Pale Moon Rider

by Marsha Canham

  “Good evening, Colonel. Dash me if I was not beginning to wonder if someone was playing a bad prank on me.”

  “Hart?” Roth’s eyes narrowed with disbelief. “What the bloody hell are you doing out here?”

  “Well, as you can see,” Tyrone swirled aside his cape to display the fine cut of the garments he wore beneath, “I was on m’ way to a soiree. Thunder strike me if I am not assailed at gunpoint instead and ordered out of m’ rig. I vow it was Captain Starlight, no less, who instructed me to wait here until I was informed otherwise. Took m’ driver, so he did. Led him off into the woods at gunpoint, and … good gracious, sir! What happened to your face?”

  Roth’s stitched and swollen cheek gave a vicious throb as he dismounted. “I cut myself shaving. What else did he say to you?”

  “Only that I was to give you something and you were to give me something, and when he was satisfied you were not up to any tricks, he would show himself and … er … fulfill his part of the bargain. Yes, that was it. That was what he said: fulfill his part of the bargain.”

  Roth tried to peer into the nearby trees, but the glare from the ring of lamps had ruined his night sight.

  “You’re a clever bastard, Starlight,” he shouted. “But how do I know you will keep your word and not just take the old man and vanish into the night?”

  “How do I know you will keep your word to grant free pardon to Mademoiselle d’Anton and her brother?” came a rejoinder from somewhere deep in the blackest of shadows.

  “Because I gave it as an officer and a gentleman, and I give it to you again, now, in front of witnesses.”

  “Then I give you my word again, as a thief and libertine, in front of these same witnesses, that as soon as Finn is on board the coach and the coach has driven away, I will surrender myself as per our agreement.”

  The voice was distorted by the trees and sent a hollow echo through the dampness. It was also moving between each exchange, making it difficult to pinpoint an exact location.

  Roth considered his options a moment, then beckoned to Marlborough to bring the prisoner forward.

  “If you renege, Starlight,” he added, withdrawing a packet of folded documents from beneath his uniform lapels, “these pardons will not be worth the paper they are written on. Moreover, there will be no one to call off Edgar Vincent’s men and when they find your little French whore, they will carve her up in pieces so small the fish won’t have to chew.”

  Beside him, Tyrone dabbed a folded handkerchief under his nose. “Dear me. That would he most unpleasant.”

  Roth glared at him. “You said he gave you something to give to me?”

  “Eh? Oh yes. Yes, the threat of violence does make the mind wander, does it not?” Tyrone reached inside the coach and drew out a similarly folded, beribboned sheaf of papers which he handed to Roth in exchange for the pardons.

  By this time, the horses carrying Marlborough and Finn had reached the circle of lanterns. In the glare of the lamplight, the cut on Finn’s temple was an ugly blotch, thick with scab. His hair stuck out in spikes and his skin resembled crushed parchment.

  “Untie him,” came the voice from the woods, “and help him into the coach. Corporal Marlborough, were you informed of the terms of this exchange?”

  The corporal’s eyes scanned the woods as he cleared his throat. “Actually … no sir. I was not.”

  “In exchange for Mr. Finn’s release, and the expunging of all charges against Mademoiselle Renée d’Anton and her brother, Antoine d’Anton, I have agreed to surrender myself along with a full written confession.”

  Corporal Marlborough was clearly shocked.

  “Do you happen to know of any treachery lurking around the next bend in the road, or any reason why I should not trust Colonel Roth’s assurances that Mr. Finn is now a free man?”

  “No, s—-sir,” the corporal stammered, then repeated in a clearer voice, “No, sir, I do not.”

  “Or any reason why Mademoiselle d’Anton and her brother should fear any legal repercussions?”

  The young officer flushed. “No, sir! I do not!”

  “Will you give me your word as an officer in His Majesty’s Royal Dragoons to uphold the terms of the arrangements?”

  “Absolutely, sir. My word as a gentleman as well.”

  Roth had opened the papers and had tilted the pages into the light, scanning the neatly written script. He looked up briefly to jerk his head in Finn’s direction. “Untie him. Put him in the coach.”

  Marlborough swung down out of the saddle and did as he was ordered. Finn had been considerably weakened by the cold and the jouncing ride and had to be supported when his wobbly knees failed to hold him up, but his eyes were clear and hard; they had not wavered from Tyrone’s face since hearing the terms of the exchange. When he drew abreast, Tyrone offered a slight bow and handed him the pardons.

  “These would, perhaps, be best kept in your care. You will have to give the lovely mam’selle my sincerest felicitations when next you see her,” he said. “Tell her … tell her I am so sorry we were never able to have that dance.”

  Finn swallowed hard enough to set his adam’s apple bobbing, but although he tried to speak, the words were just a mumble of sounds.

  A moment later there was a rustling of brush and saplings and Robert Dudley came limping out of the woods. He was glaring over his shoulder, straightening his jacket with small indignant jerks. “’Ee said as ’ow I was to drive away now, sar. Up in the box, ’ee says. Ply the whip an’ don’t look back. Soon as we’re on the wheel, ’ee’ll come out.”

  “Well then,” Tyrone said. “I should think that means I have done m’ part. If you have no objections, Colonel?”

  “Get the hell out of here, Hart. And if you know what is good for you, you will forget everything you saw and heard here tonight.”

  “Indeed. I have quite forgotten it already.”

  With a swirl of his cape, he boarded the coach and closed the door. There was a lengthy delay while Dudley maneuvered his stiff leg up into the driver’s box, and, after glancing down once and muttering something under his breath, he took up the reins and spurred the horses forward.

  Roth was still skimming the contents of the confession when the coach passed by. He watched the eye of the riding lamp until it vanished around the sharp bend at the top of the gulley, then half turned to smirk at Marlborough.

  “I guess we will see now if Starlight is a man of his word.”

  The young corporal was frowning, staring at the edge of the woods. “Sir … ?”

  Roth twisted fully around. Where the coach had been, a figure was now standing by the side of the road. He wore a long greatcoat with a standing collar and his tricorn was pulled low over his brow, leaving only an inch of shadowy space for the glitter of his eyes to shine through. He had a saddle pouch slung over one shoulder and the twin barrelled snaphaunces in his hands.

  “Odd that you should have doubted my word, Roth. Thieves are supposed to trust one another. Our own peculiar brand of noblesse oblige, if you will. Murderers, on the other hand, are an entirely different breed. You just never know when a shot will come at you out of the dark.”

  Roth’s amber eyes flickered in the lantern light as he stared at the guns. “And is this your idea of complying with the agreed terms?”

  There was but a moment’s hesitation before Tyrone reversed the direction of the guns and held them out, stock end first, toward Corporal Marlborough. “I agreed to surrender, unarmed, to an honorable representative of His Majesty’s government.”

  Roth’s lips thinned to a flat line. “Collect the guns, Mister Marlborough.”

  The corporal hurried forward to obey, then backed slowly away, holding the heavy weapons down by his sides.

  “I am surprised to see you only brought six men with you,” Tyrone said, crooking his head slightly in the direction of the Volunteers who were edging their mounts closer to the ring of lights. “Then again … suppose it is a sufficient number for a fi
ring squad. I am presuming, of course, that you have no intentions of letting me walk away from here alive.”

  “Did you really think I would?”

  “I would have been shocked if you had, Colonel. After all, you did murder Edgar Vincent in cold blood; why should I anticipate any better treatment?”

  “The old man confessed to the crime,” Roth countered evenly.

  “Indeed, and while he was in your custody writing out his confession, did he happen to mention how he came to be in possession of such a distinctive weapon? A cannon-barrelled pocket gun with a diamond-patterned steel grip. Ever seen one like it before, Corporal Marlborough?”

  The corporal glanced uncomfortably at the colonel, but Roth’s attention was fixed on the saddle pouch slung over Tyrone’s shoulder. “I assume you have complied with all of my terms?”

  A black gloved hand reached up and unslung the leather sack, giving it a careless swing before tossing it into the closest pool of lantern light. The neck was not fastened tightly and the contents spilled out onto the ground in a glittering array of jewels, coins in gold and silver. In the silence, each of the half dozen Volunteers could be heard gasping, muttering under their breath.

  “The return of your personal property, Colonel, as requested, and as near to what I can recall Edgar Vincent having in his possession that night. I’m sure Lord Paxton can tell you if anything is missing; he does seem to keep rather detailed inventories of what he steals from his own bank vaults.”

  Roth unsheathed his sword. “If you are trying to bait me, Starlight, you are succeeding. But before this little farce progresses any further, perhaps you will oblige us all by stepping into the light and showing your face.”

  Tyrone reached up slowly and removed the tricorn. Dark, gleaming waves of hair fell forward over a wide brow and cheeks that wore no camouflaging paints or powders. He unfastened the two buttons at the top of the greatcoat and shrugged the heavy garment off his shoulders, standing in waistcoat, shirt, and breeches while the point of Roth’s sword wavered and sank in astonishment until it rested on the ground.

  “What the devil—? What are you playing at now, Hart?”

  “Absolutely nothing, I assure you,” Tyrone promised in his own rich baritone. “As you said last night, the time for games is over.”

  Marlborough’s jaw dropped open. “You? You … are Captain Starlight?”

  “In the living flesh, Corporal, although to hear some of the wild tales of wraiths and phantoms, I can only hope I am not too great a disappointment.”

  “Good God,” Roth rasped. “How have you managed to get away with it all these years?”

  “In truth, it was ridiculously easy. Skulk about like a thief and men see a thief. Caper about like a fool and you fit in so well with the rest of the fools, no one thinks you capable of buttoning your own breeches without assistance. The theory does not always work, of course. Take yourself, by way of example. You look like an officer in your scarlet and buff. When you are strutting about issuing orders on a parade ground, I imagine you even act like an officer. But last night, when you were in that brothel in Spon End beating a whore half to death because she couldn’t stop laughing at you, I shouldn’t think anyone would have thought you anything but a pitiful deviant.”

  Marlborough sent yet another startled glance in Roth’s direction, but the colonel only shrugged it off. “He has a vivid imagination. I was nowhere near Spon End last night, nor do I frequent brothels of such low repute.”

  “No, you generally prefer raping and beating victims of a higher quality,” Tyrone mused. “Like the daughter of the magistrate in Aberdeen seven years ago. As I recall, you beat her so badly she never walked again, and the magistrate was so distraught he hung himself.”

  “Aberdeen?” Roth’s eyes narrowed. “What do you know about Aberdeen?”

  “I was there. I was a guest in one of your prison cells. You used to fetch me into your office every other day and lay stripes across my back for the sheer pleasure of it. You tried to do something else to me as well, as I recall, having been so thoroughly aroused by all the blood, but there was still enough life in me to reach around and grab you by that puny little finger of flesh you call your manhood, and to give it such a twist you were squealing and flopping on the floor like a beached fish.”

  Two of the Volunteers who were not mesmerized by the spilled jewels guffawed as Roth’s face flushed a deep red. He took several jerky strides forward, and raised his blade, bringing the tip to rest at the base of Tyrone’s throat. Over the bright slash of steel he peered intently into Hart’s face trying to see something familiar in the nose, the mouth, the pale, almost colorless eyes. The lanterns on the ground were throwing the shadows upward, distorting the present, confusing the past, but it was the eyes, at last, he settled upon, staring into them, seeing the same cold hatred he had seen seven years ago.

  Roth grinned, slowly and maliciously. “Well, well, well. We do seem to have traveled a full circle, have we not? You had a different name then and you were … stealing cattle, were you not? Cattle and cabbages and crusts of bread. Now it is diamonds and rubies and pearls, by God. Still a thief but one with pretensions of being a gentleman.”

  He swished the blade away from Tyrone’s neck, leaving a bleeding nick behind.

  “At least I manage to fool the general population into believing it,” Hart said, “which is more than you have been able to do.”

  Roth had already turned away, but in response to Tyrone’s taunt, he spun around, slicing out and up with the sword, carving a mark in Hart’s cheek to equal the wound on his own. Tyrone flinched back, cupping his hand over the wound. Blood oozed instantly through his fingers and ran down his wrist in shiny red rivulets, soaking the cuff of his shirt.

  “They used to brand thieves with red hot irons,” Roth hissed. “A pity the custom went out of fashion. They used to geld bastards, too, to prevent the corrupted bloodlines from procreating.”

  He lunged, thrusting the blade forward, but Tyrone anticipated the strike and was able to deflect the blade onto his thigh. It cut through his breeches and slashed the muscle, drawing an involuntary grunt of pain from between his clenched teeth.

  “From what I heard, Roth, you might as well be gelded. It’s really only the soft-faced boys who make you feel like a man, isn’t it? Soft-faced boys and whores who take the blame when you aren’t able to perform.”

  Roth’s next move came with the swiftness of a viper’s tongue, a thrust and slash that caught Tyrone’s right hand and forearm, laying both open to the bone and sending him to his knees with the pain and shock.

  “Sir—” Marlborough started forward to object. “Mr. Hart is unarmed! He has surrendered himself into our care!”

  “Stay out of this, Corporal, and stay out of my way!”

  “But sir, he has surrendered himself into my care, and I have given my bond—”

  “I said, stay out of it Corporal!”

  With fury mottling the whiteness of his complexion, Roth waited until Tyrone had staggered to his feet again, then brought his blade arcing across the lantern light, intending to leave yet another red stripe in the gore that was already spreading across the front of his shirt. Once again Tyrone anticipated the strike and turned so swiftly, the colonel stumbled over a rut in the road as he tried to recover from the follow-through.

  The faux pas only infuriated him more and he slashed out with a decided lack of finesse, catching Tyrone high on the shoulder, hacking through cloth and flesh with enough force to send the wounded man to his knees again.

  White-faced, Marlborough leaped forward, placing himself between Roth and Hart. The colonel’s outraged eyes focused on the young officer’s face, then on the fully cocked snaphaunce he held outstretched in his hand.

  “I will not stand by and let you attack an unarmed man, sir. You will set down your sword or suffer the consequences!”

  Roth tilted his head in disbelief. “You are defending this man? You are protecting a thief and a mu
rderer? A man you are pledged to see brought to justice?”

  “This is not justice, sir. This is murder.”

  Roth’s grin did not waver by the smallest degree. “Mister Hugo, if you please!”

  One of the Coventry Volunteers raised his musket and pulled the trigger. But Marlborough swung his pistol around in time, firing through the glare of two lanterns and catching the militiaman high and square on the chest. Being unaccustomed to the sensitivity of the double serpentine triggers, he caused both barrels to discharge almost simultaneously, the double blast tearing a gaping hole in the man’s torso. The nose of the musket flew upward, the shot exploding harmlessly into the air, while the Volunteer toppled back off his saddle, dead before the echo of his scream faded.

  Marlborough scarcely batted an eye as he cocked both hammers on the second snaphaunce and raised it threateningly in the direction of Roth and his phalanx of five remaining Volunteers.

  “I am sorry, sir.” His voice, if not his body, was trembling with integrity. “I cannot and will not allow you to murder an unarmed man.”

  “You only have two shots left, Mister Marlborough,” Roth snarled, “and I have five armed men, each of whom will earn a handful of whatever they choose from the saddle pouch when they bring you down. On my command! Fire!”

  There was no sound, no movement and Roth spun around, glaring at the Volunteers. “I said fire, you stupid bastards! Fire!”

  But none of them was looking at Roth. None of them was even looking at the jewels or Marlborough or the bleeding highwayman. They were all staring at the side of the road where a string of shadowy figures had emerged from the mist and the trees, pistols and muskets in hand, the muzzles trained on the remaining militiamen.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  To Renée, it seemed as though her heart had stopped several times while Maggie Smallwood told her of the agreement Tyrone had made with Bertrand Roth. It was nearly stopped again now as she held the heavy gun in both hands, her finger curled around the trigger, her eyes daring the flat-nosed militiaman to move his musket so much as an inch. She knew where she was, she knew why she was there, but the blue and white uniforms of the Coventry Volunteers were so much like the blue, red, and white uniforms of the Paris gendarmes, it seemed as if all the injustices of the world had come together on this damp and dark stretch of road. The five burly men were no different from the guards who had attacked her mother—they were no different from the zealots who roamed the streets of Paris looting and burning in the name of liberté égalité, et fraternité, or the cheering beasts who marched innocent men, women, and children up the steps to the guillotine and forced them to lie on a blood-soaked plank of wood.