He also had to admit that Sneed had been right. He had taken the biggest risk, and made the biggest mistake, of his life. He should have been truthful from the very beginning. But would she still have loved him?
Yes. Having come to know her as he had, he could not deny that her love for him was honest and true. It had nothing to do with what he was or wasn’t. It would have been a little harder to win her, perhaps, at first. But their love, it seemed, had been destined. Nothing could stand in its way.
Or could it?
Had he achieved his final destiny? Had he reached the end of his life?
It couldn’t be. It simply couldn’t be. He had it all now. How could it be over?
Anthony shook his head as if to free himself from such horrific thoughts. He walked over to the tiny window of his cell, the one through which the first faint rays of light were entering. Approximately three-quarters of the jail cells had been constructed belowground, and he had to stand on tiptoe to see outside. He was eye level with the street that ran in front of the jail.
Someone would come along soon. And when they did, he would … what? Yell? How would he accomplish that, gagged as he was? He could ask for no aid.
Nor could he plead his innocence. Or tell someone in authority who he really was, and tell them whom to contact to verify it.
Something cold and hard lodged suddenly in the pit of Anthony’s stomach.
Was that why he had been gagged … to silence him? But why? And for how long? This state of affairs couldn’t persist. It was against all common procedures of English law.
It seemed he was about to get his answer. Anthony heard footsteps in the corridor. He turned to his cell door to face his jailer.
There were three of them again. The two younger men from the previous day, and a third he had never seen before. The man was squat, muscular, and had a balding head patterned similarly to a monk’s tonsure. He had hard, dark eyes set close together, and they seemed to gleam with a strange and unfathomable passion. Gooseflesh rose on Anthony’s skin.
The short man unlocked the cell door. “Bring him out.”
The other men flanked Anthony. Each took one of his arms. They marched him out of his cell and down a narrow corridor, the shorter man in the lead. At the end of the hallway he opened another door and they all proceeded through it into the pink glow of dawn.
They were in a courtyard, shielded on three sides by the U-shaped jail. A fence with a padlocked gate closed off the fourth side. In the center of the yard stood an erection whose familiar shape caused a temporary blackness to pass in front of Anthony’s eyes.
It was a gallows.
Chapter Twenty-seven
The first faint lessening of the darkness gave Harmony renewed strength, strength born of fear. Agatha had said Anthony was to be hanged at dawn. Pulling the coachman’s whip from its sheath near her right hand, Harmony sent the lash whistling over the horses’ backs, and their speed increased immediately. The ground seemed to shudder beneath their pounding hooves and Harmony rose to her feet, all four lines being manipulated in her left hand, the better to wield the drop-lash whip in her right. It vaguely occurred to her that she must very much resemble a stagecoach driver trying to outrun a band of marauding braves.
It was only a few miles to Millswich. Her horses ate up the ground, and she soon saw the village ahead. It was early enough that no one was about yet, and she was grateful. Nevertheless, to be as cautious as possible, she halted and pulled out the blue scarf she had
tucked into a pocket. Harmony folded it into a triangle and tied it over her face, leaving only her eyes exposed. Then she picked up the reins again and looked for a place to park the coach out of sight.
A copse of trees on the outskirts of town would do nicely. Harmony drove her team into the deep shade, then beyond into a clearing a good way back from the road. She put on the brake, wrapped the reins around it, and climbed down from the coachman’s box.
The bay gelding was none the worse for wear. Harmony detached his reins from the coach and mounted. Heart hammering painfully, she noticed that dawn pinked the eastern horizon when she left the shadows of the trees. She urged her horse into a gallop and headed straight for the Millswich jail.
It couldn’t be happening. But it was. Somebody wanted him dead.
Although he apparently walked to his execution, the irony of the situation did not escape Anthony. He had lived his life in secrecy. Now he was going to die in secrecy.
But why?
It was Agatha and Lady Margaret; it had to be. They must have discovered he had “borrowed”
Farmington’s lordship. All the jewel thefts, coincidental to his arrival in the area, would be difficult to ignore. There was also the incident with the sapphire ring he had “found.” They had attempted to add two and two. With a sum of four, their reputations would be at stake. They couldn’t allow such a thing to happen. Society could never possibly know they had harbored a thief. Féted him. Allowed and embraced his engagement to one of their own.
So there would be no trial, no fanfare, scandal. A jewel thief, a bounder, a rogue, would simply disappear. Perhaps he had simply moved on, some would say, to practice his talents in another location. Maybe he had met with a more fitting end. Either way, it didn’t matter. Life would go on as usual. Only a very few would know what had really happened to him. Or care. He had a brief vision of his mother’s face and felt a stabbing pain in his heart.
Sneed had been so right, Anthony thought as he climbed the steps to the platform. And he would not even get the chance to say “I told you so.” Pity.
The greatest pity, however, was the death of a love newly blossomed, cut down at the height of its bloom.
The short, muscular man slipped a black hood over his head.
Fear nearly unmanned him. He felt his bowels turn to water and had to fight for control. His heart raced at an impossible speed and his knees threatened to buckle. He was about to hang. About to die. He forced his thoughts from a glimpse of hell to a vision of heaven.
I love you, Harmony. I will always love you.
He felt the noose being slipped over his head, around his neck.
I am so very sorry for the mistakes I’ve made. For the pain you will suffer.
I love you.
Dawn. It had arrived. Harmony leaned low over her horse’s neck, urging him to greater speed. When she reached the jail, she pulled him to a sliding stop and threw herself from the saddle. She landed on her feet, already running.
There was no time for thought or finesse. Harmony burst through the first door she came to, pistols drawn.
A uniformed man behind a desk leaped to his feet. “Wha—?”
“Hands in the air!” Harmony ordered. Had her business not been so deadly serious, she might have giggled. This was England, not America, yet the scene was right out of a dime Western novel. As it was, with Anthony’s life hanging in the balance, she grimaced
behind the blue kerchief.
“You heard me.” Harmony poked at the man’s chest with one of her pistols and his arms shot skyward. “Now take me to the prisoner who’s supposed to hang this morning.”
The man opened his mouth to speak. Harmony backhanded him across the cheek with the revolver in her left hand, leaving an instant welt and several bright spots of blood. He scurried for the door.
They were headed toward what appeared to be a door to the courtyard. The notion was confirmed when it swung wide and two guards entered. Harmony had a brief glimpse of a scaffold—and someone on it—before the door closed again and she started firing.
The man in front of her, her guide, dodged sideways, slipped, and crashed into the wall. One down. The other two, coming at her, crumpled to the ground, each clutching a foot.
“Stay down or I’ll aim higher next time,” Harmony rasped as the raced past them and flew through the door.
It was Anthony standing on the scaffold; she saw him at once. The noose was already around his neck, a hood over his head,
and a short, balding man—Mr. Henry, she realized with shock and dismay—had his hand on the lever that would open the trapdoor and send Anthony to his death. There wasn’t a heartbeat
to lose.
But wait. Was it truly Anthony? The hood made it almost impossible to tell, although the figure was the right height and weight.
“Anthony!” she cried.
“Guards!” Henry shouted. “What are you waiting for? Go get that woman!”
The man on the scaffold tried to twist away from Henry, and the moment he moved Harmony knew it was Anthony.
As the guards pounded down the gallows steps, Harmony shoved the pistol in her left hand into its holster and fanned the hammer of the revolver in her right, peppering the scaffolding at eye level. The two officers heading down the steps reached for their weapons, but they weren’t fast enough. Harmony had plenty of time to retrieve the pistol on her left, take precise aim, and blow their arms out of their hands before their fingers could fasten on the grips. She pointed both pistols at Henry.
“Take the noose off his neck, and the hood. Unlock the cuffs.”
“Have you lost your—?”
“Do it.” Harmony fired two more shots, one with each hand, to the right and left of the constable’s feet. He removed the rope and the hood but, in his nervousness, fumbled the key to the cuffs. Keeping one pistol aimed at Henry’s head, the other on one of the guards, Harmony said, “Anthony, jump down.”
She was in front of the scaffold when his feet hit the ground. Still aiming one gun at Henry’s head, she spun Anthony around. A single shot freed his hands. A second shot shattered the lock on the gate leading to freedom.
“Miss Simmons,” Henry shouted as she and Anthony bolted for the gate, “you can try to disguise your face, but you cannot hide the color of your hair. Give up now before you end up in the cell next to Allen’s.”
As she raced through the gate and rounded the corner toward the front of the jail where she had left her horse, Henry’s final words were lost to Harmony. Undoubtedly it was merely more of the same. And no matter what he said, it didn’t matter anyway. She’d be going into hiding with Anthony. She had forever alienated her sister and shot two guards in the foot. There was no going back. Anthony at her side, she continued to run as fast as she could.
They were in perfect synch. As Anthony vaulted into the saddle, Harmony holstered her guns, then reached out her right hand to him. In one smooth motion he pulled her up and in front of him, and they were on their way. Harmony covered the retreat, sending a few rounds into the ground at the feet of the two pursuing guards. Mr. Henry, no doubt, was still standing,
dazed, on the scaffold.
Harmony didn’t know how long they might have. A little time, surely, before the men managed to get mounted and out of the courtyard. Then they would be after them.
She rode the gelding hard, lashing his flanks with the end of her reins, urging even more speed from the tiring animal. Flecks of foam blew from his mouth to stain her skirt, and her fingers tangled in his blowing mane.
At last she came to the place she had marked at the side of the road. A piece of white material, torn from the tail of her blouse, fluttered from a tree where she had impaled the cloth on the point of a twig. She pulled on the reins, and the gelding left the road and came to an abrupt halt.
“Get down, Anthony, quickly.”
He obeyed, then held out his arms to catch her as she slid from the horse. Before she could protest, he drew her into his arms and kissed her. Hard. She pushed him away.
“We don’t have time, Anthony. We—”
“There is no ‘we,'” he interrupted. “Take the horse. Go on.”
Out of breath, Harmony could only shake her head. Anthony caught her face in his hands to still her.
“You can get away. You’ll be forgiven for your rash act in the name of love. I’ll see to it. Go back to your sister. Go back to where you’re safe. I’ll take care of the rest.”
“I can’t, Anthony. It’s too late. I … I’ve done something to her. She’ll have me arrested, too.”
Despite their circumstances, the crooked smile started to twitch at one corner of Anthony’s mouth. “What did you do, Harmony?”
“Now’s no time to talk, Anthony!” She grabbed the front of his shirt and tried to pull him into the trees.
“Harmony, what—?”
“I have a plan, Anthony. Just be quiet and follow me.”
“But they’re going to be right behind us! We don’t have time for this—whatever it is. We have to get away. We have to keep riding. At least until we get to a place where I’ll be recognized, for who I really am, and be safe.”
Harmony took a precious moment to plant her hands on her hips. “This is going to be the first and last time you ever underestimate me, Anthony Allen. Or whoever you are. Now, come on!”
Baffled and bemused, and very much in awe, Anthony allowed Harmony to lead him through the trees. Before long they came to a small clearing. Anthony’s jaw dropped.
“How … how did you …? I mean …?”
Anthony, still numb and somewhat dazed by the swift succession of life-altering events, not the least of which was watching the love of his life rescue him from certain death with guns blazing, could only continue to stare, uncomprehending.
“Anthony. Please. We haven’t much time.” Exasperation turning to fear, Harmony pulled open the coach door and yanked out her bag. She pawed through the contents until she found the gown and bonnet and thrust them at him. “Here. Put these on.”
“You are amazing, but … but won’t we be recognized anyway? They know who we are. And they’re looking for a man and a woman, no matter how they’re attired.”
“Not this man and woman,” Harmony said tartly.
Anthony finally realized what he held in his hands. “Oh, my God. You’ve got to be kidding.”
“Just hurry up, my darling. There is no time for complaints.”
The fog in Anthony’s brain began to lift and clear. Harmony had just risked her life for him, and they were not out of danger yet—not until he could get to a place where people knew him—where he would be safe from re-arrest. The beauty and simplicity of Harmony’s plan became immediately clear to him, however, and he pulled the gown on over his clothing.
Her plan just might buy them some more time should they be stopped again before he could get them to a place of safety.
It felt like a corset had been loosened and Harmony could finally breathe again. Heedless of her modesty, she took off her riding skirt and boots and pulled on the breeches. Then she moistened her kerchief with saliva, dabbed it in the dirt, and applied the resulting mess to her cheeks and chin. As she pulled her boots back on she watched Anthony adjust his bonnet and she felt the beginnings of a smile caress her lips with the softness of a butterfly’s wings. She wanted to let the smile fly free, but the danger was not behind them yet. She jerked her Stetson from the bag, jammed it on her head, tucked her hair up under the brim, and climbed back into the coachman’s seat.
“Get in, Anthony,” she ordered, and snapped the drop-lash the instant she heard the door close. The carriage surged out of the trees and onto the road, the team moving at a brisk clip.
Her heart tried to beat its way out of her chest again. They were so close, so close to making it. She had actually pulled it off in a scene right out of one of her favorite novels. And that’s exactly what it seemed like: a scene out of a novel. Reality had become totally suspended.
Surely she had not really just broken her lover out of a jail and saved him from the gallows, six-guns blazing. It must have been somebody else. It couldn’t possibly be little Harmony Simmons, her sister’s ward.
Reality returned with a jolt, however, when she heard hoofbeats pounding behind the coach.
They had only traveled down the road two or three miles. Was it the English lawmen behind them, or had they traveled far enough and fast enough away? Harmony’s muscles tensed, but she willed h
er features to remain expressionless. She pulled the hat down a little tighter on her head. The mass of her hair, tucked up inside, threatened to dislodge it. She held her head very still as the riders came alongside the coach. “Halt!”
Harmony recognized Mr. Henry. He looked ridiculous on horseback. She hauled on her lines and the coach rolled to a stop.
“You, in the coach, step out where I can see you.”
Harmony made to get down, as if to help her passenger, and prayed Mr. Henry would stop her. Her prayers were answered.
“Stay where you are, driver,” he commanded, to her relief, although she did feel a bit nervous when he gave her Western-style hat a curious glance.
Harmony obediently sat back down. She heard the coach door open. She watched Mr. Henry automatically tip his hat.
“Good morning, ma’am,” he said politely. “I’m sorry to inconvenience you, but we’re looking for two riders on horseback, a man and a woman. Have you seen anyone go by?”
Harmony swiveled her eyes in her head as far as they would go. She watched Anthony raise a hand to his mouth, as if shy—tilting his head downward so the bonnet brim shielded his man-sized hand—and shake his head in the negative. The bonnet skewed slightly to one side. She held her breath.
“Well, sorry to bother you, ma’am. If you do see these two, head in the opposite direction. They’re armed and dangerous.”
Harmony watched Anthony nod. Mr. Henry put his heels to his horse and the group rode off. She watched Anthony gather his skirts and climb back into the carriage. When he was safely inside, she drove on a little farther to a fork in the road.
From the dust cloud, she could see which way the men had ridden. She took the other road and continued for a mile or two, until she found a likely opening in the trees. Cautiously, she guided the team into the wood. She kept on until the density of the trees made it impossible to go forward any farther, then tied the reins to the brake lever and jumped down. Anthony emerged from the carriage.
Unbelievably, they’d done it. She had rescued her lover from jail, literally from the gallows, disguised him as a woman, and fooled the law.
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