by Louise Clark
Appreciating the tactful way Madeleine had broached the subject, Stephanie smiled. "Your suggestion sounds delightful, Tante Madeleine. When shall we go?"
"As soon as Nicholas can arrange it," the Countess said firmly. "Well, Nicholas? What do you say?"
On the verge of suggesting that rusticating was rather more than the situation demanded, Nicholas saw the shadows darkening Stephanie's eyes, and the relieved expression she was trying hard not to show. Still charged with shadowing the Vicomte, he was not free to remove to the country, but he could not deny Stephanie the respite she needed. He knew that Wroxton House would be empty and lifeless without her there, but he took comfort from the knowledge that Silverbrooke Manor was less than a day's rile from London. Whenever he craved the fierce passion with which Stephanie invested everything she did, he could visit without causing comment.
"I think, Aunt, that a sojourn in the country is a very good idea. I shall take you down to Silverbrooke at the end of the week."
"You will not be staying, Nicholas?" Madeleine asked regretfully.
He thought of the pleasure he would have showing Stephanie around his home. "I have just come to London, Aunt Madeleine," he retorted lightly, though there was a wistful note in his deep voice. "Perhaps later I shall be able to join you."
Stephanie stared out the window, disappointed and relieved all at once.
* * *
Silverbrooke Manor was a fine old house, built during the reign of Charles I. Comfortable rather than grand, the estate had never been the main country seat of a powerful family. Rather, it was the home of country gentlemen. Consequently, more care had been lavished on beautifying the interior than on augmenting the red stone facade.
Two projecting wings flanked the central core of the house, providing privacy for the family, whose rooms were located in the east wing. Visitors were lodged in the opposite end of the building, in the west wing, and separated from the family by the broad expanse of public rooms in the center of the mansion. Stephanie had expected to be placed in the west wing, but was gratified when the Dowager insisted she be given a chamber in the family section.
By the standards of the great landowners, the estate was not large, but the park and home farm were well kept, evidence of the Earl's careful management. The tenants, too, were prosperous and clearly thought highly of their lord. All told, Silverbrooke was a charming estate and Stephanie quickly felt very much at home there. In such an idyllic setting, it should have been easy to forget that London was only a day away, or that France was just across the Channel.
But Stephanie could not forget.
She discovered that the slower pace of life in the country allowed her more time to worry about events in France, and her father's part in them. Her creative imagination envisioned the Paris mob, shrill with revolutionary fervor, denouncing all aristocrats as traitors to the nation as the war with Austria gathered force. She would ride restlessly about the estate, trying to push the lurid images from her mind, but to no avail. Even the stolen pleasure of riding astride, something she was unable to do in London, could do little more than provide a short, very temporary respite.
Then, a letter arrived from France. It had been smuggled out by a returning member of the British ambassador's staff. Stephanie's eyes misted when she saw her father's familiar, elegant handwriting and for a minute she simply stared at the smooth, flowing strokes on the paper, until excitement overcame sentiment, and she ripped open the bold seal of the de la Riviéres to consume the words penned within.
The letter had been written when the declaration of war on the Austrians had first been announced, and Stephanie soon realized that the Marquis's purpose in writing was to reassure her of his own safety.
He reported that the Court went on as usual, full of gossip, intrigue, and boredom. In fact, he wrote, the Queen herself is delighted with the recent talk of war with Austria and makes no attempt to hide her pleasure, for of course she believes her homeland will be victorious and that the King's authority will be truly re-established. Nor is she the only one to believe so. Of course, there are those who fear such an occurrence—the leaders in the Assembly and certain members of the Paris mob to name only a few. I believe, however, that this Declaration of War will bring matters to a head, making the King secure on his throne once more or allowing those who favor a republic to prevail.
He concluded with a promise that he was well and the hope that she was enjoying her visit with Madeleine de Bretville.
Feeling a gnawing concern, Stephanie put down the letter. If her father was correct—and he usually was in political matters—then France could soon be a very dangerous place for anyone allied with the King, as he was.
He had to be able to leave France at a moment's notice.
Such an escape would cost money and plenty of it, money the Marquis did not have since he had sent out all of their liquid assets with Stephanie.
She had to find some way to provide him with the funds he needed. But how?
Stephanie sought relief from her jumbled thoughts and raging emotions in a wild gallop through the lush country that made up Silverbrooke Manor. Her aimless gallop took her near to a main thoroughfare and she realized, as she had not when she first arrived, how close Silverbrooke was to the heavily traveled road between London and Bristol. There were only a few wooded miles separating the estate from the highway and even as she watched, the Bristol Mail Coach rumbled past, the horses snorting and sweating, the driver cursing the team and cracking his long whip. The body of the vehicle swayed dangerously as the coach sped down the rutted road. Within moments, it was gone, rounding a bend that hid it from Stephanie's fascinated gaze.
An idea began to form, an idea that grew out of the harrowing memory of the night when her pearls had been stolen during the ill-fated attempt to attend a masquerade out of town, and her now desperate need to send her father the ready cash which would allow him to purchase his escape from France. She kicked her rangy chestnut mount into motion and retreated into the trees to watch and wait.
In the two hours she spent hovering in the woods, four coaches, apart from the Mail went by, as well as two carts loaded with goods, and three solitary riders.
Undoubtedly, the road was a busy one—during the day. But what about the evening?
A small smile curled Stephanie's fine lips. There was only one way to find out. She would have to see for herself.
Chapter 9
A thick growth of tall trees, bushy with new leaves, skirted the roadway. Within the canopy of branches there was a deep darkness which even light from the moon and stars could not penetrate. The woods held myriad secrets, including one dark-clad rider mounted on a sleek black mare.
Slumped lazily upon her mount, Stephanie half dozed in the midnight silence. The evening had already been profitable, and she was drowsily contemplating the idea of returning to Silverbrooke Manor and her comfortable feather mattress. The sudden snap of a twig jerked her into wakefulness, but as she peered into the darkness, she saw nothing alarming. The mare, which Stephanie had christened Midnight Raider, snorted as Stephanie unconsciously pulled at the reins, but otherwise remained calm.
Relaxing, Stephanie decided that she had heard the nighttime marauding of a fox, or perhaps a weasel. She grinned through the mask that hid her features. Though she was not as skittish as she had been on the first evening she had ventured out to try her hand at robbing coaches, she still jumped at every unidentified sound. Perhaps that was only to the good for one indulging in a criminal profession.
She had not made the decision to become a highway robber lightly. Her memories of the night that she had lost her pearls to a thief echoed bleakly in her mind, but the fear she had felt then had not been created by the robber, or by the loss of her valuables, but because of her dangerous escape from France. Without that harrowing experience, she would have been furious, not frightened, by the event. Moreover, it had been the loss of the jewels themselves, not their monetary value, which had distressed both
Madeleine and Stephanie.
These factors, plus her now overwhelming need to find a ready source of cash, combined to produce her decision. She would rob passing coaches, yes, but only those belonging to people prosperous enough to afford a private vehicle, and she would take only money.
Midnight Raider snorted gustily and shifted position. Stephanie patted the mare's neck, reflecting ruefully that it was pure luck that she had chosen a mount with spirit, speed, and a calm temperament. She had discovered quite accidentally on her first evening that all three qualities were necessary in this particular line of work.
With her usual impetuosity, she had not bothered testing the amount of traffic on the main road once her decision had been made. Instead, she made a mask from a piece of dark silk, found some heavy gloves to cover her slender white hands and donned the male garments in which she had escaped from France. A large, old-fashioned cloak and a wide-brimmed hat completed her disguise. Satisfied that she could not be identified, she crept from the house into the dark night.
Finding a mount and arranging for the necessary tack was her next problem. She had acquired the saddle and bridle first, but she had almost been caught by one of the stable hands. That had put an end to her vague idea that she would ride the rangy chestnut she used during the day. Fortunately, there was a paddock nearby where several horses grazed, and she was able to saddle up the one easiest to catch. The horse turned out to be the little black mare, Midnight Raider. Stephanie would have preferred a larger, more imposing mount, but she was not exactly in a position to be choosy, so she had put her heels to the horse's flanks and headed toward the London road.
She had been as fidgety as a girl preparing for her first ball as she waited in this very stretch of woods for a coach to pass. Afraid that she would miss her opportunity, she kept edging Raider to the tree line so that she could peer out, then nervously urged the mare back into the security of the woods, where black shadows would keep her presence secret.
A coach finally did appear, heralded by the thunder of the horses' hooves, the grating of the iron wheels over the earthen road, and the creaking of the coach as it shifted on supporting leather straps. Nervously Stephanie checked her mask, then kicked the mare into motion and trotted out onto the road.
The spot she had chosen for her ambush was very near a curve. After much deep thought, she had concluded that this was the perfect place from which to surprise her victim. The vehicle would have slowed for the bend and would be unable to gather sufficient speed to escape when the driver noticed a mounted man in his path. The coach would perforce come to a stop, allowing Stephanie to then rob the occupants and retreat around the same curve the coach had just negotiated. Simple.
Not quite.
In that first attempt, Stephanie had miscalculated in one very major way. She had assumed that the driver would tamely submit to being robbed. The discovery that this was far from likely had almost been her undoing.
Her heart thumping with excitement—and not a little fear—she had positioned the mare in the middle of the road and waited. As the coach neared, she could hear the driver cursing the team, even the lash of his long-handled whip as he urged his horses to keep up their paces. The mare's ears pricked and she snorted once, then was still.
The coachman had his team moving at a steady trot when he rounded the curve in the road. The light thrown off by the quarter moon and the lanterns on either side of the vehicle was not substantial, but it was enough to outline the caped rider blocking the road. An experienced driver, the coachman did not need to see the pistol Stephanie held in order to react.
With a mighty crack of his whip, he cried, "Get up, ye great sons of asses! Move your curst lazy hinds! Run!" The horses did not understand a word of what was said, but they responded to the lash of the whip and the easing of pressure on their bits. In a moment, the steady trot had become a canter that rapidly accelerated to a full gallop.
Stephanie watched with horror as four Yorkshire coach horses, bred for size, strength and spirit, and hauling several hundred pounds of carriage, bore down on her. The driver's reaction was so far from her expectations that she was frozen in place, her mind still assuming that the man would haul up on the reins and pull his team to a wrenching stop. Midnight Raider, fortunately, had keener survival instincts. Rearing up on her hind legs, the mare turned away from the coach toward the safety of the woods, then bolted. Stephanie clung to her mount's mane and concentrated on staying astride the racing horse. She heard the triumphant laughter of the driver, though, and her cheeks burned with shame.
Her next attempt to rob a coach was less harrowing, but equally embarrassing. After regaining control of the mare, she revised her plan of action. This time, instead of trying to halt the carriage just beyond the bend in the road, she planned to do it just before it. Then, she reasoned, the driver would have slowed down to negotiate the turn and would find it difficult to whip up his horses. Also, she would remain hidden until the last moment, then spring out and catch the driver off guard. She might, if she thought she could control the weapon, fire off her pistol, should the driver attempt to escape.
The robbery began much more smoothly. The coach was heavy and slow and was, as she suspected, unable to gain the momentum needed to escape. After forcing the carriage to stop, Stephanie made the driver throw down his firearm and drop the reins by brandishing her pistol threateningly. The mare behaved beautifully throughout, standing as peacefully as if her rider had stopped for a chat with the local parson.
Satisfied that she could now concentrate on relieving the coach's occupants of their gold, Stephanie edged the mare toward the door, leaned down and, with her free hand, lifted the latch. The door swung gently open.
A fierce-looking old gentleman, dressed in clothes of the first quality, poked his head out and announced, "Kill me if you like! You'll not get my valuables!" He thumped an ivory-handled cane on the floor of the rather old-fashioned carriage for good effect.
Stephanie was not sure what to do next. Her planned statement—"Hand over your purse!"—did not quite fit the situation, now that the old man had preempted her opening. She did know that she had no time to waste bandying words with the irate fellow. Moreover, with each word she spoke, there was the possibility that her French accent would be discernible. Besides, it seemed to Stephanie that for her to be successful as a highway robber, she must control the events taking place. Arguing over the right and wrong of the act did not exactly imply dominance.
Frantically searching for the best way to regain command of the robbery, Stephanie paused for a moment and thought of Nicholas, Earl of Wroxton. The man successfully controlled the people and events in which he was involved, but how? Her imagination placed him here, on the black mare, face-to-face with the fierce old gentleman. As the scene played itself out in her mind, she found her answer. Surprise. Nicholas did not waste time with words; he simply got things done; and he used whatever means he had at hand to achieve his ends.
Sure now of what she must do, Stephanie grasped the mare's reins more firmly, cocked the pistol and gritted her teeth—then fired, blowing a hole in the side of the coach.
The sound of the pistol was deafening in the quiet of night and it produced a quite satisfactory reaction. From inside the vehicle a woman screamed, then the voice of the old gentleman rose indignantly. "Damn it! I'll not tamely give in!"
"A few baubles are not worth my life!" the woman's voice, high and upset, retorted.
The cane thumped angrily. "Devil take it, this fellow is just bluffing!"
Since she was indeed bluffing, Stephanie decided it was again time to take a hand in the outcome. She urged Midnight Raider as close to the coach as she could, leaned forward with the still smoking pistol in her hand and growled, "I want gold! Hand over your purse!"
The woman, who was as fat as the old man was thin, and dressed in the same good quality, but old-fashioned, clothes, shrieked again. "Eugene! Do as this dreadful cur asks! Immediately!"
Eugene
glared at her, defiant.
"Quick now!" Stephanie said as gruffly as she could, pitching her voice low. Unobtrusively she shoved the now useless weapon into the pocket of her coat. Her unwitting ally, the frightened woman, decided the issue. "Eugene! Please! Oh, my heart! I cannot stand it!"
With a reluctant sniff, Eugene dropped a fat purse onto Stephanie's outstretched palm. Then he thumped the cane resolutely. "And that is all you will get, sirrah. Driver, make what haste your cowardly carcass can and get us out of here!"
With a jaunty salute, Stephanie eased the mare away from the coach, releasing her first victims. The carriage lurched forward, but as it rounded the curve, Stephanie had sagged with relief. Then, though she knew that the only sizable town in the area in which to make a report of a highwayman at work was a good hour away, she dug her heels into the mare's sides and bolted for the safety of the trees.
These exciting events had occurred four nights previously. Stephanie had begun to fancy herself a seasoned professional. True to her plan, she took only currency, even though there had been plenty of opportunity to acquire jewels, snuffboxes, and other elaborate trinkets. Gaining the funds that she needed might be slower by stealing only gold, but she was sure that the loss of a few pounds would never hurt too badly the victims of her robberies.
The now familiar rumble of an oncoming coach returned her to the present. She straightened, listening intently as she tried to decide how many horses there were in the team, and consequently, the size of the vehicle.
Two horses, she decided after listening for a moment, pulling a carriage that needed a four-horse team. This was often the sign of a miser and promised an easy capture for her. She urged Midnight Raider into motion, then hovered in the shadows at the edge of the trees.
The coach lumbered into sight, a huge old vehicle pulled by two sweating, dispirited horses. Stephanie burst from the trees, a dark-clad figure wearing an enveloping cloak and wide-brimmed hat, and riding a spirited horse as black as the night around them. "Halt! Or I'll put a hole in yer hide!" she shouted, raising her pistol.