The Highwayman's Bride

The Highwayman’s Bride

Jane Beckenham

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

Copyright © 2013 by Jane Beckenham. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means. For information regarding subsidiary rights, please contact the Publisher.

Entangled Publishing, LLC

2614 South Timberline Road

Suite 109

Fort Collins, CO 80525

Visit our website at
www.entangledpublishing.com

Edited by Erin Molta

Cover design by Heidi Stryker

Ebook ISBN 978-1-62266-343-9

Manufactured in the United States of America

First Edition
December 2013

To my mother, Joan, for her continued belief in me, and for being my biggest fan. Love you, mum.

Chapter One

Beware ye genteel folk of the Ton, those rogues are back on our roads, with ne’er a thought to one and all.

This land is once again not safe. Beware.

Mirabelle’s Musings

October 1813

Alone on a darkened road, beneath the constant drip of a damp autumn rain, Tess Stanhope sat atop her stolen horse and waited for the unsuspecting travelers.

Tugging her cloak closer, she wished again that she had been able to find a better nag. Something more suited for a speedy getaway would have eased her sense of dread.

Her jaw tightened, teeth grinding. Thinking about what she was about to do—holding up a carriage, for goodness sake—scared her witless and would definitely rank high on a list of her sins. But she was out of options—and desperate.

Tess had witnessed the appalling treatment of Percy Harrow’s first wife too many times. The poor woman had lived in fear of her husband, the esteemed pastor’s brutal drunken belligerence. Rumor had it, he’d even killed her puppy when she’d not had his supper cooked just how he liked it.

And Tess’s uncle had determined that she would be the hateful man’s second wife.

Marry him?

Never! Simply thinking of the man elicited fear to crawl the length of her spine. He did not deserve anyone’s respect and would never have hers.

But disguising herself as a man and holding up a carriage in order to escape her fate made her stomach swirl with nausea. She bit down hard on her bottom lip. She scanned the chilling dank copse and wondered if she would ever be warm again.

A single tear trailed down her cheek, and she brushed it roughly away with the back of her gloved hand as a sad hiccup purged from her chest.

It was never like this in her books. Those tales of adventure never mentioned the cold or the constant fear. The stark reality was disheartening.

Tess realized now she’d romanticized such adventures. She was no character in a book, and this was no fairy tale. But she knew what she was doing, and why. She needed to escape. “Focus, Tess.”
Just this once. That’s all.

Battling to clamp down on her budding hysteria, she fingered the pistol. Just looking at the weapon made her feel ill.

Wrapped in the last wave of night, the earth hushed and the rain thankfully eased. Despite the chill, she wiped a hand across her brow, aware of the prickle of sweat.

And still she waited.

Above, the flutter of wings circling her dank hiding place provoked a shudder up and down her spine. “Bats!” She screwed up her nose and tugged her cloak even closer.

Just then the sound of hoof beats pounded on the earth. Every part of her stilled—her breath—her heartbeat—while a deep-rooted fear burgeoned and held her captive as the sound amplified.

Dear God, the carriage was coming so fast.

Her hands shook, and yet she had never been so sure of anything in her life. Her chance to escape had come. “No going back, Tess.” Drawing in a deep steadying breath, she readied the stolen pistol. She had to move. Now!

She dug her heels into her horse’s girth and it burst from their hiding place and into the middle of the road. Tess gripped the reins with whitened knuckles, her weapon hand waving madly. She squeezed the trigger and a shot rang out, hitting the coach and splintering its wooden door.

Horror slammed into her conscience. God, what had she done? “Please tell me I have not hurt a soul,” she prayed aloud.

The driver reined in his team of horses with a vicious pull and the conveyance shuddered precariously from side to side. Screams and wails echoed from within as the carriage lumbered to a halt.

Her shocked brain scrambled for the words she’d read in books. Say something. Anything.

She jabbed the pistol toward the driver. “Stand and deliver.” Those three words made it all real, and the fantasy dissolved. Loosening her hold on the reins, she wrapped her free hand over the one holding the pistol and tried to steady it.

“Do as he says.” Called a decisive voice, the icy tone echoing from the veil of darkness.

“What!” Her gaze switched momentarily to the other side of the copse as a rider and horse drew up alongside her. He brandished a pistol toward the carriage. Shock and fear ran in rivulets down her spine. She wanted to flee. Hide. But it was too late, and there was no going back.

Tess swallowed back her fear. “Who are you? What are you doing here?”

“Steady your pistol, lad, or you’ll be dead in seconds.”

Lad? Lad? He talked to
her
.

“Don’t you want to share your takings?”

“Exactly.” She flicked her pistol toward the carriage driver, making sure he understood she meant business. “Hurry up.”

“Don’t shoot, don’t shoot. We’re simple folk with no money,” came a cultured voice. The carriage door slammed back and splintered.

“Don’t make them like they used to,” remarked the man on the horse beside her.

Her mouth pursed. “Go away.”

“No.” The ragged cloth tied across his mouth and nose muffled his voice. “Unless you want to get yourself killed, that is. These roads can be dangerous.”

Tess eyed him, and even in the dim moonlight witnessed a surprising twinkle in his eyes. “So why are you here? Should you not be tucked up safe and sound in your bed?”

“You need me.”

What she needed was to be far away from here.

One of the passengers stepped forward and Tess bristled. She recognized Judge Wallace Pratley in an instant. He’d sent many a man to prison for simply not paying taxes. This seemed like providence. “If you think you are penniless, sir,” Tess said, “then you should take the time to visit London’s rookeries.”

Decked out in the finest of velvet, gold braid banding the sleeves and collar of his tailcoat, his clothing was that of a man of Court.
Penniless indeed.

A slight nudge of the reins encouraged her horse a few paces forward. Towering over the traveler bolstered her confidence. “Do not take me for a fool, Mr. Pratley.”

The man’s eyes widened.

“Oh, yes, I recognize you. You’ve bullied many a man down on his luck for no fault of his own, so I think this moment is rather justified.”

Tess went to fire another shot above the carriage, but nothing happened. She squeezed the trigger again and then realized her folly. Tossing the pistol to the ground, she groped in her jacket pocket for the smaller pistol that had been in her uncle’s weapons box. Rearmed, she directed her weapon at the overstuffed man. “Now hand over your wealth, sir. There are people who need your…ah, funds, more than you.”

But suddenly the other rider’s horse pawed at the ground and his gloved hand ripped the reins from her. Tess choked back a guttural cry.

“Bloody fool, you’ll spook the horses and get yourself killed.”

“And I told you to go away.” She wasn’t about to share the takings she needed so desperately.

“Do what I say unless you want to be strung up from the nearest branch.” With her horse’s reins in one hand, the stranger nudged his pistol toward the cowering group. “You heard him. All your wealth.”

With the added motivation of another pistol pointed in their direction, the group emptied their pockets, dropping belongings into the sack Tess held out. Gold. Coins. Jewels. It would fetch a tidy sum and enable her to live for a while.

Then what, Tess?

She didn’t want to think of that now. It was enough that she could get away from her uncle and his plans to marry her to Percy Harrow.

“That’s right. Drop it all in.” At last, freedom wasn’t far away.

“I’ll show you, you rascal!”

Before Tess could react, the blustering judge reached into his pocket and fired a gunshot into the darkness, the cacophony shattering her horse’s calm. It reared up and Tess clutched the horse’s neck and tried to hold on.

The rider beside her cursed a moment before his horse reared too, then bucked and tossed him to the ground. She heard the crack of the man’s skull against the rocky terrain.

Chaos reigned. Screams echoed from the female contingent as they bustled back into the carriage followed by the pistol-carrying judge. In seconds, the driver unleashed the whip against horseflesh and the battered carriage and its passengers shot away.

Then nothing. Simply silence.

Heart racing, her breath rasped along her throat. She squeezed her eyes shut. It was over. She had succeeded. She could escape.

A sound echoed from the muddied road. Her eyes shot open and her gaze dropped to the ground. Scrambling from her horse, she tied the reins around a branch, noting the stranger’s horse had bolted.

Crouching beside him, she tore the cloth from his face and laid a hand across his mouth, waiting for the telltale flutter of breath.

She closed her eyes and concentrated. There! A slight inhale. Her relief was instant. She may have robbed the innocent, but she could never live with the guilt if someone died because of her actions.

“You are not dead, sir.”

“I feel like it.” And to prove his point, his groan breached the silence.

Just then, the heavy cloud that blanketed the night parted, allowing a sliver of moonbeams to graze the earth. A gasp strangled in her throat. A jagged gash stretched into his hairline and pulsed blood.

Another soft moan slipped from his barely moving lips. “My head…”

“Be quiet and still,” she instructed. “I’ll attend to it.”

“And let you kill me?” He struggled upward. “Curse this damned night. So bloody dark.”

Tess lifted her gaze skyward. The sky had cleared, the aura of the full moon, albeit on the wane, shifted slowly toward dawn.

A coil of shock knotted in her belly as she bit back the truth. The man could not see. He had been blinded. “The night is not yet over,” she said quickly, hoping to set his concerns aside. “We’ll have to make the best way we can. Your horse has bolted, so you can ride with me.”

What was she saying? Offering to take him to where? She needed to set as much distance as possible between herself and Uncle Luther and dared not dally with a stranger. Without him she could move faster.

“That’s very kind, lad, but I can make my way. I’ll wait until the morn is fully risen.”

He called her lad again, which gave her a degree of satisfaction. At least her disguise had worked well. “And you call me a fool. Once the carriage arrives at its destination, the Robin Redbreasts will be chasing our hides.”

Nicknamed because of their blue coats and scarlet waistcoats, the mounted patrol aimed to stem thievery. Tess prayed that they would not venture forth tonight.

He had not yet realized what had befallen him. His head lolled to one side and he reached up to his wound.

“It bleeds overly,” she advised calmly. “You cracked it on the rock when you fell.”

“I’m aware of that,” he groaned.

“Well, it’s your own fault. If you had not interrupted, I would have been on my way by now,” she informed him tartly.

“I was saving your neck, you ungrateful lout.”

“Oh, phooey.”

The stranger’s eyes widened a fraction, and then closed. He shook his head and uttered a dozen curses.

“You are in pain?”

“Of course I’m in bloody pain.”

Tess didn’t want to divulge what she suspected had befallen him, deciding it better he reach that conclusion himself. For a few moments there was utter silence. Not even the hoot of an owl. But with each passing second, reality began to dawn.

He clutched a hand to his head. “I cannot see. Dear God, I cannot.” The moment he uttered this new reality he sank back, eyes wide and horror-filled.

“It’s the bump on your head. It’ll lessen in time.”

“And you are a doctor.”

“No. But there is no other explanation.”

As if unhearing, he said nothing and Tess drew herself upright. “Come on. Take my arm as we need to make haste.” What else could she do? “For my sins, I cannot leave you to the vultures or any robbers that may be lurking hereabouts.”

His mouth twitched, and Tess realized that even in this hazy pre-dawn darkness, with only a moonbeam shining down, this rogue was rather handsome.

“Robbers, robbing robbers. Perhaps there is eminent justice in that.”

“Perhaps,” she agreed, and despite the dire situation, his words brought a hint of a smile to her lips. “I will see you to a safe haven, then take my leave. Hold onto my arm,” she instructed.

Levering her accomplice to his feet took several tries. He was tall, his broad shoulders shrouded by his sodden cloak. Long legs encased in black trews were cuffed by the rich sleekness of leather boots. “Business must be good,” she muttered, mentally calculating the cost of his garb.

His head jerked and his hollow gaze dropped to where she stood. “I beg your pardon?”

“I see you’ve done well at stealing. Your clothes are those of a gentleman.” A fine gentleman, in fact.

For a moment he hesitated, as if choosing his words. “They could be stolen, for all you know.”

They could be
, she agreed silently, but somehow she didn’t think so. The expensive clothes fit the man to perfection.

His pistol lay at his feet and Tess bent to retrieve it. She caressed the fine-tooled walnut and the lacy intricate inlays of silver, tracing the initials—AMC. What did they stand for? Probably stolen, so what did it matter? She held out the pistol for him, realizing seconds later he really and truly could not see and so reached for his gloved hand and brought it to the weapon. “’Tis yours, best you keep it.”

With fumbling fingers he tucked the pistol into a pocket inside his jacket. “Thank you.”

For a moment there was silence between them and Tess found herself assessing him once more.

Despite the blood and dirt, he was handsome in a dashing, cavalier way and reminded her of a character in a book she had once read—long into the night until the candle had spluttered and her eyes had stung.

She shook her head at such whimsy. “We need to make a move. This way.” She reached for his hand and rested it on her forearm. Heat radiated from beneath his grip, though it proved to be a strangely comforting sensation.

In silence, she led him to her horse, then stilled. How were they to do this?