Lady Sherry and the Highwayman (2 page)

But what she was to do with him? The man was queerly silent, considering his earlier loquacity. Perhaps it was the imminence of hanging that had loosened his tongue then.

Sherry turned in her saddle as best she could, no easy task in light of his grip on her waist. “Will you please unhand me?” she inquired. “This is a very awkward business, and we are luckier than you deserve to have brought it off safe. Do pray spare me your expressions of gratitude! It is a little hobby of mine to help convicted felons escape their just deserts. I vow I disremember when I have had so excellent a time as this afternoon. However, all things must come to an end, even such rare treats as this, and so I bid you good day.”

It was an excellently withering speech, one that would have caused any proper gentleman to grovel at Lady Sherry’s feet in mingled remorse and shame. The highwayman did nothing of the sort. Not that Sherry had expected a proper response.

She had expected some response, however, and none was forthcoming. Exasperated, Sherry drew back on the reins and uttered a good round oath—the same good round oath that the highwayman had uttered earlier, which she had immediately and unconsciously added to her vocabulary, so greatly had it appealed to her ear. Forcibly, she pried loose his hands from her waist, in the process gaining possession of his gun. “Pray get off my horse!” she repeated, brandishing the pistol. “If you should not object!”

Captain Toby voiced no objection. He slid off the mare’s back and crumpled senseless in the alley near the nervous horse’s hooves.

Chapter Two

Sir Christopher Childe dwelt in an ancient structure in Soho Square, an area that was still respectable, though no longer the brilliant social center it once had been. Longacre House boasted three floors above a basement, and an attic under the roof. The venerable structure boasted paneled rooms and carved shutters, fine moldings, floors inlaid with woods of several colors, carved swags by Grinling Gibbons on the drawing-room chimney-breast, and an oak stair with delicately carved balusters that climbed up from the stone-paved entry hall to the first floor. It also boasted a back stair so steep that the servants periodically refused to set foot there for fear of a broken neck.

Lady Sherry made her way up those stairs as furtively as if she were a cracksman embarked upon housebreaking, pausing not at the second story or the third but continuing all the way to the attic. The floors here boasted no varying types of wood. Indeed, they boasted not a speck of polish or a scrap of rug for warmth. Not that additional warmth was desirable at this time of year. All the heat in the old house rose, turning the attic into a close approximation of Beelzebub’s paradise.

Sherry paid no attention to the oppressive heat, save to wipe beads of moisture from her brow as she walked quickly down the bare and shabby hallway. She had grown accustomed to the quirks of Longacre House. The attic was very quiet at this time of day, all the servants being busy elsewhere about their tasks. Lady Sherry did not sleep with the servants in the attic, of course. She was no poor relation but a valued member of her brother’s family and as such claimed a perfectly respectable bedchamber on the floor below.

At least, Sir Christopher valued her. Of the sentiments of Sir Christopher’s new wife, there was considerable doubt. Due to this unhappy circumstance, as well as to several other excellent reasons, she had wheedled from her brother a book room in the attic to which she could withdraw at whim.

Never had she wished to withdraw more than at this moment. Sherry paused outside the door of her retreat, fumbled in her reticule for her key, and inserted it into the lock. Then she flung open the door and, with a keen sense of relief, stepped into the large, dark room, a far from a luxurious chamber that suited her very well.

A small window overlooking the garden was set high in one of the walls, which were almost entirely covered with bookshelves. The few remaining bare spaces were hung with old and somewhat moth-eaten tapestries. Many curiosities crowded the room, among them an inkstand with borders of reed-and-tie design; a carved and gilded Venetian chest; a library table with supports in the form of sphinxes and decorated lavishly with Egyptian waterlilies, lion supports, crocodiles and serpents, hieroglyphics, and a pair of nodding mandarins. Drawn up to the library table was an Egyptian chair painted black with gilt ornaments in a similar vein.

Most curious of all, to Sherry’s eyes, were the two females seated so comfortably on her high-backed reading chairs. The intruders were so enrapt in their cozy gossip that they had failed to note the opening of the door.  “Pray don’t let me interrupt!” she said, ironically.

The trespassers broke off in mid-sentence and with uniformly guilty expressions. The younger female ducked behind the elder with an alacrity that set the scarlet ribbons on her cap atremble and dislodged the towering confection of a wig that the older woman wore atop her own hair.

Lady Sherry was very cross to see her abigail exhibiting all the earmarks of a servant terrified of her mistress’s wrath. The most violent act Sherry had committed in all her life had been to hurl an inkwell at the wall, and that only because her sister-in-law had goaded her beyond human bearing. She sought relief for her irritation by slamming the door.

It was as if the slam of the door released the others from a spell. “Gad!” ejaculated the older woman, readjusting her unstylish wig. “Must you give a body such a nasty start? I thought Her Highness had actually climbed the stairs to make sure you weren’t hiding here. As, in all fairness to Her High-And-Mightiness, you have been known to do!”

Sherry had worries far more pressing at the moment than her sister-in-law. Indeed, if she were the swooning type of female, she might have found respite in hartshorn and vinaigrette. Since she was not, Sherry removed several books from a shelf and withdrew a decanter of port. “So the pair of you decided to make free of my hiding place without so much as a by-your-leave?”

“Told you she’d cut up stiff!” The younger female, Daffodil by name and abigail by current profession, peered out at her employer. Since it seemed unlikely that Lady Sherry would choose this moment to hurl an inkwell, Daffodil ventured further comment. “It weren’t my idea— Cor! Begging your pardon, milady, how’d you come by that barking iron?”

Sherry glanced at the pistol that she still gripped, half hidden by her skirts, and hastily set it down on the library table. “Never mind that now! You must help me, both of you. I seem to have rescued Captain Toby, and now I don’t know what to do with him.”

This stark announcement roused the interest of her companions—or, rather, their disbelief. Daffodil expressed her disapproval of Lady Sherry’s lack of truthfulness; though the abigail might herself tell whoppers on occasion, for the Quality to do likewise didn’t suit her notions of what was right. Aunt Tulliver—who was, in point of fact, no blood kin to Sherry—was even more outspoken, expressing an opinion that the shock of seeing a handsome scamp hanged might well unhinge one’s brain. The controversy raged for some moments, even rousing the extremely fat dog that lay snoozing at Daffodil’s feet. Prinny—the dog, not the regent; so named because his remarkable girth—opened a curious eye and cocked his ears.

Sherry brandished the pistol. How, if the highwayman lying at this very moment under a garden hedge were a figment of her imagination, had she come by this? Furthermore, while they were brangling, he might either bleed to death or regain his senses and make his presence known, in which case some very inconvenient questions might be asked.

Daffodil was willing to lend her assistance. The highwayman was a handsome rascal, after all. “I don’t mean to say it will be easy as winking,” she said apologetically, under the erroneous impression that Quality should be better at problem-solving than a mere abigail. “But there’s more than one way to skin a cat! We can’t leave the poor cove in the garden, and we can’t think where else to take him, and that just shows that we aren’t really
trying,
because we have a nacky hiding place right here because no one durst come into this room without your permission, milady.”

Lady Sherry cast her abigail a pointed glance. Daffodil had the grace to blush. “Well, nobody but us! He’d be safe as houses.” She snickered. “And wouldn’t Herself be mad as hornets if she found out!”

The three women looked at one another. If their expressions were not precisely reminiscent of pussies who’d gotten into the cream pot, it was obvious that they considered the reward of their mutual venture—to wit, putting one over on Lady Monstrous-High-in-the-Instep—to far outweigh the risks.

Determining how to smuggle a highwayman into Longacre House successfully was not so easy as winking, but neither was it monstrous difficult. The ladies had the port to lend them inspiration, as well as the tantalizing prospect of the starched-up Lady Childe with the wool pulled firmly over her eyes. Even Prinny roused from his nap to lend to the proceedings an occasional whuff and snuffle and tail wag.

Indeed, it was Prinny who sparked in Daffodil the plan of action that would ultimately be used. Several others had already been brought forward and abandoned, it being thought unlikely that the highwayman could boldly walk—or limp—into the house. That Sherry had done so without attracting notice was quite a different matter, as Daffodil pointed out. “Begging your pardon, milady, but folks are used to seeing your skulk about!”

It was in that moment that inspiration struck. Daffodil was bending over as she spoke, scratching Prinny’s belly with her foot. She gazed upon that vast expanse of white fur. “Crickey! That’s it! Folks ain’t used to seeing just
you!”
she crowed.

Sherry looked somewhat doubtfully at Daffodil, and told herself that in the future it might be prudent to refrain from inviting her abigail to share the port. In point of fact, it might be even more prudent to abstain altogether from alcohol. “You want to disguise the highwayman as
Prinny?”
she inquired.

Daffodil giggled. “Not Prinny, milady.” She nodded meaningfully at Aunt Tulliver, who was currently indulging in one of the little naps that she considered a perquisite of her advanced age. Even while she was dozing the old woman’s sixth sense alerted her to peril. “All my eye!” she snapped on general principles.

Controversy again raged briefly. Daffodil pointed out that Aunt Tulliver was taller than most women, broader of shoulder and all else; Tully retaliated by suggesting that Daffodil was not only next to nothing in stature but also had precious little in the nous-box. Moreover, Tully had lived a great many years without striking an acquaintance with the inside of a jail, and she didn’t care to risk doing so now, not even for the handsomest of rogues.

“I promise that you shan’t!” Sherry responded rashly. “Daffodil’s idea does have considerable merit. Perhaps if you could provide us with a gown...”

Aunt Tulliver looked unhappy. “I’ve heard of many a queer start in my day, but stab me if this ain’t the queerest of them all! If the lot of us are dragged off to jail, missy, it’s on your head!”

So it was, and the danger of arrest grew greater with every passing moment. Sherry pointed out this circumstance. Though Aunt Tulliver continued to grumble and make dire prophecies, she retired to her bedchamber and returned with a gown. Holding this item bundled under her arm like dirty clothing, Daffodil led the way down the narrow backstairs. At the bottom, she peered with great high drama into the hallway and then gestured frantically that the coast was clear.

Sherry followed, feeling somewhat foolish at engaging in such cloak-and-dagger stuff. Accompanying her was Prinny, who was made very happy by this intimation that he was to be taken for a walk, an undertaking for which the servants generally drew lots, the dog’s mass being so considerable and energetic that the walker inevitably became the walkee.

Nor was today an exception. Prinny was ecstatic to be taken into the small garden, where he was seldom allowed, his high spirits in the past having not proven beneficial to fruit trees and flower beds and antique statuary. Consequently, the rescue effort was severely hampered by the dog’s exuberance and his determination to play fetch with Aunt Tulliver’s wig. It was further hampered by the discovery that Captain Toby was no longer where Lady Sherry had left him. Stunned, the women stared at the empty space beneath the hedge.

Chapter Three

Daffodil was the first to speak. “He’s sloped off!” she cried in disappointment so acute that even the gay red ribbons in the jaunty cap perched atop her dark curls seemed to droop. She looked suspiciously at her mistress. “Unless you was bamming us all along, milady, in which case—”

“Oh, hush!” Sherry was becoming very cross at these constantly expressed doubts. She pushed away Prinny, who seemed determined to wash her face with his great tongue, and straightened up from her inspection of the ground beneath the hedge, on which, to her secret relief, she had found traces of blood. “He can’t have gone far. He had a nasty wound in his leg. He must be here somewhere, and we had better find him before someone else does.”

The search continued. Anyone looking out upon the garden from Longacre House just then would have seen a very perplexing sight as maid and mistress combed the area, peering under hedges and into trees; slapping vainly at Prinny, who considered it great sport to leap at their heels; and in general affording considerable perverse satisfaction to Aunt Tulliver, who was observing their progress from the book room window.

Amusement was the furthest thing from Sherry’s mind. She was much too warm, and much too worried, and feeling sadly out of curl. She was even beginning to wonder if she’d lived with her head in the clouds dangerously long, as numerous people had suggested, and for that reason found herself in this horrid predicament. “Oh, do get down, you wretched beast!” she cried in exasperation as the dog leaped upon her once again.

Prinny was deaf to such remarks, even when delivered in much louder tones. So softly delivered was this particular reprimand that he considered it an invitation to further play. Again, he leaped. Unfortunately, Sherry had bent down at that particular moment to peer beneath a hedge and Prinny’s assault knocked her smack to the ground.