Fiona shuddered and closed her eyes briefly.
Bradford said, “Can you still question my determination to help, when both your brother and I supported the Jacobite Cause? Why, I’d count myself a craven cur did I refuse aid to those who have asked it of me!”
“I can well guess who asked you! This has an air of Grandmama about it! And—what are you supposed to be while you—you venture this forlorn endeavour? Gypsies?”
“Perhaps. ’Twould serve.”
“An all-male band of gypsies?” she persisted.
Bradford regarded her in sudden unease.
“Hah!” she said. “And what will the military think when they see so odd a company? You had as well advertise yourselves as frauds!”
“There will be women,” said Bradford. “Jacobite volunteers. And listen to me, my girl,” he shook a finger sternly under her diminutive nose, “do not be getting any silly notions!”
“Certainly not, Papa,” she said. “My notion is far from silly. When you leave—I go with you!”
“No!” thundered Bradford furiously. “Damme! I say—no!”
“Absolutely not!” cried Freemon Torrey.
Fiona smiled and lifted her little chin.
2
The weather, which had been fine coming up through the Cotswold Hills, turned chilly on Sunday afternoon and by dusk a light drizzle was misting the air. Roland Fairleigh Mathieson, sometimes known as Otton, but at present using his own name, had remained at a discreet distance behind his quarry these last four days. He was a man who knew how to bide his time, but he also knew and respected the rebel he followed, wherefore he urged Rumpelstiltskin to a canter, his keen gaze intent on the carriage wherein Rob MacTavish and his bride travelled at a steady pace through the valley below. Mathieson judged it inconceivable that the Scot knew he was following, for he had been very careful, but with the instinctive caution of the hunted, MacTavish had detoured several times, once so successfully that Mathieson’s chestnut horse had been obliged to stretch his long, powerful legs in a sustained gallop in order to regain sight of the carriage.
The drizzle became rain and conspired with the dimming light to decrease visibility, and with fiendish contrariness MacTavish was setting a faster pace. A driven man, no doubt, thought Mathieson, his well-cut but rather thin lips curving to a sardonic smile. Well, he himself was driven—had been driven these three years and more in his search for easy wealth. And if MacTavish thought to lose anyone who might be following, he was doomed to disappointment. “Not this time, friend,” Mathieson said softly.
Rumpelstiltskin was well accustomed to receiving his master’s confidences, and whickered an acknowledgment. Mathieson tensed, but between the pattering of the rain and the distance, there was scant chance MacTavish’s postillions had heard. He leaned forward and patted Rump’s wet neck, then turned him onto the downward slope.
The straightest line led through a belt of trees, but despite the increasing gloom Rumpelstiltskin picked his way unerringly among fallen branches, shrubs, and bracken. They emerged onto the turf without mishap. The rain had stopped now, but it was very obviously a temporary lull. A cold wind moaned through the valley, whipping Mathieson’s cloak and stirring the chestnut’s mane, and above them the skies were heavy with towering black clouds.
Narrowing the long dark eyes that had been the undoing of several lovely ladies, Mathieson sought for the coach and at length discerned it briefly outlined against the stormy sky as it topped a rise and vanished down the far side. He’d shortened the distance between them, by Jupiter! Exultant, he spoke softly to the stallion, urging him onward, casting caution to the wind as the rain began in earnest, the great cold drops becoming a steady downpour that promised to last the night out. They reached the rise in a pitchy darkness and were greeted by a wind-driven sheet of rain that made Mathieson clutch at his tricorne and duck his chin into the collar of his cloak. Far off, a cluster of lights promised a village or a hamlet. Too small for Cheltenham, he thought, but likely the Scot would rack up there, if only out of consideration for his lovely Rosamond.
Mathieson smiled faintly. His long search for the treasure that Bonnie Prince Charlie had so obligingly gathered, was surely drawing to a triumphant conclusion. After many months of disappointments, including having suffered a nasty wound at the hands of a fighting rebel, a lesser man might have abandoned the frustrating and perilous road to easy wealth. Not Roland Fairleigh Mathieson. When the trail in England had run quite cold, he’d repaired to Paris. Many hunted Jacobites had escaped to France. Certainly, he’d reasoned, they would be in touch with other fugitives—perhaps those who knew something of the hidden treasure.
He’d been fortunate in encountering an intrepid young man calling himself Dr. Robert Victor. Very soon Mathieson had learned that the worthy doctor was not a physician at all, but one Robert Victor MacTavish, an escaped Scots fugitive in honour bound to return to England to help his people. That any Jacobite, having once escaped Britain, would risk the horrors of a traitor’s death by returning, had seemed to Mathieson the very height of stupidity. He was obliged to admit, however, that he’d been outwitted by the Scot. MacTavish had fallen in love with and won the heart of a lovely English lass whose clergyman brother, although not a Jacobite, was deeply involved with helping them. At the very point of arrest, MacTavish had got his lady’s brother safely out of the country, then flummoxed the military into believing he and his love had also fled to France.
Mathieson could not recall their final encounter with pleasure. He and a troop of dragoons had been close on MacTavish’s heels at the end of that mad flight to the south coast. It might in fact, have had a very different end, for Mathieson had come upon the Scot and could have earned a nice reward by delivering him up for execution. Unfortunately, in a moment of weakness, he’d given his word not to betray the fugitives, and so had been unable to let the injured and helpless MacTavish suffer the consequences of his folly. A depressing situation in which to be placed. He sighed, but was rescued from gloom by his customary optimism. Eventually, good had come from his foolishness, for he was very sure now that MacTavish not only knew where the treasure was located, but was heading straight for it. With dogged determination therefore, he had clung day and night to the trail of the Scot. He was known both to the fugitive and his bride, wherefore it was necessary they not set eyes on him, but—
He started. He’d been so lost in reflection that for a minute or two he had failed to notice the change in the stallion’s gait. He reined up and was out of the saddle in a lithe swing. Investigation brought a groan of frustration. He shook a fist at the dark heavens.
“Why? Why must you fail me now, Thomas? The poor fool is less than a mile distant—the treasure as good as in my hands!”
But it was evident that St. Thomas was bending his energies elsewhere, and the iron horseshoe was no less lost for Mathieson’s rageful indignation. He took up the reins once more and led Rumpelstiltskin on through the worsening storm while apologizing to him for the situation in which they found themselves thanks to a somewhat less than efficient heavenly mediator.
“There!” whispered the pretty little serving maid. “The tall gent by the fire. Did ever you see such a face, Bertha?”
Her co-worker peered through the crowd gathered in the tap of The Red Rooster Inn. The gentleman indicated stood directly in front of the roaring flames, which was understandable as he appeared soaked to the skin. The cloak he had discarded was flung over the settle beside him. His wet black riding coat and white buckskins clung the tighter to a slim but muscular frame; a ruby winked richly from the snowy laces at his throat, another graced the fine-boned, long-fingered hand that held the tankard of ale. ‘Quality,’ she thought. ‘And the most handsome gent what I ever saw.’
The thickly lashed black eyes turned in their direction and a smile came into them. Her heart leaping, Bertha dodged past her outraged friend and ran to enquire with a pert smile as to “milor’s wishes.”
Math
ieson waved his tankard at her. “No ‘milor’ and—no more ale alas, pretty girl,” he said in a rich, cultured voice.
She reached for the tankard, her eyes glued to the fascinating dark features, and in an instant his arm was around her, and she was squealing as he planted a kiss on her rosy cheek. He laughed and let her go and, when she returned, slipped a shilling down the front of her bodice. “You’re a ripe armful. What’s your name, lass?”
“Bertha.” She rubbed her hip and said poutingly, “And you hurt me with your ugly sword.”
He leaned nearer. “Then I must kiss it better.”
“Ooh!” she exclaimed, blushing, but her blue eyes flirting with his brilliant black ones. “What a wicked genelman!”
“Aye, and not easily put off,” he murmured, caressing the earlobe that peeped from beneath her laced cap.
She shook her head at him. “You’re liable to be put under sod! To wear such jewels on the road at night! Hasn’t ye heard that Galloping Nick waits fer the likes o’ you?”
“Galloping Nick will stop no more travellers, does he stop me, I promise you.” It sounded boasting, but there was that about him which said he did not boast idly. “I seek a friend, sweet Bertha. A gentleman about my own age, but perhaps half a head shorter than I. Today he wears neither wig nor powder, his hair is light brown, his eyes—light—um … grey I think, and he goes with a very slight limp. A good-looking man, rather on the lean side. Likely came in shortly before I did. Have you seen such a one?”
She considered and shook her head. “If he comes, would ye wish I tell him as you are seek—”
“No, no. I bring him good news, but I’d prefer it be a surprise. He—er, stands in need of cheering up, d’ye see? Keep your eyes open, my sweet. Tip me the word before he spots me, and you’ll find more than a shilling in your lovely bodice.”
With spurious shyness she put a protecting hand over the area his eyes prowled so wickedly, but her saucy reply was lost in an outburst of loud laughter from the group of men gathered at the other side of the wide hearth.
“Treasure my grandmama’s garter! Had Bonnie Prince Charlie p’sessed ’smuch treasure as twenty gold p-pieces, he’d’ve spent ’tall on his misbegotten Uprising! I tell—hic!—I tell you, friends, Romans’n countrymen, if there be any treasure ’tis no more’n the price on that m-misguided fug’tive’s unfort’nate head!”
The serving maid tripped away, and Mathieson’s gaze turned with faint amusement to the big man who stood holding forth among the rustics. The accent said London and Quality. The attire said eccentricity, for, although bearing the unmistakable mark of a fine tailor, it was more than a trifle flamboyant, the crimson velvet coat lavishly trimmed with purple embroidery, the frogged buttons also purple, the waistcoat white satin, quilted with purple thread. White satin nether garments hugged powerful thighs and white stockings with purple diamonds were slightly wrinkled over shapely calves. His costume and the amethyst buckled high-heeled shoes he wore proclaimed that he travelled by coach. His demeanour and the diamond patch beside his humorous mouth said that he harboured a taste for the dramatic. His high colour and slurred enunciation told of a generous partaking of the wine that slopped in his glass.
“With all due respect, sir,” argued a squarely built man who looked like a prosperous farmer, “rumour says the Scotch prince gathered a great fortune and when he run out of time to spend it on his Rebellion, he hid it away so secret that now he’s been obliged to write messages about what he wants done wi’ it. We all do know how the army’s been hunting down fugitives these five months since the Battle o’ Culloden Moor, and—”
“What would you?” interjected the gentleman, leaning precariously towards him. “Fellas are t-traitors. Fought us. Enemies.”
A thin man with a sour mouth and a well-cut dark brown habit observed drily that Jacobite fugitives were executed almost as soon as they were apprehended.
“Unless the army thinks as they knows summat,” put in an apple-cheeked countryman clad in a snowy smock and gaiters. “Then they do live longer. Say a week or two. And like as not wish they ’adn’t! Which do seem a mite ’arsh, but you cannot go fer to deny as they did fight us, Doctor Lowell, and many a fine young English chap lying dead and cold in Scotland on account o’ it.”
“The Uprising was put down nigh half a year since,” responded the sour Dr. Lowell. “No more call for such savagery. Especially when they hound the poor devils for three hundred miles and more, and then nab ’em just as they go to set foot on a ship bound for France. Is inhuman, I say!”
“Ar, well you shouldn’t say it, Doctor. Not out loud,” put in the prosperous farmer, his shrewd eyes turning uneasily toward the tall young gallant who had undoubtedly heard his reckless medical friend. “And be that as it may, the fact remains as there’s been a’many couriers rushing hither and yon carrying pomes, and—”
“Carrying—what?” interrupted the tall gentleman, fascinated but swaying as he stood there, “Do pray eluci-eluci’splain y’meanin’, m’dear f’low.”
Two of the bystanders covered their mouths rather ostentatiously, and the farmer flushed.
“Pomes,” he repeated with defiant determination. “You know, sir. Words as goes wi’ a lilt, and what rhymes.”
“Ah …” The large gentleman’s eyes kindled. He flung his hand high in an extravagant gesture that sent Mathieson a hurried step to the rear so as to avoid a shower of wine. “Like this—perchance?” In a deep and sonorous voice that stopped all conversation in the crowded tap, he recited,
“No longer mourn for me when I am—hic—dead
Than you shall hear th-the sully surlen bell
Gi’ warning to th’world that I—er—bled
In thish vile inn and—er—so farewell …”
There was a chorus of awed gasps, capped by Mathieson’s muffled snort of laughter.
The large gentleman, who had been bowing deeply, glanced up in mid-bow and toppled to his knees.
Mathieson found it advisable to turn away to conceal a broad grin.
The laughter faded.
A hand tapped Mathieson’s shoulder.
He turned to find the large gentleman’s chin thrusting at him, the rather foolish smile having given way to a livid ferocity, and the eyes narrowed and dangerous.
Recognizing the signs and having no desire to draw attention to himself, Mathieson said with his pleasant smile, “Wish you good eve, friend.”
“Cannot have a g-good eve when y’take all the heat from th’ fire, sir,” growled the large gentleman belligerently.
“Very selfish of me,” admitted Mathieson, who had long since ceased to consider the well-being of his fellow man. “I am rather damp, you see, but I’d no thought to—”
“To be a fire hog?”
“I apologize.” Mathieson’s bow was just a touch too deep but so graceful that the two serving maids sighed dreamily.
A few chuckles were heard, and the large gentleman, rightly suspecting he was being mocked, bridled. “And … and you steam, sir,” he pointed out, making wild fanning motions.
“The logical result of a meeting of heat and water, alas.”
“Then ye mean t’ go on with it? I din’t come in here t’be steamed over, and—and so I tell ye. To y’r face—which I can’t hardly see f’r—f’r all y’r c’nfounded steam, sir!”
Mathieson’s dark eyes danced with laughter; he lowered them and stepped aside saying meekly that he would endeavour to refrain from steaming. He was, however, quite unable to keep his mouth from twitching and, bristling, the large gentleman advanced.
“You found m’ p’formance—amusin’, I gather?”
Despite himself, Mathieson asked mildly, “Was not that your intent, sir?”
“By God, but ’twas not, sir! Th’ Bard c’n be mos’ ‘musin’ when he wishes to—to be. Not in that p’tic’lar sonnet h’wever. You care to—to step outside … sir, an’ let me wipe that demned grin off your face?”
A small an
d very hopeful crowd was gathering. The large gentleman was obviously eager for a mill. His dashing adversary was tall and well built, the sword that hung at his side had seen much service by the look of it, and there was about him the slight swagger and arrogant assurance that spoke of a born fighting man.
Mathieson disappointed them. “By no means, sir,” he replied, bowing once more. “I admired your rendering of Shakespeare.” The gentleman looked somewhat mollified. “I merely fancied your misquote to have been deliberate.”
“M-Misquote?” roared the large gentleman, at once choleric. “Misquote, d’ye say? Why, devil take y’sir! I do not misquote th’ ’mortal Bard. Not never! Take it back, sir, or … by—by—” Even as he spoke, his fist flashed out. It was a large fist and might have been most damaging had it landed. The wine, however, had taken its toll. Mathieson swayed easily aside, and the fist flew past his ear. The large gentleman lost his balance and plunged.
“Bye, bye,” said Mathieson, grinning as he caught and lowered the aggressive Shakespearean afficionado to the floor.
He then offered polite farewells to the amused onlookers, and taking up his wet cloak, made his way to the stables to check on Rumpelstiltskin.
The rain had stopped, a half moon was playing hide and seek with the clouds, and the wind had sunk to little more than a breeze. There was ample light for Mathieson to see his way, which meant there was also sufficient light for Rob MacTavish to do the same. On the other hand, Mathieson was tired, for he’d been in the saddle since dawn. It followed, therefore, that Mrs. Robert Victor MacTavish, née Albritton, would also be tired.
“Cheltenham eh, Rump old lad,” said Mathieson. The big horse whickered and tossed his head. “No,” Mathieson told him firmly. “No farther tonight, or I’m like to pass by the Highland gentleman, and we can’t have that!”
Dedicated Villain Page 3