The Highwayman

by Doreen Owens Malek

  THE HIGHWAYMAN

  Doreen Owens Malek

  Published by

  Gypsy Autumn Publications

  P.O. Box 383 • Yardley, PA 19067

  www.doreenowensmalek.com

  First printing April 1993

  Copyright 1993 • 2012

  by Doreen Owens Malek

  The Author asserts the moral right to be

  identified as author of this work.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by an means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recoding, scanning or any information storage retrieval system, without explicit permission in writing from the author or Publisher.

  All the characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.

  FORBIDDEN PASSION

  “It’s not the years between us that cause the distance, Alexandra,” Burke said.

  “I will not think about it,” Alexandra said. “We have this moment, this time, and while we’re here I will not think about anything else.” She put her arms around his neck and drew him down to her.

  “Oh, Alex,” he whispered, “you are so lovely. I think now I have lived only to see you, to be with you again.”

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  New Releases by Doreen Owens Malek

  Chapter 1

  An obedient woman is like a jewel unto her family...

  —Walsh, Elizabethan Commentaries

  London, England

  March, 1599

  The young woman burst into the silent study, breathless and unable to speak.

  Her uncle looked up from his writing, quill in hand, and his complexion reddened in the candlelight when he saw her dishabille. “Alexandra, what is the meaning of this?” he demanded. “You look like a charwoman with your hair about your face and your garments in disarray. Compose yourself!”

  “Uncle,” Alex gasped, “is it true?”

  He sat back in his chair and folded his arms across his doublet. She saw from his resolute expression that it was.

  “Annie says that you will send me to the sisters at St. Mary’s whilst you journey to Ireland with my lord of Essex,” Alex said with a wail.

  “Annie’s wagging tongue will lose her situation,” Philip Cummings said. “One less lady’s maid matters little to me.”

  “But you said I might abide here at Stockton House while you were about the queen’s business,” Alex said, overlooking Annie’s fate in concern for her own.

  “I have remembered me on that subject,” Philip replied. “I cannot leave my brother’s only child unsupervised and in the care of servants.”

  “Then take me with you,” Alex said. “I’ve heard talk of your destination, Inverary Castle near Dublin where my lord of Carberry resides. It is thought a fair place, set in a green countryside and suitable for gentlefolk.”

  Her uncle snorted. “Don’t be foolish, child. An expedition to suppress an armed rebellion is no place for a woman. A simpleton would not consider it.”

  “Just take me on the ship,” Alex said. “I will eat little, sleep in a small space. I will be good and quiet. Once there I will stay within the castle walls and make myself useful....”

  “You will go to the nuns,” her uncle said. “Annie will pack for you this evening and Luke will see you to the convent gates in the morning.” He looked back down at his desk. “That is all,” he said, dismissing her.

  Alex’s eyes filled with tears of frustration. “I will not go to the convent! Uncle, it is insupportable!”

  “You’ll do as you’re told, miss,” he snapped, raising his eyes to hers again, “or instead of stopping there whilst I’m away you’ll take the veil for good!”

  Alex gulped, fear tightening the muscles in her dry throat. He could do it. He was her ony living relative, and women without means or protectors frequently wound up in nunneries, dedicating their lives to God when no one else would have them. Philip would hand a bag of sovereigns through the grille to the mother superior, and Alex would disappear inside, swallowed up by a religious community as corrupt as the late King Henry who had “reformed” it.

  Alex bit her lip, stifling a sob. Oh, why had her parents died and left her at the mercy of a testy bachelor who disdained her? He lived only to advance himself in Queen Elizabeth’s eyes. This Irish venture, commanded by her favorite, Essex, the stepson of her lost love, Robert Dudley, was Philip’s best chance of currying favor. He was not going to let a little thing like an unmarried ward interfere with his plans. So Alex was to be shut up with the nuns while Philip danced attendance on the aging queen’s cavalier. She was to scrub floors and recite matins while he was trudging through the peat bogs and shooting rebels out of trees.

  “Well?” Philip said, interrupting her reverie.

  Alex pressed her lips together firmly, making a decision.

  “I’ll ready my things at once.” She dropped a half curtsy to placate him while her mind raced.

  “I thought you might agree,” her uncle said as he returned his attention to his correspondence.

  Alex withdrew to the hall and then stopped short, closing her eyes. She had no more intention of obeying her uncle than she had of turning spy for the Spanish ambassador. But a pretense of acquiescence would give her time to formulate a plan. She lifted her skirts and hurried back to her chamber.

  Annie was waiting there, pacing and crying. Alex dismissed her. She didn’t want to implicate the servant in whatever she might do. She sat down to think.

  Two hours later Alex rose and stole into the hall. All was quiet. She slipped down through the darkened house and out onto the lawn, which was flooded with spring moonlight. She hurried to the stables and past the groom’s boy, Luke, who was sleeping in the tack room. The horses whinnied and stirred at her approach, but she managed without waking Luke to remove a set of his clothes from the chest where he kept them. She took a leather jerkin, homespun breeches, shoes, and a leather cap. Then she ran back to her room, her heart pounding all the way.

  Once there, she changed into the horsey-smelling clothes and tried in vain to tuck her heavy hair under the cap. She quickly decided the hair had to go and hacked away at her thick auburn tresses with Annie’s sewing shears, glancing down sorrowfully as the shorn locks gathered at her feet. When she was done she jammed the cap on her head and stared at herself in the silvered looking glass.

  She had done well. She was slim enough to pass for a boy, and the haircut gave her the look of a ragged adolescent, a page or a court messenger. She gathered up a few necessary items and tossed them into a bag, which she slung over her shoulder.

  The Silver Swart set sail at dawn for Ireland. Her uncle would be on the ship, and so would she. By the time she was discovered, it would be too late to turn back.

  Philip wouldn’t check to see if she was leaving for the convent. He regarded her as an annoyance, but it would never occur to him that she would do something so outrageous. Her problem now was to get to the ship and stay on it until it was well out of the harbor. Anything was preferable to being buried alive in a cloister.

  Alex sighed. She realized that her task would be a lot more difficu
lt than it had seemed at first.

  The London streets at night were not safe for any foot traveler. They were thick with cutpurses and criminals of every type. The quays where the boat was docked were the worst of all. Taverns spilled roistering, drunken patrons into the offal-strewn streets, and sailors, many of them impressed into service from prisons, were hardly better than the thieves who preyed upon them. Alex would have to negotiate this battlefield to reach the ship, and once there, she would have to find a way to get on board and remain there.

  She had an idea that might facilitate her passage. She left her room once more and went down to Philip’s study. He had retired, but she knew he left the door unlocked to enable the servants to start a fire the next morning. She slipped inside and lit a candle from the hall sconce, hoping no one would see the light.

  She knew where her uncle kept his letters. She opened a drawer in his desk and shoved aside quills and folded missives until she saw one with the queen’s seal, the scripted E and R entwined in the wax. The seal was split, since Philip had read the note. Alex seized the letter and held the wax to the burning candle, melting it enough to reseal the note as if it were new but leaving Elizabeth’s insignia intact. Satisfied with her handiwork, she shut the drawer quietly and fled with her prize held away from her body, to let the wax cool and harden.

  On the way out of the house she stopped in the kitchens and took a leg of mutton and a round of bread from the larder, wrapped them in a napkin, and stashed them in her pack. The she slipped out through the pantry and headed once more to the stables.

  Sunbeam was her favorite roan mare and Alex rode her almost daily. The horse nickered when she drew near. Alex shushed her and led her out of her stall through the paddock door at the back so she would not have to pass Luke again.

  The ride to London from Stockton House was about two miles along the Thames. The night was warm for early spring and the moonlight bright enough to see by; she passed no one on the road. As she neared the town she could see the distant outline of Essex House, the riverside estate that Lord Essex had inherited from his stepfather, Leicester. It was below Fleet Street along the Strand, within view of Whitehall, and its wide lawns sloped down to the water where boat taxis dislodged passengers at a private gate. After going through a warren of cottages and inns, she reached her destination, the town home of Ronald Feeley, a solicitor friend of her uncle’s. Feeley had a daughter Alex’s age, Caroline, and the two girls often rode together. Caroline would recognize Sunbeam and return the horse to Stockton.

  By then, everyone would know what Alex had done.

  Alex kissed the blaze on the horse’s nose and tied her to the post bordering Feeley’s garden. She left her contentedly munching grass while, inside the house, everyone slept.

  Alex took a deep breath and stepped out of the sheltering darkness. It was only a mile more to the docks, but it was through the part of town she feared most. Shoreditch, where actors and other disreputables abounded, disgorged people into the shadow of London Bridge nightly, and Cheapside, where they patronized many taverns, loomed as obstacles in her path. She put her head down and walked rapidly down the cobbled streets toward the water. Prostitutes whispered to her from doorways as she passed, and she took care to avoid the traffic from the alehouses. She made her way as unobtrusively as she could while proceeding at top speed. She tried not to inhale too deeply, as tenants had tossed garbage from windows into the alleys and the gutters ran with refuse of all kinds. The warrens got narrower as she neared the river, the wooden buildings crowding the passage so closely that three men could hardly stand shoulder to shoulder across the road. It was here that villainous creatures sprang from shadows. Twice, hands reached out for Alex, but she was nimble enough to escape. She sprinted the last few yards to the ship, which she identified from its fluttering flag, and then paused to plan her next move.

  The Silver Swan was still being loaded for the journey, and as she’d expected, there was a guard at the plank, watching everyone who came and went. Essex had been dispatched for his trip that very day by cheering London crowds, but he might not yet be on board. Alex couldn’t tell if the guard was a sailor or someone from the earl’s retinue, but either way she had to take her chances.

  She marched up to him and said, lowering her voice several octaves to a shaky tenor, “Message from Her Majesty the Queen for my lord of Essex.”

  The guard, looking bored with the proceedings, extended his hand for the letter.

  Alex slapped it into his palm with all the authority she could muster.

  He examined the seal by the light of a torch fixed to the ship’s hull and then tucked it under his arm.

  “I’ll see His Lordship gets it,” he said.

  Alex’s heart sank. For a moment her mind went blank, and then she added hastily, “My sovereign lady requests the favor of a reply immediately. I am instructed to return with it.”

  The guard sighed, handed the letter back to her, and waved her past him. Alex almost ran up onto the deck, past sailors carting bales and boxes. Then she darted down the companionway and into a cabin.

  She had no idea where she was; she only knew that she was alone.

  She leaned her head against the rough planks of the hull and forced her breathing to return to normal. Below her in the hold she could hear the thud and thump of the supplies being stored. When she felt calmer, she took stock of her situation.

  It was almost time for the shifts to change. It was likely that the guard would stumble off the ship and into the Mermaid Tavern in Bread Street or some other hole, leaving his successor to deal with the messenger he’d permitted on board.

  In the meantime, she had to find a place to hide.

  The cabin was bare of convenient cubbyholes. When she was sure the coast was clear she tried another, in which she found an empty arrow chest. She was small enough to fit inside along with her pack. She made herself as tiny as possible and lowered the lid, putting her nose and mouth to the chinks between the slats for air.

  Alex was sure she wouldn’t be able to sleep, but the trip and her anxiety had exhausted her. The muffled cries of the seamen calling to one another and the gentle rocking of the boat at anchor soon lulled her to into slumber.

  When she awoke again, the swaying of the floor and the roiling of her stomach told her she was at sea.

  * * * *

  Kevin Burke shifted his position in the elm tree and peered more intently down at Inverary Castle in the distance. Something was up with the English. Carberry’s men had been bustling about for the last ten days; the bustle suggested that some new reinforcements from London were expected.

  Burke climbed to a higher branch and twisted impatiently, wishing that he could take action. He had sent an urgent message to Tyrone, his chieftain, but was still awaiting a response. Communication among the rebels was poor because of the difficulty of the Irish terrain and the necessity for secrecy. He was loath to act without instructions, but inactivity was making him restless. If he didn’t hear from Tyrone soon, he would be strongly tempted to take his men and try to rescue his brother Aidan on his own.

  Aidan Burke had been in English hands at the castle for a week now, and every time Kevin thought of his younger sibling languishing in the Inverary dungeon, he wanted to kick the walls down single-handedly. Years of fighting the British had taught him the virtues of caution, however. The English weren’t stupid, but they were regimented, and the rebels’ strongest weapon had always been surprise. They would be expecting him now, so he must wait.

  He swung to the lower branches of the tree and then to the ground, moving with the peculiar grace common to big men. He was a prime target for the enemy because he was easy to spot, standing a head taller than most of his band and with shoulders so wide that his hips seemed nonexistent. His glossy, sandy hair fell over his deep-set blue eyes. He was clean-shaven, defying current fashion, and had a long jaw and high cheekbones, which gave his face a fierce, almost primitive aspect. When he frowned, as he did now, he
was truly a frightening prospect. The smile, which displayed splendid teeth and an alluring light in his pale eyes, came far less often. For an Irish patriot in the waning years of Queen Elizabeth’s reign there was little enough to smile about.

  Burke walked to his horse and leapt onto it bareback, checking the knife sheathed at his waist. Brigands were known to fall out of trees onto the backs of hapless riders, and being ready for anything was a matter of habit. His woolen tunic was spattered with raindrops from the overhanging leaves as he rode back toward his camp, and even at midday the forest was dense enough to shelter pockets of mist, which rose to envelop him. He kicked the horse gently with his skin boots, picking up speed as he went along trails he could have followed blindfolded. He had learned to ride almost before he could walk, and these woods were as familiar to him as his brother’s voice—which he might never hear again if he didn’t take some action soon.

  Aidan Burke had been captured on a scouting mission, when he’d ventured too close to the castle. Now it looked as if Lord Carberry was preparing to lay in more English troops, which made the prospect of rescuing Aidan even dimmer than when he had been taken. Kevin scowled and prodded the horse for more speed.

  His mood was grim as he entered the camp and headed for his tent. The men standing about the cookfires, all young and fit and restless, turned their heads to follow his progress. Burke ignored them, sliding from his horse while it was still moving. He handed the reins to a boy who led the horse away as he motioned for Rory Dunne, his lieutenant, to join him inside.

  Rory waited for Burke to speak, watching his leader with the eager attention of a recently elevated second in command.