The Marsh Hawk (36 page)

“And? Come, come, there isn't time for this. The pistol, man—the pistol!”

“I'm trying to remember, my lord!” the Runner cried, waving trembling hands. “I don't think . . .
no
! You're confusing me. I didn't confiscate the pistol. Th-the countess took the pistol from the thatchgallows and made off with it—and the spoils—before he tried to escape.”

“You recovered the spoils, though, didn't you?”

“Well, yes, my lord, but—”

“Bet your blunt, you did! Those things belonged to
you
, didn't they—you and Marner? Never mind. Can you get the trial postponed?”

“No, my lord. I have no say in court proceedings. Technically, my involvement in this brouhaha is over and done with.”

“That's what you think,” Simon seethed.

“Here! Where are you going, my lord?” the Runner called to Simon's back.

“To buy my wife some time,” he replied, crashing through the doorway.

Jenna was grateful that she had no mirror. She could only imagine what she must look like. Her skin was hot and dry to the touch. It was fever; there was no mistaking it now. Her parched lips were cracked, and there was a buzzing noise echoing in her ears. As she awaited what promised to be an automatic conviction, nothing seemed to matter anymore. Simon hadn't come. He must surely know by now . . . and he hadn't come. Whatever made her think he might? It was over.

She dared not dwell upon any of that, not standing in the dock. The magistrate looked formidable at best, a hawk-faced prune of a man whose drooping jowls challenged his neck-cloth.

It was early in the day, which was to her advantage. The man wasn't irritable yet from fatigue. That, however, didn't soften the look in his sharp, hooded eyes.

“Lady Kevernwood,” he said, causing her to jump. “You are accused of armed robbery on the King's highway, a crime that carries the sentence of hanging at Tyburn if you are convicted by this court. Have you anything to say in your own defense?” She hadn't expected so thunderous a voice coming from such a wizened creature. It sent cold chills racing along her spine, and the rush of blood that accompanied them heightened her fever. Despite it all, she heaved a deep breath and spoke in her most eloquent voice.

“I am innocent of the charge leveled against me, Your Worship,” she began steadily. “A year and a half ago, I went to the authorities for help in finding and bringing the Marsh Hawk to justice after he bludgeoned my father with his own pistol during a highway robbery, and subsequently caused his death. The law offered me no help, and so I took it upon myself to avenge my father by bringing the criminal to justice on my own. I dressed as a highwayman in order to get close enough to do so. That is what I was about on the night I was apprehended. I would have done it, too, but for the interference of the Bow Street Runner who interrupted us. The Marsh Hawk had already relinquished the spoils and the pistol—
my father's pistol
—to me at gunpoint, when the Runner—”

“But you ran with the spoils,” the magistrate cut in.

“I
ran
, Your Worship. Period,” she corrected. “I wasn't thinking of the spoils. I had accomplished my objective. The Marsh Hawk was dead and my father was avenged. I ran to spare my family . . . this. That the sack with the spoils in it was still attached to my saddle was not my primary concern, Your Worship. I certainly never meant to keep the contents of that sack. What need would I possibly have of spoils? Except for that pistol, my father's property, which was my proof of the brigand's guilt—the pistol that he had beaten my father to death with—the rest meant nothing to me.”

“And, where is this legendary pistol, pray?” the magistrate barked.

“W-with the spoils, I imagine. I put it in the sack with the rest.”

“Preposterous!” the magistrate bellowed. “No pistol was recovered, only the spoils planted by Matthew Biggins of Bow Street to trap your fellow robber.”

“He was not my fellow, Your Worship! Haven't you heard me? I was apprehending him!”

“Lady Kevernwood, your social standing does not place you above the law. Do you suppose us all birdwits here? You ramble on about a mythical pistol that you cannot produce. Where is your proof? Are there any witnesses to speak for you, madam?”

“N-no, Your Worship,” she despaired.

A hand gesture brought a bailiff with a black velvet pall, which the man placed on the magistrate's wigged head.

“Jenna Rutherford, née Hollingsworth, Countess of Kevernwood, I hereby charge that you—”

“She is telling the truth,” a voice boomed from the gallery stairwell. All heads snapped toward a tall, masked figure of a man emerging from the shadows.

Simon.

The gavel cracked furiously, as a surly rumble of voices crescendoed into an uproar. The spectators left their seats, craning their necks for a look at the masked, cloaked figure stalking to the center of what had become an arena, reminiscent of Jenna's imaginings of ancient Rome. She stood paralyzed, staring toward her husband who approached the bench like a Christian before the lions.

“You are out of order, sir!” the magistrate bellowed, vaulting from his chair. “What is the meaning of this charade? Unmask at once! Reveal yourself!”

Simon doffed his tricorn hat, removed his mask and bowed from the waist, triggering a collective gasp that rippled through the spectators, prompting another demand for order from the magistrate, punctuated by another furious assault upon the bench with the gavel.

“L-l-lord Kevernwood?”
he spluttered, sinking back into his chair. “Have you gone addled, sir?”

“No, Your Worship,” Simon replied. “The countess speaks truth.”

“Of course you would say so,” the magistrate scoffed. “How dare you interrupt these proceedings with your bizarre theatrics? Can you possibly think such a display will work in her favor? Leave this court at once, sir, or I will have you removed!”

“No, Your Worship, I can prove it!” Simon shouted, as the magistrate nodded to the bailiff.

“Simon,
no
!” Jenna shrilled.

“Silence!” the magistrate commanded, raising his hand. “Your Worship,” Simon continued, “I know that she speaks the truth firsthand, because she did the same to me.”

“To
you
, sir?”

“To me, Your Worship,” Simon parroted. “It is, in fact, the manner in which we met. The man that Biggins shot on the road to St. Enoder was not the Marsh Hawk. Oh, he possessed her father's pistol right enough, because he was the brigand who caused the baronet's death, but he wasn't the Marsh Hawk. He was only a ne'er-do-well by the name of William Hatch, who bears a physical resemblance to me and meant to capitalize on that. You see,
I
am the Marsh Hawk, my lord—at least I was—and the countess held me up last spring in the same manner as she did Hatch. I bear the wound to prove it.”

Without further ado, Simon loosened his cape and shirt, exposing his shoulder wound before the flabbergasted magistrate's wide-flung eyes.

As a fresh uproar arose, a groan from the dock turned Simon's head, and he sprang to Jenna's side as she swayed and sank to the floor out of sight.

“Jenna, the pistol!” he whispered close in her ear as he crushed her close in his arms. “Where is that deuced pistol?”

His eyes, lit with feral lights, searched her face. His ragged heartbeat pounded against her, while his trembling hands roamed her body like a starving man groping a platter of food. The heady scent of his tobacco blended with the faintest trace of wine assailed her nostrils, just as it had on the night that seemed a lifetime ago on the old Lamorna Road, and she groaned again.

“Simon, what have you done?”

“Your arm . . . are you all right?” he pleaded. “You're burning with fever.”

“Whatever possessed you?” she moaned, nodding against him.

“I'm trying to buy us some time,” he gritted out through clenched teeth. “You've got to tell me—the pistol, Jenna! We need it if we are to get your case adjourned to Serjeant's Inn for deliberation.”

“I-it was in that sack, Simon. I'm certain of it,” she insisted.

“Take them down!” the magistrate thundered.

A swarm of bailiffs armed with truncheons descended upon them then, and Jenna felt herself lifted. Others were dragging Simon away. The courtroom was in pandemonium. Milling figures swam before her. Spectators shouted in her face. The gavel banged incessantly. The magistrate had grown hoarse from shouting over the thunderous din. Above it all, the last thing she heard before she lost consciousness was Simon's thunderous voice demanding that a surgeon be summoned to tend her.

He hadn't abandoned her after all. Nothing else mattered, and she succumbed to the blessed release of oblivion.

“My lord, that display just now was foolhardy at best. Whatever possessed you?” Biggins railed. The Runner had spirited Simon away to his office once the bailiffs released him.

“It worked, didn't it?” Simon flashed. “Hah!” he erupted, as if to himself. “They didn't believe me—they laughed in my face—took me for a desperate husband trying to save his bride, the lack-wits!”

“I-it's true, isn't it?” the Runner breathed, as though a light had gone on in his brain. “It's all true, just as Marner said. You
are
the Marsh Hawk!”

Simon glanced at him. “The Marsh Hawk is dead, you nod-cock. You shot him yourself on the road to St. Enoder, remember? It's best for all concerned that you let him stay as he lay—unless, of course, you fancy exposing yourself as the inept laughingstock you truly are.”

“No! I'm right, aren't I? It's you! All along it was you.”

“You and Marner gave me the name. I'm simply playing the game,” Simon growled. “Now where is that bloody pistol? You had best come up with it posthaste. You heard them back there—I have less than a sennight to produce that gun, and even at that there are no guarantees. You were the last one with that bloody sack. Where is that deuced pistol?”

“A-actually, I wasn't, my lord,” Biggins confessed.

“What do you mean, you weren't?” Simon demanded, crouching over the Runner's desk.

“M-Marner was.”

“Explain! Be quick! I warn you, my patience ebbs low, Big-gins.”

“That dreadful woman, Lady Jersey, and her shrieking abigail, my lord, she was carping at us—interfering with official Bow Street business. I . . . I had Wilby, Marner's driver, give me a hand with the countess . . . she was unconscious, you see. He helped me put her in the carriage, and Marner collected the sack—at my direction, o-of course—then we took the countess on to St. Enoder, where we parted company. After I made my report, I hired a carriage, and brought the countess and the spoils here to Town.”

“The gun, man—the
gun
!” Simon prompted, out of patience.

“Th-that's just it, my lord, there was no gun in the sack. Marner must have taken it.”

“Marner, eh—or Biggins, perhaps? What was it you said, ‘it was a fine piece'? You stressed that point as I recall. How fine, Biggins? Come, come, you must have examined it quite thoroughly to arrive at such an assessment. Is it fine enough to tempt a Bow Street Runner to let an innocent woman dance the Tyburn jig?”

“My lord!” Biggins cried, vaulting from the chair behind his desk. “Do you actually believe I'd sacrifice my career for a . . . a pistol, sir?”

“No, but you might lie to save your career by covering up the theft of one. I strongly suggest that you make a clean breast of it, if such is the case—now, before I discover the truth. Because I
will
discover the truth, my man, and if my wife dies—”

“My lord!
I
conduct the interrogations here,” the Runner interrupted hoarsely. “I think you'd best take your threats to Marner, sir. How dare you stand there and accuse me?”

“Your association with the jackanapes has earned that for you, and believe me I dare. I
have
to dare, sir; you give me no choice. Now then, didn't you say that Marner made mention of a manor house in the Channels—Guernsey, I believe you said?”

“He did, my lord.”

“Well, it would do you well to pray that we can intercept him before he sails.”

“
We
, my lord?”

“We,” Simon enunciated. “You didn't imagine I'd let you out of my sight after this, did you? Besides, you're working for me now, remember?”

Before an hour was over, Simon had collected Phelps and hired a coach and four from the livery. With Biggins in tow, they were speeding along the highway on a course that would take them first to Kevernwood Hall.

Though he was not allowed to visit Jenna, he'd been assured that she would receive proper medical care. After seeing her in soiled and tattered highwayman's attire, he'd also managed to persuade the magistrate to allow her a change of clothing, which he would have Phelps collect at the manor and take back to Newgate Gaol.

The touch of her soft, supple body in his arms, yielding to his embrace, would not leave him, for she'd clung to him until his loins responded even in that dire circumstance. He was haunted, as ever a mortal could be by a ghost yet living; he had no peace. Would he lose her to the Tyburn Tree? He refused to accept it.

But for stopping at coaching stations to change horses along the way, the trio drove straight through. Simon never slept, and though Phelps pretended to, he didn't fool Simon for a moment. It was clear that the valet was keeping a close watch on the entire situation. By the time they'd put the second coaching station behind them, Biggins opted for a spell “up top,” as he put it, to keep the coachman company. Simon was well aware that his own black looks had driven the Runner aloft. He didn't trust the man; it was that simple. Whether his suspicions were founded or not, remained to be seen. Guilty or no, the Runner certainly looked the part of a man with something to hide, and Simon was committed to making him sweat.