusty road gazing up at the mounted man and raised one winged brow to signify his outsize astonishment. -Hardly. If that’s your plan, Moredon, it’s insufficient to the purpose. Only a blind man would see this fellow as even a poor copy of Gentleman Jones. Overlooking his rooster’s crest, he’s got all the airs of a barnyard, not a salon. A mask doth not a gentleman highwayman make. Best let us go our way, and rethink some more fitting prank.”
“What cool composure,” Lord Moredon caroled on a grin, “what a clever attempt. It should be even more amusing to see if you really regard death as a prank. As to resemblances, why, when a man sees death in the barrel of a pistol held to his head, he’ll swear he’s seen the devil himself behind it. Had I the time, I’d show you, I’d make you see whatever I chose before I cleared the world of another ‘gentleman.’ And never fear, this poor copy of your ancestor shall be the one blamed for it before he disappears from the scene, his most important role well done.
“The valiant men of the horse patrol will see only what he’s accomplished when they ride by within a matter of hours to speed me safely along on my journey to Brighton, as I requested them to do, being such a nervous gentleman, you understand. Finding you dead, they’ll regret they left it so late, as will I when I happen upon you even as they do, and then loudly lament your loss.”
“This is a favorite coaching route,” Julian said in a steady voice, “and five day coaches ply it. We’ll not be alone long, Moredon.”
“I know, and I’ve learned the schedules as well as you, Coachman, we’ve time yet, don’t be so impatient to answer for your sins, I intend to get on with it,” Lord Moredon replied testily. “It won’t take long to kill you all, it’s only taking me a bit to make up my mind, don’t you see. You can’t blame me for lingering over my sweet, can you? Rest easy, by the time I see dust in the distance, you too will be dust, golden youth. But in what sequence?” he asked himself, frowning.
“If I remove you first,” he brooded aloud, “the pretty trollop will languish. She’s been all eyes for you for weeks, it’s been a famous joke in every drawing room, how the fishmonger’s daughter yearns to catch herself a coachman.”
Susannah took in her breath and lowered her eyes; to be on the brink of being destroyed was unbelievable enough, but to be told that the emotions one thought were so secret were common knowledge and the butt of common jests was another sort of death, surely.
“But then,” Lord Moredon went on morosely, “the highwayman’s proud heir might think he’d have an opportunity to comfort her then, and everyone knows that’s what he’s been after, yes, Hazelton, it’s likely he’s been warming her bed the moment you’ve gotten up from it, or so it would appear he aches to do, from his eyes.”
Warwick didn’t move a muscle at that, he continued to gaze steadily at his tormentor, waiting for that one sidewise glance, that blink, that one flickering of his attention that might give him the opportunity to move. But all the while he stood straight and still, he writhed inwardly, wondering if it were true that it had been so easy for anyone to see where his heart lay, or if it were only true that the mad had certain heightened sensitivities and powers of observation beyond the range of the sane.
“And yet if I take him first, you’ll think you have a free road to her and her funds, if not her body. That vexes me. I don’t want you rejoicing, not for a second,” he explained, as Julian stiffened, for though his fortunes had improved, his shallow pockets still weighed far too heavily on his mind, and the thought that Susannah might even for a second believe this madman touched him on the raw.
“But,” Lord Moredon said gaily now, smiling, thrilled with his discovery, “if I take her out first, you two will both suffer. Enormously. Not as much as I did with all the injury you did me, but enough. Yet, then,” he said, crestfallen again, “you two might think to console yourselves with each other as you doubtless did at school.”
“We were friends then, Moredon, only friends, even as we are now, and I think you know that. Whatever you might say now, you know that much at least,” Warwick said flatly.
“Only that,” Julian echoed. “Whatever made you believe else?” he asked, genuine puzzlement coloring his voice. “For though we weren’t precisely friends to you, we were never enemies of yours, Moredon, you know that.”
“You dare say that!” Lord Moredon shouted, causing his horse to take a nervous step that made Warwick tense his muscles in readiness to spring. But then the masked nobleman quieted his voice and his mount, and leaning forward, he said in a hissing whisper, “Always together, always laughing, always joking about things I was not supposed to know, lowering your voices when I came by, changing the subject when I walked past, the beautiful blond boy and the dark elegant youth slipping from out of each other’s arms as I passed them by, pretending they didn’t know how they tormented me with their words and their secrets, their faces and their bodies, never letting me in, never asking me in, I can’t forget. And then after ignoring me, to attempt my sister? Not me, but only that simple whore, my beautiful noble sister?”
He paused. He had finally heard himself. A look of great dismay crossed over his face, clear even beneath the black silk mask. And then, not wishing to hear anything more, he acted, if only so that he wouldn’t continue to hear that hateful voice so like his own issuing from his own mouth, saying such unspeakable things for him to hear. He raised his pistol to the level of Susannah’s eyes.
“No more of this!” he cried. “I won’t hear any more. Do you think to unsteady me? Here, I’ll take her down so smoothly, you’ll see my hand don’t even shake!”
And then Susannah could see no more.
Warwick took her shoulders in both hands and in an instant had spun her around and wrapped his arms around her to hold her fast against his heart, interposing his long back between herself and Lord Moredon so that whatever was aimed at her would have to pass through himself first before it could touch her. She could see nothing but his shoulder and the side of his face as he turned his head to see what was coming, even if it were only his ending.
In that same instant, she heard a new harsh voice boom, “Warwick Jones! Kinsman! To me!”
There was one moment of absolute silence. She looked to her left, even as all the others did, to see a huge black-clad gentleman upon a huge black horse, his many-caped cloak flowing over the saddle like a draped shadow, his high black hat and black mask concealing all his face, and his two gleaming silver pistols pointed straight ahead. Then there was deafening noise. All at once Susannah saw fire and blue smoke erupt from the pistols, but when she turned her head to see the source of the other thunder, she saw Julian standing on the driver’s seat, a long carbine in his hands,
spewing smoke, and turning yet again, she saw fumes rising from Lord Moredon’s pistol too.
And then Lord Moredon, amazed and appalled, opened his mouth to protest, but only his life’s blood issued forth and he fell from his saddle to the road.
The only other sound then was that of the hooves of the farmer-highwayman’s mount as it turned tail, its rider bent low over the saddle urging it on, as it fled, ears flat back, off down a trail to the side of the road and on into the distance.
“You left it a little late,” Warwick said coolly, but as he still held Susannah close, she could feel his heartbeat deny his poise.
“It was interesting. Better than a play. If I rode all this way and togged myself out in uncomfortable clothes—damme,” Lion muttered, untying his mask. “I don’t know how your ancestor bore it, a man could perish from the heat beneath one of these vile things—I think I deserved some sport.”
