“All right? God knows.” Even as he spoke, Dev was tossing her saddle and saddlebags Onto her horse, boosting her up. “Hang on,” he told her grimly. “This isn’t practice anymore. Your life does depend on your staying aboard that mare.”
Constance never knew how she got through the next few hours. She clung to the saddle, she twisted her fingers into the mare’s gray mane, she reeled as branches whipped her face down the twisted paths Dev led her. For they were going cross country, she knew not where.
To her credit, she did not fall off once.
When the sun was well up, they sheltered in a little woodland glade, green and with a woodsy fragrance permeating the clear morning air. Constance was too tired to eat, too tired to do anything but fall off the dappled mare into Dev’s arms and crumple up with a groan on the grass. “I don’t think I can go another mile,” she said.
“You won’t have to. We’ll stay here till it’s dark.”
Dev went off to water and care for the horses and, mercifully, Constance fell asleep.
She awoke to having her shoulder shaken. “Time to start again,” said Dev, and she stumbled up—and made it gamely through another wearying night.
On the third night they reined up in the fog-shrouded courtyard of a small country inn, a low stone structure well off the beaten track and so well concealed that it seemed to loom up before them suddenly out of the trees. Talk and raucous laughter drifted to them from the inn but there was no sign of horses about—she was to learn later that they were housed in a capacious stable which was reached not only from the outside but by a tunnel that could be entered by a trapdoor from the kitchen. A broken dangling wooden sign proclaimed the place the “Wind and Whistle.”
“Safest place I know,” Dev muttered as he lifted her off her horse, for by now she felt that all her bones were broken. “Just let me do all the talking.”
A boy had magically appeared out of the fog to take their horses and Dev tossed him a coin. He caught it and grinned. “Who’s here tonight?” asked Dev.
A pair of thin shoulders shrugged and a young-old face, infinitely worldly above a mop of dirty tow-colored hair, looked up speculatively at Dev. “Not Charley,” the lad volunteered cheerfully. “He’s dead.”
“What happened?”
“Got shot on the road two nights ago.”
Dev sighed. “Is Gibb here yet?”
“With a wench on each arm!” laughed the boy.
“That’s Gibb for you,” said Dev dryly, and Constance thought fleetingly, And Henriette thought he was past it!
They found the smoky low-ceilinged common room bustling. There was a single long table and as the door opened every head swung round. There were faces there Constance would not have cared to meet even in sunlight on a crowded street; in the dim light of guttering candles they chilled her. A husky female voice broke the sudden stillness. “Well, if it ain’t Gentleman Johnny!” And an orange-haired girl of perhaps eighteen rose from someone’s lap at the end of the long table. Her hips swayed seductively in her orange satin skirts as she started toward them and her tightly laced black bodice seemed about to spill out a pair of voluptuous breasts that were barely concealed by a white chemise with big puffed sleeves. “We ain’t seen you lately, Johnny!” There was an intimate sound to that voice.
Before she could go a step, the man on whose lap she’d been sitting, a big fellow with a black patch over one eye and a scarred lip, reached out a long arm to detain her. “Hold it, Nan,” he said tolerantly. “Johnny’s got a wench with him.” Constance felt hot color flood her face as every pair of hard eyes raked her up and down. She was to learn that life on the highways required an instant assessment of what was about and that these rough men, whatever else they lacked, were nobody’s fools. At least one of them had seen through her disguise from across the room before she was well over the threshold.
Beside her Dev laughed and although the laugh was easy she was standing so near she brushed him and she could feel his arm muscles tense.
“Sure, I’ve brought my wench,” he declared easily. “Just as you’ve brought yours, Candless. Nell, meet Candless.”
Gibb broke into the awkward moment. “Over here, Johnny.” He waved a bottle at them. “Sit here between Maudie and me.”
Moments later Constance found herself wedged at the long table between ginger-bearded Gibb and Dev. On Dev’s other side Maudie—an elderly bawd with a friendly, loose-lipped smile, gave Dev’s arm a playful dig and wheezed, “So you’ve got a new doxy, Johnny? Nan here won’t like that!” Down the table Constance could see that Nan was not liking it. She tossed her orange head and scowled at them.
Constance was still covertly watching Nan when Starbuck, the owner of this establishment, came up. He was a barrelchested man with a nose smashed almost flat and no expression at all in his pale eyes as his voice boomed, “Glad to see ye, Johnny. Gibb says ye ran onto a bit of bad luck on the road.”
“And some good.” Dev indicated Constance. “Nell, this is Starbuck,” he told her. “Friend of all. We’ll need supper and a bottle of wine and a room for Nell and me.”
“Supper and wine ye can have, Johnny, but I’ve no rooms left.”
“Yes, ye have,” said Gibb easily. “Johnny’s got him a room, Starbuck. Don’t worry about it.”
“We ain’t seen you here before, dearie.” Maudie leaned over.
“No, I’m from London,” Constance remembered to say, but she was still watching Nan. So it was Nan’s bodice that Dev had learned to unhook so expertly... and Nan was far too pretty.
Maudie followed the direction of her gaze and chuckled. “Don’t you worry none about Nan,” she said. “Candless’ll keep her in her place!”
But Candless didn’t. When he turned to argue over a wager with the man on his right. Nan got up off his lap and flounced forward. As she passed them her hand suddenly swooped and lifted Constance’s hat from her head. She tossed it up and caught it by its broad brim, laughing.
Constance had started to rise but Dev’s sudden restraining grip on her wrist stopped her.
“Nan wants a fight with your doxy,” muttered Maudie. “Woops, here comes Candless!”
Down the table the big black-patched man was rising to his feet. Nan ignored him. “Watch this, Johnny!” she said. Seductively she pulled up her skirts and Constance saw that she was wearing a black satin garter far up on her white thigh. From that garter she now snaked out a knife and regarded Constance from glittering tawny eyes.
Constance heard Maudie draw in a wheezing breath and was sharply aware that Dev had interposed his body between her and Nan.
Nan tossed the knife in the air, caught it and laughed. “Afraid I’ll carve my initials on your new doxy, Johnny?” she mocked. “Watch this!”
She tossed the hat in the air and with her other hand hurled the knife. Straight and true it went through the crown and nailed the hat quivering to one of the low beams of the ceiling.
It could as easily have pierced my heart, thought Constance, chillingly aware of her danger.
“That’s enough, Nan.” Big Candless seized the girl in a rough grasp, picked her up kicking and, amid gales of laughter and much banging of tankards, carried her back to his end of the table. Furious and snarling, orange-haired Nan still fought him and he gave a howl as her white teeth sank into his hand. “Fierce little devil, ain’t she?” Candless asked the company at large. “Makes love the same way!” He suddenly seized both her wrists and proceeded to slap Nan’s angry face back and forth with a whipping motion.
Constance would have cried out but Dev muttered, “Be still. She’s his wench, they’ll settle this between themselves.”
Nan stopped screeching and stared sullenly at Candless, who pulled her back on his lap and resumed his argument over the wager as if nothing had happened. Dev got up and wrenched hat and knife from the beam. The hat he tossed to Constance, who clapped it back over her wig. The knife he tossed down the table to Candless with a laconic, “I’d han
g on to it, if I were you—to keep Nan from carving you up tonight!”
General laughter greeted this sally—in which, surprisingly, Nan joined. She cuffed Candless’s ear and then kissed him.
“I’ve got a better man than you, Johnny!” she called up to them.
“See if you can keep him,” retorted Dev. A serving wench shoved past them to put their food on the table and he sat down to eat it as calmly as if nothing had happened.
Constance, unused to such outbursts, wasn’t hungry.
“We’re lucky to get this,” Dev told her as he surveyed their cubbyhole of a room under the second-floor eaves.
Constance, looking around her, didn’t feel lucky. “What was Nan to you?” she asked.
“A passing fancy,” he said, surprisingly frank. “I got her from Charley”—the man who was shot, she thought—“who got her from Bo Ringle who was hanged last August, and now she’s moved on to Candless.”
But to her you weren’t just a passing fancy, thought Constance, feeling jealousy gnaw at her. She would learn later from Maudie that doxies changed hands quite often on the road—she herself had been the doxy of half a dozen highwaymen since hanged.
“I see,” she said coldly.
Dev gave her a restless look. “I’m going back to talk to Gibb,” he said. “I don’t like the way we were ambushed on the road. Could be the man in Lincoln plays both sides of the street.”
Hardly had he left than the door opened and a blowzy serving girl came in carrying a metal tub and a big pitcher of water. “Johnny said ye’d be wantin’ a bath,” she smirked. “Ye’ll want to make yerself pretty fer ’im!”
The hot bath made Constance so sleepy she barely remembered to latch the door. Afterward she pitched forward upon the bed and was lost to the world.
She came to in the morning, to a persistent knocking. “Constance.” Dev’s voice. She was disoriented for a minute, looking wildly about her. Then she realized where she was—Starbuck’s. She jumped up and let him in.
“I latched you out,” she cried in dismay. “Oh, Dev, why didn’t you wake me?”
“I came up and you didn’t hear me knocking,” he said. “I figured you were so tired I’d let you rest.”
“But, you, where did you sleep?”
He shrugged. “I was down in the common room, with Gibb.”
“You mean he doesn’t have a room?”
“This was his room,” said Dev. “He gave it up to us.”
Once again she was grateful to Gibb.
Constance thought Nan must have been lying in wait for Dev, for when they went downstairs—and this time Constance was wearing her own clothes and not walking awkwardly in ill-fitting boots—orange-haired Nan was standing at the foot. Today she was garbed in green and yellow stripes with large black and yellow bows. It was almost the loudest costume Constance had ever seen. Instead of letting them pass, Nan blocked their way. Hands on hips, she regarded Dev through her short reddish lashes.
“Last night was like old times, Johnny,” she purred and flashed him a sweet, insinuating smile. “Glad to have you back.” She passed by Constance with a laugh and a toss of her head and went on upstairs.
“Don’t pay no attention to Nan,” said Gibb, who had seen what happened from the common room. “She was born for trouble.”
“I’m sure she was,” said Constance, and, head high, sailed into the common room. There her newly revealed dainty figure and cloud of dark hair were regarded by the lounging occupants with such lively interest as they stripped her with their eyes that she reddened to the roots of her hair.
“Take no notice,” muttered Dev. “From them it’s a tribute.”
In her embarrassment Constance regretted having changed to women’s clothes. She had done it, she realized suddenly, to compete with flashy Nan. Wild dangerous Nan, heroine of dozens of stormy affairs, who had spent who knew how many nights in Dev’s arms....
They rested at Starbuck’s a week and then drifted east. Outside Norwich they found meaner quarters—this time in the loft of a farmer’s stable.
“There’s better places to be had on the road,” Gibb explained. “But Johnny’s takin’ you to the safest ones.”
She had developed a fondness for Gibb and found she enjoyed talking to him. He had a colorful view of the world.
“Get Gibb to tell you how he wants to be buried,” Dev suggested one day.
“On my head,” said Gibb promptly. “I want a shaft sunk straight down, and I want to be lowered in headfirst. There’s a Resurrection comin’, sure as you’re born, and everything on earth’s gonna be turned upside down. And when that time comes, I mean to be the only one standin’ on my feet!”
Constance blinked at this remarkable idea.
“Johnny here’s promised to have me buried the way I want should I die before him,” Gibb told her.
Dev’s pleasant smile challenged her not to laugh. Constance gave him a quelling look. “If he forgets to do so. I’ll be sure to remind him,” she promised Gibb tartly and Dev’s green eyes brightened. He was glad Constance and Gibb got on so well together. “Perhaps you’d like to show us where you used to live?” she suggested. “You said you were from Norwich.”
“Can’t show you the house,” shrugged Gibb. “It’s burned down.”
“Oh.” She was sorry she’d mentioned it, for a bereaved look passed over his face, and she hastened to change the subject, to ask about their next job.
They were free-lancing now, after the debacle on the Great North Road, trusting to their own instincts rather than to bought information. They weren’t having much luck.
That night Dev and Gibb went out on the road and when they rode back she was waiting for them at the stable—as usual, dressed and ready to ride. She thought Gibb looked unusually grim but Dev grinned at her and from the saddle tossed her a clinking purse. “ ’Twas a bishop whose purse we lightened tonight.”
Constance caught the purse. But there was something in Dev’s voice, a slight waver.... She ran forward just as he slipped from the saddle and Gibb, who had just dismounted, caught him and eased him to the ground.
“He caught a rifle ball,” explained Gibb.
“It’s nothing,” said Dev airily. “I but lost my balance. Here, help me up, Gibb, we’re frightening Constance.”
He made to rise and fell back, unconscious.
The farmer came at Gibb’s hoarse call. He asked no questions but brought the hot water and clean cloths Gibb asked for.
Gibb took out his knife and washed it in the hot water. “Don’t watch this,” he told Constance.
“But I want to help.”
“As you like. Don’t faint on me, though.” Gibb nodded to the farmer, a powerful man who stood impassively by. “Hold him down for me. When I cut out this bullet, it’ll bring him to.” And to Constance, “Try to hold his head down if you can.”
Constance took Dev’s head in her arms. Silently she began to pray.
As the knife cut in, Dev came to with a hoarse cry and Constance cried, “Gibb’s got to get the bullet out of your shoulder!” as she wrestled with him. “Oh, please hold still, oh, please—” She was crying now, her tears falling hot on his face, which was a mask of agony beaded with sweat. She felt his strong neck muscles rope up and she moaned even as a great groan escaped his clenched teeth.
His body writhed suddenly in agony and Gibb cried triumphantly, “I’ve got it! Just wait now, Johnny, I’ve got to cauterize the wound.”
Constance watched in horror as she saw Gibb pass his knife through the flames of a little fire the farmer had made out of hot coals he brought from the house. She shuddered as it began to glow.
“Don’t watch,” advised Gibb, and Constance turned her face away.
There was a horrible burning smell, Dev gave a hoarse cry, his body wrenched convulsively free from their grasp—and fell back, unconscious.
“’Tis done,” said Gibb calmly. “We’ll get him to bed now.”
Constance felt s
ick. She staggered to her feet and leaned against one of the posts that supported the stable roof. “There’s no pursuit?” she gasped.
“None. We got away clean.” Gibb gave her a sympathetic look. “The lad’s survived worse than this, lass—and will again.”
Oh, never let this happen again, she prayed, trailing along as the farmer and Gibb got Dev bedded down—this time not in the stable loft but in his own bed in the cottage. The farmer’s wife gave Constance a hostile look as she saw her bed being taken by an injured highwayman.
“It’s only for a little while,” babbled Constance, desperate to placate her—for suppose the farmer’s wife in pique let it be known that a highwayman was sheltering in their farmstead? She could gain a reward and Dev was in no condition to flee!
She was learning, the hard way, the perils of life on the road.
All that week Constance nursed Dev, but by the third day when no fever had developed he managed to climb the ladder back to the stable loft and she felt easier. Gibb had given the farmer’s wife a gold coin and she had smirked her thanks.
Now Constance began to understand why Dev was always in need of money. Their accommodations here were worth only pennies—yet must be paid for in gold. They were buying not merely shelter, they were buying silence. And silence was costly.
She moved her pallet away from Dev’s so that he might rest better. If he tried to embrace her, he might start his shoulder bleeding again and, despite Gibb’s bragging, she was not sure how good a doctor he really was.
It gave her many a long hour to think and consider her situation, and what lay ahead: inns like Starbuck’s, full of hard-eyed men and their bawds, places where fights erupted suddenly and violently, where hard money changed hands easily and life was cheap. Farmsteads like this one with sullen wives turned friendly by gold. Wild nights on the run, careening through the darkness with branches whipping her face, trying to stay aboard a plunging horse. And then the worst: nights with bullets whining through the darkness—and Dev hurt again. And maybe hurt some way that Gibb could not help him. She thought what it would be like to sit by him some place where they dared not send for a doctor, what it would be like to sit and watch him die.
Lovely Lying Lips Page 19
