The Highwayman (Rakes and Rogues of the Restoration Book 3) (2 page)

When he bought her, he’d been near as sullen and wild as she was. Over ten years past that had been. A fine pair they’d made. But no spirited creature was ever tamed by bitterness and anger. They had grown together, he and Bess, and in the thrill of the chase, the joy of moonlit races across heathered moors, the gravity defying leaps where man and horse soared through the air as one, they had learned to trust.

He would never forgive, but nor would he allow hatred to claim his life, refusing John Harris any claim to his mind or his heart, just as he’d refused his name. He was free now. He lived his life with no ties and no regrets, savoring the moment, ready for the next adventure. Now he and Bess were both legends of the road, and no man could claim a more valiant companion, or a faster one.

He grinned as the mare tossed her head and gave a squeal of excitement. Allen was approaching with a half pitcher of ale. She arched her neck sideways, tilting her head and burying her muzzle in the container, greedily stealing several gulps before the boy managed to mix the rest into her mash.

“Greedy guts! She’s yet to learn to drink like a lady. Does Winslow feed you enough, boy?”

“Aye. I eat whatever I please whenever I please, Jack. Mrs. Winslow says I was born a scarecrow.”

“And no one mistreats you?”

The boy grinned. “No one would dare…but…”

“But?”

“I’m not wanting to be a hostler or a stable boy, Jack, and that’s all he seems to think I’m fit for. He tells me to learn my sums so I can help with orders and such but I’ve no mind to be an innkeeper either. I want to learn to use a sword and ride the moors and—”

Jack held up a hand to stop him. “Have you ever seen an elderly highwayman, Allen?”

Allen blinked.... “I...well...there’s...”

“There’s not a one.”

“There’s Captain Dudley!”

“Richard Dudley?” Jack gave a short laugh. “He’s but a few years older than I am! Though I grant you that’s almost a doddering ancient in our profession. Most of us never see our thirties. You of all people should know that. We end up swinging on the end of a rope, trying to look dashing while we slowly choke to death. Entertainment for the masses. A good story to tell over a brimming pint. We oblige them by daring deeds and an early but gallant death, and they oblige us with a few coins and jewels along the way. Even a soldier lives longer. If you thirst for adventure
that’s
a better trade, and in any case, I neither want nor need an apprentice. I prefer to work alone.”

“But to be a soldier I would still need to use a sword,” the boy pointed out reasonably. “And if soldiering is so much better, why haven’t you taken it up?”

A dark look passed over Jack’s face. “Because I can’t abide another man giving me orders, lad, or anyone thinking he can put his hands on me or run my life. If some stuffed country lout in a sergeant’s uniform tried it, I’d probably kill him. Soldiers who don’t take well to discipline and orders…they die young too.”

“But you’re a gentleman. You would be an officer.”

Jack spat on the ground and gave Bess a slap on the rump. Her head was deep in the feed bucket and she ignored him. “I may be a gentleman of the highway, but I’m a God-cursed bastard just like you. I’ve been a captain of mercenary, they aren’t picky about a man’s background, but them and soldiers are a bloodthirsty, uncivilized, murdering lot. A gentle lad like me is better suited for the road.”

The boy was hanging on his every word. “They say you never murder, and you’re kind to the ladies. They say sometimes you dance with them.”

Jack snorted in derision. “No, that’s that fool Claude Duval, though I don’t mind taking credit for it. The longer you stay after the thing’s accomplished the more danger you create for everyone involved. A husband is angered or embarrassed into playing the hero, a coachman gets anxious and reaches for his weapon, someone makes a foolish move and next thing you know… somebody’s lying dead on the ground. I’ve stolen a kiss or two, if a lady’s of the mind for it. But they seldom are if their husband is about. I’m slapped more often than I’m kissed.” He fingered his jaw with a rueful grin.

He caught the boy’s rapt look and his voice became curt and serious. “It’s part of the act, Allen. A good highwayman has style and flair and gives some entertainment for what he takes. A bad one gets people killed.”

“
Have
you ever killed anyone, Jack?”

“Oh, aye. I earned my arms at Dunkirk, didn’t I? And if you’ve yet to notice, I keep company with a very bad lot. I’m well able to defend myself and good at staying alive, but ’tis true I’ve never murdered a man, and I don’t care much for killing.”

“I don’t want to be a soldier and I don’t want to be an innkeeper. I want to have pamphlets and ballads written about me. I want to be a highwayman just like you.”

“Then learn to act the gentleman first. There’s plenty of those come through the inn. Watch them. Learn their manners and proper speech. Learn to do more than scratch out your name. I’ll talk to Winslow about finding you a tutor or sending you to the village school.”

Allen eyed him with a suspicion. “And if I do that, you’ll take me with you on the North Road?”

“No,” Jack said, clapping him on the shoulder. “That’s not why I brought you here. I brought you here in hopes you’d make something of your life. You have choices and chances I never had. Besides, I’m a firm believer a man should make his own way to hell. But do as I say, and I
will
teach you a bit about using a sword. Come. I can smell dinner from here.”

With Allen in tow, Jack ducked his head and stepped into the crowded inn.

The busy swirl of conversation that hummed inside the Talbot came to a momentary halt as people turned to examine the latest arrival. Some of the patrons smiled and nodded at the newcomer, others looked him over dismissively and went back to what they were doing, and two proper young misses traveling through from London to York, whispered excitedly as they looked him up and down.

Lean, rugged looking, and decidedly handsome, there was something vaguely disreputable and dangerous about him. Though he was dressed with casual elegance in fine leather boots and a blue-black coat that matched his hair, his jaw was unshaven, his lace cravat open, and his eyes had a wolfish gleam. He looked like a jaded London spark set upon mischief and adventure, and his late arrival, alone, with a serious looking rapier and a brace of pistols, suggested he knew what to do if he should find it. He looked precisely the sort of man impressionable young women found so fascinating and their parents strenuously insisted they avoid.

He looked gentleman enough though, and those who didn’t know him—intrepid travelers, foolhardy tourists and gentlefolk heading out or returning home on business or pleasure, took him as one of their own.

~

Careful as always, Jack perused the room in turn. Several men were playing cards at a corner table. He could have sworn they were the same men playing the same game he’d joined briefly on a visit three weeks ago. Then again, with their large stone hearths, plaster walls, and ceilings framed by sturdy oak beams, the coaching inns that looped the road from London to York like a ragged necklace all tended to look the same.

Gifting the flustered ladies with his most charming grin, he ambled over to One-eyed Billy, whose patch gave him a rakish air despite his disfigurement, and Seven-string Ned, a diminutive personable rogue named after the colorful ribbons he wore at wrist and neck. He settled into his seat, elbowing his neighbors to make more room, and a moment later the motherly looking Mrs. Winslow was pinching his cheek as she placed a sizzling plate of sausages and potatoes in front of him.

“It’s been too long since your last visit, Jack, my lad. I was growing worried you’d—”

She gave a high-pitched squeal as he pulled her into his lap and bussed her cheek. “Bless you, Maggie. I’ve missed your cooking that much. You set the finest table of any coach house north of London. If you’ll find me a nice cold stout to wash it down, you’ll own my wayward heart. I swear I’ll be waiting under your window at midnight to spirit you away.”

“Bah! To a life of drudgery cooking your meals and mending your clothes, no doubt. I’ve already got
Mr.
Winslow for that!” She pushed herself to her feet in mock outrage, her round face flushed with pleasure, and as if by magic, a tankard appeared next to his plate.

“A fellow has to admit you’ve a fine way with old women,” Billy Wyse said, leaning against his shoulder as the beaming innkeeper’s wife walked away. “If only you could do the same with the young ones.”

Jack raised his tankard to the two lovely misses, winking as they gasped and giggled. Not a moment later there was a flurry of bewildered protests as a stern matronly woman, clucking in outrage, glared at him as she ushered them hurriedly from the room.

He chuckled and turned back to his companions. “The trick, Billy…is to remember that old women were young women once, and still are at heart. What makes one smile, likely makes the other do so as well.”

His gaze shifted. “Eat your dinner, Allen.”

The boy, who had stopped with his spoon halfway to his mouth to listen, blushed and returned to wolfing down his food.

“Aye, and mind your own business! No one wants a big-eared bastard following them about.” Billy raised his hand to give the boy a cuff but Jack grasped his wrist, holding it easily while stabbing a sausage with his fork.

“Leave the lad be, Bill,” he said mildly. “You can speak in front of him. He knows what and when to keep quiet.”

Bill jerked his arm free and rubbed his wrist. “He’d better.”

“You’ve news then? Something better than country squires, school girls, or overfed parsons?”

Despite missing one eye, few men were better observers than Bill Wyse. Jack employed men like Bill as eyes and ears in every village from Huntingdon to York, and on more challenging adventures, he sometimes brought men like Ned.

“Aye. I’ve news. Rat-faced Perry wants a meeting.”

Henry Perry was the criminal equivalent of a local feudal overlord. Footpads, pickpockets, prostitutes, and thieves all paid him fealty and a percentage of their earnings. Some said his fingers reached as far as London and as deep as a magistrate’s pocket. He had no influence over his social superiors though, the free-willed gentleman of the road.

“Since when am I one of Henry Perry’s minions?”

Billy shrugged. “You pay me to bring you information. I bring it. He says you would find it worth your while.”

Jack snorted in disgust and downed the rest of his ale. What did a man like him need with more money? He had no family or property to maintain and was glad of it. A home was a trap, a family a burden, and a stationary man easily found and captured. He kept no mistress though he knew a few comely barmaids, and though he drank it was not as much as other men—and never enough that he failed to notice each exit and entrance or the lay of the land.

He had his freedom, a magnificent horse in Bess, and finely crafted weapons. He had plenty for gambling, clothes, and helping the occasional stray, and he could treat friends and acquaintances with food and drink. When he took to the road now it was purely for excitement. Something to stir the blood between endless rounds of cards.

His prey were the wealthy and privileged, or some exotic treat like the shipment of liquid gold malmsey marked for His Majesty he’d liberated two weeks past. It was a form of entertainment, though God knew it had lost its luster over time. Lately he’d been taking unnecessary risks, seeking the same thrill that had charged him in the early days.
Perhaps that’s why we all die young. We grow bored and careless.

“He said you might find it entertaining. He said there’s a wench involved.”

A gleam of interest sharpened Jack’s eyes. “A pretty one?”

Bill shrugged again. “According to you, aren’t they all?”

“I need you to deliver a package.” The rat-faced man was nibbling some fine Nottingham cheese, oblivious to the irony.

“
That
package?” Jack nodded toward a bound figure trembling in the corner, shrouded in an over-large cloak and held between two brutish thugs, both of whom he could smell from his comfortable seat by the fire. Or perhaps it was the cheese. He stabbed a piece with his dagger and held it to his nose experimentally, then popped it in his mouth. The old stone farmhouse chosen for their rendezvous was thirty miles from the nearest town and well off the road, and he had missed his supper. Curious, he shifted in his seat and craned his neck to get a better look. The shape was definitely female, but it was impossible to discern aught else. He wondered how she breathed.

“Why me, Henry?” he asked disinterestedly, though his curiosity was piqued. “Why not you, or one of your boys?”

“Because she’s a very
valuable
package, Jack,” the rat answered sourly. His nose twitched and his thin mustache quivered like long rat whiskers. Jack watched him with amused fascination.

“She’s of the gentry. She’s to be delivered to a puffed up lordling, and apparently only a gentleman can be entrusted with the task.” The figure in the corner stilled. Clearly, she was listening. “You were asked for specifically.”

“Was I?” That
was
a surprise. And there wasn’t much that surprised him anymore. “So
you…
are an errand boy then? Sent to petition my aid?”

“Have your fun, Jack. But I’m a useful friend and a determined enemy, and I’ve the kind of contacts a man like you might someday need.”

“You know nothing of a man like me, Henry. But I confess I’m intrigued. If I agree to help you with this matter, who would be ahh…accepting this package? And who would be paying me?”

“You don’t need to know the last unless you agree to the first. I will pay you one thousand pounds for taking her off my hands. His lordship declined to tell me why he wanted you, but doubtless he’ll pay you at least that much for delivering her, though that be between you and him.”