by Lauren Smith
“I shall do my best to insure that Lady Amelia is never hurt,” Adam said somewhat stuffily.
“Good. She’s a good girl. Can’t play hazard worth a piffle, though. Well enough for a woman, I suppose, but still hardly worth playing with.” Once again and just as clumsily the Earl was dealing the cards. His technique would not have fooled a child.
Adam studied his cards. There was no way he could make a winning hand out of this, none. If winning was so important to the Earl, he wondered why he even bothered to deal the cards. All he had to do was take the deck, slap it on the table and then declare himself winner.
The sonorous toll of a bell rumbled through the castle, bouncing off the stone with little hints of echo. Rapt in his own hand, the Earl hardly seemed to notice. The bell rang again, far too fast for anyone to have answered it.
“Wish the demmed thing would stop,” Radston complained. “Makes it too hard to think.”
“Is it a fire bell?”
“No, just someone at the door. Wish they’d stay away while we’re playing. Distracting. Bentick will sort it out.”
The bell sounded again, this time with more agitation.
“There!” the Earl cried with triumphal glee, slapping down a card.
It wouldn’t make any difference what card he played, Adam thought. There was no way he could make anything out of this dog’s dinner of a hand. He should just give up now rather than play out this old man’s fantasies. How had Lady Amelia stood it, night after night, year after year of playing cards with her father without a hope of winning even a single hand? Adam felt a rush of pity for his affianced wife.
“Your Lordship,” Bentick stood in the partially open doorway, bowing as deeply as he would to the king himself. “Lord Waite is here and wishes a word…”
“No time. Tell him to come back…”
It was too late. Pushing past Bentick, a chunky, roughly dressed man stamped into the room. A fearsome scowl on his doughy features, at least what could be seen of them around a truly monumental beard, he strode right to the edge of the table.
“By Gawd’s Teeth, you daft bugger, put aside your everlasting cards for a minute.”
Radston’s face showed plainly what a heresy he thought that was, but he still smiled. “We’ve just begun a hand, but we can put it aside and deal you in, if you like. Bentick, bring his lordship some brandy.”
“I’ll not be drinking any of that swill you call brandy, Radston. It’s better suited to curing a horse with glanders.” Lord Waite then muttered something indecipherable into his beard, then noticed Adam, who had politely stood despite the older man’s unconventional entry.
“Wait – I know you. Ferrour, isn’t it? Old Emmanuel’s – excuse me, Sir Emmanuel’s son, right?”
“Right. I thought you looked familiar, your lordship… Didn’t we meet at Lady Younge-Bishop’s levee some months ago?”
The newcomer laughed and stroked his luxuriant beard. “Good eye you’ve got, lad. I don’t usually trim this unless I’m in Town. Too much trouble. As for you, young man, what d’you mean, playing cards with this old Captain Sharpe? Know what you’re getting into, do you?”
The Earl looked up huffily, for the first time looking as if he really were an Earl. “That’s a bit of too much, Waite. Young Adam is going to become my son in law, you know.”
His lordship peered keenly at Adam, his hard eyes hooded, then looked away. “Well, then, Lady Amelia is a lovely girl. My congratulations.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“So now. Waite, will you sit down and join us in a hand of cards?”
“Blast it, Radston, get your mind away from your eternal gaming! This is something important. You do remember there’s a highwayman in the neighborhood, don’t you?”
Gathering up the abandoned hands, the Earl shuffled the cards expertly. “How could I forget? You come over to hound me about it every few days, but you never show me the courtesy of even a single game.”
“Well, have you done anything about it? And I couldn’t afford the kind of courtesy you expect.”
Radston’s pout deepened. “You know I have told Stovall to shoot the creature on sight.”
“If that’s your stableman you’re talking about, he’s too old to see anything, let alone shoot it.” Lord Waite pulled his beard in frustration. “By Gawd’s Teeth, man, he’s robbing the countryside blind. There’s not a man-jack of us who hasn’t lost at least one purse to this jackanapes, and no one knows how many travelers he’s accosted.”
“What do you expect me to do? I don’t have legions of servants at my beck and call.” The Earl snapped the cards together and started to deal. “Are you quite sure you won’t join us for a friendly little game?”
His lordship made a sound that was distinctly like growling. “And you are sure you know nothing about this young scallawag’s identity? He seems to come and go like the wind and no one knows where he hides.”
The Earl sat straighter, and his hands were suddenly still. “I am the Sixth Earl Radston of Clereston Castle, Waite, and I do not consort with scofflaws and highwaymen.”
In spite of himself Lord Waite stepped back, though his eyes flashed with dark fire. “And I wasn’t saying you were, Radston – no need to be so all fired high in the instep. Just came by to see if you had learned anything. I have ordered nearly all my outside staff to be on the outlook tonight. I intend to get that young rapscallion, I tell you. He’s caused enough trouble around here.”
“Then good luck to you, I’m sure.” The Earl turned back to his cards and it was as if Lord Waite – a somewhat important personage in the area, if Adam remembered correctly – had ceased to exist.
“My respects to Lady Amelia,” his lordship said though gritted teeth.
“Humph,” replied the Earl absently, intent on his cards.
Giving Adam the briefest of nods, his lordship stamped out of the room, barely missing Bentick and the brimming full decanter.
Adam remained standing, not sure he could move without collapsing. There were men trying to hunt down his blonde highwaywoman! What if they should catch her? Highwaymen were hung, and there was no reason to believe that a female would be treated any differently. He had to warn her, to make her stop, to keep her safe, whatever it took.
“There,” Radston said with satisfaction. “We are ready to go again. You know, my boy, you should always watch the dealer just in case some dishonest person might try to gull you. Now sit down and play.”
Adam looked down at the Earl and the cards and it was as if he had never seen either before. “I am most sorry, sir, but I cannot play any longer. I have something I must attend to – something most important.”
“Something more important than cards?” His lordship asked in disbelieving tones, but could not expect an answer, as Adam had already left the room.
Chapter 9
Stopping neither for boots (which he could not don without assistance) nor his jacket (which didn’t cross his mind, so thankfully the evening was only slightly cool) Adam let himself out the door and in the wavering light of sunset legged it to the old barn as quickly as he could.
His heart switched beats when he saw the big dark horse tethered to the central post and a lithe figure in black next to it, patting it on the nose while the aged stableman threw up the saddle. The rush of relief Adam felt almost unmanned him.
“I must talk to you.”
The blonde looked up and smiled. It was luminescent, so much so that Adam’s heart began to thump so hard it threatened to leap from his chest.
“Well, if it isn’t the Ferrour boy!” The highwaywoman laughed. “Thinking to buy his lady’s favor by feeding her horses.”
Only then Adam saw the hulking bulk of his father’s coach at the far end of the barn.
“So John Coachman did get the feed. Good. There are some wagonloads to come as well.”
The old man cackled, then grunted as he threw his weight into tightening the big horse’s cinch. “Aye, and it w
ill be a long time before His Nibs gets over the idea of carrying honest grain in that fancy carriage.
“Enough, Stovall,” said the highwaywoman in a gentle tone. “It was a kind gesture by Mr. Ferrour, and Heaven knows it has been a long time since any of our animals have seen that quality of feed.”
Adam basked under her kind tone. “I’ve arranged for wagons of grain to be delivered on a regular basis and billed to my father. Enough for all your cattle.”
“Your father is most generous.” A small sneer crept into her voice, only to be replaced with a gilding of sadness. “You mean the Earl’s cattle. Thunderer here is my only nag, and a sweet goer he is.” She reached up to pet the big horse’s neck, and smiled when he responded with an affectionate whicker. “In any case, the horses will be happy. They’ve been neglected for too many years.”
“Lady Amelia seems to love the two old riding ponies.”
“Indeed,” said the old stableman. “Her ladyship…”
“Enough, Stovall.” A slight but unmistakable hint of command crept into the highwaywoman’s voice and the old man was instantly quiet. “Leave us.”
“But, your…”
“I said enough! Go. Now.” She was silent until the ancient servitor had obediently scuttled through a small door at the end of the barn. “He talks too much. It is hard to trust anyone who talks too much.”
“He seems devoted to you. He’s the one who hit me and then carried me upstairs last night, wasn’t he?”
“You are such a strapping young fellow it took both of us,” she said with a grin that came close to unmanning Adam. The thought that this exquisite creature had manhandled his body and he had been unaware of it made his entire being tingle.
“You cannot go out tonight.”
Her eyes flashed like blue ice. “Cannot? Who are you to tell me what I can and cannot do?”
“Lord Waite was just here. He wanted to know what the Earl was doing to stop you – the highwayman.”
“The Earl?” She laughed, a sound that was like music to Adam. “That is easy. Nothing. The Earl has never been interested in anything beyond his cards.”
“I know that, but Waite has men out patrolling, with orders to shoot.”
“Again? Pox on that distasteful little man. He does this from time to time. I don’t worry about him.”
“He said he would have all his outside staff…”
Another silvery laugh rippled through the shadowy barn. “He always does. To a man they are either as infirm as Stovall or hulking farm louts who don’t know one end of a gun from the other. So far it has been his good fortune that they have not shot themselves. This is all old news.”
“I don’t like the idea of you putting yourself in danger…” Even as he said it Adam realized it was a mistake. He sounded like a whiny boy to his own ears, and it made him angry. “I won’t have it.”
For a knife-edge of a second it seemed as if the woman would explode, then she chuckled. It was far from a friendly sound. “You won’t have it? And who are you to dictate to me?”
“You don’t have to put yourself in danger,” Adam said desperately. “If it’s just money, I can give you money. You must be safe.”
“Why? Because you say so? I have managed quite well until you appeared. You are here to buy Lady Amelia. Why should I obey you?”
Her words stung, though Adam knew it was true, just as he knew such a direction for his future was no longer acceptable. “Because you are mine, and I wish you safe.”
She chuckled again and in a liquid motion that excited Adam almost beyond reason walked over to him. She was wearing trousers, he noticed, and while such unwomanly apparel should have disgusted him, it had exactly the opposite effect, not only making him desire her the more but firming his new resolve with a burning sword.
“You are most definitely becoming greedy.” she said with a grin, running her hand slowly down his chest, all but putting Adam alight. “So you wish to make me your fancy woman, buy me a little house and come to visit me when you can escape from Lady Amelia and your father?”
Adam grabbed her shoulders as if he would shake her, but instead pulled her into his arms, where she fit as if they had been one flesh. In answer his lips descended to claim hers, which were softer and more yielding than he had imagined. Locked together in an embrace that transcended time and place they knew nothing but each other until with a tiny shudder, the highwaywoman pushed him away.
“That was shameful. You are to marry Lady Amelia.”
His breath ragged, his mind full of ideas and strange feelings and an upheaval of all he had ever known or thought he knew, Adam smiled. “I do not even know your name.”
“And why should you?” she asked, her own breathing less than steady.
“Because when I ask a woman to be my wife I would like to know what to call you.”
Her intake of breath was sharp. “Marry? But you are to marry Lady Amelia.”
“True, I did ask her this morning, but it was nothing more than a matter of business. I promised never to hurt her, but I cannot think this will. Her heart is not engaged, and neither is mine. I cannot bear to think of living my entire life without you, and I will not dishonor you by offering you anything less than marriage.”
She turned and walked back to pet her horse’s nose again, far enough that it felt to Adam almost as if a part of himself had been pulled away. “And how, Mr. Ferrour, do I know this is truly love and not just frustrated desire on your part? That in a while you will not find another woman who affects your senses as you say I do yours now?”
“Because that is impossible. There is not another woman on earth I would have. Please say you will marry me. We can be away and in Scotland within two, no more than three days if we leave now.”
“A runaway Scottish marriage?” Her voice was brimming with scorn. “You would be so ashamed of me, then, that you would marry me in secret instead of proudly in St. George’s of Hanover Square? Or is that an honor reserved solely for her ladyship?”
Adam drew a deep breath. She must know the unpalpable truth. “I would marry you happily before the entire country in Westminister Cathedral, my precious one, but if I do not marry Lady Amelia I will be a pauper. My father desires me to marry into the peerage, as he thinks that will raise his own social standing. He has told me with great detail how if I do not bow to his wishes I will be disinherited. That means I will have to earn my own way even though I have been trained for nothing save to be a rich man’s son. I do not even have the money buy back my old commission in the army. But I will take care of you, even if it means taking the King’s shilling.”
She stepped forward, a shaft of the sinking sun creeping through the rotting boards of the side wall illuminating her face and turning her golden hair into a glowing nimbus. Adam thought it a halo. There was no doubting that somehow she was a Radston; the resemblance to Lady Amelia was too strong. Taken feature by feature the two women were identical, but something – the soul? the life force? – made this woman something so much more, so desirable, than the lifeless doll that was Lady Amelia.
“And you would give up all that you have ever known for me?” she asked softly.
“Yes. I will. It won’t be easy, but I will protect and support and love you the rest of my life.”
“Oh, you silly man!” she said, but her tone was gentle, teasing, changing to harsh and edged only on the last words. “You do not know what the life you propose will be like. Poverty is a bitter master.”
“Not so much as a life without you,” Adam said with all sincerity, moving slowly toward her as he would toward a skittish colt.
Nothing had ever felt so right since he had first bought his colors – something his father had opposed from the first mention. Adam had financed his commission – the lowest one available – with money held back from the generous allowance his father had given him so that he might socialize among the sons of the nation’s finest families. When Old Emmanuel had found out about Adam’s plans, h
e was doubly livid – first that his son would so openly defy his wishes, secondly that his son should be among the lowliest of the low of the officer class. When Adam had refused to sell out, Old Emmanuel finally accepted that being in the army was an asset and had purchased him the high rank of colonel, much to Adam’s embarrassment. Only when the fighting had escalated so much that it proved dangerous to Adam’s unit had the old man arranged for his son to be removed and sent home.
He would have been right to be frightened, Adam realized, giving up his betrothal to Lady Amelia for the hand of a highwaywoman, as his father could be a formidable and dangerous foe; instead all he could think of was if his father wanted to be part of the aristocracy so badly perhaps he should marry Lady Amelia himself.
“You are mad, Mr. Ferrour.”
Once again she was so close he could easily pull her into his embrace, but with great effort he held his arms to his sides. There was a time for wooing with the body, and he had done all of that he could stand without giving over into pure animal licentiousness, and there was a time for the wooing of the mind. That was what he had to win now, his lady’s mind and heart.
“Perhaps, but it is a delicious madness.”
“What about your father?”
“He must do whatever he feels right. As must I, and that is to persuade you to marry me.”
“But we have just met!”
Adam could resist no longer. Reaching out, he drew a gentle finger down the line of her cheek, but could trust himself no more. “Perhaps, but it is not the amount of time which matters, it is the amount of feeling. You feel it as well, don’t you, this contact between us?”
She looked to the floor and after what seemed an aeon to Adam nodded slightly. “I have from the first moment I saw you.”
“When you were robbing me?”
She nodded again, then gave a quicksilver smile. “Hardly a way to begin a courtship, is it?”