Julie Anne Long

by The Runaway Duke

  Connor had returned to the Thorny Rose Tavern from the pawnbroker’s with locket still in hand and with a gift for her: a book that contained drawings of herbs and receipts for medicines, draughts, and poultices. He had presented it to her solemnly, a little shyly, but the gold flecks in his eyes were dancing as he watched her face.

  Rebecca had been speechless. Connor had remembered her eighteenth birthday. And no one had ever before given to her a gift that acknowledged, even celebrated, precisely who she was. Gifts from Mama and Papa tended to be hopeful and slightly reproachful: embroidery silks, books on comportment, gifts that told all about who they wanted her to be.

  As she held the book, she felt tears tightening her throat, so she had hugged him, hoping he wouldn’t notice. And though she had hugged him before as a child, today she was mindful of the length of him, of the scratchy press of his cheek against hers, the cheek she had traced secretly last night in the dark, and the weight and heat of his hands on her back. His hands had hovered a moment, hesitating, before coming to rest on her—she noticed that, too—and then he had held her, almost gingerly, a tick or two longer than a hug usually lasted.

  When Connor had at last pulled away from her, he seemed unable to meet her eyes.

  Yes, today, life was as perfect as life could be, and she felt too tired and peaceful to feel even a twinge of guilt about Mama and Papa, who would have happily consigned her to a sort of purgatory with Edelston.

  Connor, watching Rebecca’s slim straight back centered above her horse, was feeling considerably less peaceful. Acknowledging the sweet warmth of the day, he rode in his shirtsleeves, but this road was sparsely traveled and he was fairly certain his breach of gentleman’s etiquette would horrify few, if any, other travelers.

  In contrast to the ease of his attire, his new musket lay across his lap half-cocked. They were now officially on Dunbrooke land, and every one of his senses were heightened and wary; he felt as though he were a prisoner strolling nonchalantly through a prison toward an open door, hoping no one would notice. He half expected the trees that lined the road to bow all at once to form a cage, trapping him in his past like a rodent.

  Several other disturbing thoughts were simultaneously orbiting his mind competing for attention. In no particular order they were:

  If the garrulous Mr. Augustus Meredith had it right, his brother Richard had been murdered and Connor’s former mistress was now dowager Duchess of Dunbrooke, which made her sole beneficiary of the Dunbrooke fortune. And a certain Her Grace had apparently sent two highwaymen to retrieve the locket—a very incriminating locket, if one was once an actress named Marianne Bell, and one was deeply invested in keeping this little morsel of information from the ton. It all now made a terrible sort of sense, though how Marianne Bell had learned that Rebecca Tremaine had absconded with the locket was a mystery. No doubt Edelston was the connection there.

  And if Raphael Heron had it right, the villagers near Keighley Park had suffered ever since Marianne Bell had become the Duchess of Dunbrooke. Connor wasn’t at all sure what he wanted to do, if anything, about this, but he knew he wasn’t at all pleased. It ate at him.

  The third thought was that it seemed entirely possible that he and Rebecca were being followed, as two people on horseback had been riding at some distance behind them since shortly after they had left the Thorny Rose Tavern. The two puffs of dust kicked up by their horses on the road were clearly visible. He recalled the greasy ruffians who had eyed them with a certain keen malice as they entered the Thorny Rose Tavern yesterday evening, and wondered if perhaps their malice did indeed have intent.

  The fourth thought was that the only thing he really wanted to do at the moment was indulge an appalling impulse to pull Rebecca off her horse, wrap her in his arms, tug off her cap, plunge his fingers up through her hair, and—

  “Well, well, we meet again, guv.”

  Bloody, bloody hell. The two wretched highwaymen they had encountered a night earlier were on the road in front of Rebecca, mounted on freshly acquired horses, pointing freshly acquired pistols, a pair each at Connor’s chest and at Rebecca’s. Their faces were kerchief-free, a nod either to boldness or to the futility of the gesture; Connor had seen them both vividly by the light of the full moon a night ago.

  Connor silently cursed himself and glanced wildly about; they had been lying in wait in a thick stand of birches. What Connor could have done about it was exactly nothing, but this realization only enraged him further. His mistake, he knew, was arrogance: he had assumed the highwaymen would not dare to come back for more after being so thoroughly humiliated by him the night before. I deserve to hang right here and now for allowing anyone to point a pistol at Rebecca’s heart.

  “Ned,” he said, his voice low, resonant. Rebecca understood: it was a warning to remain absolutely still and silent. She complied, her hands motionless on the pommel of her saddle.

  “Pretty mounts ye have under ye,” the highwayman named John said, as the two of them rode closer to Connor and Rebecca. A distinct petulance colored his tone. “Ye willna have the pleasure of them much longer. Now if ye aim that musket our way or reach for the pistol in your boot, guv, we’ll shoot ye and then the lad. Or maybe we’ll shoot the lad first, and then yerself. The way we sees it, Edgar and me here, we owes ye. Now raise yer hands up where we can see them, like, both of ye.”

  Connor, slowly, with a great show of reluctance, lifted his arms into the air and watched in a seething silence as Rebecca did the same. But his mind was a pulse ahead of the moment: he could now hear a rumble of approaching hoofbeats. It meant that their distant mysterious escorts were now riding toward them at a gallop.

  Moments later, the two riders pulled up alongside Connor, horses snorting and stamping. Surprising no one, they were also brandishing pistols. A general expression of puzzlement flashed across the face of each man on the road: suddenly, no one had the foggiest idea at whom to aim.

  “And ’oo,” John the highwayman finally said indignantly, “the ’ell are you?”

  “Them’s our ’orses,” one of the men spat in Connor’s direction. He was indeed, Connor noted with resignation, one of the greasy ruffians that had been eyeing Connor and Rebecca back at the Thorny Rose. Face like a sullen slab of dough sprinkled with whiskers, hair hanging in oily hanks to his shoulders. His partner looked eerily similar, if somewhat larger and fleshier. The Brothers Grime, Connor silently christened them.

  “Ye stole ’em,” the ruffian insisted. “And we’ve come to take ’em back.”

  He decisively turned his pistol on Connor, who raised his musket to meet the challenge, which caused John and Edgar the highwaymen to lurch forward a bit in their saddles and point their own pistols at Connor more emphatically, if such a thing was possible. The greasy ruffian’s compatriot, feeling left out, took this as a cue to aim his pistol in Rebecca’s direction. Rebecca’s hands were flat against her thighs, heartbreakingly empty. But then again, she was new at the business of fending off gun-wielding attackers, Connor thought.

  It was silent for a moment, until Connor’s horse blew air through its nose. It sounded remarkably like a snort of disgust.

  An exchange of a sort involving shifting eyes and raised eyebrows was taking place between John and Edgar, the highwaymen. Connor felt a distant sort of amusement; clearly, the two highwaymen had somehow stolen the horses from these two greasy ruffians, and Connor suspected the greasy ruffians had stolen them from someone else before that. Few men would take justice into their own hands unless justice already wanted to hang them for something else.

  John, as usual the spokesman for the highwaymen, cleared his throat and began.

  “We understand yer plight, gentlemen,” he addressed the greasy ruffians, who moved their pistols indecisively away from Connor and Rebecca and pointed them in the general direction of John and Edgar, as though they were loathe to commit their enmity fully just yet. “We’d like to make a little bargain with ye. We’ve some dealings with these two”�
�he paused, searching for an adjective that would adequately describe Connor and Rebecca, and failing to find one, continued—“blokes, and it will take but a minute. We’d be much obliged if ye’d aim yer pistols in their general direction while we . . . conduct our business. An’ after that, ye can take yer ’orses off, and we’ll aim our pistols at these two lads whilst ye do it. Ye’ve our word on that. Fair enough?”

  The greasy ruffians conferred with grunts and mutters, and the first one spoke again.

  “Done. Do it fast.” With these words, all guns were trained on Connor and Rebecca.

  “Keep yer ’ands in the air, there’s a good lad,” John said to Connor, and smiled, revealing a gap where one of his front teeth should have been. “Remember, guv, one wrong move an’ Ned ’ere is dead.” Connor gave him a faint smile and complied, watching, his mind planning, sorting.

  “Keep an eye on this ’un lads, ’e’s a right devil,” John remarked to the greasy ruffians.

  “Now, Ned,” John said, turning his efficient attentions to Rebecca, “come down off that beast ye stole and let Edgar ’ave a look inside yer pack. If we find naught in it, then we’ll take a look inside yer clothes, eh? Or ye can always jus’ show us the locket and be done wi’ it.”

  Rebecca glanced at Connor for guidance, and Connor, mindful of the loaded and cocked guns surrounding them, nodded once. Rebecca scowled at John and slid down off her horse. John tucked one of his pistols into his waistband and then stepped behind her, wrapped a hairy arm tightly around her shoulders, and pointed his other pistol at her temple. Connor’s heart began pounding in his ears.

  Edgar dismounted from his horse and trudged toward the pack strapped to the back of Rebecca’s mare.

  But Connor’s eyes were on John’s hand, which had begun, almost absently, to creep over Rebecca’s coat. And he saw it when John’s face changed subtly, saw the shock, the wonder, the abstracted, slow-dawning lecherous glee.

  It was the expression of a man who has suddenly and accidentally found his hand on a woman’s breast.

  “Well, ’ere’s something, lads,” John drawled. Some primal note in his voice caused everyone to pivot alertly in his direction, like wolves catching a hint of deer in a passing breeze. “It seems Ned here has a bosom. This lad is a lass.”

  His hand moved over her coat again in a crawling caress and then closed decisively, triumphantly, over Rebecca’s breast. The hand that held his pistol yanked off her cap with a flourish.

  Rebecca’s hair came tumbling out, an explosion of color in the afternoon sun.

  An odd stillness descended. The expressions of the men shifted as one. Enthralled, ominously focused, they stared at Rebecca.

  The greasy ruffian mounted next to Connor cleared his throat. “I’ll ’ave a go at ’er,” he said to John, politely. “After ye’ve ’ad yer turn, of course.”

  A rage so pure burning it approximated bliss almost lifted Connor out of his body. The faces of the men, the leaves on the trees, the barrels of guns, Rebecca’s hair tossed by the breeze, his own breath and skin, fractured into minute shards of brilliant clarity. He looked at Rebecca; her face was white and pinched, her eyes glittery slits. She met Connor’s eyes; rage met rage and understood.

  “Now,” John drawled, “ye canna really blame me fer thinkin’, guv, that if ye were fibbin’ about ’avin a girl, ye might be fibbin’ about ’avin a locket. I think I’ll jus’ ’ave a peek inside yer shirt now . . . Ned.” He thrust his hand roughly between the buttons that closed over Rebecca’s breasts and froze in true surprise when his fingers met warm metal.

  “Well, hullo, boys! Could this be a lock—”

  Rebecca sagged in John’s arms in a staged faint and Connor seized the heartbeat’s space of diversion to ram the butt of his musket into the head of the greasy ruffian mounted next to him, who promptly toppled from his horse and dangled by one stirrup, senseless. From her near crouch, Rebecca drove her head up under John’s jaw, and when his grip went lax with shock she twisted free from him and hurled her fist into his groin. Connor swung his musket with all the inhuman strength loaned to him by fury, once, twice, the third time succeeding in clubbing the other greasy brute from the back of his horse.

  The horse shifted its feet indolently, and its haunches gave a little twitch, as though ridding itself of a fly. For now the man lay still. Connor doubted this happy condition would last.

  Immediately lifting the miraculously unharmed musket to his shoulder, Connor trained it on the frustrated Edgar, who for the minute or so of chaos had seemed unable to decide who to shoot.

  Rebecca swept John’s dropped pistol from the ground and eyed John consideringly; the highwayman was entirely focused on his physical torment, bent double and making ghastly wheezing noises. Rebecca decided to finish the job by delicately hooking her leg around the back of his knees. John tipped over like a neatly felled tree. He lay folded in on himself, his hands bunched between his legs, emitting low horrible moans. Rebecca, her nose wrinkled in distaste, yanked his other pistol from his waistband.

  “Shall I kill him?” Connor asked Rebecca politely.

  She pretended to mull his question. “Not just at this very moment, I should think,” she said thoughtfully.

  “Oh—dear—God—” John gasped.

  “Now, Edgar,” Connor said, very reasonably. “You are aware I am an excellent shot, are you not? Lock your pistols, drop them, and kick them over to Ned.”

  Edgar dropped his pistols and gave each of them a disconsolate kick. Rebecca obediently plucked them off the ground.

  “If ye’d only just give over the locket, guv . . .” Edgar said despairingly.

  “I told you before, Edgar, we haven’t a locket,” Connor replied, his consonants spires, his vowels great shining unbridgeable moats. The lord was back.

  “Aye, guv, but ye said before ye ’adn’t a girl, either, and John ’ere said—”

  Connor smiled a smile that held all the warmth and understanding of a scimitar blade, effectively slicing Edgar’s sentence in two.

  “Tell me who sent you.”

  Connor feared he knew without a doubt who had sent them, and her name was Marianne Bell, now known as the Duchess of Dunbrooke. Marianne Bell would see him in hell before she would ever get her hands on the very incriminating locket.

  Behind them, a saddle creaked; the dangling ruffian seemed to have recovered his senses and was wriggling about, attempting to free himself of the stirrup.

  Sweat had created a slick over Edgar’s chalky face.

  “We told ye all we know, guv, we did. ’Er Grace sent us. By way of ’Utchins. Ye can shoot me now, guv, but I can tell ye no more.”

  Connor let a moment of silence beat by to allow Edgar to fully enjoy the feeling of having a musket pointed directly at his face.

  “And why does ’Er Grace want to kill me?”

  “We wasn’t t’ kill ye, guv, until ye gave over the locket. Oh, unless ye’d gold specks in yer eyes. I . . . I . . . don’t suppose ye’d tell me whether ye’ve gold specks in yer eyes?” Edgar hazarded weakly. It was a desperate act by a man who meant to earn his pay.

  From his position on the ground, John groaned, a sound of pure frustration. Clearly Edgar had said too much.

  A chill curled down Connor’s spine. He stared at Edgar, stunned. Sweet Mary Mother of God, he thought, though he was not at all Catholic. What kind of farce has my life become? She knew. Marianne Bell knew, somehow she knew, that Roarke Blackburn, currently living as Connor Riordan, was the man traveling with the girl who had stolen the locket. And what were the highwaymen’s orders, Connor wondered, once they had retrieved the locket? No doubt it involved his murder. For Connor, alive, was a threat to all that Marianne had fraudulently achieved. He saw that very clearly. He also knew, with an unshakable gut-level certainty, that Richard’s murder had been no coincidence.

  Behind him, a rustle in the dirt in the road and the squeak of leather told him that the ruffian on the ground was attempting to right hi
mself by grabbing hold of his horse’s stirrup.

  “To horse, Ned,” Connor said. Rebecca shoved one of her new pistols into her waistband and Connor almost smiled when she frowned down quizzically at the other three, wondering where to put them. She glanced up, saw urgency in his eyes, and stuffed her absurd bouquet of pistols quickly into the pack strapped to the brown mare. Almost as an afterthought, Rebecca bent down and retrieved her cap, cramming it down over her head. Her hair fluttered out from underneath it, an incongruously bright and cheerful thing in the aftermath of violence.

  “If there is a next time, gentlemen,” Connor said, in the tone one would use to invite the vicar to tea, “I will kill you in the slowest, most painful imaginable way. I am weary of games. Kindly convey my regards to ’Utchins and ’Er Grace, and tell them I recommend they cease their pursuit. Good day.”

  Connor doffed his hat briefly, while John remained curled on the ground and Edgar continued to sweat from frustration.

  But John’s awkward position on the ground afforded him a unique view of the aristocratic madman. And when Connor doffed his hat, the afternoon sun struck sparks from very distinctive, quite unmistakable gold specks in Connor’s eyes.

  Connor nudged his horse to move alongside Rebecca’s.

  “We are going to run,” he hissed into her ear. He could see that she still had the unnaturally blanched skin and hot eyes of the righteously furious. He smiled at her, an enveloping smile of tender reassurance, a teasing warmth kindling his eyes. Rebecca returned his smile with one that was full of the sort of joy most inappropriate to the occasion.

  “Now,” he whispered.

  They kicked hard. Their horses wheeled briefly in surprise, then stretched out into a blistering run just as the first greasy ruffian made it to saddle.