“Be careful, Tom,” whispered Pamela roguishly. “If you startle Dorothea by bending over as if to steal a kiss, she may rear up and put out your eyes with those wires that hold her side curls!”
Tom looked thoughtful for he had indeed considered planting a kiss or two on those much-vaunted “blooming cheeks”—if he could get Dorothea away from her twittering mamma long enough.
When she got back, Pamela told Constance about what she’d said, hoping to make her laugh.
“Watch out for Dorothea,” warned Constance. “Melissa was only flirting with Tom—she wants every man. Dorothea is going to single one out and play for keeps. And if it’s Tom she’s after—!” She left the sentence unfinished.
Pamela only laughed.
But while Pamela thought about Tom and Constance thought about all her mistakes, the countryside was seething with rumors:
Monmouth had sailed from Holland with a large force. He had not. He was not coming till fall. He was already here. He had landed in Dover. He was marching on London. He had not landed at all. Argyll’s forces had sailed to Scotland. They had been sunk. They had not sailed at all. Monmouth had been imprisoned by the Dutch. He had not. On and on it went.
With all the fervor of the disappointed in love, Ned flung himself into the Cause. “Ye should join us,” he told Tony.
“And help another Stuart gain the throne?” The Captain quirked a sardonic eyebrow at him.
“Yes!”
Captain Warburton shrugged. He had had much experience of wars and this one was likely to be short and tragic. For he could not see the English people as stirred up enough yet to unseat James. Nor could he imagine them putting an illegitimate son on the throne of England.
He had found himself thinking often of Margaret of late.
He had loved her wild spirit, and her generous heart. He had loved her endearing ways. He had loved her courage and the way she had always tried to match him. He had loved the rustling sound of her voice and her quick wit and clever mind. Even stripped of her beauty, he knew he would still have loved her, that for him flame-haired Margaret was a woman for all times and all seasons.
Constance had so reminded him of Margaret—not in looks, but with that rich raw silk voice of hers and with some inner wildness that he sensed whenever he was near her, a breathless reaching out to life, an eagerness to be, to try, to dare. He could not understand what had driven Constance to wed so poor a stick as Chesney Pell, but marry him she had, no matter what came later.
He kept his distance from Axeleigh—as did Ned.
Meantime The Masked Lady was in great demand. Margaret, an obvious aristocrat by manner, voice and bearing, was a natural choice for messenger between aristocratic houses. A lady in a riding mask could join unnoticed large hunting parties, groups riding desultorily down country lanes, she could slip into a Masque and dance the night away, while receiving or giving information. Margaret was kept busy plying the roads with dangerous messages carried in her head or on thin parchment under her voluminous skirts. But it must have been the same whimsical fate that had caused her to leave Tattersall one day before the Squire’s letter arrived that brought her in May to the Great North Road.
She was carrying a message from a peer in London to a peer in Lincoln—and neither gentleman wished to be involved if his messages should go astray, for neither had a taste for the block. So The Masked Lady was the perfect solution. She had picked up her messages at a London masque and would deliver them the same way at a masquerade ball being held in Lincoln just so she might deliver her messages, masked and anonymous.
The messages were sealed and Margaret had little doubt that they would be signed only with an initial. That what they contained was treasonable and would mean her death if caught was something to which she gave little thought. She counted her life as already ended. All that happened now was anticlimactic, a postscript written to a vanished life.
She might have chosen to ride on horseback up the Great North Road to deliver her messages but so far she had had very good luck by coach. Besides, highwaymen were not interested in letters. They would snatch the earbobs from her ears and the brooch from her shoulder and demand her velvet purse (she carried two, one containing gold coins tied beneath her skirts, the other containing silver and coppers and in plain sight). The gold chain and locket with Tony Warburton’s picture (she would fight for that) was well concealed beneath her handsomely tailored traveling clothes. And unless they searched her thoroughly they would not find the small pistol or have reason to discover that Margaret was a very good shot.
When Margaret settled her bronze broadcloth skirts into the stagecoach in Peterborough, she was expecting an uneventful ride, for the driver had boasted openly that his coach always got there safe, for the owners paid the famous highwayman “Gentleman Johnny” a fee for safe passage. Margaret had heard that name often that spring. It was said that Gentleman Johnny “owned” the Great North Road. He was the best shot in England and could strike a thrown copper penny dead center farther than most people could see the penny.
Margaret, who had no great love for highwaymen, was for once glad to be under the protection of one. She would make her journey to Lincoln swiftly and be there in time for the masked ball, where she could deliver her messages and be gone.
But the second day troubles plagued the coach. It had a wheel that kept coming loose. The passengers were irritated as they waited in out-of-the-way places for it to be repaired.
They were a mixed bag, those passengers: a nondescript gentleman from Chichester with nothing to say, two maiden ladies journeying to join a nephew in Lincoln, and an arrogant young man with a sturdy body and a dissipated face—and when she learnt his name, Margaret forgot all about the rest of them.
“So you are Lord Dacey of Claxton House?” she murmured to the young gentleman who was staring rather pointedly at her handsome bustline. “I knew your father.”
It was untrue but Hugh Dacey had no reason to know that. “Indeed?” he said in his slightly unpleasant voice. “And who may you be?”
“Lady Treymayne,” said Margaret glibly. “Of the Lancashire Treymanes. You may have heard of my brother-in-law, the Duke of Ascot?”
All eyes turned toward this titled lady, whose broadcloth gown suddenly assumed a more elegant cut and whose red hair took on a brighter flame.
“Indeed? Lady Treymayne?” Hugh’s dissipated face gained the semblance of a smile. “Do you always travel in that mask?” he asked bluntly, for he now desired to see the face of this titled lady with the elegant figure. He was hoping the face matched the figure, for he was considering inviting her to Claxton House—aye, and making her welcome! He had never bedded the sister-in-law of a duke. It would be a milestone on a long career of debauchery.
“Always,” said Margaret, lightly touching her mask. “One’s complexion is so delicate.” And indeed the smooth peachbloom skin that showed along her jawline gave evidence of that. “The road dust...” She gave a little expressive gesture of her beautiful shoulders.
“Ummm,” said Hugh. “And where is your abigail?” he shot at her, for unlike the others his suspicious nature was not convinced that any lady traveling alone was of high degree.
“Poor thing, she came down with a cold—and so did my coachman. I left them both in Peterborough with my trunks. They can follow me to Lincoln when they are better.”
Hugh’s brows shot up. A coach of her own, by God! And a coachman and an abigail. It would be a pleasure to bed the lady! He could brag about it later!
“Ye are in a hurry to reach Lincoln, then?”
“Oh, yes. I am to attend a friend’s wedding.” She did not volunteer the name of the friend and Hugh did not ask. The coach jolted on.
“That cursed wheel is making us late,” he grumbled.
“Yes,” she agreed. “We lost two hours back there.”
And even as she spoke, the fat coach almost went over on its side and the brakes screeched as the driver pulled the horses to a
halt. He came down from his high perch.
“Trouble with the wheel again,” he shouted and was rewarded by Hugh’s curses, which sounded above the general grumbling of the passengers.
By now Margaret thoroughly regretted her decision to travel by coach—except for one thing: Hugh Dacey. As they disembarked and found seats on flat stones by the roadside, she queried him about life at Claxton House.
“You have a sister, I believe. Is she still unmarried?” For Constance had told her about Felicity and her lace.
“No, married and gone to live in Coventry.” Hugh snorted.
“I take it you did not approve the marriage?”
“I had no chance to approve it. She ran away with a traveling seller of laces who chanced to come by the house in my absence!”
Constance will be glad to hear that Felicity has escaped you! thought Margaret, thinking to send this information to Constance via her next letter to Clifford Archer—a letter that would have to wait, for these were troubled times. Rebellion was in the air. The Duke of Monmouth might already have set sail for England.
“Felicity is well, I take it?” she asked, unperturbed.
Hugh grunted. “Well enough for a woman who has just given birth to twins,” he told her morosely. “She seldom bothers to write.”
Another tidbit for Constance.
“And yourself? Have you married? It is important when one has a title to pass on, you know.”
He gave a short laugh. “No, I’ve never married. Too busy with wenching.” He gave her a nasty grin.
Margaret regarded him coolly. Everything Constance has said about him is true, she thought. And pitied the child Constance had been—that child who had had to deal with him. “But there must be plenty of handsome dowries awaiting only your consent,” she murmured ironically.
In point of fact there were none at all for Hugh Dacey’s reputation was unsavory to the point where civilized folk would scarce let him in their houses, but his chest expanded. “Many,” he agreed. And then, in a spirit of bravado, “If this coach breaks down again. I’ve a good mind to cane the driver!”
Considering the brawn of this particular driver, Margaret considered that a very risky business. But on Constance’s behalf she thought it would be nice if Hugh tried it—and got his bones broken. “Exactly what I would do if I were a man,” she sighed. “Ah, if only Lord Treymayne were here to do it for me!”
“And where is Lord Treymayne, may I ask?”
“Interred in a marble vault in his favorite estate. In Suffolk.”
“Suffolk, you say?” Hugh Dacey had acquaintances in Suffolk. They were not, however, of the consequence of those for whom Margaret on occasion carried messages, and she stunned him with her knowledge of great houses there over whose thresholds he had never trod.
Thus amicably they passed the time, and both—when the driver gloomily asked the passengers if they cared to seek shelter at a nearby cottage or go on with a half-mended wheel in the gathering dusk to an inn down the road—voted to press on.
They had gone barely half a mile when, at a turn in the road, the horses neighed and reared up and the coach came to a sudden rocking halt.
“If it’s that damned wheel again—!” Hugh Dacey had seized his cane and was half out of his seat.
“I think it is not,” said Margaret calmly, for she had cast a glance outside and had seen a masked man with a gun pointed at the driver.
“Everybody out,” roared the driver’s voice and as they spilled out of the coach, the nondescript gentleman from Chichester suddenly pulled out a pistol and ordered the passengers to “stand steady.”
“An accomplice!” raged Hugh. “A damned accomplice!” He jumped down beside her, almost oversetting her as she reached back to help the two twittering elderly ladies down.
Everybody but Margaret had their hands up. She was pretending to cower a bit, and keeping her hand near the pistol in her pocket in case of need. These highwaymen could have her earbobs, but she would fight to keep her locket.
The danger inherent in this pattern of behavior never entered her mind. She regarded her life as finished. She had already lost everything that mattered. With Death she could now afford to play games. She tensed as the masked highwayman dismounted and approached while the other one mounted a spare horse.
Gibb was watching Dev in disapproval. He had not cared for this venture from the first—although he could well understand it once Dev had acquainted him with some of the facts.
Margaret had half expected him to pause before her, to denounce her as the notorious Masked Lady and to seize her. For why should not a King’s agent pose as a highwayman? Indeed it seemed to her an excellent ruse.
But to her surprise he marched straight up to young Lord Dacey and stood staring into that flushed belligerent face.
“Step forward,” he ordered Hugh.
“It’s too bad you don’t have your cane. Lord Dacey.” Margaret gave him her sunniest smile.
Hugh was too frightened to appreciate the malice in that I gibe. “Y-you won’t shoot me?” he worried.
“You’ll have to chance it,” came the ironic voice of the masked man. A pleasant voice, cultivated. Margaret, who was sensitive to voices, approved it.
Hugh took an uncertain step forward.
“Closer!” snapped the highwayman. And as Hugh wavered forward on the uneven ground, he added softly, “Can you think of any good reason why I shouldn’t shoot you?”
“Oh, please!” gibbered Hugh. “I’ve never seen you before—I can’t have done you an injury. Take my money— take anything! There’s a titled lady here on the coach—take her! She can bring you a fat ransom!”
Margaret’s look of cold scorn was interrupted by the highwayman’s ringing laugh. “Always consistent,” he said. “Courageous to the end!” He pointed the pistol at Hugh’s face and Hugh backed away.
“If you move a step farther,” said the highwayman in a conversational tone, “I shall put a bullet exactly between your eyes.”
Hugh came to a shivering stop and stood teetering with one foot on a rock.
“Such a show of spirit!” mocked the highwayman, and of a sudden thrust his pistol into his belt. A shadow of hope flashed over Hugh’s face to disappear at his tormentor’s next words. “You’re to take no comfort from the fact that I’ve put my pistol aside for the moment. That fellow up there”—he nodded at Gibb—“is nearly as good a shot as I am. He could drop you before you’d batted an eyelash. You can put your hands down now.” Gingerly Hugh did so. As if to satisfy their curiosity, the sinewy fellow in the black mask addressed the passengers. “I don’t usually bother with coaches carrying ordinary passengers,” he explained pleasantly. “But for this particular coach I’ve been waiting. For it carries with it this particular gentleman from Yorkshire”—he nodded at Hugh— “and when I learned he’d gone visiting to Peterborough, I’ve waited these three weeks past for him to come north just so I could give him this.”
And with a sudden violent gesture his right fist struck out and cracked against Hugh Dacey’s jaw, delivering such a blow that launched Hugh backward with a crash against the coach.
One of the elderly ladies screamed.
“Is anything the matter, Lord Dacey?” inquired the highwayman politely. “Come, step forward again. I stand here relatively unarmed and I give you my word that my friend here will not shoot you down if you best me.”
Hugh whimpered and shrank against the coach.
“What, do you hesitate?” mocked the highwayman. “I’ve seen you kick men half to death because they didn’t polish your boots well enough.” His voice harshened. “Step forward!” Margaret laughed. “I think Lord Dacey is lost without his cane,” she remarked. “He had promised that if the wheel broke down again he would thrash the driver with it.”
The driver, his hands still lifted in the air, turned a look of enraged disbelief on Lord Dacey. “He couldn’t thrash me if I had one hand tied behind my back!” he roared.
“Well spoke,” approved the highwayman. “Which of us would you care to thrash just now, Hugh? The coach driver or me?”
“I think you’ve broken his jaw, Johnny,” said Gibb calmly.
“He has another,” said Margaret dispassionately.
Hugh began to gibber.
“He’s lucky it wasn’t his neck,” said the highwayman in disgust. “But if the lady here still requires some amusement—?”
Hugh began to cry. Thinking of all that Constance had told her, Margaret savoured every tear.
“I take it Dacey has offended you in some way?” Dev asked, hoping for an excuse for some new attack on Hugh.
“Not recently,” smiled Margaret. “But I think he had it in mind for later.”
Dev gave her a puzzled look, but he had tarried on this dusky road long enough.
“I note your companion here called ye Johnny,” bawled the stage driver as Dev mounted. “And my principals told me in Peterborough that they paid ye good money reg’lar to let our coaches through.”
“You’ll note also, then, that I haven’t robbed your passengers,” that pleasant cultivated voice reminded him. “I’ve just settled an old score with one. A personal matter.”
Margaret’s interest quickened. So this was the famous Gentleman Johnny who patrolled the Great North Road with the insolence of a feudal baron!
“I have need to go north quickly,” Margaret spoke up. “And I would pay in gold for safe passage—and a horse.”
“Don’t do it, Johnny,” said Gibb quickly.
“I’ll make you a bargain,” said the masked lady merrily.: “We’ll keep on our masks until you deliver me safe within reach of Lincoln! You’ll have the gold. I’ll have safe passage—and none will be the wiser.”
Something in her voice stirred old memories in Dev. Her voice reminded him of another voice that had raced along his heartstrings like heavenly music. He was suddenly curious as to who she was.
Lovely Lying Lips Page 39
