The Raider

by Jude Deveraux

  He grinned at her and Sophy felt herself succumbing to his charm. He was frightfully appealing in that black mask.

  “I was waiting for Jessie.”

  “Alexander, remove that mask.” She might deal with him better if he were familiar-looking.

  “No,” he said, still smiling. “Is Jess inside?”

  “What are you planning to do to her? What you just did to me? Alex, this has to stop. First you make her jealous of you as Alex, then you…you attack her dressed as something out of a play. You have to tell her the truth.”

  “You like her, too, don’t you?”

  “Yes, I do and I’m sorry I ever conspired with you against her. I have to leave day after tomorrow and if you haven’t told her by then, I will.”

  The Raider, his sword lowered, leaned against a tree. “She’s going to be angry with me.”

  “And well she should be.”

  The Raider stood up straighter. “But the rewards if I don’t have to be secret with her anymore are staggering,” he said in a faraway voice, as if contemplating those rewards. “I can be Alex during the day but at night, alone with Jessica, I can be the Raider.”

  “I envy her,” Sophy sighed, then came back to the problem. “You’ll tell her?”

  “Yes, I think it’s time. Tomorrow I will take her out and show her who the Raider is.”

  “Good,” Sophy said. “Now go before someone sees you.”

  He kissed her mouth sweetly and then melted into the forest.

  When Sophy returned to the small parlor where Jessica had been working on account ledgers, the room was empty. She found Jess in the little room off Alex’s bedroom, everything a shambles about her.

  “It’s gone,” Jess said.

  “What is?”

  “The paper I found in the admiral’s room. I wanted to wait until Alex was out of the house before I read it, but it’s not here.”

  “You lost it somewhere?”

  Jessica looked up, her eyes wide. “No, I hid it.”

  It took Sophy a moment to understand. “Then someone has stolen it. Someone knows what the admiral plans. I don’t guess you had time to read it?”

  “Not with Alex hovering over me. If Pitman found it and knew I was the one who’d taken it—”

  “We will know very soon. Sit down and let’s make plans. For all we know, one of the children found it and used it to make paper dolls, but if your Mr. Pitman does have it we’ll have to get you out of Warbrooke before they try to hang you.”

  “Yes,” Jess whispered and sat down.

  Chapter Twenty

  ALEX, isn’t it rather late to be out? I think, with your health, you should be home resting. Sophy says—”

  “I don’t want to hear what she has to say.”

  Jess smiled in the darkness as she held onto the wagon seat. For a while he’d had his pretty countess all to himself, but now Sophy was spending more of her time with Jessica and the children than with Alex. The countess had planned to leave before now but this morning she had announced her intention of staying another couple of days. “Just until I see what happens,” she said but wouldn’t explain her meaning.

  “Are you warm enough?” Alex asked.

  Jess pulled the long, hooded cloak about her more securely. “I’m not the one who’s ill, Alex. I think we should go back.”

  “Whoa,” Alex called to the two horses, pulling back on the reins. “Here we are.” He got down and went to Jess’s side of the wagon to help her down, but she was already on the ground. “You can see all of Warbrooke from here,” Alex said as he began to unhitch the horses.

  “Alex, it’s ten o’clock at night. I think we ought to return home. Don’t unhitch the horses.”

  Alex continued what he was doing. He thought that Jess might be a little, well, perhaps just a shade angry when she heard that her husband and the Raider were one and the same. Of course, there was no reason for her to be angry, but who knew about women? There was always the possibility that she’d be sensible and realize that what he’d done, he’d done for his country and to protect her.

  He attached an iron hobble to each horse. No, there was no remote possibility that she’d be sensible. It was much more likely that she’d be as unreasonable and difficult as she usually was.

  He grinned in the moonlight. Of course he’d be able to calm her down. He’d stroke her and caress her and—

  “Alex, what an odd little smile. Would you please tell me what it is that you came here to tell me, so we can get you home? This wet grass is going to ruin those new shoes of yours.”

  He slipped his arm about her shoulders. “Come over to the ridge and we’ll look at the view.”

  Jess was impatient. “Alex, I have seen Warbrooke at night all my life. I have seen it from this view hundreds of times. Wait! Alex, have you bought a new ship? Is that what you want to tell me?”

  He turned her toward him, his back to the village below. “Jessica, I came up here to tell you something much more important than that I bought a new ship.”

  “There’s a lugger for sale that we could use to—”

  He put his finger to her lips. “Just listen to me, Jessica. Let’s sit down here, so I can talk to you about men and women and trust and duty and honor.”

  “All right, but if your feet or anything else freezes—”

  “Sometimes people do things that they must. Perhaps to another person it may not seem to be something they had to do but—”

  Jessica’s mind began to wander, and as she half listened to Alex, she looked at the scene of the town below them. As she watched she saw moving torches. Someone must be unloading a ship at night, she thought.

  “…and we learn to forgive each other and accept each other in spite of what we might consider flaws and we…”

  Jess kept watching the scene below. The group of torches was moving faster now, away from the wharf. Frowning, she began to study the group harder. More torches were coming from down the streets.

  “…of course, you did start this, Jessica, and if it hadn’t been for you, much of this wouldn’t have happened. I’m not really angry with you, but I do want you to remember that when I tell you…”

  In the moonlight, Jessica began to see a moving form. She couldn’t at first make out who it was, but as it came in their direction, she saw it more clearly.

  Abruptly, she stood. “It’s him,” she gasped.

  Alex, still sitting, looked up at her. “Who is?”

  “The Raider. That crowd down there is chasing him!”

  With a knowing smile, Alex rose. “Jess, let me assure you that whoever they are chasing is not the Raider. It’s probably a stowaway who just came in or some other such—”

  “There!” she yelled, pointing into the trees. “There by the courthouse. It’s him I tell you and—oh, God—look, they have him blocked off.” She lifted her skirts and began running toward the horses. “I have to help him.”

  She’d never seen Alex move so quickly or even dreamed that he was capable of moving so fast. He ran up behind her, practically tore the black cape from her body, slung it over his own shoulders, then ran to the horses. He’d unhobbled a horse and mounted it bareback all in a split second, while Jess was still standing where she was.

  “Get back to the house,” Alex yelled at her as he galloped away, forcing the wagon horse to move faster than it ever had.

  Jessica was speechless. For a moment she couldn’t comprehend what had just happened. One moment Alex had been whining about love and patriotism and the next he had galloped away while wearing a black cape.

  Jess walked back to the ridge slowly, as if in a dream, and watched what was going on. She saw Alex tearing down the hillside and heading straight toward the crowd of torches, but then she lost him in the darkness. To her left she could barely see the movement of the Raider.

  “My two men,” she said with a sharply drawn breath. Both her men being pursued by an army of English soldiers.

  She caught sight o
f Alex again when the light of the torches briefly illuminated him. There was a moment of confusion while the men turned and started after Alex, leaving the Raider a way to escape the second group of soldiers.

  All of them disappeared from her view.

  Jess sat down on the ground, her face in her hands. Why is Alex doing such a foolish thing, she wondered. Why is he risking his health to help a man he considers an idiot?

  Jess stayed on the ridge for an hour. She saw the torches reappear then disappear again into the forest. She saw pairs of them move down streets and alleyways and then back to the wharf.

  “They’ve lost them,” she whispered and started toward the horse. She had to get home to help Alex. The Raider would disappear to wherever he lived—maybe into the arms of his loving wife—but Alex would need her.

  It wasn’t easy driving the wagon with a single horse in a two-horse harness down the steep hill, but Jessica didn’t notice the difficulty. Her only concern was being there when Alex returned.

  Since she’d been watching the searchers from the hillside, she had an idea where they might be, and avoided those places. She didn’t want to meet soldiers and have to explain why her husband had taken the other wagon horse.

  She made it back to the Montgomery house without seeing too many people or any English soldiers. After leaving the wagon to the bondsman who worked in the stables, Jess started back to their room.

  But Sayer called to her, and before she knew what was happening, she was crying on the old man’s shoulder and telling him what had happened.

  “You love him, don’t you?” Sayer said, stroking her hair. “You love my son more than you love your handsome, virile Raider?”

  “Yes,” Jessica sniffed. “Alex whines and complains and he’s an awful lot of trouble, but he really is a good man. He helps as much as he can, considering his state of health. But tonight was too much. He can’t go riding like that. His health won’t stand it.”

  Sayer held her closer. “It’s your health I’m worried about. I think it’s time this charade ended.” He pulled her from him. “Go to your room and wait for Alex and tomorrow I want you both in here for four o’clock tea. Don’t let Alex make excuses, but bring him here.”

  “If he’s well,” Jess sniffed. “I’d better heat some water. He’ll need to soak his cold feet.”

  Sayer smoothed his daughter-in-law’s hair back. “Yes, pamper him tonight, because after tomorrow you may not feel so inclined.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’ll tell you tomorrow. Now go and see to your husband. I’ll see you at tea.”

  “Yes, sir,” Jess said, kissed his cheek and then left the room.

  * * *

  “Who was it?” Alex asked Nick. Alex had barely escaped the king’s soldiers and made it back to the Montgomery house, where he and Nick now stood in the dark, behind the stables.

  “I have no idea,” Nick said, yawning. “As far as anyone has told me, your admiral had been told a ship carrying contraband was arriving. He planned to search the ship at night.”

  “But someone dressed as the Raider led the soldiers away,” Alex stated flatly, concealing his anger. “Someone pretending to be me.”

  “Where was your Jessica? She seems to—”

  “With me,” Alex snapped. “I took her to McGammon Peak to tell her I was the Raider, but then she looked down and there’s the Raider riding across the town, soldiers in back of him, soldiers in front of him. I barely got there in time before they closed in on the fool. I would never have done something so stupid.”

  “Going to tell Jessica you’re the Raider, eh?” Nick gave Alex a lopsided grin. “That little filly is going to let you know what she thinks of you.”

  “Why do you think I took her so far out of town to tell her? I don’t want Pitman hearing what she says to me.” In spite of his words of dread, Alex was smiling. “Truthfully, I’ll be glad when she knows. There’ll be no more secrets between us.”

  “And no more separate beds.”

  “Come on, let’s get home,” Alex said, adjusting his wig. “I’ll take Jess out tomorrow and tell her. Meanwhile, I plan to find out who this imposter is.”

  * * *

  Jessica had to wait a couple of hours before Alex returned, climbing in through the window. He looked awful. His clothes were wet and muddy, his wig askew, his face drawn and tired.

  “Jess!” he gasped when he saw her. “You should be in bed.”

  “So should you.” She helped him through the window, then led him to the bed and pushed him to sit. Instantly, she was at his feet, removing his wet shoes and hose and then wrapping his cold feet in a warmed towel.

  “Jess,” Alex said, amusement in his voice. “What’s this about? What are you doing?”

  “Alex,” she said, looking up at him with pleading eyes, “you shouldn’t run off like that. You could hurt yourself. Your heart can’t withstand escapades like tonight.”

  He was watching her. “You were worried about me?”

  “Of course. Here, take off those clothes—all right, I won’t look—and get into bed. And here’s a dry wig if you think I can’t bear the sight of a bald scalp. And I have soup for you. I’ll feed you as soon as you’re in bed.”

  Alex stripped off his clothes in record time, pulled on the dry nightgown and wig and got under the covers. He slumped into an invalid-looking pose and called to Jess that he was ready.

  She brought a bowl of hot soup to the bed, put a napkin under his chin and began to feed him. “Whatever made you run off like that?” she chided.

  He looked at her over the spoon. “I didn’t want your Raider caught. He means so much to you.”

  Jess’s eyes got watery for a moment. “Alex, you risked your life merely to save a man because I like him?”

  Alex gave a shrug that said there was nothing else he could have done.

  With a smile she leaned forward and kissed his forehead, then resumed feeding him. “That was very good of you, but your health means more to me than the Raider’s. He can get himself out of trouble, he doesn’t need—Alex! Are you all right?”

  He caught her arm and pulled her back down to sit on the bed. “Repeat what you said.”

  “I said the Raider seemed quite capable of getting himself in and out of trouble. I don’t want you to risk—”

  “No, tell me how my health means so much to you.”

  He was holding her hands in his, his eyes like a hawk’s.

  Jess looked at her hands and blushed. “Well, Alex, maybe I’ve said a few things in the past, about your clothes and how you’re so lazy and such, but I really do like you a great deal.”

  “How much?”

  Jess didn’t look up.

  “You like me enough to love me?”

  Jess climbed into bed with him, wrapped her arms and legs about him, and put her head on his shoulder. “Alex, the Raider isn’t real. He’s just physical. I like you better, which is why I was so scared tonight. I may not have you for long, but I’m going to do everything I can to keep you alive as long as I can. Swear to me you won’t go off chasing the Raider again.”

  “I think I can do that,” Alex said, nestling Jess next to him.

  “What was it you wanted to tell me tonight?” she asked sleepily.

  “I don’t think now is a good time,” he said, holding her. “I don’t want anything to ruin this moment. I’ll tell you tomorrow.”

  “After tea with your father,” Jess murmured.

  Alex stroked her hair and held her as he sat up in bed, not sleeping but watching the sun come up, and thinking how good life could be. Right now he had what he wanted most: Jessica’s love. He knew that she’d love him no matter what, through sickness, through full-bottomed wigs, even through a few little white lies about the actual shape of his body and what he did in the evenings. Not many men had the opportunity to verify their wife’s love as Alex had done.

  He smiled and pulled her closer. Tomorrow night he’d tell her everythi
ng and she’d understand. If she was woman enough to love him in spite of his unappealing physique, then she was certainly woman enough to understand.

  But just in case, he thought with a smile, he’d better remove the breakables from his room. Jess might not understand immediately. But he’d tame her, oh yes, he would.

  * * *

  “You look lovely, Jessica,” Sayer Montgomery said. “Is that the red dress the countess had made for you? Alex, don’t you think she looks lovely?”

  Alex didn’t answer.

  Jess laughed. “I think he does like the dress.”

  Sayer looked from one to the other. “You both look especially happy today. Did something happen?”

  Jess put down her tea cup. “I’m glad the Raider wasn’t caught last night. Did you hear any news?”

  “Only that he got away and they got the contraband out in time.”

  Jessica was filling Alex’s teacup while he lounged in his seat. She knew he liked to annoy his father.

  “I wonder how the Raider knew about the ship?” Sayer asked.

  “I’d like to know that, too. I’m assuming that was the message the admiral received, but I didn’t give it to the Raider. I didn’t even have time to read it before it was stolen.”

  “Do you think the Raider took it from your room?” Sayer asked.

  “In broad daylight? I doubt—”

  “What?” Alex shouted, coming out of his euphoria. “Did you take a message from the admiral? Is that what you were doing in his room?”

  “Alex, please calm down.”

  Alex jumped up, overturned his chair and nearly upset the tea table. “Did Sophy know about this? Did she help you? I’ll wring both your necks. You and that damned red dress, if it hadn’t been for that, I’d have realized what you were up to. So help me, Jessica—”

  “Sit down,” Sayer bellowed, effectively stopping Alex’s tirade. “I’ll not allow a lady to be spoken to like that in my presence.”

  Alex slumped in the chair and sulked. His eyes told Jess he’d get her later.

  “I want you to kiss your wife and tell her you’re sorry for your bad temper. It’s from his mother’s side of the family. No Montgomery man before him ever screeched at a woman.”