“Now you,” he said, looking up. “Slide your bottom to the edge, hold my shoulders, and ease down until your feet touch mine. Don’t be frightened. I won’t let you fall.”
She did as he said. Clutching his shoulders, she eased off the edge, sliding to rest lodged intimately against his chest and thighs. Her dress hitched up on the way down, and her bare thighs pressed tight against leather breeches. Her heart was hammering—not only from fear. Blushing profusely, she was glad of the dark as he held her tight against the wall. They continued that way, slow and steady, her hands on his shoulders as he moved down a foot, then the intimate slide as she joined him. If his nearness and her embarrassment made her want to jump, she fought the impulse, mindful of his warning not to overbalance them.
They stopped to rest on the second-story ledge. “Well done, Arabella! The worst is behind us. If we fall from here we might survive.”
“If we fall—” She caught his teasing grin and subsided.
More confident during the second part of their descent, she decided to ask him a question. “Why does a highwayman need to know how to climb? One would think it a skill not used every day.”
Breathing heavily, he did his best to answer. “Well…it helps of course…if one needs to escape…from jail.” He stopped for a moment. Then shifted a foot and grunted. “It’s a hazard most of us encounter from time to time. It…is also useful for getaways…and ah…can come in handy on many other occasions.…Assignations and such, for instance....Careful here....Good girl....” He lifted her by the waist and set her on the bottom ledge, beside him. “You’d be surprised how many ladies leave calling cards with their jewels.”
She didn’t think she would be. “I should expect you would receive many such cards.”
“My fair share, I suppose. It’s rather a game with some ladies. Though most are content with a kiss with which to shock and impress their friends. “ He sounded vaguely uncomfortable.
“And do you go on a great many assignations, Jack?”
“Not near as many as you might expect, Miss Hamilton. I am not particularly drawn to spoiled and simpering aristocratic misses, or their bored and hungry married sisters. I find they tend to grate on the nerves after a very short while.”
As foolish as it seemed to be interested in the amorous doings of a notorious felon, his answer pleased her. She was fairly certain he wasn’t referring to her. “But you are said to be very gallant toward the ladies.”
“Well…one endeavors to be polite. It seems the least one can do while relieving people of their valuables.”
This is the strangest and most unexpected conversation I have had in all my life. I am discussing prison escape, assignations, and robbery with a highwayman! The stars were brilliant overhead and the sky seemed to pulse in time with her breath. It was impossible to believe, but amidst all the dangers and uncertainties surrounding her, Arabella had never felt more alive, more daring or bold, and at this moment, there was no place on earth she would rather be.
A cool breeze rose from the nearby river, chilling her as it lifted her hair. He removed his greatcoat and settled it around her shoulders, and she imagined he enfolded her under protective wings. He chuckled at the face she made as he rolled up the sleeves. “A sword and a pistol and you’ll be ready for the highway, Miss Hamilton.”
“I should need a suitable name, though. The highwayman Miss Hamilton…”
“Would strike fear in the hearts of slothful servants and insolent cooks. Yes. You’d need something that intrigues and excites, and hints at danger.” Jack thought for a moment. “I have it! Belle de nuit. And very suited to you too. It’s a plant that grows in the Spanish Americas. A mysterious flower that blooms only at night.”
Flustered, she offered him a shy smile, looking at him from under her lashes, her heightened color hidden by a pale wash of moonlight. His hair had come loose from its queue and he flicked it from his eyes. She liked the way it hung about his collar. She liked the way he looked after their strenuous climb, slightly rumpled, good-natured and relaxed, and she found herself relaxing too.
He grinned back at her, pleased with himself for making her smile. “You’ll have need of a suitable mount, of course. If it pleases you, tonight you may share mine.”
“Thank you.”
“You are most welcome.” He nudged her shoulder, a fellow conspirator, and spoke close to her ear. “So…my lady Hamilton, will you ride with a highwayman across the moors, racing the moon with naught but the stars to mark the way? Will you mount a devil steed, the fastest horse in England? Will you come adventuring with me?”
Her heart missed a beat. For a moment, she thought he meant to kiss her. “Yes, Jack. I will.”
CHAPTER SIX
Jack lowered Arabella to the ground and then dropped down to join her. Hugging the shadows, they melded into the dark, moving through the trees to where Bess stood waiting. He lifted her onto the black mare’s sturdy back, and then vaulted up behind her. The horse leapt forward into a gallop and a moment later, they disappeared into an oak forest and were swallowed by the night.
They scrambled up stony hills, leapt rushing streams, and tore through vast swathes of heather that released their perfume as they passed. They skirted the edge of an ancient wood and forded the river in a frothing tumult of hooves and water, she bent over the black mare’s neck and he with an arm anchored tight around her.
They rode like that for several hours, bundled close together. No mean horsewoman herself, Arabella was enormously impressed by the skill of both horse and rider. Jack seldom used his reins and never whip or spur, guiding his mount with subtle movements of his body. She was intensely aware of him. Here the flex of muscle in his thigh, there a slight lean that pressed his chest against her back. It seemed she could feel and anticipate his every move, just as the horse seemed to do. It engendered a curious and unexpected lightness in her chest and limbs that made her forget the aches and pains of the week’s adventures.
Jack guided the surefooted mare down roads and cart tracks, through overgrown trails hidden deep in the bush, and along cattle paths that snaked through farmland. At times, they slipped through sleeping villages, as quiet and insubstantial as ghosts, and where there were no roads at all they hurtled along the labyrinth of high-banked trails that itinerant traders used to bring their wares to far-flung towns and villages.
She should have been terrified, but she wasn’t. The highwayman was safety tonight, as strange as that seemed. And it was the first time she’d felt safe in a long while. He rode as easily as other men breathed, and there was something freeing about moving through the dark—a part of it—reveling in its exotic embrace instead of barring the door against it, that she found intoxicating. She gave herself over to a midnight world she might never experience again.
Jack never hesitated or lost his way, taking them naturally along the quickest path, always heading south. Sometimes they slowed to a walk, and as they walked, they talked.
“Why aren’t you wearing a mask, Jack?”
“Why? Do I need one?”
“You did say earlier that it would be best if I didn’t recognize you.”
“Ah! Yes, I did. At the time, I didn’t expect us to become so well-acquainted. In any case, masks are for criminal types embarked on illicit adventures. Surely, it’s no crime to help a lost lamb find her way home? Besides, we are friends now, are we not?”
“Friends know each other’s names. You know mine.”
“As you know mine.”
“Not your given name.”
He hesitated so long she thought he wasn’t going to answer. “My given name is John Samuel William Nevison, but as I told you, my friends call me Jack.”
“John William Nevison. It’s a fine name. Isn’t Nevison the last name of the man they call Swift Nick? Are you him as well?”
“Nonsense, dear lady! Haven’t you heard? Swift Nick was pardoned by the king himself and has since retired to a blameless life of bowls, good deeds and
charity. I am Gentleman Jack.” She was shivering again, and he passed her the flask of malmsey. “Here…to ward off the evening’s chill.”
“But if the king has pardoned you, why would you—”
“Shh.” He tapped her lips with a long tapered finger and then popped a bit of cheese between them.
The malmsey, her unexpected liberation, and the heady freedom of crossing from the ordered world she’d always known to one in which she rode with a highwayman through the night made her giddy, and she couldn’t help but grin. “I think you are a very bad man.” Her words were a breathless whisper.
“Yes,” he said in a sinful voice. “Several of them, in fact.” His hands rested on her shoulders and the heat of his fingers burned her skin. His mouth grazed her earlobe and he planted a hot kiss in the hollow of her neck, sending a delightful shiver down her spine. “And you are a bad girl, allowing disreputable rogues to kiss your throat under the stars at night.” He bundled her tight in his cloak and relieved her of the flask, chuckling when he found it was half empty. “That was an impressive swallow. It would put many a fellow I know to shame.”
“It is helping my nerves. I find they are a little frayed. If you hadn’t returned to help me I....He is incapable himself. I know. One of his men told one of my women. But he meant to…it was his intention to....Jack, what kind of man does such things?
“Far too many, I’m afraid.”
He gave her a quick hug and she leaned back against him, resting her head against the crook of his shoulder. “Why did you come back for me?” she asked sleepily.
He shrugged. “When I accepted the commission I thought you were some rich man’s toy, which you weren’t, or a runaway heiress, which you were. In either case, enough money had changed hands it was clear you were of value to someone. I assumed that would keep you safe. Once I understood the situation, I felt it my responsibility to see you free of it.”
“A responsible highwayman. I should think that an oddity.”
He shrugged. “I know what it is to need help, and I don’t like to see a woman handled roughly.” His voice was gruff. His thumb brushed her face, tracing a swollen lip and discolored bruises.
Their eyes locked briefly. She saw something in his shadowed ones that made her long to reach out and hug him.
“In any case, it’s surely no odder than a bucket-cursing, liquor-swilling, tower-climbing virgin with nerves of steel. And a lady no less.”
The tender moment had past, so fleeting she wasn’t certain it had happened at all. She nodded solemnly and gave a somewhat tipsy laugh. “ I am all those things, aren’t I? It seems neither of us fit the mold. I confess, I’m rather proud of myself, even if my steely nerves are worn a little thin. It’s funny though...the things that should scare me don’t, and the things that shouldn’t, do. I should be terrified of you.”
“Wise girl.”
“But instead, I am worried about how to manage my cousin.”
“You’ve been gone over a week? You are not a matron or widow or married lady, but a young woman. Have you thought of what you’ll say?”
Much to his surprise, her green eyes danced with amusement.
“You are worried my reputation will be ruined? There will be no wealthy gentleman suing for my favors?”
“No respectable wealthy gentleman suing for your favors.”
She gifted him with an impish grin. “You’d be surprised at what a respectable impoverished gentleman will forgive, in return for a nice inheritance. Or…perhaps I’ll set my cap for a disreputable rogue.”
He gave her a wry smile in return, but his tone was earnest. “The thought might be romantic, but the reality is not. People can be malicious and cruel. To be cast off from one’s own society, shunned and abandoned...it is not a happy life for anyone.”
Surprised at his heated words, she hastened to reassure him. “You needn’t worry. I am levelheaded I believe, and besides, I don’t want any gentleman. I am not looking for a husband, I seek to avoid one. I don’t see the benefit in it for me, and I am firmly decided to stay a single lady and manage my own affairs.”
His lips twitched with amusement as he fingered a lock of her silky hair, then tucked it behind her ear. “You are inexperienced about some things, love. You might not always feel that way.”
“My father left me his lands in my own right, Jack. As a never-married, single lady—”
“You mean a spinster.”
She glared up at his jaw from the pillow of his arm. “As a feme sole, the lands are mine to do with as I think best. A never-married woman with her own property has almost the same rights as a man. She may hold local office, attend county courts and sit on grand juries. She may serve as constable or church warden or reeve. She may—”
“Yes, yes. Heady pleasures for old maids, no doubt. But why should a daring and adventuresome lass such as you want to do that?
She looked at him sourly. “So I don’t end up trapped with someone like Robert.”
“Ah! Well, that seems a laudable goal. Nevertheless, in my experience, a plausible well-rehearsed story is always a handy thing to have close to hand, just in case one has need. Perhaps you had to rush off to care for a sick friend. Perhaps you took ill yourself.”
“Yes,” she said with a sigh. “I know you’re right. Robert will try to use this misadventure against me in any way he can.”
“Have you no friends or family to protect you? Can you go to the authorities?”
“And tell them what? That I was kidnapped from my coach at the behest of my cousin and rescued from a tower by a highwayman? You are my only witness, the rest of them were part of it, and I can hardly ask you to testify. Going to the authorities would only succeed in spreading the tale all over London and accomplish much of what Robert set out to do. As to family, though I may have some on my mother’s side in Ireland, as far as I know I am all that’s left. Robert’s claim came as a complete surprise to me, and it is a very distant one at best.”
“How will you protect yourself against him, then?”
“I will hire extra footmen. I’ve also heard one can hire boxers and ex-soldiers for protection.”
Thinking it through, discussing it, made it all seem a bit more manageable and helped her reestablish some sense of control. She was surprised at how easy and comfortable she was talking to this man who was a stranger only hours ago. It was as if he had always been a part of her life and she found herself responding to him as to an old friend. Perhaps it was because of the circumstances. It was hard not to trust someone who had rescued you from a grim fate and seen you safely down a tower. He was also undeniably attractive, though she hoped she wasn’t so shallow as to be swayed by something like that.
Perhaps it’s because I shall never see him again. That thought filled her with a sense of panicked loss so strong it shocked her. Tonight I am Belle de Nuit. Tomorrow I return to being the spinster Arabella Hamilton. For a moment she envied Jack his carefree ways, his ability to slip away and leave things behind.
“I wish I were a man.”
“God forbid! Why ever would you say such a thing?”
“If I were, no one would molest me. There would be nothing to fear.”
She didn’t notice the slight tightening of his jaw, nor the dark look that shadowed his eyes, but the mare felt his tension and pranced and snorted in protest.
“If I were like you, Jack, I could come and go as I pleased and answer to no one. No one would try to steal me and force me into marriage. If I were like you I could challenge him to a duel.” The strain she’d been under for the past several days was clear in her voice.
“I could do that for you.” It was said quietly. Matter of fact.
“What? Oh, no! No! I wouldn’t want that on my conscience. Or on yours. You must promise me, Jack. I will find my own way of dealing with my cousin.”
Bess tossed her head and pawed the ground, annoyed with them both and ready to move on. A slight blue cast to the sky presaged the coming dawn.
“No duel. I give you my word.” Jack tightened his grip around her waist and gave the mare her head. They set off at an easy canter.
Lulled by the rocking motion and completely exhausted, Arabella leaned back and yawned.
“Go to sleep, Bella. You’ve had a long day.”
She sank against him, closing her eyes, and they thundered down the road toward London.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Arabella awoke to a bruised sky, outside a large, three-story, galleried coaching inn surrounded by fields. It was a mullion-windowed building with a magnificent arched carriageway and a shadowed courtyard enclosed by projecting wings. A splendid sign hung overhead, featuring the Angel of the Annunciation depicted in vivid hues. On the horizon she could see the spires and rooftops of London. They were at the Angel Islington, the first stop on the Great North Road that ran all the way to Scotland, and she was nearly home.
“Is it morning already?” she asked, her voice still rough with sleep. She felt a sudden chill, though she was wrapped in his coat and he was warm behind her. She gathered the coat tight around her, inhaling his scent.
“No. It’s nearly dusk. You slept all day.” Their voices were hushed and hollow, as insubstantial as the wisps of evening mist rising from the ground. He slid from the saddle and reached for her, and she slipped easily into his arms. He lowered her to the ground, holding her a bit too close against his large frame, and lingering a little longer than he should before putting her down. “You’ll be safe here. Mary Tully and her husband Nate are friends. You can trust them. They will swear by whatever truth you choose to tell, and they will see you safely to your door.”
Arabella nodded. She brushed off her clothes, straightened her skirts and attempted to smooth her hair as if those simple rituals might somehow have the power to return her to the woman she had been before. The woman whose most daring act had been to slip into her father’s library and read scandalous poetry, or force her way in to attend and vote in local meetings of the parish vestry. The woman who had never known a man’s warmth, his breath in her ear, or his solid bulk pressed against her.
Soldier of Fortune: The King's Courtesan (Rakes and Rogues of the Retoration Book 2) Page 32