The Highwayman's Folly

by Daria Vernon

  The young Harry had surprised her. He was a man of average height, but his boyish leanness lent him a taller appearance. He could not fill his greatcoat, which must have been lifted from a traveler nearly double his size. His hair—of a medium color, somewhat inscrutable in the dark—flopped loose and straight about his face. Like the captain, he wore a scarf to obscure himself, but the objective of concealment had been thwarted by their tussle near the carriage. Now his hairless chin was wrapped for warmth.

  The one they called Captain was more . . . enigmatic.

  Beth was well read on highwaymen and other rogues. The tales and songs of Swift Nick and Dick Turpin had enthralled her as a child. However, much like piracy, the crooked practice was being strangled by the modern times. Epping Forest was being bled of its thieves, and the country would soon be the better for it.

  It was true that the man beside her struck her as no inheritor to the legacy of one such as Swift Nick, but she was bewildered by how easily he’d rankled at the accusation. The reaction was paradoxical to her first impression—that he was stoic, unmoved . . . dangerous. An impression gathered from his no-less-than-haunting appearance.

  To be near to him was to feel him tower over her. Even up close, there were so few clues as to what lay beneath the cape and coat and hat. There were just those eyes, as dark as the rest of him. They gave away little.

  His hands were more telling. Not once had they been rough with her. They were solid. Warm. Difficult to draw away from when her frigid fingers had sought to burrow themselves, out of instinct.

  He had brushed the hair from her eyes. What had that been?

  She’d thought, for one incautious moment, that he was going to let her go. Because—, she had said. Because she could have sworn that the idea had crossed his eyes. She’d thought that with that singular plea, she could grab on to that passing idea and hold it between them to take shape. She’d been wrong. She wasn’t often wrong about people.

  The tenderness of his hands, it seemed, had been no indication of a tenderness of heart.

  Somewhere an owl began to hoot, and to Beth’s ears it sounded an awful lot like

  fool

  fool

  fool

  Their horses walked along the ridge of an embankment. It was on her side of the overgrown trail that everything dropped off into oblivion. To be braced so precariously atop a tall animal at the very precipice of that abyss—it left her struck by a vision of tumbling down it to her death. She gulped at the thought and looked forward, trying to evade a shiver of fear. It overtook her anyway and jerked at her spine.

  The sudden toss of her head displaced her hood. Before she’d time to swear at her frustration, she felt the cool side of a glove against her neck. Turning, she caught the captain leaning over, setting her hood to rights. His eyes focused carefully on the little chore before he returned them, indifferently, to the path ahead.

  She stared at that swaddled face, at the dark eyes that now ignored her. How did anyone know where they were going? All she saw was a pattern of tree trunks, identical in every direction.

  A muscle in her knee twitched painfully. For miles, her left foot had been braced on naught but a leather strap. Now the entire length of her leg was stiffened—throbbing to hold her upright. How could she be expected to ride in this fashion for so long? Her readjustments came at an ever-increasing pace.

  “The place where you sleep strikes me as awfully far from the place where you hunt,” said Beth.

  “Does it?”

  The captain pulled her own watch from his pocket as if to goad her. She pretended not to notice. He brought it close to his eyes in the low light.

  “It’s only been two hours. If not for taking so much—” He flicked his eyes up and down her before choosing his word, “cargo, we might be at a canter.”

  “Sorry to have inconvenienced you so much. As you know, I had every choice in the matter.”

  His face was unmovable in its glower. “It’ll be a little over an hour ’til we arrive.”

  Beth experienced a twinge of surprise that he didn’t engage with her sarcasm. Surprise and . . . disappointment? Light harassment was the only way she hoped to keep him talking, and it seemed vital that she did. Now his demeanor had gone as cold as the air around them. She had to attempt a question, whether they were in conversation or not.

  “What will you do with me there?”

  Every second that ticked by after she choked out the words seemed to buzz with a terrible energy. Her question was swallowed up by the silence of the pre-dawn hour. The captain’s eyes did not so much as flinch in her direction.

  She brought her focus back to flicking at the fabric knot with her thumb. A comforting habit to escape her deafening anxiety. It was because of that anxiety that she hardly knew what happened when her thumb suddenly flew upward.

  The loop on her tie had given way.

  Her heart sprang at the revelation. She stared, agog, at the little circle of frayed fabric. Panic and hope tangled together inside of her as she tried to sort out how best to seize on the small blessing. She looked up at the captain, who still looked ahead.

  Her thumb hooked into the loop and eased it the rest of the way.

  “A lot of it depends on you.”

  Beth’s hands stilled. What?

  The captain looked squarely at her, and she wondered just how many jumbled emotions she could possibly suppress with her one current expression.

  He looked expectant, and at last she realized that he was answering her previous question.

  “How?” she asked.

  “Well,” he said. “If that last will and testament has anything to do with you—and I very much suspect it does—we’ll need to know how to secure our price. So, all of this depends squarely on your degree of cooperation.”

  Beth waited until she had his eye again. “I owe you no such thing as cooperation.” Beth’s cheeks heated. She still didn’t have her answer. “Regardless of my cooperation, will I be safe?”

  The man sighed heavily. She didn’t know what it meant. He lowered his voice. “It’s to our benefit to keep you as safe as possible until you can be delivered.”

  The answer wasn’t good enough.

  “I can’t let my—” Beth thought better of sharing a detail. “I can’t let those close to me be hurt by this.”

  “Even just in the pocket?”

  She didn’t answer. How could she? She couldn’t explain to him the whole life story of what she owed to her dear father.

  He reached out and grabbed part of her horse’s harness to draw it, and her, nearer. She tightened her grip where she pretended to still be securely tied.

  “Tell me. Was I right? That the thin man was going to force you into marriage—at a profit?”

  The stranger’s eyes were almost pleading. The expression unnerved her. She averted her eyes from the penetrating glare, knowing that by doing so she was giving her answer.

  “I thought so. A man like him couldn’t have a woman like you any other way.”

  “I wouldn’t have let him have me that way either.”

  “Oh? What would you have done, then? What if we hadn’t come along?”

  “Don’t pretend to be my hero.” She forgot her harsh whispering and spat out the words sharply. Loudly.

  Sounds at their back—of a horse picking up pace—cowed her.

  Lionel’s horse trotted up alongside the captain, and Beth was nearly squeezed off the trail. She took in a sharp breath as she was pressed closer to the abyss.

  “You talkin’ of plans without me, Captain?

  “Yes, in fact.”

  “Don’t I get a say in how we handle this?”

  Beth stole a glance over her shoulder at the wretched man. He waggled the skin of his brow at her playfully. Her nostril ticked up in disgust.

  “This is
n’t very complicated, Lionel. We’ll find out where she’s from and how much our price will be. Then we’ll exchange her for it.”

  “And in the meantime?”

  The captain looked to her, softening his eyes. “The meantime will not be prolonged.”

  “She’s an awful pretty lady, so if the money don’t work out—”

  Beth’s grip on the harness tightened with rage. It was a good thing because the captain kicked his horse, and suddenly, he and Beth were trotting ahead.

  “I’m just sayin’, Captain. ‘Specially if we don’t get our monies. She’ll be good for somethin’.” The shout faded behind them.

  They slowed down, much farther ahead now than the others.

  “Apologies for him.”

  She didn’t acknowledge him. The slope they rode alongside was no longer as steep.

  Lionel’s horrible grin chewed at Beth’s imagination. It dug into her in a gory, unshakeable way. Her hands were still bound together but successfully unmoored from the harness. Her knee still trembled to hold her upright. Staring down the embankment into the woods, her options suddenly looked quite different.

  One moment, the woman had been right there beside him, the next, she had vanished from sight.

  In an instant, Rhys was on foot, hurrying to the edge of the trail and calling out for his men. An acute cry of pain rang out from somewhere below, and there was a faint rustling as loose rocks and leaves cascaded gently down the embankment in her wake. At the trail’s edge, a deep gash in the wet leaves marked where she had flung herself down the slope.

  Lionel was, unsurprisingly, the first to speak up. “What the hell did you do? Where is she?”

  Rhys pointed down the hill, daring Lionel with his eyes to say one more word.

  Harry piped in with compensatory helpfulness. “I can go down and fetch her.”

  “I’ll do it,” said Rhys grimly. “It’s my own wretched fault.”

  “Why are either of you goin’ down there?” Lionel raked a hand through the tangles of his beard. “She’s more trouble than she’s worth. We got no guarantee with her. She’s taken our time enough, hasn’t she?”

  Solomon didn’t speak up but nodded in solidarity with the smaller man as he stared down into the gully.

  Rhys hardly heard the argument. He couldn’t peel his eyes from the shadows, from searching for movement. She would die down there. She was lost—injured from the sound of it—and there was no place she could get to before the cold and damp got her first.

  He’d not been paying enough attention. He’d underestimated not only her desperation but her will.

  Rhys wrinkled his face, having smelled Lionel’s approach.

  “Sellin’ the hack horses will probably turn a better profit in the end.”

  “No.” He put a hand on Lionel’s chest, urging him to back off. “I think this will be worth it.” He looked back down the slope. “I think she will be worth it.”

  The filthy man stepped back and grumbled before spitting on the ground. “She’s probably dead.”

  She might be. But Rhys had to know.

  Harry pulled a rope from his kit and tied it to a sturdy tree trunk nearby before handing the slack to Rhys. “This’ll help.”

  “Thank you.”

  Harry turned to the others. “We haven’t been taking much this winter. I think Captain is right. I think she’s valuable.”

  Rhys thanked Harry again by way of a tragic nod. The poor lad thought he was helping. The young man’s eyes brimmed with a steady respect for Rhys, in spite of all of his mistakes. If there was anything that Rhys could take back now, it would have been involving the boy in their original crime. He was educated. He could have had a real life, instead of—this.

  Rhys went to the edge and tugged at the rope, testing it. Nothing else could be heard from below.

  “Hullo!” called Harry from over Rhys’ shoulder. Nothing. But why would there be, even if she were well?

  Still, the lack of response reached into him and tightened on his gut. An uncomfortably familiar feeling. An instinct. The same one that had overtaken him when he first touched her hands and felt the coldness there. It was the same now but much, much stronger.

  Raindrops began to fall. Large, but sparse.

  Rhys undid his cape and threw it over the saddle. Scrambling down would be challenge enough with only his greatcoat in the way. “I’ll be back up as quickly as possible. Stay nearby so I can call to you.”

  Harry nodded. The other two watched idly.

  Rhys kicked the heel of a boot into the ground to test it. It gave way easily. There was no chance she’d slid down in any graceful manner, particularly if her hands remained tied. Gripping the rope in one hand, he began to guide himself down, sideways, into the wilderness.

  Chapter 4

  Beth’s eyesight reeled. The tree trunks still spun like wheel spokes, even though her body had come to rest. Her eyelashes fluttered, trying to trap a drunken reality in their tiny grasp and hold it upright for her.

  As her blood stopped spinning, her mind cleared, and she began to take stock. She was resting on a landing in the slope, where the base of a tree had caught her—not very gently—from tumbling farther. Her left shoulder felt odd, swirling with a strange mix of heat and cold. She strained her chin down to have a look.

  Her traveling habit was slashed open and a plume of her white cotton chemise erupted starkly from the damage. The air licked against her exposed neck and shoulder, pointedly cold and cruel. Just as she strained for a better look at the puff of chemise, it was pinched by a spot of crimson, which quickly became a web. She watched, entranced as the little billow of fabric deflated beneath the weight of her own blood.

  The laceration itself was impossible to see. Her fingers fumbled around on her collarbone, searching, until one intrusive fingertip stabbed its mark too perfectly and made everything white with pain. She sucked in tightly. Bit her lip. Slammed her palm flatly against the wound. At least the bone beneath did not feel broken.

  She wiggled the fingers on her left hand. Everything moved, but every tiny sinew sent ripples of pain up to her collarbone. Still, she brought it up to her neck to check for something else—Dahlia’s cape. Instead of finding its ribbons, she found the chafed and tender skin where the tumble had violently torn it away from her.

  It still rained. Large droplets, coming heavy and slow. They invaded her eyes, making her vision no better than the view through a crown glass window. Thoughtlessly, she removed her right hand from her wound and swiped the water from her eyes with a drag of her wrist.

  Clearing her vision, she stared at that hand, red with her blood. The fall had ripped the palm from her fine glove—likely as she’d grappled for purchase on her whirling surroundings. Now it hung there, a limp flap of kidskin. Something else hung from her wrist too. Fabric. It finally sank in that her hands were moving independently, that—

  Freedom.

  While she had liberated her wrists from the harness, it was the tumble that had liberated them from one another.

  She breathed in a new breath, full and hopeful, while she tested the use of her fingers, her ankles, her knees . . .

  Everything seemed to be in working order, in spite of many pains.

  She cast her gaze up the steep hill. Perhaps her cloak was not too far up? Perhaps she might get to it. Thoughts of such a retrieval were borderline delusional, she knew that, but she couldn’t dismiss the fact that an extra layer was now essential to her survival. She tried to push herself up on her good side and failed. Steeling herself for another attempt, she suddenly heard the rustle of loose debris flowing down the embankment.

  God. They were still coming after her.

  She clawed her fingers into the wet ground and heaved, successful. The nearby tree that had bruised her was now her support as she used it to shimmy up into a kneeling posit
ion. She cast her eyes down the rest of the hill—the cliff, more like. It was her last avenue of escape. There was more undergrowth there to slow a descent—dead bramble and berry bushes—but she didn’t know what lay beyond them or how much more of this her body could take. She was still surveying it keenly when she heard him behind her—

  “Please don’t,” he said.

  She whipped around, making the raw skin of her neck sing with anguish. She bit back her reaction. The captain was only a couple of yards away.

  His own cape was gone, making him seem more the size of a mortal man, but his face was still bundled up against the cold and against recognition. A damp tendril of dark hair clung to his temple, a previously obscured detail that led her to look heavenward. The sky was a brightening gray, the hour now more early than late.

  The man crouched low, stretching an arm between them—the posture of one trying to accustom a frightened animal to human touch. Something was draped over his arm in offering—her cape. His other hand lifted up in surrender.

  Through her panting breaths, she took it all in. The large stranger, making himself smaller for her. The dark eyes beneath his dripping brim, unblinking. Puffs of hot breath escaping from behind his muffler. His shoulders heaved up and down, just as hers did. For a fleeting moment, their breaths fell into step.

  She looked over her shoulder at escape below. The berry bushes promised her their clawing thorns but also their protection from broken bones—a difficult bargain.

  “Please don’t.” The repetition was so near to how he’d said it the first time that she almost wondered if she’d imagined it. She looked back to him.

  He got lower, taking a knee to be more level with her. She could swear he’d drawn nearer when her head was turned. He laid the cloak, looking tattered and useless, between them.

  “I found this,” he said. “I think you probably need it. You can take it if you want, and go down there, but I have to tell you that I don’t think you’ll make it.”