For the first time in memory, Fletcher’s swagger held an unnerving degree of uncertainty.
by Mr. King
Installment I,
in which our admirable Heroine finds herself
at the Mercy of a dastardly Highwayman!
On a dark, windy night, hours after the sun had slipped below the horizon, its warmth little but a memory to the poor souls left to brave the thick chill left in the air by that amber orb’s departure, an ancient traveling carriage, its ill-kept wheels screeching with every revolution, flew at tremendous speed down a road most people avoided toward an estate no one had lived in for decades. Inside the dilapidated vehicle, Lucinda Ledford sat with clasped hands pressed to her breaking heart.
She had long since resigned herself to this fate. All her life, she’d known that, upon her parents’ deaths, she would be sent to live on this obscure family holding, far from every person or place she had ever known, alone, grieving. As she moved ever closer to her unavoidable future, the prospect weighed ever more heavily upon her.
“Oh, that Providence would choose to smile upon me!” whispered she, expecting no answer beyond the forlorn howl of the unfeeling wind. “I, who have been the recipient of nothing but Her cruel frowns!”
No matter that she was no longer a child, she was now an orphan, relegated to the loneliest corner of the kingdom, without a soul to care what became of her.
She sighed, blinking back the tears taking up residence in her eyes. How very unkind Life had chosen to be.
A voice carried on the ceaseless wind, its words indistinguishable. Hands still clasped over her breast, she listened, straining to hear this unexpected evidence that another human life existed in this abandoned corner of the world.
The carriage shook to a stop. Had they arrived so soon, so quickly? Perhaps her unasked-for new home was not so isolated as she’d feared. Oh, hope! Oh, blessed fortune!
The tension lessened in her tightly woven fingers. She lowered her clasped hands to her lap, the smallest whispers of cheer restored to her aching soul.
Outside in the darkness that same voice called again, this time discernible, clear, and sharp. “Stand and deliver!”
Those three words struck cold fear into every knowing heart. To hear them shouted on a lonely and isolated road could mean but one thing: the travelers were soon to find themselves dependent upon the questionable mercy of a ruthless highwayman.
“Oh, dear departed Father,” she whispered. “How I need you here with me.”
His absence—his permanent absence—was the very reason she was on this dangerous road bound for a home she knew not. Her only hope lay in the knowledge that the would-be thief of the night would discover his prey had nothing of value with which he could abscond. His nefarious efforts would be thwarted by her poverty.
She closed her eyes and forced a slow breath as she counted deliberately. The driver could surely make this highwayman aware of her state before she reached the number ten. Surely.
Her fortune ran short before she’d whispered, “Six.” The handle of the carriage door turned, protesting the interruption to its rest. The coachman had never, during their two-day journey, failed to knock first before opening the door. Highwaymen possessed no such commitment to civility.
Cold, biting air rushed inside. A wide silhouette filled the empty space beyond the open door.
“You’ll be stepping out, miss,” a gravelly voice declared.
A shiver of apprehension slid over her from her hair to her boots. “No, I thank you.” She kept her voice steady despite the tremor inside.
“I weren’t askin’ for your thanks. I’m requiring your cooperation.”
“You will have only the former,” she insisted.
To someone farther in the darkness, the man said, “We’ve a stubborn one this time, cap’n.”
“You, Smythe, don’t know how to talk to ladies.” The courtliness of this new voice surprised her. Whoever the second man was, he did not seem to be the rough and uncouth villain his comrade was.
The first man stepped aside, and the shadow of a tall, lean figure assumed his place.
“M’lady,” came the graceful voice once more. “I would be most obliged if you’d step from the carriage. You’ve my word no harm will befall you.”
“Of what value is the promise of a criminal?” Fear made her bold, though her bravery was unlikely to last. If only this dastardly duo would hastily retreat before the danger of the moment overwhelmed her fragile fortitude.
An extended hand entered the carriage, lit by the dim spill of light through the opposite window. He wore no glove. No matter that he spoke with propriety, here was a reminder that he was not, in fact, a gentleman. That he currently demanded she step out into the cold night air whilst he pilfered whatever he chose from amongst her paltry belongings served as a strong indication as well.
“You’d best do as we bid, m’lady,” the man behind the hand said. “Your carriage’ll be ransacked with or without you in it.”
Alas, she hadn’t the slightest argument against that logic. Stubbornness was insupportable when it simply added to one’s suffering.
“I will alight,” she said, “but without your ungloved assistance.”
He laughed, the sound deep and rumbling and warm. Oh, the sinister pitfalls that awaited the unwary. Such a laugh might convince the ill-prepared to think well of a man with such contemptible intentions. She was not so easily deceived.
Hand pressed to her heart and head held high, she slid to the end of the bench. She set her free hand on the doorframe and took careful step. Despite her care, despite the fortitude with which she maintained her dignity, her ankle proved fickle. She stumbled.
An arm slipped about her, keeping her upright and unharmed. “Forgive my ungloved assistance,” the gallant thief said with another of his rich laughs.
Lucinda pulled free. She turned slowly, assuming her most disapproving and regal expression. No matter that she was afraid, no matter that her ankle ached, no matter that the cold of the late autumn night sent frigid shivers over her, she would prove to this vagabond that she could be strong.
Her assailant wore a broad-brimmed hat, set so low on his head as to cover all his features except his mouth. Despite herself, her heart fluttered. His smile, not subtle in the least, produced a pair of dimples one could not help but find fascinating. She would do well to focus on his dastardly undertaking lest she be fooled by him.
“Proceed with your pilfering,” she said. “Your efforts will yield you nothing beyond wasted effort and time.”
He appeared not the least admonished. “That is a risk I embrace, my lady.” He removed his caped outercoat.
She gasped, hand pressed once more to her heart. Did highwaymen regularly undress whilst undertaking their robberies? Surely not! With a flourish, he spun the coat around and rested it on her shoulders.
“What are you doing?” she demanded.
“Perhaps November is a warm month in the area of the kingdom you’ve called home, but in this corner, the weather is bitter.”
“I do not need your coat,” she said.
“Alas, my lady, I suspect what you mean is you don’t want it.” He turned to his shorter comrade. “Do not neglect to maintain the watch. I will search inside.”
Weapon drawn, Smythe eyed the road, the cluster of nearby trees, and Lucinda herself. As the highwayman climbed into the carriage interior, Lucinda cast her eyes, now adjusted fully to the dark of night, about the area. They were not so alone as she’d believed. Several mounted men watched the encounter, though they were just far enough away that she was afforded no more details. Despite the warmth of the highwayman’s unwanted coat, she shivered.
Oh, the cruelty of Fate to take away her home and parents only to send her to this dark and dangerous roadside. Was it not misery enough that she should be alone and in so u
nfamiliar a place? Must she also be thus accosted?
The highwayman emerged from the carriage, his face still hidden. “It ain’t in there,” he told his associate. “Best let the lady be on her way.”
An odd turn of events to be sure. “What isn’t in there?” Clearly, he sought something specific.
“Never you mind, miss.” He produced another of his dimpled grins.
“You have importuned me and slowed my journey,” she declared. “I will indeed mind.”
He stepped nearer her. “You are new to this area, my lady. You know not the dangers that reside here.”
“I have been made intimately aware of one local danger,” she insisted, eyeing him with pointed accusation.
Did all highwaymen laugh as often as he? She would not have assumed them a jolly sort. Neither would she have assumed this road to be a path through treacherous waters.
“I am not the danger you should fear,” he said. “On the contrary. I am all that stands between this neighborhood and a fate far worse than any of its residents comprehend.”
This was not a declaration one wished to hear upon arriving in one’s new home.
The highwayman took back his cloak and handed her up into the carriage. “You’d best not stop again until you are safely arrived at home.”
“I had not intended to stop this time,” she tossed back with greater courage than she felt.
Again, he laughed. She liked the sound, despite herself. Oh, the fickleness of a heart, finding pleasure in the warm sound of an unwanted laugh.
He slipped something into her hand, closing her fingers around it. “I found this during my ‘pilfering.’ Guard it, miss. It wouldn’t do for you to lose it.”
The door was closed. After a hard rap against the side of the carriage, the team of valiant steeds resumed their journey. Lucinda opened her fingers. A necklace lay inside, one upon which she had never before laid eyes. Had it once belonged to the distant cousin from whom she’d inherited her new home? Likely the jeweled pendant was merely paste and not an actual gem. Otherwise, the highwayman would most certainly have kept it.
She sighed, closing her hand once more. Life had too often been like this bit of worthless jewelry: the promise of something beautiful that proved nothing but an illusion. How was she to endure it?
Elizabeth Black, headmistress of Thurloe Collegiate School, was a lady of birth and relative standing, versed in the nuances of the upper class. She had several well-received novels to her name, the kind which appealed to and earned the approval of Society. She oversaw the very proper education of the daughters of both long-established and newly elevated families. She was the very picture of respectability and all that was proper and refined.
She was also lying through her teeth.
Her particular flavor of dishonesty was nothing truly exciting. She wasn’t secretly a spy, nor did she have any nefarious ne’er-do-wells hiding in a secret passage in her school. She didn’t even have a secret passage.
No. Her deception was comparatively boring, more was the pity.
She stood beside her desk looking over the few measly paragraphs she’d managed to eke out while waiting for Mr. Headley to arrive. He would be her escort to that evening’s political salon. She hadn’t as much time for completing new chapters as she once had.
Were this the latest in her silver-fork novels, she could have worked on it openly, without fear of reprisal. Writing books for the fine ladies of the upper class was considered an acceptable endeavor for the headmistress of a girls’ school. But this was her secret project, her lie . . . her lifeline.
She took hold of the topmost page and read aloud, “Little beyond the nightly howl of the wind broke the silence of her new home.” All the wind ever seemed to do was howl. She needed a new descriptor. Whistle? No. Readers of these particular tales preferred something more jarring, more ominous. Shriek? That wasn’t terribly different than howl. There had to be something else. Moan.
“The nightly moan of the wind.” She was getting closer.
The sound of the front knocker stopped her contemplation. She swiftly slipped the stack of parchment in her desk drawer. It clicked closed just as Mrs. Hale, the school’s housekeeper, inched open the door to Elizabeth’s office.
“Mr. Headley, ma’am.”
Elizabeth smoothed the front of her sapphire-blue evening gown and straightened the string of pearls hanging over her clavicle. While she enjoyed the lively conversation and thought-provoking topics of the London political salons, she was keenly aware of the fact that the impression she made directly impacted the success of her school. Disapproval from this set could result in students being withdrawn or new students not applying. She needed their acceptance if she were to stay afloat.
Alistair Headley stepped inside her office. His golden hair was combed, as always, to perfection. His clothes spoke both of significant financial comfort and an eye for fashion. He cut a dash everywhere he went, and she had been told they made quite the sight when they traveled together with her arm through his. The declaration was both flattering and vaguely annoying, though she could not explain the latter reaction.
“Always at work.” Mr. Headley dipped his head. His manners were always impeccable. “I do hope you don’t intend to change your mind about tonight.”
“Of course not.” She stepped around her desk. “I have been anticipating this evening all week.”
“Ought I to be flattered, or is your enthusiasm in spite of me?”
She knew well how to respond. He quipped this way often. “My eagerness is for both the evening and the company.”
He offered his arm, and she slipped hers through it.
“I understand a number of this evening’s attendees have an interest in education,” she said as they passed into the entryway and through the front door. “I always enjoy conversing on that topic.”
“Then it is the evening that claims your interest after all.”
She looked back at him, allowing her features to turn in lighthearted scolding. “It is both, as I said.”
He did not tease her further as the carriage rolled down the London streets toward their destination. They spoke, instead, of her writing—the bit he knew about. As that endeavor was not looked down upon nor required the upmost secrecy, she could answer truthfully.
“I am not progressing with my latest novel as quickly as I would like. Too much presses on my time, but I do hope to have something ready soon.”
He nodded in approval. “A great many people will be pleased to know you mean to produce another offering. Few write with the sophistication you do.”
Elizabeth turned her head to the carriage window, needing to hide the laughing grin that rose at his words of praise. “Sophistication” was not the word one would use to describe her most profitable works. That, though, was what made them so vastly diverting to write. Excesses of emotion. Dastardly villains. Daring escapes. Sword fights. They were exaggerations of the most delicious sort, exciting the senses, palpitating the heart, offering an escape from the doldrums of life.
It wasn’t that she didn’t enjoy her more sedate stories. Indeed, she deeply enjoyed writing her more “sophisticated” works. But when one spent one’s days in the sameness of a well-ordered school, presenting a façade of perfection to one’s potential benefactors, a bit of an invisible, scandalous escape was a wonderful and needful thing.
A hired hackney flew past theirs at breakneck speed.
“Shocking bit of driving, that,” Mr. Headley said, clearly disapproving.
What had the hack in such a hurry? She watched for something, someone, in pursuit. Nothing. Had the passenger been rushing to someone’s deathbed? A detective hot on the trail of a criminal? Or a criminal hot on the trail of his next victim? The possibilities were practically endless. She made mental note of as many as she could think of, in case she decided to add a car
riage chase later in the story she was writing.
Only when Mr. Headley took her hand in his did she recall her company. “George can be depended upon to drive us safely to our destination, regardless of the dangers we encounter.”
That was a pity. She’d have far rather followed the speeding hackney to whatever its seedy destination might be.
But, no. She was the prim and proper headmistress of Thurloe Collegiate School. She could not afford to forget that. A lady in her position could be respected or she could be adventurous. What she could not be was both.
By the time she stepped into the Gallaghers’ parlor, her arm through Mr. Headley’s, she had regained full control of her wayward thoughts. She dipped curtsies as expected, offered words of greeting, and wove through the guests with grace and graciousness.
“Thurloe School is spoken of quite highly,” Mr. Gallagher said after the appropriate greetings were exchanged.
“I am pleased to hear that. I work very hard to make it an exemplary educational institution.”
Mrs. Gallagher nodded. “Such effort is rarely made on behalf of a girls’ school. Too many feel it is wasted on the fairer sex.”
Elizabeth had heard the argument too many times to be offended by it. “You and I must stand as proof that a female mind can, indeed, receive education and be improved by the effort. The girls at my school are no different.”
Mrs. Gallagher agreed, as Elizabeth had fully expected her to. She had made the point for the sake of the others listening in. More people ought to see value in the minds of women.
“Do you feel the same about schools for the poor?” a nearby gentleman asked.
She turned toward the speaker, a gentleman she did not know. “I do, indeed.” She looked to Mr. Headley, hoping for an introduction.
He obliged. “Mr. Darby, this is Miss Elizabeth Black, headmistress of Thurloe Collegiate School and renowned novelist. Miss Black, this is Mr. Hollis Darby, of the Nottinghamshire Darbys.”
The Lady and the Highwayman Page 2