by Nancy Butler
As a child she had made those shipyards her second home, roaming freely among the lumber piles, the drums of nails and the great towering skeletons of the unfinished ships. The carpenters had been her nursemaids, and the skilled shipwrights had been her first tutors.
But that world was now forbidden to her, by a father who realized too late that he’d let his daughter become a wild rover. He’d once used those words as a term of endearment, but after she grew into womanhood and still wanted no part of the social world, they became his lament.
The only time he allowed her to visit him was at Christmas. For two blessed weeks. Every year she pleaded with him to let her stay, and for seven years he had remained adamant. It did no good to point out that she had not taken with the ton, that in spite of her expensive gowns and her careful schooling in deportment, in spite of a connection on her mother’s side to Lord Ensleigh, she had been overlooked by most of the females in Society and by every eligible male. The numerous fortune hunters who had beaten a path to her aunt’s door did not count. Nor did her cousin Darwin, who had begun wooing her long before his most recent descent into debt.
Great-Aunt Elizabeth, who had overseen her come-out—and was sister to the late Baron Ensleigh—had fallen into a decline over Alexa’s rejection by Society. It was, she protested to anyone who would listen, unthinkable that Alexa had passed a Season in London without acquiring even one beau. The girl was wealthy, she would remind them, and had more than respectable breeding, at least on one side of her lineage.
While it was true she was no beauty, being far too tall for fashion, and inclined to stride about like a hussar captain, she did possess a lovely pair of blue eyes. And though her hair tended to overpower her angular, pointed face, it was a glistening blue-black and would never require a curling iron.
Alexa recalled how, during that first Season, Aunt Elizabeth had insisted she crop her hair. A French hairdresser had been summoned to the house and had ended up swooning on the couch when Alexa threatened her with her own shears. The Prescott curls had remained untouched, her unruly coiffure setting Alexa apart from her peers as much as her tendency to speak her mind on matters political or to utter the occasional nautical oath.
Papa’s not going to send me away this year, she now vowed silently. It was time she stood up to him and made him see reason. He was nearing his seventieth year, and though he denied it, age was finally taking its toll on him. She had seen the truth of this last Christmas—he had taken to walking with a cane, though he claimed his lameness was the result of a fall from a nervy young horse. And he insisted his loss of appetite was due to a brief illness he’d suffered in early December. But Alexa saw through his excuses. Her proud, pigheaded father was getting old, and he needed her.
She had spent the past year preparing herself for the task of assisting him at the shipyard. Her charity work with the Chelsea Hospital shifted from looking after the needs of patients to working with the harried director. He gladly taught her some basic accounting, and was amazed that within months she was handling a great deal of the hospital’s finances and ordering of supplies.
No, she had not wasted her time in London this past year ... she had learned to run a business and had honed her skills at managing people. It was her bad luck to have a father and a cousin whom she could not manage at all.
But she had made her decision. Five days after Christmas, she would come into her inheritance. It was another reason the season was so festive, since it encompassed the daughter of the house’s birthday.
And this year the daughter of the house was determined not to return to London. She would take lodgings in Cudbright if he refused to let her stay with him. Though that was not a happy option. She loved her home, even if it was completely her father’s domain—his larger-than-life presence had penetrated every nook and cranny until there was no room for anyone else to lay a claim to the space.
She used to wonder if she would someday have a home of her own. It was the only thing that had ever made her consider marriage—that as a wife she might at last gain a place upon which she could leave her own stamp.
Ah, but that meant she would be required to share it with a husband, most likely a vain, arrogant fribble like her dreadful cousin Darwin, and where was the use of that? Just another male to order her about and squash her spirit. Her father did a topping job in that area, thank you very much.
By the time they reached Reading, it was growing dark. The coachman conferred with her while they changed horses at the White Hart, wondering if he should push on. Alexa was weary, but she was also anxious to close the distance to Devon.
“Do you mind if we travel on a bit farther?” she asked Reggie, still mindful of the older woman’s comfort. “There’s that pleasant inn near Newbury.”
“Perhaps an hour more wouldn’t hurt.” The woman dabbed at her nose with a delicate square of linen. It was the tenth one she’d gone through since the journey began. Alexa had a notion to buy her some serviceable men’s handkerchiefs and present them to her with her other Christmas packages.
“Drive on, then,” she ordered, wishing William Coachman didn’t look half frozen. He’d probably been hoping she would let them put up at the posting house, where he could thaw out before a taproom fire with a mug of hot cider on his knee. She promised herself that she would ask her father to give both coachmen a bonus.
They passed beyond the outskirts of Reading, across the flatlands that were the beginning of the vast Salisbury Plain.
Alexa had lowered the right-hand window flap to look back at the town—the lights of the city made a pleasant firefly glow against the darkening sky. She was about to fasten up the flap again, when a loud voice called out for the coach to stop. She started back in surprise as the coach drew to an abrupt halt.
Reggie clutched one hand to her bosom. “Highwaymen,” she whimpered.
“Nonsense,” said Alexa. “We are barely out of the city.” She stuck her head out the window again and tried to see who was in the road ahead. She heard hoofbeats and then drew back a little as a caped rider approached her side of the coach. In the darkness of the road, she could make out that he was tall and seemed to be listing to one side.
“Please,” he called out hoarsely. “I mean you no harm. I was attacked on the road ... the ruffians shot me before I could get away.”
Alexa could see he was holding his right hand to his shoulder. “Why didn’t you just give them your money?” she asked evenly. “Only a fool would try to ride away from armed robbers.”
He nudged his horse closer to the coach. “Please, I need a doctor, and I don’t know how much longer I can stay in the saddle. If you would take me back to Reading in your coach ...”
“We must help him,” Reggie hissed at her elbow. “It’s the Christian thing to do.”
“I suppose,” Alexa said irritably. “I don’t like it very much, though. He’s probably going to bleed all over Papa’s new upholstery.”
“You are an unnatural child,” Reggie pronounced.
“Well, I still don’t like it.”
Henry, the junior coachman, had climbed down from the box and was attempting to get the injured man off his horse. The rider groaned audibly as he tipped to one side.
“He’s too heavy for me, miss,” the lad cried, turning back to Alexa. “If he hits the ground, we’ll never get him in the coach.”
Grumbling in vexation, Alexa swung the door open. She lifted her skirts, jumped down from the coach, and marched to where the man’s horse stood.
“Here,” she said to the coachman. “I’ll hold him steady while you shift him off the saddle.” She stretched up on tiptoes to grasp the man’s uninjured shoulder.
Alexa gave a little shriek of alarm when the rider’s right arm came swooping down around her waist. He tugged her right off her feet, lifting her up to the saddle. Alexa drew in a deep breath to protest this rough treatment, but the man set his hand firmly over her mouth.
“Get back,” he snarled to the you
ng coachman. “I have a pistol and I’ll use it.”
The lad scrambled away from the horse. Mrs. Reginald, meanwhile, was peering out the window, trying to make sense of what was happening beyond the coach.
“Sorry, ma’am,” the rider called out to her. “But this was necessary. You’ll find a message at the Lamb in Reading. Go back there now if you value your skins.”
Alexa struggled against him as he spun his horse and sent it racing across the open ground. Everything happened so quickly, it took her several seconds to realize she was being carried away from her coach. Twisting her head to one side, she tried to scream out in fury. He again covered her mouth. That was when she bit him, setting her teeth hard into the ball of his thumb.
“Aow ...” she moaned out loud. Good Lord, his flesh was as hard as granite. She felt along her front teeth with her tongue, sure she had chipped one of them.
The man was laughing against her ear. “Biting won’t do you any good, hoyden.”
She continued to fight him, drumming her legs against the horse’s side, and trying to turn around so she could pummel him with her fists. He clamped his right arm tighter around her, holding her immobile. In the distance she could hear Reggie’s staccato screams rising over the plain.
“Be still,” he snarled. “I promise you are in no danger.”
She growled back at him, through the gloved hand that was still clamped over her mouth. In spite of her red-hot anger, she found herself starting to shiver. The night wind whipped them as they raced across the open terrain, chilling her face and bared throat. She was sure she was trembling from the cold, not with fear.
She’d never felt fear a day in her life. Boredom, restlessness, and impatience, but never, ever fear. If she hadn’t given her warm fur muffler to Reggie, she knew she would not be quaking in this stranger’s arms.
Chapter 3
“They never came ... we waited near two hours, but the coach never appeared.”
“You’re sure you had marked the right coach?” Quincy asked brusquely.
Finch nodded. “Me and Connor waited at the White Hart in Reading, just like you told us. We were in the stable yard when your cousin stopped to change horses. I got a good look at the lady when she stepped out to speak to her driver. She was tall and dark-haired, just as you described her. Then we rode on ahead, two miles or so, and waited along the road. But they never came.”
“Maybe they decided to stay in Reading,” Quincy muttered. “Though I’ve traveled to Cudbright with my cousin any number of times, and she has never stayed there before. She has a preference for the Eight Bells in Newbury.”
Connor nodded. “I heard her tell the driver to keep going. They was changing horses when we rode out.”
Darwin Quincy fought down his simmering anger. Somewhere on the road between this hedge tavern and Reading, his uncle’s coach had disappeared, and with it, all his prospects.
He stalked around the small parlor, thinking furiously. The two men watched him with anxious eyes. Well, Connor did. Finch looked as angry as Quincy, as though his honor as a hired thug had been compromised.
“Who else knew of our plan?” he said, turning on Finch.
“This is not a coincidence. Someone knew my cousin was traveling this route and got to her first.”
“No one knew,” Finch protested, shaking his bullet head. “On my mother’s life, sir.” Then his eyes narrowed. “No, wait a minute. There was a mate of Connor’s there that night at the Doxy’s Choice. Fellow name of MacHeath. He knew we was there to do some business.”
Connor took a step forward, his shoulders sagging. “I just passed some time with him, sir, after you left. He’s harmless.”
Quincy sighed. “I knew we should have stayed out of that blasted grogshop. Could he have overheard us talking?”
“He was across the room,” Connor insisted. “In the corner near the tap.”
“Not when we came in, he wasn’t,” Finch muttered. “There were some fellows playing cards in that corner.”
“Who is this MacHeath?”
Finch scratched the side of his shaved head. “He’s a clever fellow who makes a living in the rookery working for the landlords—does some carpentry and hauling and such. And he’s not above reasoning with tenants what’s behind with their rent.”
“If he’s so clever, what’s he doing in the East End?” Quincy asked,
“He used to be a Channel smuggler,” Connor said. “There wasn’t an excise cutter could catch him, they do say. But he went up against a French warship and lost his right hand in the battle. Had to leave the sea after that.” He raised open hands to Quincy. “I promise you, sir, he’s not the sort to tread on another fellow’s business. You see, he fancies himself something of a gentleman. He’s got a code about certain types of work.”
“Alf means he won’t kill a cove for money,” Finch said, and then spat. “And he won’t steal, neither. So I doubt he’d take it on himself to abduct a woman.”
Quincy weighed this information, and then his face darkened. “Has it occurred to either of you that such a man, one who apes a gentleman’s code, might think himself justified in undermining our plan?”
“Don’t know,” Finch said. “He’s Connor’s mate, not mine.”
“Hard to say what Mackie will do,” Connor said with a halfhearted shrug. “Saw him rescue a little boy once. The sprat had climbed out a third-floor window after a lost kite and crawled along a ledge where the wood was all rotten. A piece of it gave way under him, and he was left hanging by his fingers. Everyone in the street just stood there, waiting for him to fall. Old Mackie ran into that building and came through the window. He went right out on that ledge, easy like, talking to that boy the whole time. He got him up off the ledge and carried him back inside.”
“Not bad for a man with one hand,” Quincy murmured. “So he’s brave, if somewhat foolhardy. That’s a potent combination. Something in my gut is telling me he’s our man.”
“But he had no way of knowing which coach to stop,” Connor protested again. “He’s not a bleedin’ mind reader. I never mentioned your name to him, sir. He can’t have any idea who you are. He was still in the tavern long after you’d left for ... I swear he didn’t follow you.”
“Yes,” Quincy hissed, “but perhaps he’s been following you. You say he knew we had some business that night. Still, I’m damned if I can figure out how he knew we were planning an abduction.”
Finch grasped his mate by the wrist. “You didn’t tell him, Alf? Tell me you didn’t shoot yer bleedin’ mouth off to MacHeath.”
Connor shook off the viselike grip. “And what if I did?” he cried. “Weren’t no harm in it. I just told him we was carrying off a lady for a gent who wanted to marry her. A bit of a laugh, I thought.”
“I am not laughing, Mr. Connor,” said Quincy in a dangerously quiet voice. “I suspect your mate followed you to the White Hart. He saw my cousin conversing with her driver and, if he is as clever as you say, marked her as the woman you were after. This MacHeath was probably right behind you when you left the posting house. And he carried off the girl before the coach reached your hiding place.”
Connor still looked doubtful. “Then, where is the coach?”
Finch cuffed him on the side of the head. “Back in Reading, you clodpole. They wouldn’t just keep driving on across Salisbury Plain, now, would they, with the young lady taken? They’d have gone back to rouse the constables.”
“Still, there may be a less melodramatic explanation for all this,” Quincy said as he lowered himself into a chair. “The coach could have broken down on the outskirts of town ... one of the horses might have gone lame.”
“You better pray that’s the case,” Finch muttered to his companion.
“But if this MacHeath has taken my cousin, we’ve got to get her back as quickly as possible. Though it shouldn’t be difficult to track down a one-handed man.”
Finch shook his head. “Not that easy. He wears a cunning false han
d made of wood, with a leather glove over it. Still, he’s hard to miss.”
“Tell me ...” Quincy’s fingers tapped restlessly on the arm of his chair.
“He’s tall, nearly as tall as me. Broad in the shoulder, though he’s no heavyweight. Dark hair, a bit of gray at the sides.”
“He doesn’t sound very remarkable. How would I pick him out in a crowd?”
“Follow the women,” Connor stated bluntly. “He’s a handsome devil, with a sailor’s swagger and dark, knowing eyes.”
“Never seen eyes like his,” Finch concurred. “Like agate marbles they are, the gray and brown all swirled together.”
“Well, if he waylaid my cousin’s coach merely to warn her, this would-be gentleman, he would likely send her back to Reading. But if he’s carried her off, as I fear, he’ll head toward her father’s home in Devon.” He added with a sneer, “Even an honorable rogue might be tempted to seek a reward from the richest man in the south coast.”
He stood up and tugged on his greatcoat. “I’ll return to Reading. You two ride west toward Upavon. Check every posting house and inn along the way. But first check any blacksmith in the area, in case the coach had an accident and it turns out this MacHeath fellow had nothing to do with the girl’s disappearance. Meet me tomorrow morning in Upavon.”
He watched as the two men went grumbling from the room. They were doubtless tired and hungry. But they were also greedy, and he trusted their greed to spur them on. He’d pawned everything he could lay his hands on to pay their price, but it would be worth it once he had Alexa at his mercy. His sweet cousin, the shrew who had scorned him from the time she was a child. The upstart merchant’s daughter who had too many scruples to aid her own cousin.
That recent humiliation was a keen-edged knife in his gut. But he’d stake his claim to her all the same and tame her in time. Though whether he tamed her or not was immaterial—his uncle’s blunt did a lot more for his imagination than that black-haired she-devil.