Читать книгу Taken By The Highwayman - Amelia Casey - Страница 8

The carriage rattled and rolled past Highgate. The night had been prematurely dark and full of fog, and there wasn’t much to glimpse past the thick glass windows. Instead Anabel was forced to turn a blank smile on Lord Houghton, who sat across from her in an imperious sprawl. On the jolting seat beside Anabel her father hummed and sorted through his receipts, cheerfully oblivious.

Lord Houghton was talking, as he had been for most of the journey, of his investments in India, relishing the topic of his own fat purse and connections while Anabel nodded vacant agreement and asked the vague, well-timed questions required of her. Lord Houghton liked it best when she appeared attentive yet displayed no real intellectual curiosity. He’d long made it clear that his ideal woman served as an adornment on his arm and to his ego, and Anabel had long considered it her own peculiar bad luck for having caught his eye.

Lord Houghton had many friends with egos and investments bigger than his own, and he had money. A lot of it. Holding the title of first gentleman across a considerable stretch of English countryside, he also had the right to expect that his offer of marriage would be met with no less than delight on Anabel’s part.

Anabel, who had known Edwin Houghton in acquaintance for years, had to be forgiven for her horror when his suit was announced. Lord Houghton used to stare at her at dances, at dinners, even when she was younger—and she’d never liked his eyes on her. She had, in fact, long since made it her policy to avoid him socially.

And now he had her hand. It was almost official: contracts and paperwork were needed, and the ceremony would have to occur. Houghton looked at her with eyes full of triumphant self-satisfaction, his possessiveness evident as always. It was no different tonight in the carriage. Approving of her absent smile, he stopped speaking about the shipping of cargo and instead eyed her brazenly, as though the small space of the carriage gave him leave to be more forward than in a larger room.

“You have truly outdone yourself tonight, Lady Mayward,” he said approvingly, while her father hummed more and counted higher figures. Anabel’s spine straightened under his scrutiny, but she again showed him what might have passed for a modest smile. “How well we will look,” Lord Houghton added pointedly, “when we are presented together for the first time before Queen Victoria herself.”

“You must be right, my lord,” Anabel demurred, for her history with Houghton had taught her that he hated nothing so much as being disagreed with or crossed in the slightest. And at least part of it was true: she had outdone herself—but she did not think they would look particularly well being introduced together at the grand party. Not with the look that was bound to show on her face. Anabel was a girl who knew and had nearly accepted her daughterly duties; in the Year of Our Lord 1848 there was little else she could do. She was her father’s property before she would become her husband’s,—bartered about like one of Houghton’s stocks. But in the run-up to being socially recognized as the future Lady Houghton, she did not have to pretend yet that she was really pleased.

Anabel’s dark blond hair was upswept with gold beads and pearls, a few loose curls framing green eyes, and she had a rope of pearls gleaming on her neck. At nineteen, her skin was clear and her features pleasingly fresh. Because she had been alerted to her looks by others from a young age, Anabel had learned a long time ago how to best maximize the effect.

Her slender figure, trim after a season filled with dancing, was elaborately laced into a new dress the color of corn silk and edged in gold, shot through with intricate embroidery. The dress was modeled on the latest cuts out of Paris, and Anabel’s final fitting had been today. Considering the clothier’s reaction, she knew she could anticipate Lord Houghton’s, but she had not taken so much care to please him.

While her presumptive suitor saw this as the appearance that would make their new status official, Anabel had put all her energy into preparing for the last public night she would have to herself. After tonight there would be no excuse not to wear the heavy engagement ring that weighed and tugged on her small hand. After tonight Anabel would never be thought of as Lady Mayward again, so she dressed finely enough to give everyone something to think about and someone to remember.

Anabel tugged her golden shawl in close but could not deflect the man across from her.

Lord Mayward smiled up at the young people as the carriage lurched around a bend. “Quite a party it will be, eh? We’re like to see all the good crowd. This is the only event of any significance before court shuts up for winter.”

“We all deserve hibernation,” said Anabel tightly. “We have been positively beastly with the excesses lately.”

Edwin Houghton disagreed. “Life must be lived to the fullest, my dear,” he said with too-easy familiarity. “Why should we deny ourselves our provincial pleasures? The poor, the servants,—they all look to us to know how to feel and how to conduct themselves. If we are easy and free spending they celebrate with us. When we are shut up and stingy, they suffer.”

Lord Houghton gleamed with preparation for the party. His brown hair was set and plaited with ribbons, his gaudy suit tailored to the latest style within an inch of its life. His leather boots were tall and supple and shone. He wore several rings, a family crest around his neck and a round gold watch on his jacket. Anabel knew that the India sapphire-encrusted snuffbox in Houghton’s pocket was worth more than all the money his coachman had ever encountered.

She turned slightly away from the chiding economics lesson, but she was starting to feel uncomfortable about showing off with the gold silk and jeweled dancing shoes. She knew she looked beautiful, but she was afraid of seeming too well-matched with her intended.

Oh! The whole thing was insufferable, really. Anabel had begged and pleaded with her father when he first spoke of Houghton’s suit. For a while her father had been indulgent and had been persuaded and put him off. But Edwin Houghton had been unruffled. He was patient to a fault. He had a bottomless income at his disposal. And he was very persistent.

When his offers finally became too insistent and too generous to refuse, Lord Houghton had claimed the right to inform his future bride. They had met for a stiff-backed tea that ended with his declaration of love and intentions toward her.

Anabel, who had been dodging his proposal for months, was forced to sit with a pasted-on smile and let Edwin Houghton finally put that ghastly ring on her finger. Then he’d gotten up from kneeling, his eyes aflame, and tried to kiss her shocked mouth. He was suddenly very impertinent indeed, laying his hands on her, forcing the press of his lips and fingertips.

Anabel had still been dazed by the prospect of marriage. Her new fiancé’s rude familiarity had taken a moment to intrude. Then she tore from his embrace, turned her wrist and slapped him soundly. It had been the best part of the whole day, the slapping.

Lord Houghton had stepped back, his cheek reddening, but he’d grinned a sort of smug approval. “Good,” he said shortly. “I had always heard that you were that impossible thing, that unicorn, a virtuous noble girl. It is good to see that you are still that.”

Now he looked at her from across the carriage with eyes even hungrier than on that awful engagement day. Anabel didn’t understand how she was supposed to pass another five minutes in the man’s company, let alone a lifetime. She shivered and felt sick from her nerves and the motion of the carriage’s pitches and turns.

Breaking from their steady pace, they heard the horses rear up, and the carriage jostled and crashed with a monumental lurch. Anabel and her father were thrown forward, while Houghton clung to his seat and slid around in terror. For an awful moment Anabel thought the carriage was going to tip, her world upended entirely, but in a moment they had stopped rocking and stood still.

Shaking, she picked herself up, then helped her father reclaim his seat. The older man was a little shocked but otherwise unhurt, and began to occupy himself in brushing dust from the sleeves of his velvet jacket.

“Sam,” Lord Houghton barked at his coachman. “What is the meaning of this? That jolt was unacceptable.”

There was only silence from the front of the carriage, silence from the woods beyond, and Anabel’s heart was in her throat. What if something had happened to Houghton’s normally steady servant? They should help the man—

Then, out of the fog that enveloped the carriage, a distinctive voice came steadily: “Stand and deliver!”

Anabel gasped by the window; she couldn’t help herself. She hadn’t imagined it—all the color was draining from Lord Houghton’s face, too. Her father stopped dusting his sleeves.

A mounted figure rode free of the fog on a dark brown horse. His clothes and mask were black, and sandy hair glimmered from under his hood. The figure moved closer as the carriage’s occupants stared, paralyzed and transfixed.

“Sam could not come,” explained the man. “He’s tied up at the moment. My dear wealthy people! Kindly stand and deliver. Your money or your lives.”

He had a heavy French accent, as though all of his vowels had been dipped in cream. She was reminded irresistibly of the notorious highwayman of old, Claude Duval, who had stolen as many longing looks from ladies as he had purses. Anabel’s heart, already put-upon, beat faster. Her pulse raced in her ears.

A highwayman! All her life she’d heard tales of “the gentlemen of the road,” who made their fortunes plundering plum stagecoaches. The aristocrats hated them on principle, hated them for being their targets, and would hang the “gentlemen” to widespread display whenever one was caught.

But Anabel’s housekeeper had also told her other stories about highwaymen when she was a girl, about men that she’d called “knights of the road,” men who defied authority and stole flagrantly from those who could handle having their purses lightened. Anabel had been whispered stories of famously chivalrous highwaymen from the century before, those who had gone about the business of robbing like true gentlemen.

She could only hope that the stories had some kernel of truth to them, for the man approaching had a pistol so polished that it gleamed even in the faint moonlight. But he was smiling a little below the mask. Anabel’s heart beat with hope and fear all at once.

He steered the horse closer, coming up flush with the carriage. Then he dismounted in a smooth flourish and opened the carriage’s door with an even smoother one.

“Sir,” he said to Anabel’s father, “the contents of your purse and pockets.” His eyes had keenly and coolly appraised their situation at first glance. “Mademoiselle, your lovely jewels. Sir—” and he cast a look of disdain along with the word, when his eyes fixed on Lord Houghton “—normally I would not know how to address a man wearing so many illustrious insignias of his worth. But since they will do me credit, I must thank you.”

Lord Houghton was sputtering pure outrage coupled with fright at the introduction of the pistol. Now he—perhaps wisely—said nothing, but he did not reach to remove his adornments either. Both actions cost him much by way of dignity.

Anabel’s fingers hesitated only a little on her pretty gold rings. The brooch was overdone and she would not miss it. She would be brave before the highwayman. But when she put her hands up to feel her throat she remembered which necklace she had on. The warm fine strings of pearls, her mother’s favorite, her favorite, her mother’s last gift to her. If only she hadn’t worn the pearls on this fated night—but she’d thought the necklace would bring the good luck and comfort that she had long associated with it. And she thought that she’d need them.

She tried not to let any tears show, tried to keep her shoulders straight and proud, while her father forked over thick billfolds and coins. Anabel’s fingers tripped on the workings of the clasp.

The robber’s eyes were abruptly on her, caught by movement. He looked at her for what seemed like, but could not have been, a long time. Then he said, “Mademoiselle, you must forgive me. I was overgreedy in my haste. Pray keep your effects about you.” His eyes were still on Anabel’s bright figure. “I will ask for nothing more from you than a dance, since you have your dancing shoes on already.”

Lord Houghton started up at this, practically spitting at the affront. “Anabel, keep your seat. You will do no such thing.” He pointed at the thief, who waited patiently, the part of his face that they could see turned in alert amusement. “Give the rogue your bauble and let’s be gone,” he ordered. “The hanging authorities must be alerted.”

The highwayman swept him a mocking bow. “They are alert, sir, but overall inept. However, I do believe the question was put to the lady. I did not ask you. Dancing is a subtle art, my lord, and you and subtlety have never been introduced.”

Houghton flushed, openmouthed. Still astonished, Anabel only just hid her smile. She felt dizzy with the mask-framed eyes on her: he seemed to have ridden straight out of her favorite legend of Duval, who was said to have once stolen very little from a passing carriage in exchange for a dance with the lady inside. But Duval was long gone—dead for nearly two hundred years; they’d strung him up at the gallows at Tyburn, where crowds had amassed to see him hang.

“One dance, mademoiselle,” said the highwayman again in his thick French accent, “and then you may proceed on with your gentlemen.”

Her gentlemen! Anabel looked at her father, surrendering a bulging purse without protest, at Lord Houghton glaring in his far seat. Her father did not seem overly worried about their predicament; there was always more money, and he was no doubt thinking of the mulled wine to be had when they finally reached the party, and the fine story they would have to share about rascally highwaymen. Since the engagement, he had appeared content to cede all responsibility for Anabel to her would-be bridegroom.

She found to her surprise that she was nodding. She put her rings back on and said to the highwayman, “One dance.”

Their robber smiled then, a real smile, and said, “I am honored. Pray collect your friends’ toll on your way.”

Anabel had to pretend that she did not partially enjoy turning to Edwin Houghton now, waiting for him to strip off his considerable jewelry. They were all waiting, and the highwayman most patiently, with his gun cocked.

Lord Houghton glowered at their watching eyes, but finally began to remove the pieces, each with increasing fury. By the time he had added his family crest to the pile under the highwayman’s waiting smile, he was apoplectic with rage. “You have no idea of the enormity of your mistake,” he spat. “You do not know who you have dared.”

“I am a keen observer,” the man returned. “I imagine I have dared a petty wee lordling who dresses like a peacock and has friends bigger than him who will help.” Then his eyes were back on Anabel. His eyes were blue, made darker in the relative gloom. He held a hand out to her. “Mademoiselle?”

Anabel bent and scooped up the treasure trove of Houghton’s jewelry. As she moved toward the open door, Houghton said over her shoulder to the man, “You will be hanged before the night is through,” but the highwayman was too busy lifting Anabel free.

Two gloved hands settled on her hips, and he swung her out and down, then released her. They stared at each other for a breath once he had placed her on the ground, for both had felt the shock of that sudden contact.

At least Anabel knew she had felt it—a sudden thrill, a quickening of the body, in the moment when she stepped down into nothing but the stranger’s hands. He had to have felt it, too, because they’d lingered together longer than propriety allowed. If propriety was allowed to highwaymen and their dance partners on foggy roads at night.

He looked back once at the men in the carriage, at their flummoxed faces. “My good gentlemen,” he said, in a tone quite cool and determined, not without certain cool menace. “I am sure that you value your lives, poor as they might seem at the moment. Know that yours would not be the first blood I have spilled on this road, nor would it be the last. Kindly keep to your seats, for the sake of the lady. I do not think that she will like to see your blood, but if you move from here I shall have to show it to her nonetheless. Red is my favorite color.”

Then his attention tipped back to her. His eyes were very bright against the dark mask. “What sort of dance shall we have, my lady? A waltz? A quadrille? Do you reel?”

Anabel leaned into a curtsy, trying to keep her hands from trembling. “I believe that choice is yours, sir.” But she added, spirited, “I think that I can keep up with most steps.”

He laughed, showing even teeth. “A challenge! The night grows more promising.” Into his saddlebags he deposited the small fortune he’d taken from the carriage. The horse, an imposing chestnut mount, had been groomed to glossy brilliance.

Then the thief stepped back around to her, and dropped into a low, proper bow. Wordlessly he seized Anabel’s waist with one hand while the other entwined her fingers. Though he wore thin gloves, she still startled at the warmth and assured pressure of his grip.