The Highwayman (3 page)

Instinctively, Dougan's arms went around her and pulled her in tight as panic pierced him to the bone. “What's happened? Are ye hurt?”

“N-no,” she stammered against him.

He relaxed a little, but was distressed to find her tears soaking the front of his threadbare nightshirt. He lifted his head to see if any of the other twenty or so boys lined in the bunks next to and across from him noted her presence, but all was silent as far as he could tell. She'd never done this before, so whatever her cause, it must have been grave.

Curling back a little to look down at her, Dougan saw something in the silver moonlight that made the blood turn to ice in his veins.

She wore her brilliant white nightgown, the very same one he'd married her in the night before, except now the row of tiny buttons from her navel to the lace at her neck were missing. She held the gap together with one hand while the other one clutched at him. A desolate calm settled over him as he cradled his ten-year-old wife in his arms.

“Tell me,” was all he could manage through a throat closing off with dread.

“He pulled me into his study and said such h-horrible things,” she whispered to his chest, red with shame, still yet to bring herself to look up into his face. “Father MacLean, he told me all the things I tempted him to do to me. It was awful and vulgar and terrifying. Then he pulled me onto his lap and tried to kiss me.”

“Tried?” Dougan's fists were buried in the back of her nightgown, shaking with the force of his rage.

“I—sort of—stabbed him in the shoulder with a letter opener and ran,” she confessed. “I ran here. To you. The only safe place I could think of. Oh, Dougan he's after me!” She dissolved into sobs, her whole body shaking with the effort to keep them silent.

In spite of everything, Dougan's lips twitched with wry satisfaction in his wee wife. “That was well done, Fairy,” he murmured, stroking her hair, silently wishing it had been Father MacLean's eye, rather than his shoulder, that she'd stabbed.

Applecross was a large, old stone fortress with many places to hide, but it wouldn't take the old priest long to come searching through the boys' dormitory.

“I don't know what to do,” came the small voice from beneath his blanket.

A light appeared beneath the dormitory door and Dougan froze, placing a hand over her mouth and not breathing until it passed.

Dougan got out of bed and silently opened his trunk, extricating his two pair of trousers. He tossed one to her, along with one of his shirts. “Put these on,” he commanded in a whisper. She nodded silently and began to struggle into them beneath her night shift. Swiftly, Dougan helped her to roll up the hem and the sleeves of the shirt and tied a bit of twine that he'd been using as a belt to lash the trousers to her nonexistent hips.

He donned his boots with rifts in the soles and decided they would swipe a pair of the cook's boots for her from the kitchen when they gathered food for their journey. They couldn't risk going back to her dormitory to collect her things.

Her tiny hand felt fragile yet weighty in his as they made their way to the kitchens in the dark, pausing to peek around corners and creeping through the shadows. It was nigh on ten miles to Russel on Loch Kishorn. There they could rest and sleep and feast on the oyster beds before moving on to Fort William. Dougan only hoped his wee Fairy had the strength to make it.

Didn't matter, he'd carry her the full way if he had to.

Once in the kitchens, they gathered bread and dried pork, along with a bit of cheese, and wasted precious seconds stuffing cheesecloth into the toes of the cook's boots. The small woman had little feet for a grown woman, but Farah's were smaller still.

Dougan was glad to see that his Fairy had stopped crying, her face set with purpose and determination, if not a little anxiety.

Dougan tucked her in his thin jacket, hating that he didn't have anything warmer for her.

“Won't
you
be cold?” she protested.

“I've more meat on me bones,” he boasted, opening the kitchen door and wincing when the hinges creaked loud enough to wake half of the souls in the graveyard. The loamy scent of dew reminded him that dawn would soon be upon them, but it also showed that the nights had stopped freezing, which was a good sign.

Searching the darkness, he noted which way was due east. They'd just have to walk as straight a line as possible and they'd be dumped onto the shores of Loch Kishorn. He was certain of it.

Her strangled whimper gave little warning before her hand was ripped out of his grip.

Dougan whirled to see the towering Sister Margaret restraining a struggling Farah as Father MacLean huffed into the kitchens, two stout friars close behind him.

“Nay,” Dougan rasped, momentarily frozen in abject horror.

“Dougan, run!” his Fairy cried. Father MacLean approached Sister Margaret and sneered, reaching a thin, gnarled bloodstained hand to help subdue Farah's thrashing.

“Doona bloody touch her!” Dougan commanded. “She is
mine.
” He pulled the knife he'd pilfered from the cook board, and thrust it in warning toward both of his adversaries. “Unless ye'd like to be stuck twice in a night.” He took a threatening step forward and Father MacLean pulled his thin lips back from sharp, uneven teeth. His bald pate shone in the light from a torch one of the friars carried.

“This one's worth too much to let go.” Quick as a hawk, MacLean wrapped long, bony fingers around Farah's delicate neck. “Ye should have picked another princess to prey upon.”

Princess?
“I'm not the predator here, ye are!” Dougan accused, unable to tear his eyes away from his Fairy's terrified gaze as she squirmed, and struggled to breathe. “Give her over. Or I'll cut ye both.”

Farah gave a strangled sob as MacLean cut off her breath completely.

Dougan snapped. He barreled forward, kicked out, and drove his boot directly into Father MacLean's weak knee. The man went down with a tortured cry, and before Dougan knew what he was doing, he drove the knife into the priest's chest.

There were feminine screams, too deep to be his Fairy's, though he was sure he heard her crying, too. Suddenly, all the beatings, the starvation, and a surge of retribution on his Fairy's behalf thundered through him. Dougan pulled the knife out just in time to slash at the advancing friar, who leaped just out of his reach. He was so focused on the one in front of him, he didn't see the other swing the fire poker at his head until it was too late.

The last thing he heard was the sound of his Fairy, his wife, screaming his name. His last thought was he had failed her. He had
lost
her forever.

 

C
HAPTER
T
WO

London, 1872
Seventeen Years Later

For nigh on ten years, it had been the custom of Mrs. Farah L. Mackenzie to walk the mile to work. She'd leave her small but fashionable flat above one of the many coffeehouses on Fetter Lane, and stroll down Fleet Street until it turned into the Strand, London's infamous avant-garde theater and arts thoroughfare. With Temple Bar, and The Adelphi Theatre on her left, and Covent Garden and Trafalgar Square to her right, every morning was bound to be a particular feast for her senses.

She'd often take morning coffee with her landlord and owner of the Bookend Coffeehouse, Mr. Pierre de Gaule, who would regale her with stories of famous poets, novelists, artists, performers, and philosophers who would frequent his establishment during the evening hours.

That particular morning, the conversation had been about the strange Parisian author Jules Verne, and the argument they'd had over their recently deceased mutual acquaintance, Alexandre Dumas.

Farah had been especially interested, as she was a great admirer of Mr. Dumas's work and was ashamed to admit she hadn't gotten around to reading Mr. Verne, but felt she should add him to her ever-growing book list.

“Don't bother,” de Gaule spat in his thick French accent that, despite his expatriate status, had never diminished in the near decade Farah had known him. “He is another pretentious Deist novelist who considers himself a philosopher.”

Leaving Mr. de Gaule with a smile, her month's rent, and a kiss on his considerable jowls, Farah had taken a croissant for her breakfast and nibbled on it as she made her way down the crowded Strand.

The only buildings on her route that didn't exhibit a colorful array of patrons were the handful of pleasure houses that, like many of their employees, only appeared deceptively tempting at night when the lighting was more favorable.

Farah found her morning stroll disappointingly dull, despite the dazzling bustle of London's most famous market street. That is, until she avoided Charing Cross by cutting down Northumberland Street to arrive at Number Four Whitehall Place through the rear entrance, notorious to all of English society as the “back hall” of the London Metropolitan Police Headquarters, otherwise known as Scotland Yard.

The mob surrounding the building was a great deal larger and angrier than usual, spilling out onto the main thoroughfare.

Farah approached the fringes of the crowd with caution, wondering if Parliament had passed another amendment to the Marriage Act. For that was the last time she could remember such an uproar at Scotland Yard, as it shared a building with the licensing commissioner.

Spotting Sergeant Charles Crompton atop the dappled gelding at the west corner of the growing mob, Farah made her way toward him.

“Sergeant Crompton!” she called, placing a hand on Hugo's bridle. “Sergeant Crompton. May I ask you to assist me inside?”

Crompton, a burly man of maybe forty, scowled down at her from behind a bristled mustache that hung below the extra chins created by the strap of his uniform helmet. “You i'nt supposed to come frew the back hall on days wot like this, Missus Mackenzie,” he called from atop his restless steed. “The chief inspector'll 'ave me badge. Not to mention me 'ead.”

“What is all this?” Farah asked.

His answer was lost in a sudden roar rippling through the press of bodies, and Farah whipped around in time to see the shadow of a man cross the headquarters entrance toward the basement stairs. She couldn't make out any particular features, but caught the impression of dark hair, shocking height, and a long, cocksure stride.

The brief glimpse inflamed the crowd so intensely that someone threw a projectile through a window of the clerk's office.

Her
office.

In a flash, Crompton was off his horse and propelling her by the elbow away from the crowd and toward the front of the building that faced Whitehall Place. “They've the very devil in there!” he hollered at her. “I've sent for bobbies from Bow Street and St. James precinct to 'elp.”

“Who was that?” she cried.

But as soon as she was on the corner of Newbury and Whitehall Place, Crompton abandoned her to return to the crowd, his club raised in case of violence.

Smoothing her black wool uniform jacket over her dress, she was grateful for the lack of a bustle beneath the crinoline of her skirts. With the ever-shrinking offices at Scotland Yard, she'd never fit were she dressed fashionably.

Farah nodded to the licensing comissioner's reception clerk, and wound her way through the maze of hallways to the headquarters' connecting entrance, only to find the pandemonium inside Scotland Yard was barely tamer than the mob without.

She'd been in these kinds of situations before. There was the Irish riot of '68, and the time an explosive detonated outside of Parliament, not a stone's throw away, not to mention a constant barrage of criminals, thieves, and whores parading through Number Four Whitehall Place on a daily basis. And yet, as Farah elbowed her way through the Scotland Yard reception office, she couldn't remember a time she'd sensed such imminent disaster. A thrill of unease trembled through her, disrupting her usually infallible composure.

“Mrs. Mackenzie!” She heard her name rise above the din of constables, journalists, criminals, and inspectors all crowded within the back hall. Farah turned to see David Beauchamp, the first clerk, struggling toward her from the hall of offices. His slight, wiry build didn't meet the minimum physical requirements for an officer of the Metropolitan Police, so he'd been hired as a clerk, to his everlasting regret.

Farah pushed toward him, excusing herself along the way. “Mr. Beauchamp.” She took his offered elbow and together they pressed toward the relative safety of the hall. “Would you please tell me what is going on here?”

“He's asking for you,” Beauchamp informed her with an imperious frown.

Farah knew exactly to whom Mr. Beauchamp referred. Her employer, Chief Inspector Sir Carlton Morley.

“Right away,” she replied, removing her bonnet and tossing it onto her desk. She grimaced at the shards of the window on the office floor, but felt guilty at the relief she felt when she realized most of the damage had been done to Mr. Beauchamp's desk, as hers was positioned closer to the door. Errol Cartwright, the third clerk, had yet to arrive.

“You'll need your instruments,” Beauchamp needlessly reminded her. “There's to be an interrogation. I'm to stay here and deal with the press and coordinate the extra bobbies.” He used the street name Londoners had dubbed the Metropolitan Police, which Farah found ridiculous.

“Of course,” Farah said wryly, as she gathered her pen, inkwell, and pad of thick parchment upon which she took down minute notes, confessions, and drafted affidavits for criminals and coppers alike. Ignoring the sound of the mob outside the broken window took nerve, but she managed. Her office was high enough that they couldn't see her head as a target, though she could look down on theirs. “Will you kindly tell me just
who
is the reason for all of this hullabaloo?” she asked for what felt like the hundredth time.