by Hope Tarr
“Now wait one blasted minute. I ’ope ye b’aint suggestin’ what I think.”
“And what if I am? Robert isn’t much taller than I am. I used to dress in his clothing when we were children. Remember?” Giddy from brandy and nerves, she pivoted, submitting all of her five feet seven inches to his inspection. “He left some clothes behind. I can borrow a pair of breeches and a coat. No one would ever guess it’s me.”
He shook his head. “Are ye sure ye won’t be wantin’ one o’ Cook’s brews?” He started toward the door.
Chelsea twirled once more. “I may have had a brief attack of nerves, but I assure you that all my faculties are intact.” More or less. Dizzy, she ground to a halt in the center of the worn carpet. “It’s not as though I’m proposing to make a career of it.”
He pressed a palm to his forehead. “But, Miss Chelsea, if ye was to be caught…They might not hang ye but, child, think o’ yer reputation. Ye’d be a ruined woman.”
She lifted her chin. “As if I give a fig for that.”
It was not as though being branded an outcast would be a drastic departure from the ordinary. With Jack as her nursemaid, Chelsea had grown up more interested in picking locks than in playing with dolls, in riding her pony than in stitching her sampler, in climbing trees and fences with Robert and his friends than in practicing her pianoforte. A “strange, unnatural creature,” she’d overheard the vicar’s wife call her on more than one occasion. Not that she cared…much.
Jack folded his arms and glared. “Well, I care. I b’aint raised ye only to see ye die an ole maid.”
She shrugged. “I might as well. There’s no one in Upper Uckfield I care to marry.”
That was only too true. Mired as she was in the country and with no money for a London Season, the only men she ever met were farmers’ sons. Nice boys, most of them, but a far cry from the Sir Lancelots, Childe Harolds, and sundry Greek gods she encountered in the pages of books.
But no romantic hero was going to come to her rescue—or Robert’s. It was all up to her.
She forged ahead. “I don’t intend on getting caught. I’ll lay One-Eyed Jack to rest the moment I’ve gotten the money I need for Robert’s ransom. And,” she reminded him, “you’ve boasted often enough that I can manage a horse as well as any man. Better than most.”
“That b’aint the point.” Jack raked a hand through his few remaining threads of gray hair.
“Why not ask the squire for the blunt?”
The recent memory, vivid and ugly, flashed through her consciousness. She shuddered. “As it happens, I’ve just come from calling on him.”
Tread warily. Jack is fiercely protective of me. If I tell him the whole truth, he may just take it into his head to thrash Dumfreys within an inch of his life. Assaulting a gentleman could mean prison—or worse.
“And?” he prompted, watching her.
Suddenly weak-kneed, she subsided into her chair. “I’m afraid I was unable to meet his, er…terms for repayment,” she answered, deciding that a half-truth would serve her better than an outright lie.
He rubbed his good eye. “What about yer mum’s sister?”
Her chin snapped up. “You know perfectly well Aunt Esther hasn’t a farthing beyond her widow’s portion. That only leaves…”
“The magistrate.” He spat the words.
Chelsea folded her arms, knowing she had won. Jack had little respect for the law and even less for Minnington, who thirty years before had called her father a fool for entrusting his plate to a convicted felon.
Jack curled the crooked fingers of his right hand into a fist. “That lily-livered, no-good…”
She waited for his diatribe to end, then concluded, “So, you see, we really have no other alternative.”
“We?”
She nodded briskly. “I shall look to you to instruct me on all the finer points of highway robbery. The quick getaway, for one. You’ve said often enough that you know the roads from here to London like the back of your hand.”
Jack grudgingly conceded that he might have made such a statement once or twice.
Her head felt as though rocks were pounding it, but she summoned a smile. “Naturally, I shall also want your advice on how to go about fencing the stolen items. Do you think that it shall be possible to enlist the help of some of your former colleagues?”
His craggy features drooped. “You’re bound and determined, b’aint ye?”
“Quite. You’ll help me?”
Jack gave her a look as if to say, Was there ever any doubt?
Gazing into his loyal face, guilt surged. She really had no right to ask him to take such a risk on her behalf. People in Sussex had long memories. If they were caught, she would lose her property. Jack would lose his life.
The image of his big body dangling from a gibbet bolted through her mind. She rose and rushed to his side. “Oh, Jack, I’ll be careful. We won’t get caught. I swear it.” She threw her arms about his neck and hugged him hard.
“I wish I could promise the same.”
She lifted her head from his shoulder. “Jack?”
He gently disengaged her clinging hands. “I don’t know how much good I’ll be to ye, lass. There’s a world o’ difference between a young buck and a codger o’ sixty odd.”
Doubts churned inside her. At a loss to resolve them, she touched his sleeve. “Nonsense. There will be no physical labor involved. I’ll only need you to show me the ropes—” she hesitated, thought better of it, and added, “—and perhaps to hold the pistol steady while I gather the booty, at least until I get the hang of it.”
She gulped. Ropes. Hang of it. In light of what she and Jack were about to undertake, the misspoken words only fermented her fear.
Chapter Two
Anthony Grenville, né Antonious Ignatius de la Fontaine Grenville, seventh Viscount of Montrose and scion of the house of Grenville, was bored. Thoroughly, utterly, inexorably bored, he admitted, concealing a yawn in the back of his glove.
Not that either of his two traveling companions would notice. Caught up in wedding fervor, Phoebe and her mother began planning the trousseau almost as soon as their slippered feet hit his carriage floor. Merely the bridegroom, he wasn’t expected to listen, let alone to offer an opinion, a state of affairs that suited him admirably. Far better to simply push the window curtain aside and try to lose himself in the Sussex countryside rolling by.
Green. It was all so damned green. He leaned out and let the dampness brush his face. How he’d missed the hedgerows, the gentle sweep of the hills, the mists that rose every evening and stayed until well past dawn. He’d even missed the rain. Especially the rain. How long they’d seemed, those two years he’d sweltered beneath a scorching Spanish sun, fighting for God and king and country—someone else’s country.
He turned back inside and stretched his long legs, taking special care with his stiff right one. It was sixteen months since his wounds had secured his passage home from the Iberian Peninsula. It had been a shock to learn of Uncle Ignatius’s death. His heir, Anthony’d become a rich man overnight, the envy of his friends and enemies alike, most of whom still lived on their expectations. Free of his own father and flush with Ignatius’s money, he’d sampled nearly every sinful pleasure known to man—and no doubt invented a few novel ones. The irony was that nothing pleased. Nothing satisfied. And nothing, nothing, could chase away the demons that haunted his nights. Or fill the dark, numbing emptiness that marked his days.
Wretched excess might have been his undoing had he not parted from Claudette, the delectable French opera dancer who’d eased the tedium of his first few months of convalescence. Claudette wasn’t the first mistress to whom Anthony had given her congé. The abundant tears, flying objects, and foul curses were all to be expected, especially when one’s mistress was French. But when she’d snatched the letter opener and threatened to plunge it into her heart, Anthony had known he was dealing with genuine hysteria. He’d wrested the deadly object from her just in
time. A diamond bracelet, the deed to a summer cottage in Brighton, and the promise of an introduction to a wealthy baron finally convinced her that life without him was still worth living. And convinced him that it was high time he settled down to do his duty.
Which meant marriage. He glanced across the carriage to the woman who, in one month, would be his wife. Golden-haired, alabaster-complexioned, and blue-eyed, Lady Phoebe Tremont was the living, breathing incarnation of everything revered about English womanhood throughout the ages. She’d been the crowning jewel of the London Season when he’d spotted her six months before on the opposite end of Lady Chizzilwick’s ballroom, a chaste nymph draped in debutante white and flanked by admirers. Competition flavored the encounter with the verve of a quixotic quest, and Anthony had not hesitated to storm the castle walls. He’d hobbled across the packed floor to breach the human turret surrounding her. Ignoring the shocked gasps from the chaperones’ corner, the full dance card dangling from Phoebe’s wrist, and the furious faces of the gentlemen who had bespoken those dances, Anthony waltzed her onto the dance floor before anyone thought to stop him.
If only someone had. The tepid attraction he’d first felt ebbed the moment she accepted his marriage proposal. Now he acknowledged that it was the thrill of the chase, not the final prize, that held his interest during the months of obligatory courting.
But what was done was done. He closed his eyes and leaned back against the leather squab. If only he could close his ears to the two buzzing female voices—his mother-in-law’s especially.
“I’ve bespoken a lovely barège silk for the gown. And of course you shall have Brussels lace for the veil and train.”
Phoebe examined the stitching of her gloves. “Oh, Mama, do you think? Libby swears Honiton is all the rage.”
Lady Tremont’s lips curved into a sneer. “Olivia Whitebridge is a tasteless cow, just like her mother. I wouldn’t trust either one to dress a window, let alone a bride.”
The corners of Anthony’s mouth lifted. What would Lady Tremont say if she knew he was a habitual patron of Madame Valen’s London dress shop? What he’d spent on Claudette’s undergarments alone would keep a family of four for a year.
Her ladyship’s pale brows lifted as though she were indeed privy to his sordid thoughts. “Lord Montrose, what is so amusing? You seem quite in a world of your own.”
Anthony eyed his future mother-in-law with cold dislike. The moment the ring was on Phoebe’s finger, he’d send the shrew packing. Until then…
He found his smile. “I was just thinking that Phoebe could come down the aisle wearing sack cloth and still be a beautiful bride.”
Phoebe’s wafer-thin lips curved into a shy smile that failed to stir him.
Lady Tremont sniffed. “Prettily spoken, milord, but we shall endeavor to do Phoebe—and yourself—greater credit than that.”
“Indeed.” He looked to Phoebe, her gaze once more fixed on her folded hands. If only she had something—anything—to say for herself.
But it was no use. Swallowing a sigh, he leaned back and pushed his hat forward over his closed his eyes. Like the pastoral panorama outside his window, his future unfolded before him.
It was all very neat, very conventional, and very dull.
Anthony dozed. When he awoke, it was dark. Still slouched against the seat, he looked across to Phoebe and Lady Tremont. Heads pillowed on each other’s shoulders, they appeared to be sleeping soundly.
He shut his eyes and willed himself to drift off. If only his fatigue, his omnipresent ennui, were the sort that slumber could sate. Still, sleep could be a beautiful escape. Sometimes.
Horses—two of them, he thought—thundered toward them. He bolted upright.
“Halt! Prepare to stand and deliver!”
The hoarse shout sent adrenaline coursing through his veins, galvanizing his every limb for action.
Seconds later, the coach shuddered to a standstill, pitching Phoebe and her mother forward. Anthony threw out an arm to keep them from falling onto the floor.
Lady Tremont shook him off. “Lord Montrose, whatever is going on? Why have we stopped?” She drew back the window curtain and squinted outside.
Anthony reached for his carriage pistol, feeling the familiar emotional detachment descend. Both blessing and curse, this ability to step outside one’s body, yet function within it. He unbuttoned his jacket and slipped his pistol into an inside pocket. “Ladies, I believe we are about to be robbed.”
Two pairs of blue eyes widened at that declaration. Lady Tremont paled. Her eyelids fluttered, then closed. A moment later, she slumped against the seat. The ostrich feather atop her bonnet snapped in two. One end dangled over her nose and mouth.
“Oh, Mama!” Phoebe’s frightened gaze flew to Anthony. “Milord—Anthony—what shall we do?”
He surveyed his future mother-in-law, her plume rising and falling with each breath. How peaceful she appeared, how…silent.
“Better not to wake her.”
Phoebe’s mouth trembled. “B-but—”
“Hush, Phoebe.” He reached over and patted the top of her icy hand. “Follow my direction and all will be well.”
The carriage door flung open. Seconds later, they were staring down the butt of a pistol.
A bald head and a set of massive, crooked shoulders filled the narrow doorway. A black patch covered the intruder’s left eye. Phoebe cowered against the seat.
“Out ye go, if ye please. Me master, One-Eyed Jack, craves a word wi’ ye,” the aging cyclops informed them cheerfully, his index finger poised on the trigger of the cocked pistol.
Like the man, the weapon was an antiquated relic. Still, if fired at point-blank range, it could hardly miss. He would wait until they cleared the carriage, then make his move. His chances of overcoming the footpads would improve infinitely if Phoebe and her mother stayed behind.
“My fiancée has a delicate constitution.” Anthony shot Phoebe a look, warning her to silence. “I will go with you, only permit her to remain here to look after her mother.”
The hulk shook his head. “’Er too.” He studied the unconscious Lady Tremont. “She can stay.”
This fellow is more intelligent than he appears. Hovering between outrage and amusement, Anthony disembarked and helped a shaking Phoebe down the carriage steps.
Still, if this brute was only a lackey, Anthony was not looking forward to encountering his master. He was, however, encouraged by the footpad’s stiff, arthritic gait as he nudged them over to a stand of trees. The moon slipped free of a bank of clouds, silhouetting a slight figure in a slouched hat holding Anthony’s driver, Masters, at gunpoint. One-Eyed Jack? The second highwayman turned toward them, and Anthony saw that he also wore an eye patch.
Why, One-Eyed Jack was no more than a lad and not a very sturdy one at that. The boy’s long legs were encased in snug breeches that might have been painted on. A dark swallow-tailed coat hugged a trim waist and slim hips. Under more congenial circumstances, Anthony might have found himself asking the young man for the name of his tailor.
One-Eye slipped the driver’s weapon into his coat pocket. Squaring his narrow shoulders, he sauntered toward them, his own pistol held awkwardly in his gloved hand. The studied confidence of his gait did not match the uncertainty reflected in the depths of his gaze.
Eyes wide, Phoebe turned to Anthony. “For pity’s sake, don’t let him ravish me.”
One-Eyed Jack halted a few paces in front of them, and Phoebe swayed. Anthony grabbed her arm, hoping the boy would not mistake the quick movement as a threat.
“Courage, my dear. Now is not the time to succumb to a fit of the vapors,” Anthony warned beneath his breath.
Lantern light showed the boy’s cheeks to be as smooth as a newborn’s. The fragile felon wasn’t even old enough to shave. Anthony suppressed a chuckle, confident that Phoebe would survive the adventure with her well-guarded virginity intact.
“Good evening, milord, milady.”
The
boy tipped his hat in Phoebe’s direction, and Anthony sighted a smattering of freckles sprinkling the bridge of a pert little nose. A redhead, he deduced, storing away that bit of information for later.
“I am One-Eyed Jack, first knight of these roads,” the lad informed them in a low, husky voice.
“So I gathered,” Anthony replied, amused by the display of adolescent braggadocio.
Beneath the shadowing brim of his hat, the boy’s fair face flushed. He looked over Anthony’s shoulder to the hulk, as if waiting to be cued. Anthony didn’t turn, but he sensed that some signal passed between the two.
The aging Goliath unwedged the pistol from the small of Anthony’s back and stepped in front of him, proffering a hat.
“Yer purse and be quick about it, guv.”
“Certainly,” Anthony answered pleasantly, wondering if the oddly matched pair might be father and son, with the elder initiating little Jack into the family business. He seemed inordinately protective of his protégé.
Careful to keep his pistol concealed inside his jacket, Anthony removed his purse. He dropped the small leather satchel into the hat. When the gunman grunted toward the gold pocket watch dangling from his waistcoat, Anthony obligingly parted with it as well.
One-Eyed Jack smiled at Phoebe. Two rows of even, white teeth flashed in the darkness. “Now your turn, milady.”
“M-me? But I have no valuables.”
Both footpads stared at the beaded reticule dangling from her wrist.
“Oh, this?” Her voice trembled. “But this is just pin money.”
“In that case, you should have no problem parting with it.” The boy sneered.
Sniffling, Phoebe slipped the reticule off and tossed it into the crown of the hat.
The boy aimed a forefinger at her throat. “I’ll have that necklace as well.”