Count the Stars

by Barbara Cartland

  Then, as he drew nearer still, she saw that it was Mr. Travers!

  Instinctively she put up her hand to stop him, stepping further out into the road as she did so, while still holding on to Samson’s bridle.

  He did not see her at first. Then she saw by the expression on his face that he was surprised and he drew in Bessie abruptly, pulling her back on her haunches.

  Then, as the mare came to a standstill, he flung himself from the saddle saying in a low insistent voice,

  “What are you doing here? Where is Standon?”

  “He is inside,” Valora replied, indicating with her hand the blacksmith’s shop.

  The highwayman thrust Bessie’s bridle into Valora’s hand and walked quickly into the forge.

  The Duke was as surprised to see him as Valora had been.

  “Where have you been?” he began to ask.

  Then, as he saw the expression on the highwayman’s face, he checked the words.

  Mr. Travers glanced at the blacksmith.

  “I must speak to you!” he said in a low voice.

  The Duke knew it would be a mistake to talk in front of a stranger.

  “Get Valora to hold Mercury,” he suggested.

  The highwayman understood and went outside to take Samson and Bessie from Valora.

  “Standon wants you to hold Mercury,” he said without explanation.

  Because she knew something serious must have happened, Valora ran into the forge to take Mercury from the Duke.

  He walked quickly out to the highwayman.

  “What is wrong?” he demanded.

  “Walter and Giles are just behind me,” the highwayman replied. “I anticipated that you would be further ahead than this.”

  “We have been somewhat dilatory,” the Duke answered.

  “Which is unfortunate. They found out where you stayed the night before last and, when I learned at The Fox and Goose, where you rested last night, that you left at five o’clock this morning, I expected you to be a good deal further on than this.”

  “Do you think they are coming this way?” the Duke asked.

  “You are on the main road,” the highwayman replied.

  The Duke’s lips tightened.

  “How far are they behind?”

  The highwayman shrugged his shoulders.

  “Perhaps ten minutes.”

  “Two of them?”

  “The outrider was ill, so there are only Walter and Giles!”

  The Duke glanced back at the forge and he knew that it would be several minutes more before Mercury’s shoe was firmly fixed to his hoof.

  He wondered desperately what he should do.

  He thought they might hide somewhere in the village. Then he saw that while they had been in the forge a number of people had begun to congregate outside the lychgate.

  There were three women with their shopping baskets, another woman with several small children and half a dozen boys who obviously had nothing better to do.

  As the Duke looked at them, he saw that they were all watching the Church door and at that moment the bride appeared, wearing a traditional white dress, the veil thrown back from her face.

  She was a buxom apple-cheeked girl, perhaps the daughter of a local farmer, and her bridegroom was looking hot and flushed which was obviously due to the tightness of his cravat.

  Their parents and several friends followed them, all beaming with the benevolent good will that a wedding invariably evokes.

  As the bridal couple reached the lychgate, the farmer’s gig, drawn by a horse decorated with a wreath of wild flowers, drew up outside and the bride and groom scrambled into it.

  There were cries of “good Luck!” and “God bless!” from the women and somewhat ironical cheers from the small boys, who ran beside the gig as it started off down the road.

  The wedding breakfast was obviously being held not far away, as the parents and friends began to walk quickly in the direction the gig had taken.

  “I think you will have to run for it,” the highwayman suggested.

  There was no doubt from the tone of his voice that he was uneasy.

  “I have a better idea,” the Duke replied.

  Putting the bridle of the two horses into the highwayman’s hand, he walked into the forge.

  “There I’ve made a good job of it,” the Blacksmith said in a tone of satisfaction. “You ’ave a fine ’orse ’ere, sir. ’E won’t give you no trouble for the next ’undred miles.”

  He laughed at his joke and then looked with delight at the half guinea the Duke had put down on the forge.

  “Thank ’e, sir,” he said briefly.

  The Duke had taken the bridle from Valora and pulled Mercury quickly out of the forge. He took him outside and handed the reins over to the highwayman.

  “Put the horses somewhere where they won’t stray,” he ordered. “I expect there are stables attached to the forge – there usually are. Then follow us into the Church.”

  The highwayman gave him a questioning look.

  Then he said,

  “If it comes to a fight, Walter is mine!”

  The Duke did not wait to reply.

  He merely put his hand under Valora’s arm and took her through the lychgate, which was now empty of sightseers and up a short gravel path to the Church door.

  “Where are we – going?” she asked in a whisper.

  She had guessed without being told what the highwayman had related to the Duke and now the terror that she might be captured and taken back to Heverington Hall and Sir Mortimer had returned.

  It swept away everything but a frantic need to hang onto the Duke with both hands and beg him to save her.

  They reached the Church door and, as the Duke walked inside still holding her by the arm, she thought perhaps he intended to seek sanctuary in the Church, as criminals had been able to do in the past to escape their pursuers.

  Yet she had the frightened feeling that Walter would not respect the sanctity of God’s House, but would be concerned only with gratifying her stepmother and, of course, Sir Mortimer.

  She was trembling as the Duke led her up the aisle and she saw an old Clergyman ahead of them, moving along from the altar, which was decorated with lilies.

  The Duke walked until they were in front of the Parson, who, intent on his thoughts was only suddenly aware of them.

  Raising his head, he stared at them through his spectacles.

  “I am sure, Vicar, that you are in a hurry to join the wedding party,” the Duke said quietly, “and drink the health of the bride. But if you will marry me to this young lady immediately, I will give two hundred pounds for the restoration of the Church!”

  Chapter Six

  For a second the Vicar stared at the Duke as if he thought he could not have heard aright. Then he said in a quavering voice,

  “Did you – say two hundred – pounds, sir?”

  “Two hundred,” the Duke repeated, “and if you are in a hurry, so am I.”

  He thought the Parson was hesitating and he drew from his pocket a piece of paper which Valora, who was standing beside him too stunned to speak, realised it was something she had seen before.

  Almost as if the Parson had asked the question, the Duke said,

  “I have here a Special Licence and let me give you the two hundred pounds immediately.”

  He put his hands deep into his breeches pocket, which was where he had placed some of the notes of high denomination that Mr. Dunham had given him.

  He had hoped that if a highwayman made him produce the sovereigns the notes underneath them would go undetected.

  As the old Parson still stared at him as if mesmerised, the Duke placed the notes on top of the Special Licence, then with a smile he leant over the altar rails to put it on a table, which was usually used for the Communion plate.

  As he did so swiftly so that neither the Parson nor Valora was aware of it, he transferred with his right hand his pistol from his riding coat pocket into the waist of his breeche
s.

  A Prayer Book was standing on the table and the Duke, having laid down the money and the Licence, picked it up and handed it to the Vicar.

  As if he was too surprised to make any protest or it might have been the Duke’s authoritative manner that swept away any questions he might have asked, the Vicar opened the Prayer Book.

  As he began the first prayer, the Duke heard quiet footsteps coming through the Church door and moving up a side aisle.

  He knew it was the highwayman and thought with relief that, whatever happened now, there were two of them to face the men in pursuit of Valora.

  Then he knew he must concentrate on her and that this was a very important moment in his own life.

  He glanced at her, realised she was very pale and that she was trembling.

  At the same time she was behaving with a composure he admired, because he was well aware how frightening it must be to know that at any moment her stepmother’s servants would confront her.

  The Vicar finished the prayer.

  Then, as if he had suddenly remembered that there was something he needed to know, he asked,

  “Please tell me your names.”

  “Greville Alexander and Valora,” the Duke answered.

  Then the Vicar started the main part of the Wedding Service,

  “Greville, wilt thou have this woman to thy wedded wife, to live together after God’s ordinance in the Holy state of Matrimony? Wilt thou love her, comfort her, honour and keep her in sickness and in health and, forsaking all others keep thee only unto her, so long as ye both shall live?”

  “I will.”

  The Duke’s voice had a depth and sincerity, which made Valora feel it vibrate through her.

  At the same time she was sure that this was a dream, it could not really be happening. The fear that she might be captured and be taken back to Heverington was still like a knife in her heart.

  Equally something ecstatic was rising within her too, because the Duke was near her and she loved him! Yet she could not believe that she was actually being married!

  Then the Vicar asked,

  “Valora, wilt thou have this man for your wedded husband, to live together after God’s ordinance in the Holy state of Matrimony? Wilt thou love him, obey him and serve him, honour and keep him in sickness and in health and, forsaking all others, keep thee only unto him, so long as ye both shall live?”

  “I will.”

  As Valora spoke, she was sure that the words were echoed by the voices of angels and the Church was filled with Celestial music.

  Then the Duke drew his signet ring from his little finger and took Valora’s hand in his. Almost instinctively she swayed a little towards him so that their shoulders were touching.

  “With this ring I thee wed,” he said in his deep voice. “With my body I thee worship and with all my worldly goods I thee endow – ”

  He slipped the ring onto her finger.

  She looked up at him as he did so and thought that there was an expression in his eyes that she had not seen before.

  The Vicar told them to kneel and, when they did so, he raised his hand and blessed them.

  Again it seemed to Valora as if a paean of music from the spheres filled the Church and the Blessing came not from one frail old man, but from God Himself.

  Then, as the Blessing finished the Duke raised Valora to her feet. He was wondering whether she would be frightened if he kissed her.

  As he looked down into her eyes, there was a sudden noise of the Church door being pushed violently open and the clump of heavy footsteps.

  As Valora gave a little cry of fear, the Duke turned round to face the two men who had been pursuing them.

  As they came stamping up the aisle, he recognised the man he had seen in the dining hall on the first night of his journey and knew him to be Walter.

  He was a dark swarthy individual with shifty eyes and a tight-lipped cruel mouth.

  The other man, Giles, was fair and somewhat nondescript, but like Walter he held a pistol in his hand.

  They walked halfway up the aisle before they stopped and faced the Duke and Valora, who were standing in front of the altar. The Vicar behind them was a step higher than they were.

  For a moment no one spoke and then Walter said in an ugly voice,

  “You’ve given us a good run, Miss Valora, but now we’ve got you.”

  “You are too late,” the Duke replied quietly but distinctly. “‘Miss Valora’, as you call her, is now my wife.”

  “That’s what I suspected might be happenin’ when I hears you were in here,” Walter answered, “but a bridegroom’s no good to a woman if he’s dead!”

  As he spoke, he lowered the pistol in his hand slightly to bring it down on to the Duke, pointing it at his heart.

  As he did so, the highwayman, who had concealed himself behind a pillar, shot him dead!

  Walter’s finger had been on the trigger and, as he staggered backwards his pistol went off, the bullet passing harmlessly over the top of the altar.

  The Duke, however, was not watching Walter falling, but Giles, and after one indecisive moment as Walter collapsed at his side, his finger tightened on the trigger.

  With the quickness of a man who had lived with danger, the Duke shot the other man a split second before the bullet from Giles’s pistol would have hit him.

  This time, as the servant’s gun exploded, the bullet hit the lectern at exactly the height, had the aim not been deflected, to strike the Duke’s head.

  The noise of the pistol shots and the suddenness with which everything occurred had left not only Valora but also the Vicar paralysed with horror.

  Only as the highwayman came from behind the pillar did the old man say,

  “What – is happening? I do not – understand. Who are these – men?”

  “It is quite all right, Vicar,” the Duke replied soothingly. “They are highwaymen and as such are better dead rather than preying on innocent people.”

  “Highwaymen!” the Vicar murmured. “Then they are indeed wicked creatures! But that such killing should happen in Church is not right – no indeed, it is not right at all,”

  “I agree,” the Duke replied. “And, if you will take my wife into the Vestry, my friend and I will remove their bodies from this sacred place.”

  He smiled at Valora reassuringly as he spoke and once again he was proud of the way she moved towards the old Vicar to help him down the Chancel steps and support him as they walked together into the Vestry.

  ‘Another woman,’ the Duke thought, ‘would be screaming and crying at being involved in anything so dramatic and unpleasant.’

  He thought as he watched her move away that he loved her with an intensity that he found it hard to express even to himself.

  Then, as there were more immediate matters for him to think about, he walked to where the highwayman was standing looking down at the dead bodies of their opponents.

  The blood had flowed from the wounds in their chests and the Duke thought the highwayman’s prophecy had certainly come true.

  “What do you intend to do with them?” William Travers asked.

  “Put them in the porch and tell the Vicar to inform the Magistrates, who will have them collected.”

  “Do you really think anyone will believe that they are really highwaymen?”

  “Why not?” the Duke replied. “Have you anything on you which would identify you as William Travers?”

  The highwayman looked at him in surprise. Then, as he understood what the Duke was planning, there was a sudden light in his eyes.

  “I have a book I always carry with me,” he answered. “The Teachings of St. Augustine.”

  “Your name is inscribed in it?”

  “Yes, indeed! It was given to me by my Godfather when I was confirmed.”

  As he spoke, he took a small leather-bound book from the pocket of his coat and the Duke saw written on the inside cover in a firm hand the words,

  “To William Travers on the day
of his confirmation at St. Albans Abbey. April 23rd 1804.”

  The Duke nodded, then looked first at Mr. Travers and then at Giles. In type the two were not unalike, both were fair, both thin, and clean-shaven.

  “Empty his pockets of everything except money,” the Duke ordered.

  The highwayman obeyed.

  Then he slipped into the dead man’s pocket the book containing his name.

  As he stood up and straightened his back, there was a light in his eyes, which had not been there before.

  The Duke was looking to see what Walter carried in his coat. He drew out a notebook, an account for the monies they had spent on the journey and two letters and put them all into his own pocket.

  Then he turned to pull the dead man by his coat collar down the aisle and out into the porch. He flung him down on the flagstones and following him William Travers did the same thing with Giles.

  “They deserved to die,” he said as if he was excusing his own conscience for the killing.

  “From what you have told me, there is no doubt about that,” the Duke answered, “and now you can start a new life. How you can do so is written in a letter I was waiting to give you when we next met.”

  He drew, as he spoke, a note from inside his coat and handed it to the highwayman, who looked down at it with a questioning expression on his face.

  The Duke understood what he was thinking without the need to put it into words.

  “If you imagine it is money,” he said, “you are mistaken.”

  Because that was exactly what he had been expecting, William Travers raised his eyes.

  “It concerns your future,” the Duke said, “and a suggestion of employment which I feel would be of considerable interest to you.”

  William Travers drew in a deep breath.

  “There is only one condition attached to it,” the Duke went on. “You must promise not to open it until you think I have reached York.”

  Before he could reply, the Duke added,

  “How long might that be? I have no idea exactly where I am?”

  “You are now a little North of Doncaster,” William Travers replied, “and you can reach York in three hours if you ride hard.”

  The Duke smiled.

  “Then that is what we will do. So in three hours’ time – no, better make it four for safety – you can open that letter. I shall be very disappointed if you are not pleased with what you read.”