Highwayman's Hazard

by Marina Oliver

  Sarah lay back as he competently bandaged what turned out to be a mere scratch, using the masks and her cravat. When he had finished he lifted her to her feet, holding her as she staggered somewhat, and helped her to ease back the coat.

  'Now we must get you home. Star will carry us both, it is not far, and then I'll have the true story from you, Robert Smith!'

  *

  Still dizzy, Sarah did not protest as he lifted her onto the saddle in front of him, and was glad of his arm holding her firmly against him as they rode back to the cottage. They found Barney waiting beside the stable, and the highwayman opened the door to let him and Star inside before he carried Sarah, protesting she was recovered now, into the cottage.

  He produced a bottle of wine and poured her a glass.

  'I'll see to the horses and then we'll talk,' he said abruptly and left the kitchen. Before she had thought what to say he had returned, and insisted on bathing her wound and binding on a better bandage before doing anything more.

  'Now, why are you masquerading as a boy?' he demanded, sitting opposite her and pouring himself some wine.

  Sarah shrugged. 'It seemed sensible, better than two females travelling alone.'

  'Why are two females travelling alone? No responsible family would permit it.'

  Sarah looked at him speculatively. She came to the conclusion she had better tell him at least part of the truth.

  'My cousin was threatened with an unwelcome marriage,' she said slowly. 'An old man, with a daughter older than she is, and both horrid people. She determined to run away to her grandmother who lives in Harrogate. I dressed in these clothes because I thought it would serve as some protection.'

  'You were out late. Why did you not stay the night in Grantham?' he asked.

  'We thought it better to stay at a quieter inn, and hoped to reach Newark the next day in time to catch the stage. We had been directed to one, but missed the way, or we would not have been on the road.'

  He looked at her steadily for a few moment, and Sarah tried to still the trembling that fixed regard caused in her limbs. She was tired and shaken, not afraid of him, she told herself desperately, unable to tear her own gaze away. Then he nodded as though satisfied.

  'It has a ring of truth, two foolish romantic females! Is the old man wealthy?'

  'No, not as – at all, but he has a title,' Sarah explained hurriedly. 'And as he has but the one daughter from his first marriage he wants a son to inherit it.'

  'Why pursue a clearly unwilling bride such as your – cousin, is it now?'

  Sarah glowered at his mocking tone.

  'She is uncommonly pretty, and young, and girls are not expected to reject the husbands their families find for them.'

  'She is pretty indeed, so much so I would not have thought her ancient suitor to have been the only one. Surely there were more acceptable alternatives?'

  Sarah looked at him curiously. He seemed exceptionally interested in Clarinda. Was he attracted to her himself? Only that could account for the questions he was asking.

  'Her father, my uncle, made some money by trade and seeks to rise in the world through marriage with a title. Not every well born man would offer for her.'

  'Has she any preference herself? Is there some handsome tradesman, perhaps, who has caught her fancy?'

  'No, but her father would disinherit her if she wed without his approval,' Sarah said quickly, suddenly afraid of what his close questioning implied.

  He grinned as though he had read her thoughts, and she flushed in annoyance.

  'Now I have told you our story I would expect to hear yours,' she said quickly.

  'You have told very little, Miss – Smith, is it?'

  'Yes!' she snapped. 'How can I trust you fully after what has happened, and when we know nought of the reasons for this mad way of life!'

  He laughed. 'My proceedings appear mad to you, do they?'

  'If you robbed the people you held up I could understand it, although I would never approve,' Sarah rejoined heatedly. 'But all you do is force them to remove their wigs. Is is some crazy jest or wager?'

  'Something of the nature. No, it is more serious than that, and has a purpose. I seek a man who travels this road frequently on his way to Newmarket. The only clue I have to his identity is that he once lost part of an ear in a duel, and the only way I can inspect their ears is by removing their wigs. So you see there is a valid reason for my actions.'

  'Why do you seek him?' she asked blankly.

  'He – shall we say has a debt to repay?'

  'Why were you so interested in Forleys?' she asked, after a moment. 'Is that aught to do with this man?'

  'I believe he owned the house briefly before selling it to the present owner. That would be another way of tracing him, but no one appears to know his name, for the transaction was made through agents.'

  'Do you intend to keep us here longer?'

  'You have served your purpose. My arm is healed, and when your cut is mended I will escort you to Newark and you may resume your journey. Believe me, had I known what you are I would not have interrupted it. Your wig can conceal no missing ear.'

  *

  With a swift movement he reached across to Sarah and pulled away the wig she wore. Her glorious russet curls, shot with gleams of gold where the firelight was reflected in them, tumbled about her face and softened the well defined bones of her cheeks and jaw. His eyes narrowed in sudden appreciation and then his gaze slid down to the slight curves of her breasts, visible as she sat, wearing only the shirt, without the more concealing coat she normally did not remove in his presence.

  As she flushed in embarrassment and annoyance he handed back the wig.

  'You were wise to travel as you did,' he commented dryly, and rose to his feet to clear away the glasses and the bottle of wine. 'You had best rejoin your cousin, it grows late.'

  Sarah thankfully escaped into the loft, her cheeks burning. She found Clarinda fast asleep, and lay tossing beside her as she thought over the events of the evening. Perhaps it was, after all, for the best that he had discovered her sex, since he now appeared willing to let them go. She wondered what his name was. While he had, albeit mockingly, addressed them as Robert and Mary, he had given no indication of his own name, and Sarah suddenly thought how ridiculous it was to continue thinking of him as the highwayman, especially now she knew he was not, in the usual meaning of the term, anything of the kind.

  She fell asleep at last, and in the morning, before she and Clarinda descended the ladder, she told Clarinda what had transpired the previous night.

  'So he will let us go, and we can be off to Harrogate.'

  Clarinda was less interested in this than in the fact of Sarah's injury. She insisted on helping her friend to wash and bandage the cut, which was very slight, and Sarah bit back her irritation when Clarinda, who had never liked tending wounds, at first bound the bandage too loosely so that it slipped, and then so tightly it hurt. The highwayman had been much gentler and more efficient, she thought, wishing he would come to her rescue. He sat beside the fire, however, whittling away at a wooden spoon he was carving, and casting the occasional amused glance at Sarah.

  'When can we start for Newark?' Sarah demanded, as soon as Clarinda had completed her ministrations.

  'Patience. You should rest your arm for another day or so.'

  'We have lost enough time, and my arm does not incommode me,' Sarah said crossly.

  'Then we will drive to Newark later today and take rooms at the Queen's Head. There is a stage tomorrow morning,' he replied easily, and Sarah relapsed into silence, wondering how he, a highwayman in actions even though he did not rob his victims, could show himself openly in Newark. She wondered if this cottage was his only house, or whether he used it solely for his preying on travellers in what, when she thought about it again, seemed a very dubious search.

  *

  Who was he? He had told them nothing of himself, but clearly he was, or had been she quickly amended to herself,
a gentleman. Did he have some other life, a family perhaps, to whom he returned when he was not upsetting the dignity of bewigged travellers? Then it occurred to her the whole story might be an elaborate evasion. Possibly he did normally rob those he stopped, but had refrained from doing so while he had her company for fear that she might betray him. After all it was no crime to pull off a man's wig. But then, she thought in angry confusion, there had been no need for him to go out on the nights when she and Clarinda had been in the cottage, with the risk she might escape or betray him.

  She was distracted from her musing by Clarinda, who wanted to sponge her coat and repair it where the sword had torn it. They made ready, packing their few belongings, and then drove away from their prison with the highwayman, very elegantly attired in a military style blue frogged coat, and highly polished long boots all but hiding his pale fawn breeches, riding Star attentively beside the gig.

  They found the Queen's Head overlooking the large market square in the centre of Newark, and the landlord bustled across to meet them, beaming in welcome.

  'Sir Charles! I hope I see you well? It is some time since you honoured us. What can I do for you?'

  'Have you three rooms and a private parlour, Dan?'

  The man's face fell.

  'I haven't three rooms suitable, but there is a large one you and the young gentleman can share it if it pleases you, and there is another for the lady,' he added ingratiatingly with a bow towards Clarinda.

  'They will suit us admirably,' the highwayman, apparently called Sir Charles, replied, casting a quizzical glance at Sarah who was struggling to repress her instinctive rejection of this most unsuitable suggestion.

  'There is a small parlour between them,' the innkeeper was saying, and Clarinda, who had turned horrified eyes towards Sarah, gulped in relief. They followed the landlord up the stairs and found their rooms overlooked the marketplace, which itself was dominated by one of the largest churches Sarah had ever seen.

  'What a fortunate arrangement,' Sir Charles murmured after the landlord had left the room. 'We might have left the wrong impression if you had been seen emerging from the lady's room.'

  Sarah ignored the remark.

  'That is a large church for so small a town,' she offered.

  'Indeed. There is still an hour before supper, would you care to walk about the town?'

  Clarinda declined, her fear of their late captor not yet having left her, but Sarah went eagerly with him. After they had admired the church he led her down towards the river.

  'It is a thriving port, and a busy crossing for the road north and those to east and west,' he told her.

  'Do you live here?' she asked curiously.

  'I pass through,' was all he vouchsafed, and she forgot the evasion as they came within sight of a vast ruined castle standing to one side on a slight eminence, dominating the river and the crossing.

  'When was it destroyed?' she asked, staring at the still magnificent remains.

  'Seventy or so years ago, during the time Cromwell ruled. He found it too convenient a stronghold for the Royalists, and no one has thought it worth rebuilding.'

  They began to walk along the river banks, and Sarah was engrossed with the port activity. Then they found their way back to the marketplace through narrow, twisting alleys. In the entrance to the inn a man was talking to the landlord, and Sarah felt Sir Charles hesitate slightly before walking past with a brief nod to the landlord.

  Sarah looked from him to the other man in some surprise, and then turned hurriedly away and ran up the stairs after Sir Charles.

  'That was the man we held up last night,' she gasped almost before the door of their parlour had closed behind her. 'Do you think he might recognise us?'

  Sir Charles laughed at her perturbation.

  'Of course not, it was almost dark and we wore masks.'

  'But we recognised him!'

  'We had a better chance to observe him than he did to take heed of us. Besides, he would not be expecting to encounter such ruffians in a respectable hostelry like this. Are you afraid of being cast into the gaol? You have more cause to charge him, for wounding you, than he has complaint against you.'

  'Who is he, do you know?'

  'I have not met him before, but I can discover his identity from Dan.'

  *

  After they had eaten supper he disappeared, recommending them to retire early, for the stagecoach journey would be long and tiring on the following day. Sarah waited for some time in the parlour, long after Clarinda, exclaiming at the luxury of a soft feather bed after the hard pallet they had been provided with in the cottage, had fallen asleep, but Sir Charles did not return. In the public rooms below she could hear faint echoes of laughter, the occasional shout, and once what sounded like a quarrel which the participants maintained as they crossed the square outside, until their raised voices dwindled away into the distance.

  Sir Charles was uncommunicative when they met the following morning at breakfast, and Sarah did not care to reveal she had waited up for his return. They had a couple of hours to wait for the stage, and Clarinda was persuaded to walk about the town. They were passing the school beyond the church when they encountered the man they had seen the previous day, and he stopped to greet Sir Charles effusively.

  'My dear fellow, well met. A charming little town, is it not?'

  He turned to walk along with them, and Sir Charles had to present him to the girls. They discovered his name was Sir Gilbert Woodford, and learned with a strange feeling of dismay he was awaiting the same stagecoach as they were.

  After a few general remarks he turned his attentions to Clarinda, and contrived to walk along beside her, leaving the others behind them. Sarah would have intervened, but Sir Charles took her arm and held her back.

  'Gently, he cannot harm her here,' he said quietly.

  'But he is attracted to her, and I do not like the look of him,' she replied worriedly.

  'Why not?' he asked coolly. 'I discovered last night he is wealthy, and he has a title. Would you not wish to encourage your – cousin – to meet titled young men?'

  'I do not like him,' she insisted. 'Besides, he is not young. He must be well over thirty!'

  Sir Charles gave a shout of laughter that caused the pair in front to turn round momentarily.

  'To be precise he is four and thirty, but his manner of life has possibly given him a careworn look. Does he really look more than two years my elder?'

  Sarah had not even considered before what age Sir Charles was, but she found the question embarrassing, and took refuge in the other remark.

  'I thought you did not know him? How can you know his age or his manner of life?'

  'I had not met him before, but I had heard of him, and last night I made it my business to discover all I could about him. You are right to fear him. I suspect his title is spurious – no, mine is not,' he added with a laugh as she cast him a doubtful look. 'He is, however, a gambler who lives on his wits. At the moment he is wealthy, but such men are never content, and if he knew he was in the company of a girl of fortune – you did say Mary Smith's father had money, did you not – he might be dangerous.'

  'Do not you live on your wits?' Sarah asked, unable to bite back the retort.

  'Only at times,' he replied easily. 'Take care.'

  'He means to take the stage,' she said worriedly.

  'He will not,' was the confident answer, and it was only afterwards Sarah began to wonder why she had accepted without question that positive assertion.

  *

  Chapter 4

  She accepted the assurance almost until the last minute. Sir Gilbert had remained close beside them all the while, making his admiration for Clarinda obvious, to her continued embarrassment. When they were called to board the stage, which had just drawn into the yard of the inn, and Sir Charles, with a casual remark about riding alongside them for a while, disappeared into the stables, Sarah abandoned hope. He was false, his promises were meaningless, she raged inwardly as s
he crossed the yard towards the coach, and did not pause to wonder at the vivid disappointment this occasioned in her.

  Clarinda had her foot on the first step when everyone in the yard turned towards the howl of fury emitted by Sir Gilbert, just behind them. He was dancing frenziedly about, clutching his bare head, and several feet above him, well out of reach, his wig swung lazily at the end of a thin rope.

  The rope, Sarah soon realised, had a hook on the end of it, and had been twisted round a bar which protruded from the opening to the loft above the stables. The shutter to this opening was closing gently, and within a minute, while Sir Gilbert still pranced helplessly below his detached hair, jumping fruitlessly towards it, Sir Charles rode out of the stable.

  'Into the stage, and I trust you have a safe journey,' he called to the girls, and Sarah turned away from the spectacle and hustled Clarinda into the coach.

  'Fetch a ladder,' screamed Sir Gilbert, and a helpful ostler ran up with one as the guard on the stage began to fold up the steps.

  'Wait for me, I'm booked inside,' Sir Gilbert pleaded as, impatiently pushing aside several stable lads who were eagerly volunteering their services in climbing to the rescue of the wig, he began the ascent himself.

  Sarah, with the rest of the passengers on the stage, was craning out of the window when she gasped suddenly. Just at that moment one of the stable lads, eager to help, tripped and fell against the ladder, bringing it and the unfortunate Sir Gilbert down in a heap into the mud of the yard. The driver whipped up the horses, and as the stage swept out of the yard Sarah's last glimpse of Sir Charles was of him handing something to a grinning, if muddy, stable lad.

  'Thank goodness we have escaped him,' Clarinda whispered to Sarah under cover of the laughter and comments of their fellow passengers.

  'Thank Sir Charles, rather,' Sarah grinned.

  'Sir Charles? What did he have to do with it? Oh, do you mean he contrived it?'

  'Of course, and it was masterly. I confess I had begun to doubt his ability to detach the wretched man from us, but it was perfect. I wonder if he saw – but he must have done so! He must have seen the night before.'