Stand and Deliver (10 page)

Would he never learn? A man with a price on his head could not trust a soul, particularly not a pretty innkeeper’s daughter who pretended to have fal en in love with him. A pretty innkeeper’s daughter who had come to his room at night and freely given him her innocence.

His face twisted in a grimace. Perhaps not that freely, when he thought about it. If she was indeed behind the attempt on his life no doubt she was hoping to be royal y compensated for her sacrifice.

Just like the woman who had come before her, Bess could not see past the twenty guineas that his capture was worth.

What would she do, he wondered, if he rode calmly into her trap and al owed himself to be caught, and al for the sake of seeing her one last time before he died? He was tired of running. If he was going to be hanged, he’d rather Bess had the twenty guineas than some rascal y soldier.

Twenty guineas would be a princely dowry for an innkeeper’s daughter. She’d have the pick of any man for ten miles around. His death would assure her of a comfortable life.

Shaking his head, he wheeled his horse around and headed off in the opposite direction. Though he had ridden through the night, and al for the hope of seeing Bess once again, he was not yet ready to die.

Bess’ mother was in the kitchen, chopping parsnips as if her life depended on it, her knife flashing up and down like it was possessed. As Bess crept around the kitchen door, she gave a cry of joy and flung her knife away into the corner of the room. Tears running down her face, she enfolded Bess into a desperate hug. “I saw the magistrate take you away and I was that worried about you. I was bringing the soldiers a new jug of ale as an excuse to see how you were faring when I saw him come down to the privy and I knew that your eel pie was doing its work. Thank heavens you had the good sense to feed it to them.”

“They are after Jack, Mother. Somehow, they knew that he cared for me, that he and I…They wanted to hurt him in every way they could. They were going to…” Her voice broke off, the horror she had narrowly escaped striking her anew.

“Did they hurt you?” Her mother’s eyes looked almost wild. “I wil burn down the whole damn inn with them inside if they touched you,” she said, her voice savage with fury.

“The eels worked too quickly for them to do more than tie my hands and to threaten me.”

Her mother had retrieved her knife from the corner and was looking at the blade with an assessing gaze. “Are they al as sick as the magistrate?” She tested the edge of the blade against her thumb as she spoke.

Bess gave a watery smile. “Sick as dogs. They won’t be fit for anything come morning.”

“And the musket shot?”

“I saw Jack riding in across the moors. Sick as they were, they would’ve shot him down if they could have staggered to their feet. There is a fair price on his head.”

A frown creased her mother’s brow. “We’l have to get you away from here. They’l never believe the eel pie was an accident. Not after you fired the musket and warned away their quarry.”

“I’m in trouble, aren’t I?” Bess idly picked up a piece of parsnip and lifted it to her mouth. “Bad trouble.”

Her mother slapped her hand away before she could take a bite.

Bess looked at her curiously. “What’s the matter? It’s only a piece of parsnip.”

“Hemlock,” her mother answered shortly. “In case the eel pie hadn’t worked.”

Bess gave a bark of laughter. “And here I was worried about giving them al a bel yache, when you would’ve kil ed them al .”

Her mother stuck out her bottom lip. “You are my daughter, and I love you.”

“And I love you too.” Bess was silent for a moment. In the space of a few hours, her whole world had changed.

Her childhood home was no longer a refuge for her, but a place of danger. She would have to feel her way forward in this new world. “I cannot stay here or the soldiers wil punish you too, for harboring me. I wil have to leave, and you wil have to pretend that you drove me away for shame.”

Her mother considered Bess’ words. “Or that you died.

That would stop any pursuit in its tracks.”

“The musket shot,” Bess suggested, an idea forming in her head. “I could have used the musket to kil myself out of shame. Or despair.”

“The pastor wil swear blind that he’s seen your bleeding body with his own eyes for the promise of as much ale as he can swal ow.”

“A hasty funeral before the soldiers are wel enough to attend.”

“A marker in the graveyard with your name carved into it.”

Bess was silent a moment, digesting the implications of such a trick. She would have to leave her old life behind her forever, and with no Jack by her side to keep her company in her new life. If she wasn’t so scared of staying, the prospect of leaving like this would terrify her. “But where shal I go?”

“I have a cousin in London, married to a tanner. I have not seen her since I was a girl, but she wil take you in, for my sake.”

She squared her shoulders. What choice did she have? Stay and be brutalized by the soldiers, maybe even hanged in place of Jack, or to leave now, while she stil could. “I have always wanted to visit London,” she said stoutly.

Her mother hugged her tightly, squeezing the breath out of her. “You’re a brave lass. But come, pack up the most precious of your belongings as quick as you can. You’l have to leave most of them behind to lend weight to the story of your death. If we hurry, we’l catch Old Silas taking his cabbages to market. He’l take you on his donkey cart as far as the turnpike, and you’l be able to catch the London mail from there.”

Just as day broke, Jack arrived at a likely looking inn, far enough off the beaten track to be quiet, but busy enough that the presence of a stranger would be unremarkable.

Exhausted, he handed his horse over to the stable lad and stumbled off to a room. Closing the shutters to keep out the light of the dawn, he col apsed on the bed and slept the sleep of the dead.

Not until evening did he wake. He yawned and stretched, feeling as though he’d been trampled by an entire herd of horses. And he was ravenously hungry.

He pul ed on his boots and fol owed the enticing smel of thick beef stew down the stairs and into the parlor.

The noise level dimmed a little as he entered, but he hardly cared. Let them be wary of him if they chose – their business was nothing to him, so long as they did not meddle in his affairs.

Before long, he was tucking into a plate of hot food as if he hadn’t eaten for a week, and the conversations and quarreling around him had resumed its previous level.

Despite his inhibiting presence, the entire room seemed to be fizzing with barely muted anger.

A youngish woman, her bel y large with child, waddled over awkwardly to clear his plates away and bring him another tankard of ale. “They seem in evil humor tonight,”

he said, gesturing with his thumb at the other diners.

“A traveler told them an il story tonight,” she replied as she gathered the plates. Despite the blue circles under her eyes that spoke of a deep-seated exhaustion, there was a hint of anger in her voice as she spoke. “They’ve been arguing about what to do about it al evening.”

“Tel it to me.” He spoke more out of concern for her welfare than any desire to hear the tale. Her wrists were thick with swel ing and she looked ready to faint with weariness.

She looked nervously in the direction of the kitchen. “I can’t stop. I’ve got work to do.”

He took out a copper penny and laid it on the table.

“That should keep whoever it is you are afraid of satisfied.

Now, sit down and take that weight off your feet for a few moments.”

She sat down grateful y, heaving a great sigh, and tucked the copper penny into the pocket of her apron.

“Feels like twins, I’m sure, I’m that big.”

Her eyes drifted shut and he thought at first she had dozed off, but then her eyes opened again and a black smile crept over her tired face. “I would’ve loved to have seen the soldiers with my own eyes, that’s for sure,” she said in a bitter voice. “I’d have paid the whole copper penny you just gave me for the sight.”

He raised his eyebrows. “I’m curious to know what sight would be worth lavishing a whole penny on.”

“The magistrate,” she wrinkled her nose as if his name carried a bad smel with it, “and a group of his soldiers came to grief last night in a tavern about a day’s ride away from here.”

He stretched his booted legs out in front of him. She was clearly a woman after his own heart. “You don’t have much sympathy for magistrates in general?”

“Not for this one. He’s a rotten piece of work, and would have me whipped if he heard me cal him so. It seems they were blaming it on an eel pie that disagreed with them. The chap who saw it says they were sick as dogs al night, from every end they could be, if you get my meaning. I wouldn’t like to be the cook at that inn when they get back on their feet again.”

The familiar nausea crept back into the pit of his stomach. Was the entire countryside crawling with soldiers, trying to take him, wanting to hang him? “What were they doing at the tavern in the first place?” he asked, in a tone of studied casualness.

“Seems they’d had word that the innkeeper’s daughter was friendly with a highwayman. With Jack Hal , no less.”

She gave a snort. “Whoever told them that was spinning them taradiddles, and no mistake. I met the lass once.

She’s a pretty thing, but her nose is stuck firmly up in the air. She’s refused half the men in the county already. She wouldn’t look twice at a highwayman if he came a-cal ing.

At any rate, she was none too pleased with the soldiers coming to arrest her supposed man. Rumor has it that she cooked the eel pie herself.”

Was she talking about Bess? Bess’ tavern? “The soldiers didn’t get their man?”

She shook her head. “They tied the lass up and made her watch out of the window to see them shoot her lover.

And to taunt her, they tied a musket next to her, pointing at her heart. When they were al rol ing around on the floor groaning and holding their stomachs, the lass supposedly heard her lover a riding down the road and fired the musket off into her own heart to warn the highwayman off.” She wiped her nose with the back of her hand. “So the story goes, anyway. Leastways, he didn’t arrive when the soldiers expected him, anyway. Course, even if he
was
her man, if he was like most of them, he likely wasn’t planning on coming back for her in the first place. She probably just warned off some random stranger instead, and gave up her life for naught.”

His Bess was dead? He shook his head, not wanting to believe the story. His Bess, whom he had left only a few days ago, her eyes bright with unshed tears, her heart on her sleeve for al to see.

She had been warning him away from the tavern, not shooting at him. That explained why there had only been the one shot and why it had gone so ridiculously wide even though he should have been wel within range. He’d wondered about it at the time.

The woman tapped him on the shoulder. “Are you feeling al right?” Her watery blue eyes were clouded with concern.

His Bess had not sold him out after al . She had given her life to warn him of the danger facing him. He dug in his pocket and drew out a silver penny. “Thank you for tel ing me your story.”

It would be a long, hard ride through the night again, back the way he had come, but he did not care. He would visit Bess one last time, as he had promised.

He had to keep his promise. After al , his promise had cost Bess her life.

Jack rode into the inn at daybreak. The yard was hushed and quiet in the gray light of early morning.

One of the stable boys was sitting on the cobbled stones in front of the barn, his head in his hands.

Jack swung off the back of his horse and tossed the boy his reins. “Stable her for me, wil you. Give her a good rubdown and don’t stint on the oats. She’s had a hard run.”

She was a poor dumb beast and did not deserve to suffer for her master’s foolishness, or for his sorrow.

The boy lifted his head, but when he saw who was addressing him, he made no other move to rise or even to catch the reins. When Jack looked closer, he saw that the lad’s eyes were rimmed with red and his dirty face was streaked with tears.

The boy fixed him with a glare of pure hatred. “She’s dead. Al because of you.”

Jack’s heart stopped in his chest. It was true, then, everything the traveler had reported. Bess had saved his life, but it had been at the cost of her own. Any way he looked at it, she had made a bad trade.