“I doubt it,” Lady Roysdon said, “and, if he does shoot, we must just keep out of the way.”
The highwayman laughed.
“You are very foolhardy, Lady Roysdon, but after all, that is your reputation.”
“Is it?”
“So I have always heard.”
“Why should you be interested in hearing about me?”
“I will answer that perhaps another time,” the highwayman replied. “Now, if I am to do what you ask of me, I have to make plans.”
“What sort of plans?” she asked curiously.
“Even a highwayman thinks out his attack strategically. He does not go bald-headed at his objective, unless he wishes to have a very short life that will end in the most undignified manner on the gibbet.”
Lady Roysdon shivered.
“I had forgotten that was the penalty.”
“Then your Ladyship would be wise to return to Brighton. Leave Jake with me to see that I play fair and he will bring you the spoils, if there are any, in the morning.”
“I am coming with you!”
“Why?”
She turned to look at him and, when she saw the expression in his grey eyes, she suddenly began to laugh.
“For devilment, for revenge and perhaps to prove myself,” she answered.
He laughed too.
“That is the right answer and, if you are sure you will have no regrets, I will take you.”
She had the feeling that she had won a major victory.
He rose from the fallen log to say,
“Wait here for a moment while I consult with Denzil, who I think knows the Shoreham road better than I do.”
He began to walk away from her and then stopped.
“By the way, when did you last eat?”
“Some time after midday,” she answered.
“That is what I suspected.”
He moved away before she could question him further and she sat waiting, thinking that this was very different from any escapade she had previously taken part in.
But everything she had done then had been for amusement, as a relief from her boredom which at times seemed overwhelming.
There had been something within herself that rebelled against the monotony of party after party. Ball after ball, always talking and dancing with the same people, always hearing the same conversations, the same type of gossip.
At first the fact that she felt free of the conventions that confined other women had been a thrill in itself.
The Earl had taken her to mills, sword matches and wrestling, to see cock fighting, which she hated, and boxing matches between women that she thought were degrading.
Then he had become more original, thinking up her visit to the Piazza at Covent Garden and taking her to dance at a low place in the Haymarket, where she rubbed shoulders with the lowest class of women from the streets.
She had not found either of those places really entertaining and, after the last place they had visited, she had known that she would not accept any more such invitations, however much he might try to persuade her.
But this was different, this she was not doing for herself but for Averil Dorridge and the outcome of this escapade would profoundly affect the lives of three people – Averil and her two small daughters.
She heard the highwayman returning and now she saw that he carried a basket in his hands.
“It is always wise to go into battle on a full stomach,” he said. “Any soldier will tell you that.”
He took a white napkin from the basket and spread it on the ground. In another piece of clean linen there were sandwiches made with pieces of meat between fresh baked bread thickly spread with butter.
There were two glasses and a bottle of wine.
“How did you get this?” she asked in surprise.
“I am asking you to share my supper.”
“Yours and Denzil’s. What about him?”
“He and Jake have ridden off to find food. It will not take them long and we should leave in about a quarter-of-an-hour.”
“Then there is an inn near here?”
“Why are you so curious?”
She blushed as if she was a child caught with her fingers in the jam pot.
“For no reason except that everything you do seems so mysterious.”
“What else could you expect?”
“There are so many questions I want to ask you.”
“Ask them, but I don’t promise to give you the answers.”
“I suppose the first one is, why are you a highwayman?”
She sat down on the ground as she spoke and helped herself to one of the sandwiches.
As she sank her teeth into it, she realised not only that it was delicious but she was also hungry.
He poured her out a glass of wine and after a moment she said,
“I asked you a question.”
“I know. Tell me why you indulge in the outrageous pranks which have brought you so much notoriety.”
She thought for a moment before she replied,
“I suppose the truth is that I wanted freedom, adventure and excitement.”
The highwayman smiled.
“Then your answer is the same as mine.”
“But you are a man.”
“Does that make any difference?”
“A great deal, I should have thought.”
He shook his head.
“It has nothing to do with whether one is a man or a woman, but with one’s personal needs, one’s human longing for fulfilment.”
“I never thought of that.”
She looked at him and her eyes met his grey ones.
It seemed for a moment as if they were united and close in a way that she could not understand and yet it happened.
The highwayman drank a little of the wine.
“I hope you find this good. I think it exceptional.”
“Is it French?”
“Naturally! In what other country can one find a good wine?”
“Then doubtless it is smuggled?”
“Of course!”
Lady Roysdon laughed.
“You are very honest.”
His lips curved.
“Most people would argue that I was very dishonest!”
“But not in the ways that matter.”
“How can you be sure of that?”
She felt confused because she was sure, although she had no grounds for being so.
“May I have another sandwich?” she asked, changing the subject.
“It would be wise to do so.”
“You think they will give me courage?”
“That is what you will need.”
“I have never lacked it in the past.”
“But this, as we have just said, is something different.”
“Yes, of course.”
“Will you have some more wine?”
“No, thank you.”
They might, she thought suddenly, be having dinner at a silver-laden table with candles to illuminate the expressions on their faces.
She had a sudden wish for him to see her as she would be then, in one of her low-cut evening gowns and with jewels round her neck and bracelets on her bare arms.
Then she remembered that in fact he had seen her like that last night and told her that she was beautiful.
“I have not changed my opinion.”
His voice broke in on her thoughts and she stared at him almost in horror.
How could he know what she was thinking? How could he become a part of her mind?
“I prefer you as a woman,” he said before she could speak. “But, as I said, your little Grecian head is very attractive and I must commend you on the way you have tied your cravat.”
She was trying to find an answer, but he obviously did not expect one.
He picked up the remains of their meal and placed it in the basket and emptied the dregs of the wine from his glass onto the ground, then laid it beside the bottle.
Next
he put out his hand to help Lady Roysdon to her feet.
She felt the hard strength of his fingers over hers and she remembered the way his arms had enveloped her and held her close when he had kissed her.
It flashed through her mind that he might kiss her again, but he let go of her fingers, bent to pick up her hat and handed it to her.
“We must go.”
“Have the men returned?”
“I heard them a few seconds ago.”
She thought he must have very sharp ears.
He walked a little way through the trees and she followed him to find Jake and Denzil, the latter leading the highwayman’s horse, Jake with hers.
The highwayman held out his hand towards Denzil who put something into it. Then he turned towards Lady Roysdon and she saw that it was a mask.
“You will need this,” he said.
“Of course. I had forgotten it was necessary.”
The mask had two narrow black ribbons attached to it. He put it over her nose and, as she put up her hands to hold it in place, he moved behind her and tied the ribbons at the back of her head.
It flashed through her mind that he was almost like a husband attending to his wife’s appearance.
Then she told herself that of all the mad things she had ever done this was the maddest!
The highwayman helped her into the saddle and she thought that Jake and the other man averted their eyes as if they were shocked at the sight of a woman riding astride.
Then without a word they set off, moving down through the wood and keeping under the trees until the moment came when they must cross the main highway from London to Brighton where there was always a considerable amount of traffic.
The highwayman did not hurry. He waited until a stagecoach had passed leaving behind a cloud of dust and the next vehicle was some distance away.
Then at a signal they all crossed quickly, obscured by the dust, which would have made it impossible for an observer to notice what they looked like.
On the other side of the road they gave the horses their heads and moved with a speed that was somehow exhilarating until they reached the barren land that led down to the cliffs.
Now it was almost twilight and the last vestige of the sun was sinking below the horizon.
The wind seemed to have died away and there was that stillness that comes between day and night and has a strange magic about it.
It seemed, Lady Roysdon thought, to add an excitement to the apprehension within her breast that she could not help feeling however much she scoffed at herself for being nervous.
They rode on until later still they saw the Shoreham road winding and twisting over the Downs without trees or vegetation of any sort on either side of it.
As Lady Roysdon expected, the highwayman did not pause but carried on until in the distance they could see the darkness of a wood spreading out like a protective veil over the undulating ground.
They reached the trees and drew their horses to a standstill and now the highwayman spoke in a low voice to Denzil and to Jake, both wearing masks, who moved across the roadway and disappeared into the darkness of the trees on the other side.
The highwayman turned his head to look at Lady Roysdon.
It was hard to see in the shadows but she was sure that he smiled at her.
“Are you frightened?” he asked.
“If I was, I would not admit it.”
“Why not? Every actor is nervous before the curtain goes up.”
“What part am I to play?”
“That is what I am about to tell you. You will stay here until I give you an order.”
“I am too far away from the road.”
“That is for me to say.”
“I realise you are trying to protect me, but I don’t wish you to do so.”
“You will obey me or I shall abandon the whole operation.”
He spoke in the same quiet voice that he always used and yet she heard the steel beneath it and knew that he meant what he said.
Because something within her rebelled against his authority she said,
“You could not be so perfidious as to let me down at the last moment!”
“I must do things my way or else not at all.”
“You are very autocratic!”
“Naturally, and in such circumstances I expect you to obey me.”
She longed to defy him yet she knew that she could not do so and much against her will she capitulated.
“Very well, I will do what you tell me.”
“That is sensible. Remember not only your own reputation but your friend’s happiness depends upon it.”
“I have not forgotten that, even though I am not concerned with my reputation.”
“But I am!” he said quietly.
She looked at him in surprise, but already he had moved away from her towards the road so that he was directly below her and only a few feet from where the carriage would pass.
She realised then that he had left her in a position where she could see any vehicle that approached.
But there was only emptiness beneath the darkening sky and she had a sudden fear that Sir Francis had changed his mind.
Perhaps after all he would sleep in Brighton and make the journey tomorrow morning. But even as she told herself what an anticlimax that would be, far away in the distance she saw two tiny pinpoints of light.
She hoped that they were the lanterns on his carriage and, even as she stared at them, she realised that the highwayman had seen them too, for his head was turned in the same direction as hers.
Nearer and nearer they came and now she could hear the sound of the horses’ hoofs, although it might have been the beating of her heart.
There were two men on the box and by straining her eyes she recognised the many-caped fawn driving coats that the Dorridge coachmen always wore.
There was no doubt that the carriage approaching carried Sir Francis, but now she did not call out but gave a low whistle, which she knew would tell the highwayman all he wanted to know.
The carriage drew nearer still.
Then things happened so quickly that it was difficult to distinguish in what order they occurred.
Denzil suddenly rode his horse into the centre of the road, causing the coachman to draw in his horses with such a sharp movement that they were thrown back on their haunches.
The highwayman called out,
“Stand and deliver!”
Jake had his pistol pointed at the two servants on the box before the footman could raise the blunderbuss he held on his knees up to his shoulder.
Then there was a loud explosion from a pistol and Lady Roysdon guessed that Sir Francis had fired from the carriage, but the highwayman had been standing behind the door and the bullet passed harmlessly into the trees.
The highwayman must have taken the pistol from the Baronet, for she saw him throw it onto the side of the road and the next moment the door of the carriage was opened and Sir Francis stepped out.
“You damned criminals! I will see you hanged for this!” he shouted viciously.
His lips were drawn back over his teeth and he looked, Lady Roysdon thought, even more unpleasant than she remembered him.
“I must ask you, sir, for your watch, your purse and, of course, anything else of value you carry with you,” the highwayman said.
“I have nothing else,” Sir Francis replied in a loud voice, “and make no mistake, you will reap your just desserts for this barefaced robbery.”
“I will take your word for it, sir,” the highwayman remarked as he took Sir Francis’s purse. “Now what else have you with you?”
“Nothing! I swear to you I have nothing else at all. You have everything I possess.”
“If that is the truth,” the highwayman said, “then you will not object to my assistant searching your carriage, for I believe you gentlemen are clever at having hiding places specially designed to avoid the attentions of such persons as myself.”
He beckoned t
o Lady Roysdon as he spoke and she came riding down through the wood, her eyes behind the mask alight with excitement.
“Will you oblige me,” the highwayman said as she dismounted, “by seeing if you can find anything of interest in this gentleman’s carriage?”
“There is nothing, I tell you!” Sir Francis repeated furiously. “You are just wasting your time and you may, if anyone comes this way, find yourself trapped.”
“That is a risk we must take,” the highwayman answered suavely.
“It would be wiser to make sure of the ill-gotten gains you have already.”
“I applaud your prudence, sir. At the same time there are four of us and your purse is not a heavy one.”
Lady Roysdon climbed into the carriage.
She was well aware where the secret hiding place, if there was one, would be situated under the smaller seat, and it was usually worked from a catch at the side.
She was not mistaken.
It was almost identical with one that had been built into her own carriage and where she hid her jewellery when she travelled with it.
She looked inside and found that the hiding place was full.
She gave a little whistle, not daring to trust her voice in case Sir Francis should recognise it as that of a woman.
“I feel you need assistance,” the highwayman said as if he understood exactly what she wished to say.
Denzil left his horse to graze by the roadside and came to the other door.
He drew out some canvas bags and now with delight Lady Roysdon saw the black leather jewel box, which she knew contained Averil’s necklace.
She took it in her arms and stepped out of the carriage, not concerned with anything else that Sir Francis might have hidden.
“Damn you!” Sir Francis exclaimed when he saw what she carried and now he let fly a stream of oaths that were very much out of keeping with his sanctimonious appearance.
Lady Roysdon longed to tell him so, but, because in some strange way she knew exactly what the highwayman wished her to do, she swung herself back into the saddle and then looked down at him awaiting his orders.
With a smile on his lips he handed her his pistol.
“Keep it trained on this irate gentleman,” he said, “while I assist in removing the fortune understandably he had forgotten he carried with him.”
The expression on Sir Francis’s face was so ludicrous that Lady Roysdon found herself shaking with laughter.
The Outrageous Lady Page 6