Lady's Pursuit (Knight and Rogue Book 6)

by Bell, Hilari

  “And after he died, leaving his family unprotected, you looked after them,” she went on.

  “Someone had to. Mother did all she could, but...”

  “But then she died too. Don’t look so shocked — did you think I wouldn’t ask Michael about you?”

  “You could have asked me,” I said.

  For the first time since our quarrel, she actually laughed. “Fisk, my dear, you are so oblivious sometimes. But it sounds like your Darkling Nights were more interesting than mine. What would we do, on Darkling Nights, if we had children of our own?”

  I noted the “if,” but even that concern was overwhelmed by the thought of having children, Kathy’s children, which arrived on a lightning bolt of terror and awe.

  “I don’t know. What would you want to do?”

  “Something more interesting than just ignore it,” Kathy said, with a promptness that told me she’d been thinking about a day when we might have kids. “But I wouldn’t want to stuff their heads with nightmares, either. Maybe your father’s tradition is a good one. Though I don’t know much about the great scholarly questions.”

  Thanks to Father, I knew them all.

  “Jack agreed with your father,” I said. “It really is a ridiculous superstition.”

  “You know, that’s the first time you’ve mentioned Jack to me in ... weeks, I think. You used to do it all the time. Even in your letters.”

  “I did?” I didn’t think I’d talked about him that much. Though when some choice arose, the question of what Jack would do had usually crossed my mind. And lately... “You know, you’re right. I haven’t thought about Jack as much as I used to.”

  “Mayhap ’tis because you beat him,” Kathy said. “Beat him at his own game, on a board where he had all the advantages. Doesn’t that mean that your way of ... of dealing with the world is better than his?”

  She sounded like my father, proposing some complex theory, and I was reminded that the most important questions have nothing to do with scholarship.

  “Jack taught me more than how to steal. He taught me to survive. In those days, I needed that. Badly.”

  “There are survival choices beyond robbery and poverty,” Kathy said. “Look at this place. No one here is worried about starving, and their prices seem pretty reasonable to me.”

  She gestured to the comfortable room, filled with warmth, light and conversation. There was no reason for a deserted print shop, full of dust and spider webs, to pop into my mind.

  “A small estate would solve that problem for us,” I said.

  “It would. And so would many other things. Your Jack’s range of choices seems a bit narrow to me. You don’t have to be Jack. And you don’t have to struggle so hard not to be your father, either. But that’s your decision. I’m going to bed.”

  She stood, leaving me to watch her climb the stairs and walk down the gallery to her small room, with plenty to reflect on.

  Was it because of my father that I wanted to protect Kathy so desperately? I didn’t think so, but then, I didn’t think I’d talked about Jack all the time. I had to admit that when I faced a dilemma, the question that first popped into my mind had always been What would Jack do? But I had beaten Jack, and now that thought didn’t come to me so quickly.

  When it came to the people I loved, was I asking myself what my father would do, and then doing the opposite? My father’s death, in scholarly poverty, had left his family unprotected and it cost us dearly. But he’d also taught us to think and choose for ourselves ... and that freedom and choice was exactly what I’d denied Kathy.

  But what if the alternative was for her to go into danger? Imagining Kathy in that alley behind the Addled Cock made my blood run cold. If that was her choice, I couldn’t give her freedom...

  ...Even if that was what I’d just demanded from Michael?

  When Michael and I first met, I’d made plenty of dangerous choices — criminal choices. But Michael released me from my legal debt almost immediately, and a few weeks ago he’d given me the right to make decisions for our partnership as well.

  Didn’t I owe Kathy that right?

  It wasn’t that I wanted to take Michael for an example. The idea of asking, in a critical situation, what he would do was ridiculous to the point of terrifying.

  But remembering how angry I’d been when he wouldn’t let me choose how to handle Jack ... shouldn’t Kathy have the right to decide how she’d handle Meg’s kidnapping?

  Even if it took her into danger?

  Every bit of my mind, heart and soul screamed in refusal. But were some of those screams born of my father’s failure to care for his family, and what it had done to us?

  This was something I wasn’t going to settle in one Darkling Night no matter how much reflecting I did, so I took the dog up to bed. It was a long time before I slept.

  The day after that dark night dawned bright and fair, we found the coach’s trail in the next town, and best of all, Kathy was speaking to me again.

  I decided that reflection was overrated.

  We followed the coach — heading north once more — through several towns. It was now two days ahead of us and people’s memories weren’t as fresh, but I had no doubt we’d catch up with it ... until we left the town of Tottenham, and promptly lost the coach’s trail. We found several people who’d seen it pull out of town, but after that we couldn’t find anyone who’d seen it in the next three villages on the northbound road. We spent the next two days wandering in wider and wider circles through the countryside, even into the foothills of the mountains. We began to hope they’d finally gone to ground again, but we still had to figure out where.

  We were riding down the road toward yet another farming village, arguing about whether we should go back to Tottenham and start over, when we rode around a bend and came across a robbery in progress.

  It was so clearly a robbery that it could have been set up on a stage, with a narrator telling the audience in rolling tones, “A Robbery is in Progress.”

  There was a stream on one side of the road, with clumps of willows casting early morning shadows across it. A small rise, whose corner the stream had carved away, loomed over the scene. The carriage was stopped in the middle of the road, its driver lying bound and gagged off to one side. The only passenger, a plump woman in her forties, stood at sword point squawking protests, while two much younger men went through her traveling chests, tossing blouses and petticoats onto the dusty road and pocketing hidden bits of jewelry.

  It’s an old traveler’s trick, hiding jewelry and coin in with your clothing, but because everyone knows to do it, it never works.

  The man who held the sword was directing the others. He was older, maybe the same age as his victim, with a scrubby week-old beard and a coat that looked as if it had never seen soap in its life, though it might have been rained on once.

  We’d never seen any of these men before, or the woman, either, and we pulled our horses to a stop. The dog whined.

  “We should intervene,” said Rupert. “There are only three of them, and only one has a sword. The others just have clubs.”

  “You’re the only one of us with a sword,” I pointed out. “And they’ve all got knives. Besides... Maybe it’s because we just pulled a stunt like this ourselves, but there aren’t many ways you can ambush someone who’s traveling. And what better accident could you arrange, than for a brave young Heir to be shot by robbers?”

  “None of them has a bow,” said Rupert.

  “No one we’ve seen has a bow. And despite the jokes, bandits are actually pretty rare. Michael and I have ridden all over the Realm, and we’ve never been robbed. Well, that’s not quite true.” I had almost forgotten being cudgel crewed. And then there was the time... “But all those people were attacking us for some other reason. They simply took the chance to empty our pockets before they went on with their plans.”

  The dog cowered at Tipple’s heels, emitting a grumbling whimper I interpreted as, I want to growl, but I
don’t dare.

  “Mayhap,” said my beloved, “you and Michael always look so impoverished that no thief would bother with you.”

  “That doesn’t matter,” Rupert said. “It might be a trap, but we’ve still got to do something!”

  “Why?” I asked. “If they wanted to kill her, or the driver, they’d already have done it. She might even be in on the scam. And if she’s not, and we go galloping up shouting, they might get nervous. In my experience, making someone holding a sword nervous is usually a bad idea.”

  “Then what do you propose?” Rupert asked. “She might not be in on it, and we can’t stand here and watch as the poor woman is robbed.”

  That actually sounded sensible to me, but I didn’t want to say so in front of Kathy. She was Michael’s sister, after all. On the other hand...

  “Let’s do something smart, instead.”

  Rupert was riding the fastest horse, and he was probably the one in whose honor this dance was being held, so I sent him back down the road quite a way to take up his station.

  Kathy and I rode forward together for a while before I left her, roughly half way between Rupert and the robbery. Her horse had barely come to a stop before she started rummaging in her pack for notebook and pen.

  I told the dog to stay with her, but he followed Tipple and me almost half way to the coach and then declined to go closer. He was growling in earnest now, a deep rumble that would sound downright menacing if you didn’t know him. But I appreciated the thought.

  Tipple and I walked closer and closer to the robbery. It didn’t entirely stop, although all three robbers and their victim were now staring at me.

  This seemed odd too, so I stopped Tipple even farther back than I’d intended. I was near enough to get a good look at them.

  “The leader is a man in his forties,” I shouted back to Kathy. “He’s about five foot eight, a bit heavy but not fat, with black hair, the beginnings of a beard, and no scars I can see. His coat’s brown, he’s wearing a plaid waistcoat and sturdy boots.”

  I waited till she’d called this information back to Rupert, and jotted it down for good measure.

  The robbers had frozen when I first started shouting. And as they realized that Rupert, at least, would be able to carry good descriptions of them back to the law, their startled dismay was downright ludicrous.

  “Ready,” Kathy called.

  “One of the younger ones has brown hair,” I shouted. “The other’s more ginger and both are clean shaven. The ginger one has lots of freckles, pale eyes, and a gap between his front teeth.”

  His jaw had dropped so far I could see that gap, but now it snapped shut. He abandoned the chests, dashed over to the leader, and began an intense whispered discussion. The plump woman was listening, with considerable interest.

  “Ginger’s in his twenties,” I went on. “Brown-hair’s a bit younger. They’re both wearing those same, thick boots, and—”

  “Wait!” Ginger started toward me. “We need to talk to you.”

  “I’m listening,” I called. “Don’t come any closer.”

  “But I got to...”

  A whisper from the leader made him jump. He tossed his club away and stuck his knife casually into the coach’s side.

  “Now can I come talk to you?”

  He could have half a dozen weapons hidden about his person, but I was beginning to wonder what he wanted to say. And more urgently, who he didn’t want to overhear it. Presumably his people knew all about him, and I’d tell my comrades what he said anyway, so that left...?

  “All right. But don’t come too close. My dog can cover this distance in no time.”

  My dog was more likely to run off yelping, but his growl sounded sincere.

  Ginger-hair walked forward, thin and lithe as a weasel. As soon as he got into whisper range he hissed, “You got to stop this. You’re going to get Tizza killed!”

  I don’t know what I’d expected, but that wasn’t it.

  “Who’s Tizza? No, who’s going to kill her? Where are they hiding? Do they plan to shoot Rupert?”

  He hesitated, and I said impatiently, “I promise not to turn and look, but if you want cooperation you’ve got to tell me what’s going on. What does he have? A bow? Or is there more than one?”

  If this was an ambush, those were the only questions that mattered. Well, I also wanted to know why they were trying so hard to kill Rupert now, when they’d passed up several chances early on. Something must have changed, and it would be nice to talk to someone who knew what it was.

  “There’s just one.” Ginger seemed to make up his mind as he spoke. “He’s got a crossbow, though we’re not supposed to know that. We’re not even supposed to know he’s following us, or why he wanted us to rob some coach right in front of you. He’s up on that little bluff, other side of the stream,” he added. “Going to do the deed himself if we don’t oblige, though he thinks we’re too stupid to figure that out. And all he told us about the man he wanted us to kill is that he’s the one riding that big white stud. But his men got Tizza, so we got no choice. And you’ve got to bring your friend up here, so’s we can—”

  “I can’t bring him up if he’s going to get shot,” I said. “Who’s—”

  “Don’t you go thinking we’re stupid. Pa says you’re to bring him in with you and the girl between him and the stream, close and fast, like you decided to charge us. We can take him down, make it look like we killed him. Particular if he’s willing to lie still, after. The man with the bow didn’t say anything about killing you, so we can leave you to haul the corpus away while we track him back to—”

  The sharp thwack of a crossbow interrupted him, and we both jumped. But we weren’t anywhere near the target ... and neither was the bowman. Rupert, far down the road where I’d so luckily sent him, didn’t even hear the shot. His assailant should have known he was out of a crossbow’s range.

  We couldn’t see the bolt, but a line of dust shot up from the road where it skidded to a stop, at least ten yards short of Champion’s hooves.

  “Amateur,” said my new friend.

  I could only agree.

  Evidently, “Pa” thought so too.

  “This is blown, boys.” The disgust in his voice was audible, even at this distance. “Since we’re not delivering his price, why don’t we go see if we can bag us a toff, and trade him for Tizz instead.”

  The young robbers responded instantly, leaping through the stream like hunting hounds, though the twenty-foot cliff on the other side slowed them down. Pa was more deliberate, like a great, grizzled bear. But he made it up the cliff as well, and his determination made him even more formidable.

  I almost felt sorry for their quarry ... until I heard a sudden thunder of hoofbeats. Even so, I put the odds about fifty/fifty.

  I rode over to the supposed victim. Despite many huffing exclamations of shock and anger, she hadn’t hesitated to grab Ginger’s abandoned knife and cut her driver free. She then looked at her scattered clothing in dismay, so clearly torn between fleeing the scene and staying to retrieve it that I decided she might not be in on the scam after all.

  So I pointed out that the ambusher the robbers were chasing had fled on horseback, which meant the robbers would be back soon, and urged her to go straight to the next town and report everything to the sheriff. Katherine, who rode up then with Rupert at her heels, helped her pick up her garments, and Rupert gallantly assisted her into the coach. The dog contributed not at all by running around the outskirts of some invisible circle, barking.

  Or maybe he did contribute — the nervous horses set off at a trot.

  Kathy turned to me to demand an explanation I’d have been hard put to deliver, because I didn’t know much more than she did. So I was ... well, not glad, but not too sorry to see the bandits emerge from the brush beside the stream as soon as the coach was out of sight.

  I also noted that they’d returned, and hidden themselves there, without even the dog noticing their presence.
<
br />   “Figured we’d let her get out of the way before we talk,” Pa said. “She’s a silly wench, but the Flintruckers got no grudge against her. Right boys?”

  In a comedy they’d have replied in chorus, “Right, Pa.” In reality, Brown-hair simply nodded ... and Ginger cast a calculating look after the coach.

  I was glad the Flintruckers seemed to hold no grudge against me, and resolved to keep it that way. But...

  “If you don’t mind my asking,” I said. “Who’s Tizz?”

  “And who shot at Rupert?” Kathy added. “And why did you chase him?”

  Even Kathy had more sense than to ask why they were robbing a coach.

  “Tizz is our sister,” Brown-hair said. “And since we lost that fellow, we’d best get back and see if Mam picked up the trail.”

  “I reckon,” Pa said.

  Without more ado they turned to go. And I’d have let them.

  “Wait,” said Kathy. “If your sister’s in some sort of trouble, mayhap we can help?”

  “We don’t need help,” said Ginger.

  Pa looked thoughtful. “I don’t know. There was six of them. With these two, if you count Mam in, we’d be six.”

  “Seven,” said Kathy.

  “Wait a minute,” said Rupert. “Were the men who ... I’m guessing they kidnapped your sister? Were they escorting a coach with a woman inside, and a crest scratched off its door?”

  “Mam didn’t say nothing about a coach,” said Pa. “With or without a woman. And we’d best—”

  “Was the sixth man, the man in charge, a slim nobleman trying to pass as a commoner?” I asked. “With a bite mark on his hand?”

  They all stopped, staring at me.

  “So,” said Pa. “Seems like you fellers know who your enemy is. You mind telling us?”

  “We don’t know,” I said. “I was hoping you did.”

  Pa shook his head, but his face was thoughtful.

  “The lady has a point, Pa,” said Brown. “We know he’s their enemy, as well as ours. Why not bring ’em along?”

  “We don’t need no one’s help,” said Ginger stubbornly.

  “Maybe, maybe not,” said Pa. “You need to learn the difference between looking out for yourself and being prideful. Or at least, ’tween being smart and being stupid. We know he wants to kill this one.” He gestured to Rupert. “So’s I suppose they’ll be on our side.”