Barbara Metzger (31 page)

Jack went down first, flying over the bushes to land with a thud. Haggerty was straddling the giant’s back, whomping on his head like a berserk piggyback rider, while Claibourne was bruising his knuckles on the behemoth’s midsection. Leigh didn’t want to get in close, knowing that one jab to the ribs by the tree-trunk arm, and he’d be out for the count. Then Polyphemus growled and whirled, flinging Haggerty off his shoulders like a sack of cornmeal. Haggerty stayed down.

By now Jacelyn had found the dagger, again with no way to get it to Leigh, so she kicked it farther into the leaves. She also found a big branch fallen from the oak. She managed to give the man-mountain a good wallop on his arm, getting his attention, which finally allowed Leigh to connect with a scientific right that would have floored Mendosa. The colossus shook his head. He looked at Jacey with her stick, Claibourne with his right, and Haggerty on his feet again and coming, and shook his head once more. He gave Claibourne a shove, not even a punch, but a push in the chest that flattened Leigh, and then he took off into the alleys.

“Should I follow him, Major?”

“Not without reinforcements, Haggerty, like the entire Fifth Cavalry. Are you hurt? What about Jack?” The earl managed to drag himself to the tree where he could sit, propped up by the trunk and Jacey’s arms. “You were valiant, my lady,” he told her, gasping.

Jacey looked around: the dagger, the broken cane, the two thugs standing by on guard. “Leigh, I don’t understand what’s going on.”

“Not surprising, dear heart. I haven’t the foggiest idea myself.”

“Can we please go home?”

“You didn’t get to see the fireworks.”

“They’ll have to hold them in Portman Square. I’m never, ever coming back to Vauxhall!”

*

“Incompetents! I’m surrounded by idiotic, imbecilic incompetents!” Fenton raged. “Jensen, you mammoth mole-mind, you’ve been hanging around that fool Percy too long.”

He scrawled a message on a piece of paper and shoved it into Jensen’s hand. “Here, take this to the Red Lion in Cheapside. Ask for Newgate. That’s what I should have done months ago, hire a professional….”

*

“If this is another of your freakish schemes, Leigh Merrill, I am not amused!”

“Shut up, you peagoose, and get down! Those were real shots!”

He had a pistol in hand and was looking for something to aim at. There was no need to tell Lady Parkhurst to duck; she’d collapsed unconscious to the carriage floor at the first cry of “Stand and deliver.” Luckily
Tante
Simone had decided she needn’t come.

They were about a half hour outside of London, halfway to Hockney Hall, the duchess’s country residence. Not the Farthingale family seat, it was just a huge pile where the duchess liked to entertain. They were already late when the message came from Lord Parkhurst, telling than to go ahead, he and Sprague might be hours more at their meeting. Because of the delay, there were few other carriages on the road this dark, moon-clouded night.

The carriage came to a lurching halt. Jacey could hear shouting, from Lem up on the box with the coachman, then another shot! The door was wrenched open, and a voice growled, “Out, all of ya, or yer coachie gets killed. Girl first.”

Leigh nodded and Jacelyn got out, stepping over her aunt’s limp body. A gun was pointed at her by a mounted man in a brown frieze coat, cagily positioned behind the door, out of Leigh’s line of fire. The highwayman leaned down, grabbed her arm, and pulled her next to him. When Leigh came out, he had no chance to act. The one bandit held a gun to Jacelyn; the second, shorter, man was covering the servants on the box, having taken their weapons. The Parkhurst outrider was on the ground, but alive, moaning. His horse was halfway back to London.

“A’right, yer lordship, drop the popper, or I glom the skirt.”

Leigh tossed the pistol and raised his hands. “There’s no need for anyone to get hurt. You’re welcome to whatever we have.”

“Oh yeah? What if we wants the mort?”

Leigh charged him, Jacey screamed, the horse reared, a shot was fired and went wide. Leigh was grappling with the frieze-coated rider, trying to unseat him, when the other highwayman rode over and smashed the earl on the head with his pistol. Claibourne went down, hard, and didn’t move.

“Leigh!” Jacelyn was on her knees beside him.

“Whyn’t ya shoot him?” Frieze-coat demanded.

“The skirt was in the way. ’Sides, I got a better idea. ’Is Royal Navy’ll pay pretty good for a able-bodied seaman, willin’ or no. We kill him, we get paid oncet. We dope him ’n ship him off, we gets it twice, and the old coot’s none the wiser. Here, gimme a hand gettin’ him up.”

Frieze-coat dismounted, and together the bandits dragged Leigh across Shorty’s horse’s withers, face down, despite Jacey’s screams, kicks, and flails.

“Should we see if the flash mort’s got any baubles?”

“Nah, we got what we come for. Let’s ride ’fore someone comes. You there”—to the coachman—“you keep your dubber’s mum till we’re out a’sight or yer fine gent gets it. Understand?” The two men took off, Leigh’s head and feet bumping against the horse’s sides. There was nothing for Jacelyn and the others to do but watch the bandits ride away through the dense forest along the side of the road.

“Oh, God, we’ve got to save him! Lem, cut the horses loose! Zack, go see to the outrider. Oh, Leigh!”

“We can’t follow them through
that
, miss,” Lem told her, “not in the dark, on carriage horses. And they took all of our weapons with them.”

“I know, I know! Zack, how is he?”

“Bleedin’, but it’s just his shoulder, miss. His pistol’s still here.”

“Good. Listen, here’s what we’ll do: Lem, you take one horse and ride ahead to Lady Hockney’s and tell than what happened. Get a search party, men, lanterns, guns. Zack, you’ll stay here with the coach and the pistol. You guard the postilion and my aunt, but don’t try to wake her. She’s better off in her faint! A coach should come along soon, I hope. I’ll take the other horse and ride back to Town for help.”

“But, miss, we can’t even begin to track them until daybreak.”

“
We
can’t, but Pen can! Are you done with the knife?”

Lem was through cutting the traces of the lead coach horses. He finished and handed over the knife. Jacelyn gathered the hem of her gown in one hand and slashed it up the middle with the other. She repeated this with the back, then snatched his lordship’s greatcoat off the coach seat and drew it around her. Lem led one of the horses to her, gave her a leg, and she was up, and away. “Hurry!” she yelled back.

*

“Get up, you lazy good-for-nothing mutt! Get up, Pen!” Jacey was pulling on her britches. The house was in an uproar around her.
Belle-tante
was for once not placid. She was wringing her hands and sending Marcus off to the Watch, to Bow Street, to the Magistrate, and the War Office!

“There’s no time, Aunt! I’ve got to go now! Marcus, get a message to Lord Parkhurst. Tell him to get people to watch the ports and the press gangs. Tell him Henesley will follow me with the dog cart, but I can go faster on my gelding, and get through the woods, too. A pistol! Marcus, find my uncle’s pistols—and load them!”

*

“Run, Pen, run. We’re almost there, you can keep up!” The coach was up ahead; she could see its lanterns. She spurred the gelding on. “Zack, have they come?”

“No, miss. A carriage came by and took up milady and the outrider, on to Hockney with them. Help should be getting back here soon.”

“I cannot wait! Henesley’s behind me with fresh horses, but Pen will do better while the scent is fresh. I wish she weren’t so out of shape! Here, girl, smell this. It’s Leigh’s greatcoat, Pen. Leigh. Here, his cane is still in the carriage. Leigh, Pen, find Leigh!”

The big dog was panting, her sides heaving, but she gamely followed Jacelyn’s horse to the woods where Jacey thought the men had entered the forest. Yes, the branches were broken. “Here, Pen, please!”

The dog put her nose down and wuffled. She wagged her tail and whined—and she set off! “Good girl! Not so fast, it’s dark. We have to watch out for low branches, Pen. We’re coming. Good girl!”

Jacey lost her hat to the next trailing vine, and a twig scratched her face and caught in her hair, undoing all of Pinkie’s efforts to send her to Hockney House an elegant lady. After five more minutes of this mad rush, all the pins were out, and Jacey had to keep brushing the hair away from her eyes just so she could see. Pen was slowing down, thank goodness. Unless, it suddenly, horribly, occurred to Jacey, the dog was tracking a rabbit all along!

No, there was a glow up ahead.

“Pen,” she whispered, “to me, girl. Let’s scout around first.” Jacelyn dismounted and tied the horse to a bush. She could hear the dog’s almost wheezing breaths, and patted her on the head. “You did fine, Pen. Shh, just a little closer.” Her intentions, as she crept closer to the light from a small cottage’s window, were to get a good look at the place, see where the horses were, count if there were more than the two highwaymen’s mounts, etc. Then—and she wasn’t decided yet—she could either try to find her way to the carriage and lead the rescuers back, if she didn’t get lost and if the bandits didn’t ride on, or she could stay where she was, waiting. The men had to move Leigh, if they were going to take him to a ship or something, and when they came outside for the horses, she could shoot. The shortcomings of this plan were that her aim wasn’t terrific at this range, and she wasn’t entirely sure she could pull the trigger on a real person. Both of her choices had a common drawback: the men could decide to kill Leigh at any time.

Jacey stopped while she was still in the trees’ cover, about twenty yards from the house. She couldn’t see any horses or hear any voices. There might be two men or twenty; she had no way of knowing. Five yards more and she let go of Pen’s collar to take out the pistols. One was in her waistband, uncomfortably; the other was in the pocket of Claibourne’s caped greatcoat, still buttoned around her. The pistols were not the light duelling weapons her father owned, but were heavy, double-barrelled guns. At least she had two shots to each, which ought to be enough for Frieze-coat and Shorty. She had to know if there were others. Maybe she could follow the forest line around back, where the horses must be. She moved slowly, stealthily, trying not to step on fallen branches—then Pen barked. The dog headed right for the front door, following orders to find Leigh.

Immediate tactical revision: attack!

Jacelyn started howling like a banshee, zigzagging, calling out to Arthur and Lem and Zack. Pen kept barking. Jacey fired a shot and called, “Over here, men. The dogs have them.” Another shot. “Surround them, boys!” Boom. “Let’s go in!” She was at the door with one shot left, and her army of rescuers was one loud, tired dog. Oh dear!

The kidnappers didn’t know that, however. Frieze-coat and Shorty dived out the back door for their horses as Jacey crashed through the front and fired at a retreating figure. “Yeow!” came back to her, and she was satisfied. So much for scruples.

Pen was racing around the room, licking Leigh’s face, coming back to Jacelyn, panting and whining. “Down, Pen, let me see.”

Leigh was on a faded sofa, his head hanging over the back. “Leigh! Leigh, darling, wake up! Oh, Leigh, please!”

Her voice roused him. With an effort, he opened his eyes and smiled that sweet, lopsided grin. “Changed your hair style, did you, pet?”

“Leigh, you have to get up! We have to reload the guns in case they come back. Can you walk? Oh, Lord, don’t go back to sleep! I know your head hurts, but help will come soon. Here!” She spotted a bottle of wine and a glass on the mantle and brought the glass to him. “Just the thing.”

“No, Jacey, not that.” He weakly brushed the glass away.

“Yes, Leigh, it’ll set you right back up. Please, we have to leave. Oh God, what now?” Pen was howling. Was she hurt? Had one of the pistol balls ricocheted and hit her? Jacelyn hurriedly pushed Leigh’s limp head back against the sofa and tipped the contents of the glass into his mouth.

“Thanks, sweetheart, I needed that,” he told her, slurring the words. She was already on the floor near the fire, though, where Pen was whimpering and writhing. Leigh managed to pull himself up to see. “Pup…puppies.”

“Puppies!
Now?
Pen, how could you? And I made you run so hard, poor baby. Leigh, what do we do?”

“Do? You keep her in…inside during her season. Now…nothing to do but wait. The guns… I’ll reload. Not much…not much time left for me.”

“What do you mean? You’re not going anywhere!”

“To sleep, Jay-bird…. You just poured half a bottle of lau…laudanum down my throat, remember?”

*

A few hours later Jacey was holding a pistol in one hand and a tiny brown and white puppy in the other. “You lightskirt, Pen. This could only be Jasper’s get. Won’t Squire be pleased?” There were six others nesting in the only quilt the place had, next to an exhausted Pen. The earl was draped across the sofa as comfortably as Jacey had been able to manoeuvre him, his greatcoat covering him. Jacelyn put more wood on the fire, and tried to stay awake.

The highwaymen hadn’t come back; help mightn’t locate them until morning. She couldn’t go in search of the rescue party, not with the earl unable to defend himself or Pen. Even if she could lift or drag Claibourne to her gelding, Pen and her babies couldn’t travel, so there was nothing for it but to wait. The cottage was dusty and smelled of mildew, and had no foodstuffs whatsoever. She was tired, hungry, dishevelled—but her two best friends were safe!

Leigh woke up at first light, cramped and headachey and with a throat so dry he could barely swallow. Jacelyn was curled up in a chair, fast asleep, a pistol in her lap. He got up slowly and tucked the gun in his waistband. He sniffed the bottle on the mantel, then drank some of the wine. Poor quality, but not drugged, at least.

“Good morning, mama,” he whispered to the dog. “I forgot all about you and your pups. Can I see them?” Pen wagged her tail, so he picked up a soft little wriggler making piggy noises. “Foxhound, eh? Well, they always say that where there’s a will, there’s a way. Good girl.”