The Lady and the Highwayman

by Sarah M. Eden

  “Someone who was here this evening said something very much along those lines and fervently enough to be more than an idle observation.”

  He sat up straighter. “Made threats, did he?”

  She held up a hand to forestall that train of thought. “Not directly. I cannot say with any authority whether or not he might be prone to violence, but his words struck too close to those you and Hogg expressed concern over that I could not be easy about it.”

  Fletcher rose and, scratching absentmindedly at his jawline, paced away. “I’d assumed our would-be arsonist’d be a lower- or working-class bloke. Not that the uppers cain’t be just as despicable. They’ve other methods, though: laws and keeping back funds. Arson seems unnecessary.”

  “Do you think he can be eliminated as a suspect, then?” She wasn’t certain one way or the other, not having been a detective before.

  “We’ve not enough to go on.” He leaned against the mantelshelf, turning to face her. “You’ve a better acquaintance with this loudmouth than I do. Where would we go to spy on this lout?”

  We. That was an intriguing word choice. She stood and stepped over to him. “Are you suggesting we form a partnership?”

  That barely-there flirtatious smile of his made a reappearance. “I think we could make a fine team, Elizabeth.”

  She couldn’t tell if it was a bit of flattery or a genuine compliment. This might be her one opportunity to be a pseudo-­member of the famed Dread Penny Society, though. She could hardly turn that down.

  With confidence, she said, “He is likely to be where most fashionable people will be tomorrow evening: the opening of a new opera.”

  Fletcher nodded. “I’ve a mate with access to a box he’d allow us the use of.”

  “That sounds ideal,” she said. “May I ask who this unsuspecting benefactor is?”

  “Hollis Darby.”

  That made a great deal of sense. “How do you intend to keep our true purpose a secret from him?”

  “I’ll tell him I’m hoping to impress you with a fine evening of fashionable society.”

  “He’ll think you’re courting me.” Surely he didn’t want to give his friend that impression.

  “I can survive them sort of whispers.”

  Was that a tone of challenge she heard in his voice? “I can make the effort believable, if you can.”

  He leaned closer, his voice lowered. “Then I will see you tomorrow evening, Elizabeth.”

  His nearness, the warmth in his eyes, the lowness of his tone—all conspired to set her pulse thrumming in her throat. “Tomorrow evening.”

  Swiftly, silently, and without a backward glance, he slipped out.

  Good heavens. What had she agreed to?

  by Fletcher Walker

  Chapter IV

  Sneaking unseen into an unfamiliar place would be far easier in the dark of night. But the sun wouldn’t drop out of the sky for hours, and they needed to check on George and any others who were there, now. And they needed to find out what had slid past the tower window.

  Morris waved Jimmy alongside the treacherous tower, both boys eyeing the grounds for anyone wandering about. They didn’t dare get caught sneaking around, no matter if there was danger here or not. Most people took a dim view of trespassing.

  Footsteps rustled nearby. Morris and Jimmy ducked down behind a thick shrubbery. They held their breath. No one ever passed.

  “There’s got to be a window or somethin’,” Jimmy whispered, slipping farther around the tower. Morris followed, acting as lookout.

  Around they went. The tower was larger than it had seemed from across the yard.

  “Anyone coming?” Jimmy asked.

  “No. Any windows low enough?”

  “No.” Jimmy abruptly stopped. “But there’s a door.”

  That pulled Morris’s attention. Jimmy wasn’t looking straight ahead or even up a little. His eyes were angled down.

  “A cellar?” Morris guessed. He couldn’t think of anything else a door in the ground would lead to.

  “Or a crypt.” Jimmy really had been spooked by whatever he’d seen in the tower window to jump to that possibility.

  “A crypt’d be under a church, though.” Morris reached for the iron-ring handle. “I’d wager this is our way in.”

  Jimmy shoved out a breath. “Mind you, if this proves to be another monster, I run faster than you do.”

  He eyed Jimmy. “You owe me for that redcap, you know.”

  A bit of amusement tugged at his friend’s mouth. “We escaped the murderin’ goblin, didn’t we?”

  “You escaped. I fought the blasted thing.” It had been one of their more terrifying adventures.

  Jimmy rolled his eyes. “I came back and helped, di’n’t I?”

  “If there’s a redcap down here,” Morris said, pointing into the dimness beyond the door, “I’m closing this and locking you in with it.”

  Jimmy sobered quickly. “It weren’t a redcap. I don’t know what it was, but it weren’t that.”

  Morris swallowed, telling himself to hold it together. They’d urchins to search out and rescue. It wasn’t anything they hadn’t done before.

  “Are we goin’ to be able to see in there?” Jimmy asked.

  “I’ve no idea.”

  Turned out, they could, but only just. And being able to see when there were no windows and no lanterns and no candles wasn’t reassuring.

  “Where’s the light coming from?” Morris whispered, carefully tiptoeing across the empty expanse, which was nothing but pillars and a stone floor, though they couldn’t see the entire space all at once. The tower really was larger than it seemed.

  A sound stopped them up short. A howling sort of cry.

  “Wind?” Jimmy asked, voice so low it was almost silent.

  “That weren’t the wind wailin’.”

  “I didn’t think so.” Jimmy was an odd sort, always rallying when the danger grew. None of the worry that had shook his voice when he’d first seen the shadowy figure in the windows above remained. With firmness, he said, “Let’s sniff out the stairs, see if we can’t Jenny the situation.”

  They wove around more columns, more turns. The cellar was musty, dank, and bitterly cold. Still no lanterns or torches or candles, but somehow still plenty enough light for seeing their way. Again the cries were heard overhead. Without needing to consult, Morris and Jimmy moved faster, searching every turn for steps.

  They came upon an alcove carved directly in the thick stone outer wall. Morris sucked in a sharp breath. On an iron platform at the base of the alcove sat a dusty, beaten-up, probably centuries-old coffin. The walls around it glowed, but for no reason he could see.

  “Blimey,” Morris muttered, a shiver sliding down his spine. “This is a crypt.”

  “Told you I ain’t addle-headed.”

  “And I ain’t so soaped that I mean to stay here, staring at a glowing coffin.” Morris stepped backward, putting more distance between himself and the alcove.

  “But how do we get out?” Jimmy looked around. “Never did find the stairs.”

  “We could back slang it.” Morris poked his thumb in the direction of the door they’d used to climb into the crypt.

  “Won’t fudge, mate. We came to undertake a rescue. We don’t walk away.”

  He wasn’t wrong about that. They’d never once refused to help someone in danger, no matter the terror of the situation, and they wouldn’t start now. “We keep looking for the way up, then. And we keep a weather eye on that dead bloke. I don’t trust him one lick.”

  They moved quick but quiet, following the outer wall, eyeing each twist and turn around the pillars. Was it meant to be a maze, or were they simply getting turned about?

  “Something ain’t right about this.” Morris felt certain they’d returned to a section of the crypt
they’d been in before. But it all looked so alike. Same stone. Same pillars. Same odd, unearthly glow.

  Before Jimmy could answer, the creak of a rusty hinge echoed throughout the crypt. A door? Or—Morris’s heart leaped to his throat—the coffin?

  “Cheese it,” Morris said, moving swiftly away from the direction he thought he remembered the alcove being, Jimmy close on his heels.

  Nothing but solid walls. Was there no way up? No way out?

  “We back slang it, after all,” Jimmy said. “Find another way up the tower.”

  “What if the door we came through is the hinges we heard?”

  Jimmy didn’t even slow down. “Better than the coffin.”

  But they didn’t find the door.

  They found stairs. Narrow, winding, stone steps leading up and out of the crypt. They rushed, ran.

  There were no more hinges creaking.

  Now, there were footsteps.

  The master was awake.

  You swells sure know how to complicate simple things.” Fletcher eyed his reflection, clad in Hollis’s dress coat.

  “You think attending the opera is a simple thing?”

  “Always is down in the gallery.” He still felt more at ease in the section of the audience where the servants and apprentices and poor folk watched.

  Hollis shook his head. “If you think this is complicated, you should see how my brother prepares for a trip to the theater. It is like watching a performance before the performance.”

  The Darby family were termed “old money,” except society didn’t realize most of that money was gone. Hollis’s grandfather had begun draining the family coffers back during the brief reign of the Prince Regent. His father had taken up the task shortly after Victoria ascended the throne. Hollis’s older brother had inherited a fortune so small it was hardly worth the effort to spend irresponsibly.

  “Maybe it’s for the best King is draining away at my income,” Fletcher said. “Being well-to-do is a lot of bother.”

  “You’ve played uncomfortable roles on behalf of the Dreadfuls before. Why does it rankle so much more this time?”

  He flicked a hand, frustration getting the better of him.

  “Perhaps because Miss Black will be there?” Hollis asked a little too innocently.

  The fact that his nervousness increased at the guess told Fletcher his friend wasn’t entirely wrong. Still, admitting as much wasn’t on his short list of things he wanted to do. “Miss Black knows my origins.”

  “Does she?” Hollis clearly doubted it. “I doubt even the Dread Master knows all the details of your early life.”

  “The Dread Master values privacy.”

  “He’s certainly convinced you to.” Hollis set his hat atop his head. “I can’t convince you to tell me who he is, and I know more of your secrets than anyone.”

  “As I said, this one ain’t mine to tell.”

  “His identity impacts everyone in the society, including me. That makes it not entirely his secret.”

  This was an old argument between them, one Fletcher knew how to deflect. “And the state of your family’s coffers impacts more than just you, but you’ll not hear me whispering about it to anyone.”

  Hollis looked the tiniest bit repentant. His brother went to great lengths to hide the situation, in part to save his own pride but also to help assure that his son and daughter would not be rejected outright when they were grown.

  “You’re telling me I can’t complain about you keeping others’ secrets when you’re also keeping mine?”

  Fletcher nodded.

  “Will you ever tell me who the Dread Master is?” Hollis asked. “Maybe on my deathbed?”

  “Not even then.” Fletcher tossed him a grin.

  “Cruel, Fletch. You’re cruel.”

  “What’s cruel is these shoes. They pinch like a pensioner’s pocketbook.”

  Hollis laughed. “What is an evening at the opera without a little suffering?”

  “You ain’t sweetening my opinion of this mad endeavor. Keep flapping your gums and I’m likely to let Miss Black take herself to the opera.”

  Hollis walked with him to the front door of Fletcher’s town house. He didn’t live in the grandest area of Town, but his address was nothing to be ashamed of.

  “You’ll have the company of a beautiful and clever woman,” Hollis said. “If that’s not enough to give you some enjoyment, then I’m not certain I know who you are anymore.”

  “She is beautiful,” he admitted almost without thinking. “And, I suspect, clever enough to make me feel like a simpleton.”

  The carriage Doc Milligan had agreed to provide for the night sat outside. It was serviceable and clean, though little else could be said in its favor. If he didn’t already look utterly out of place in Hollis’s togs, then spilling out of that scraggly equipage to collect Elizabeth would do the trick. No doubt, Mr. King’s next installment would feature an inept buffoon arriving at the heroine’s doorstep in laughable disgrace.

  When she answered her door, however, she didn’t seem the least struck by his appearance. She simply smiled, noted that he was right on time, and stepped outside to join him in the carriage, the sight of which didn’t even slow her step.

  “I have heard from Miss Newport, who heard from a friend who is friends with Mr. Midgley’s sister—Mr. Midgley is the man we are spying on, you will remember—that he will be in the same box as Mr. Moon, current chairman of the London and North Western Railway.” Elizabeth hadn’t waited even a moment after the carriage door closed to speak. “I believe that box is not far from the Darby box. Near enough we should be able to watch him without difficulty.”

  “Watching can be helpful,” Fletcher said. “We’ll be too far for listening, though.”

  “Perhaps we shall have to make a call at their box.”

  Fletcher leaned back against the carriage squabs, eyeing Elizabeth with doubt. “They’d not bat an eye iffen you dropped in, but me taking a peek, well, they’d just as like toss me down to the gallery where I belong.”

  The gas streetlamps cast light through the carriage windows, gently illuminating her face. “I think you underestimate yourself, Fletcher Walker.”

  “I think you overestimate me, Elizabeth Black.”

  She threaded her gloved fingers, watching him with keen interest. “What if I told you Mr. King read your most recent offering and has expressed concern that you will soon surpass his sales and put an end to his reign of success?”

  He hated to admit how much good that did his oft-­battered pride. And yet . . . “I’d say Mr. King is either too generous or too insecure. His writing’s something new and unique. There’s a reason he’s at the top of the heap.”

  Her interest grew more pointed. “If his success relies on the newness of his approach, is there any longevity in that?”

  “You care a lot about Mr. King’s success.”

  “I do.” She made the admission without the least hesitation. Just how close were she and King?

  He leaned forward, elbows on his legs. “Have you no care for my success?” He allowed a bit of flirtation.

  She cocked an eyebrow and, with a hint of coquetry herself, said, “Oh, I care very much about your success this evening.”

  “Do you, now?”

  “This is my first venture into the world of clandestine spy work. If you fail, I will as well.” She leaned forward, mimicking his posture. “And I care very much about my success.”

  He lowered his voice to a more intimate whisper. “How very ambitious of you.”

  She matched his volume and tone. “Do you find ambition in a lady intimidating?”

  “On the contrary. I find it irresistible.”

  “How very un-British of you.”

  He laughed. “The Brits worth knowing agree with me.”

 
“A shame I am unacquainted with anyone ‘worth knowing.’”

  Fletcher never enjoyed anyone’s company as much as those who brought a smile to his face. She was firmly on that list.

  Though he’d grumbled a great deal to Hollis about how he had to dress when among the fine and proper, Fletcher realized within moments of arriving inside the Royal Opera House that his friend had been bang on the mark. If not for the togs of refinement, Fletcher would’ve been as out of place as Prince Albert in a fish market. Instead, he walked with Elizabeth on his arm feeling entirely at home. Or very nearly, at least. He was playing a part, after all; he didn’t truly belong in this glittering world of finery. And he knew Elizabeth knew it. He would do well to remember that, no matter the enjoyment he had in their conversations.

  She greeted a few people, dipped curtsies, smiled. She knew more people than he did, but he was surprised at how many familiar faces he spotted amongst the theatergoers, and not merely those in the pit and gallery.

  McCallister Rhys offered a bow as Elizabeth and Fletcher approached their box. Dreadfuls didn’t often acknowledge their acquaintance outside of meetings at headquarters unless their connection was already well established and known. What was behind the unusual break from protocol? Rhys didn’t say anything. Perhaps he had been greeting Elizabeth.

  “Who was that?” Her question put paid to that theory.

  “A man named Rhys. He also writes penny dreadfuls. I’m surprised to see him here. He ain’t Society.”

  She leaned in closer and whispered, “Are the two mutually exclusive?”

  “They ain’t exactly birds of a feather.”

  “Many would say we aren’t either.”

  How true that was. “Seems you’re to be a risk-taker tonight.”

  She set her free hand on his arm, sighing lightly. “Do not blame me if I prove terrible at it.”

  “Oh, I intend to blame you, Miss Black.”

  They stepped into their box, and he led her to the chairs at the front. The formalities were all seen to. She was seated. He was seated. She pulled out her fan and began plying it with grace and elegance. He told himself not to fidget or glance longingly at the gallery. If he pretended he belonged in this world, others wouldn’t wonder what he was doing among them.