The Marsh Hawk

by Dawn MacTavish

  Rupert stripped off the coat and tossed it down roughly.

  “Now the tails, and the waistcoat—be quick about it!” Rupert complied, his furious eyes raking Simon from head to toe, and hurled the blue superfine coat and embroidered ivory satin waistcoat at his feet.

  “Now the shirt, and the rest—corset, boots, pantaloons. Everything, right down to the drawers—if you’re wearing any, that is.”

  “You bastard!” Rupert snarled, removing his neckcloth and shirt with rough hands. “I’ve given you my jewels and purse—”

  “Not nearly enough,” Simon interrupted. “Get those boots off!”

  Again Rupert hesitated, mumbling complaints under his breath, clearly unhappy about consigning his Hessians to the pile. He removed the right one, but when he tugged off the left boot he straightened up, swinging it.

  Simon sidestepped the attack aimed to disarm him, and the boot missed its mark, dislodging his tricorn hat instead and sending it flying, exposing the tied-back hair he’d tucked underneath it. The heavy barrel of his pistol lowered hard across the viscount’s face made an end to the incident. Howling, Rupert clutched his face. Simon, spewing a string of profanity he hadn’t indulged in since his seafaring days, snatched up his hat and put it back on, hoping that Rupert hadn’t noticed the queue he’d again tucked away.

  He hauled Rupert to his feet and yanked him close to his face. “Now the rest,” he commanded. “Unless you want help?”

  Rupert obeyed until, barefoot and stripped to his drawers, he stood shivering in the rain.

  Nudging him with the pistol, Simon shoved him up against an oak tree at the edge of the road, and tied him to it.

  “You there, unhitch those horses!” he shouted to the terrified coachman.

  Hopelessly trembling, the little man climbed down and fumbled with the harnesses, Simon looking on, until the four matched stallions were freed of the tangled leather tack. Then, firing a shot in the air, Simon slapped the rump of the skittish right leader, and the team galloped off in a shower of mud and water churned up from the road by their high-flying hooves, trampling Rupert’s clothes in the morass underfoot.

  Whimpering in spasms, the coachman backpedaled, slip-sliding in the ooze as Simon stalked closer.

  “Throw down those bags, and give me the horsewhip!” he demanded of the coachman, gravel voiced.

  The man scrambled back up to the driver’s seat, reached behind, and tossed Rupert’s two small travel bags and the whip to the ground. Simon secured the bags to his mount’s saddle, and plucked up the horsewhip in a white-knuckled fist.

  “Now get your arse down here,” he trumpeted. “Into the coach. Move!”

  The panic-struck coachman climbed down, plunged into the carriage, and shut the door after, whimpering like a woman. Had he soiled himself? Sure as check. Simon laughed, but only briefly, viewing the little man’s eyes—round as an owl’s—gaping through the coach window, watching him crack the whip and lower it full force to Rupert’s back. Again and again it struck its mark, until the scourging finally buckled Rupert’s knees. The viscount moaned, and it wasn’t long before his posture collapsed altogether, his dead weight driving him down along the tree trunk until he slumped there like a rag doll, scarcely conscious. Satisfied, Simon tossed the bloodied whip to the ground and gathered up every last piece of clothing from the muddy road.

  “You stay put,” he warned the coachman, “unless you want a dose of the same.”

  A terrified eruption of indistinguishable babbling answered him. Simon paid it no mind. Tying Rupert’s belongings into a neat bundle, he hefted that up alongside the travel bags he’d secured on his horse’s saddle earlier, then mounted and rode off without a backward glance.

  It wasn’t until Rupert’s shrill voice knifed through the quiet that the terrified coachman finally poked his gray head out of the carriage window.

  “Get down out of there and get me out of this, Wilby, you lack-witted dolt!” his employer bellowed.

  The coachman climbed out of the carriage and began loosening the rope binding Rupert to the oak tree. “The brigand’s done a proper job,” he said, sucking in his breath as he steadied him. “This needs attention. He’s striped you badly, sir.”

  “A fine help you were!” Rupert snapped through a grimace.

  “Me, sir? What on earth could I have done?”

  “Never mind. He’ll pay for it, mark my words.”

  “Was it the Marsh Hawk, sir?”

  “It was. Fetch my clothes, you nodcock. And see if you can find that blasted team. We’ll have to go back. I cannot continue to Scotland like this.”

  “Oh, they’re long gone, sir. You’ll not catch those beasts tonight in this storm.”

  Rupert loosed a spate of profanity that backed the coachman up a pace.

  “My clothes, man! Fetch my clothes! I shall catch my death here,” he bellowed.

  “I . . . I can’t, sir. He’s taken them.”

  “The Hessians, too?”

  The coachman nodded.

  Another deluge of curses followed.

  “Give me yours, then. Be quick, man!” Rupert demanded.

  “Mine, sir?”

  “Do you see anybody else about?”

  “But, sir . . .”

  “Come, come, the coat and breeches at least. I can hardly go about as I am.”

  The coachman peeled off his coat and soiled breeches, and handed them over reluctantly.

  “Oh, yes, the whoreson will pay for this,” Rupert vowed, wincing as he slid the coat over his raw back.

  “There’s many a nobleman on this coast who would like to see the Marsh Hawk pay, sir,” said the coachman solicitously.

  “Ahhh, but I have the advantage,” Rupert returned.

  “Sir?”

  “I know who the blighter is! And in my own time, I’ll hoist him with his own petard. He’ll pay royally for this night’s work, you have my oath upon that.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  It was nearly noon when Jenna stirred and stretched awake in the mahogany four-poster, and her heart turned over in her breast when she realized she’d overslept. Her eyes flashed toward the indentation Simon’s body had left in the feather bed beside her. There on the pillow lay a perfect moss rose, and a folded parchment. Jenna bolted upright and read:

  Forgive me, my love, for not being here when you woke. Our wedding trip must wait. There is an urgent matter concerning one of my cottagers that I must resolve before we go. We will leave when I return on Wednesday. Until then, my Jenna, my heart is with you.

  Simon

  She was almost relieved. She couldn’t have faced him then. She needed to order her thoughts first. They were still overshadowed by suspicion; sleep hadn’t changed anything in that regard.

  She dressed in a morning frock of white sprigged muslin and went downstairs. Nuncheon had been laid out for her in the breakfast room. There were platters of aged Stilton and mature cheddar, loaves of Cook’s cobbled, soda, and herb breads, along with salvers of spiced chicken, smoked salmon, and baked ham. But Jenna availed herself of tea only. She was too overset to think of food.

  Looking on in utter dismay, the housekeeper delivered a spate of apologies for not having a breakfast tray brought to her room earlier, explaining that the earl had left word that she not be disturbed. Her wrinkled brow knit in a worried frown, she vowed to leave the nuncheon fare awhile, in case Jenna should have a change of heart.

  It was the frazzled housekeeper who told her that Phelps had returned as mysteriously as he’d disappeared in the wee hours, only to turn right around and leave again with Simon shortly after. Jenna wondered why Simon had taken the valet this time on such a short mission, when he had left him behind for over three weeks while he went off to London with the St. Johns—especially since her pocket and its contents had never been recovered. There was no explanation for that but that Rupert had taken it, which meant he knew their plans, and his interference was very probable. But those thoughts bothered he
r only marginally. She was glad of the valet’s absence. His incessant hovering had begun to make her extremely uncomfortable. She needed time to think, and to form some sort of plan. In order to do this she needed to be alone, with no interference. She was having enough trouble dealing with the distraction of Simon’s passionate embrace in the mahogany four-poster, which colored her cheeks and sent waves of relived pleasure surging through her body each time it ghosted across her memory. This was all so new to her.

  She decided to begin her search for the truth in Simon’s dressing room off the bridal chamber, which was, in fact, the master bedchamber. The rooms several doors away that would, as was the custom, ultimately be hers when she returned from their honeymoon.

  The chambermaids had already been and gone by the time she reached the suite. Though it was scarcely two in the afternoon, the room was in semidarkness. The rain had ceased, but the storm still generated bilious clouds that imprisoned the sun.

  Holding a lighted branch of candles high, she poked her head into the dressing room. The flickering light revealed a large compartment with a definitive masculine presence, from the Turkish carpet in the center of the floor, similar to the one in the bedchamber next door, to the large mahogany armoire casting tall shadows in the corner. A mullioned window separated a matching chiffonier and dressing table, where the usual grooming implements were neatly assembled. Across the way, a horseshoe desk squatted by the hearth, and a small drum table beside the door held smoking tools, and a brandy decanter and glasses. A separate alcove on the east housed a tub, and boot chair, and beyond, Phelps’s quarters.

  Jenna took a deep breath. More than proving her suspicions, she desperately wanted to refute them. For a moment, as she stood scanning the room in the candlelight, she almost decided to turn and leave and close the door upon the entire mystery. Sadly, she knew that no matter what she discovered, it wouldn’t change her love for Simon—only her ability to live with him. If he had done what she feared, she would have to leave him. But the point of no return had passed; she’d crossed the threshold, and so she carried the candle branch to the wardrobe and threw open the thick, carved doors.

  Everything seemed in order. Simon’s clothes were neatly hung inside. She ran her hand along the collection of frock coats, swallowtail coats, morning, dress, and riding coats, overcoats, and waistcoats. She fingered the assortment of trousers, cord breeches, pantaloons, pants—both loose and tight fitting—and shirts of cambric, linen, and Egyptian cotton for every season and occasion. Disturbing the clothes stirred the exotic scent of Simon’s latakia blend laced with whiskey and rum that lingered about them. A draft lifted the aroma toward her nostrils, and she quickly closed the wardrobe doors. That provocative scent infiltrated her resolve and ignited her senses.

  The chiffonier was the next target to suffer her scrutiny. One by one she opened the drawers, evaluating the neat piles of breeches, silk stockings, handkerchiefs and neckcloths. Aside from a velvet-lined gun case that held a brace of small flintlock pistols, nothing seemed out of the ordinary there, either.

  She moved on to the horseshoe desk. The drawers and cubbyholes held the usual things—parchment, ink, quills, sealing wax, and the familiar scrollwork R seal. There were correspondences from the Naval Office, personal account books, and records. But one small drawer above the writing surface was locked. She searched the other drawers for the key but found nothing. Examining the locked drawer, she discovered that it had no keyhole. All at once she remembered a desk in her father’s study with such a drawer that was accessed by pressing a button underneath the writing surface that activated a release spring. Bending, she groped beneath the desktop, running her hand along the smooth wood, and her fingers came to rest upon the mechanism that snapped the drawer open. She gave a start even though she expected it.

  Holding the candles closer, she peered into the drawer, but all that lay inside was a large brass key on a faded red silk cord. The cord was crimped and open at the top as though it had been untied, suggesting that more than one key belonged on it, but though she searched the other drawers again, she found no other.

  Jenna closed the drawer and glanced around the room again. She had overlooked nothing, and a flood of relief brought her posture down. It was accompanied by not a little guilt over her trespass, and she stole back to the bedchamber through the adjoining door and closed it behind her with a gentle hand, as though reverencing a sacrosanct cloister.

  Nothing unusual was found during a similar search in that room, either, and she was just about to sink down on the bed and put her fears to sleep until the supper hour, when Molly came to tell her that Robert Nast had come to call.

  “So much for not making a habit of it,” Jenna murmured in an undervoice, though she regretted the uncharitable thought the moment it left her lips. Aside from Phelps, the vicar was closest to Simon, after all. Perhaps he could shed some light upon the situation. Engrossed in that possibility, she’d sailed halfway down the stairs before she thought to wonder how he knew she would still be there.

  The lamps and candles had been lit in the breakfast room. As bleak as the day was, that was still the cheeriest spot in the house, with the flowers peeking through the garden wall brightening an eerie green darkness that had settled like a pall over the coast.

  Watching the vicar fill his plate, Jenna was glad that Mrs. Rees had left the food there after all. He was obviously hungry, and it certainly wouldn’t do to let the poor man eat alone. She cut a slab of Cook’s round cobbled bread, speared a sliver of smoked salmon, and took her place opposite him at the table, where she poured them each a cup of tea from the fresh pot one of the footmen delivered.

  “You picked a dreadful day to call,” she said, taking in the festering sky bearing down upon the landscape through the window. “The storm isn’t over, evidently.”

  “Simon wanted me to keep . . . eh, to come ’round,” he said, stumbling over the words through a sip from his teacup.

  He was about to say “keep an eye on her”—she knew it. Nothing had changed. Simon had taken Phelps, but the vicar had replaced him. She was still under guard. She was almost angry, but she didn’t address it.

  “You must have seen him earlier today, then,” she probed instead, “or you would have thought we’d gone on to Scotland.”

  “Last night, actually, or rather early this morning. He had to pass by the vicarage on his way to the Pillsworths’. It was late, but I was still up, and he was most distressed about having to leave you like that. He asked me to stop by and cheer you up.”

  “The Pillsworths’,” she puzzled. “His cottagers?”

  “One of the families, yes. You met them at the wedding breakfast.”

  “I met so many,” she defended. “I fear I shall never remember them all. Do they live far? I would have thought he’d be back by now.”

  “Not very. He tells me you two will be leaving for Scotland on Wednesday.”

  She nodded. The conversation seemed stilted, strained, not at all the easy flow she had enjoyed between them on his previous visits. Was it her imagination, or was he a jot more paradoxical than usual?

  “Robert,” she murmured, “when we spoke of my father last week, you said that the Marsh Hawk doesn’t usually . . . that he doesn’t brutalize his victims. How do you know that for certain?”

  “I myself do not know anything ‘for certain,’” he replied, shifting uneasily in his chair. He shrugged. “It’s simply common knowledge, Jenna. The Marsh Hawk’s exploits are legendary in these parts.”

  “But if he holds people up at gunpoint and steals—”

  “Oh, he steals, but only from the very rich. And what he steals does not line his coffers; it finds its way to the needy—the poor disenfranchised who haven’t a feather to fly with.”

  “You sound as if you condone such a thing.”

  “Of course I don’t condone it,” he hastened to say. “I’m only trying to explain the man in simple terms. Brutality doesn’t appear to be in his nature.
He seems more disposed toward spreading the wealth amongst those folk who are down at the heels, in dire need.”

  “Suppose he was opposed by one of his victims. Suppose they . . . resisted, as my father did. What then?”

  “I cannot presume to get inside the man’s head, Jenna,” the vicar said on an audible breath. “I only know that, to my knowledge, he has never harmed anyone.” He cleared his throat. “Yet.”

  “Is that why the land guards turn a blind eye, do you think?”

  “I don’t know that they do.”

  “Oh, yes! No attempt was ever made to apprehend the man responsible for my father’s death. None. Either the man is paying them off, or they’re afraid. If he is what you say, a gentleman bandit, some sort of . . . Robin Hood, what have they to fear?”

  “Jenna, you have serious issues . . . because of your father,” he said haltingly, “but I sense that there is more to it than what appears on the surface. You haven’t mentioned any of this to Simon yet, as I asked you to, have you?”

  “No,” she said. “I haven’t had the opportunity. There hasn’t been time.”

  “Something is deeply troubling you. I’ve known that since our first conversation. You need to confide in Simon. But if not that, I wish you would confide in me. You can, you know; I told you that. Whatever you say will remain between us two. Whatever you tell me in the guise of confessor is protected under canon law. You have my word.”

  She pushed her teacup aside and shook her head no. Tears threatened, but she blinked them back, meanwhile toying with a piece of bread on her plate to avoid eye contact. How right he was about such conversations best indulged in over food.

  “My father and I were very close, Robert,” she said. “I am lost without him. Someone took him from me on a dark lonely road in south Cornwall. He was traveling at night in order to return from Truro in time for my birthday celebration. Do you remember when I told you that my father had a pistol similar to the one you frightened Rupert with that day out by the tower?”