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‘A lassie in need of our assistance, I’d say,’ came the reply from his shorter, slimmer accomplice wearing a red kerchief across his face.
‘I have no need of assistance, thank you, gentlemen,’ said Phoebe firmly. ‘I was but taking a small rest before resuming my journey.’
‘Is that right?’ the black-kerchiefed man said. ‘That’s a mighty heavy-looking bag you have there. Allow us to ease your burden, miss.’
‘Really, there is no need. The bag is not heavy,’ said Phoebe grimly and, eyeing them warily, she shifted the bag behind her and gripped it all the tighter.
‘But I insist. Me and my friend, we dinnae like to see a lassie struggle under such a weight. Right gentlemanly we are.’
Gentlemen of the road, for they were certainly not gentlemen of any other description.
He walked slowly towards her.
Phoebe stepped back once, and then again, her heart hammering, not sure of what to do.
‘The bag, if you please, miss.’
Phoebe’s hands gripped even tighter to the handle, feeling enraged that these men could just rob her like this. She raised her chin and looked directly into the man’s eyes. They were black and villainous, and she could tell he was amused by her. That fueled her fury more than anything.
Her own eyes narrowed. ‘I do not think so, sir. I assure you there is nothing in my bag worth stealing unless you have an interest in ladies’ dresses.’
He gave a small hard laugh and behind him the other highwayman appeared with a pistol in his hand that was aimed straight at her.
‘Do as he says, miss, or you’ll be sorry.’
‘Jim, Jim,’ said Black Kerchief, who was clearly the leader of the two, as if chiding the man. ‘Such impatience. There are better ways to persuade a lady.’ And then to Phoebe, ‘Forgive my friend.’ His gaze meandered over her face, pausing to linger upon her lips.
A frisson of fear rippled down Phoebe’s spine. She knew then that she would have to give them the bag, to yield her possessions. Better that than the alternative.
She threw the bag to land at their feet.
Black Kerchief swung the bag between his fingers as he gauged its weight. ‘Far too heavy for a wee slip o’ a lassie like you.’ She could tell he was smiling again beneath his mask, but in a way that stoked her fear higher. ‘Search it,’ he instructed his accomplice and did not move, just kept his eyes on Phoebe. ‘Best relieve the lassie of any unnecessary weighty items.’
Red Kerchief, or Jim as he had been called, lifted the bag and, making short work of its buckle fastenings, began to rake within. He would find nothing save her clothing, a pair of slippers, a comb and some toiletries. Thankfully her purse, and the few coins that it contained, was hidden inside the pocket of her dress.
Phoebe eyed the man with disdain. ‘I have no money or jewels, if that is what you are after.’
‘She’s right; there’s nothin’ here,’ Jim said and spat his disgust at the side of the road.
‘Look again,’ instructed Black Kerchief. ‘What we’ve got here is a bona fide lady, if her accent and airs and graces are anythin’ to go by. She must hae somethin’ o’ value.’
His accomplice emptied the contents of her bag out onto the verge and slit open the lining of her bag. Further rummaging revealed nothing. He dropped the bag with its ripped lining on top of the pile of her clothes and spat again.
‘Nothin’.’
Phoebe prayed a coach would pass, but the road ahead remained resolutely empty and there was silence all around. ‘I did tell you,’ she said. ‘Now if you would be so kind as to let me pass on my way.’ She held her head up and spoke with a calm confidence she did not feel. Inside her heart was hammering nineteen to the dozen and her stomach was a small tight knot of fear. She made to step towards the bag.
‘Tut, tut, darlin’, no’ so fast.’ The black-masked highwayman caught her back with an arm around her waist. ‘There’s a price to pay to travel this road, and if you’ve nae money and nae jewels …’ His gaze dropped lower to the bodice of her dress and lower still to its dusty skirt before rising again to her face.
Phoebe felt her blood run cold. ‘I have nothing to give you, sir, and I will be on my way.’
He laughed at that. ‘I think I’ll be the judge of that, hen.’ He looked at Phoebe again. ‘I’ll hae a kiss. That’s the price to continue on your way.’
She heard the other man snigger.
The villain curled his arm tighter and pulled her closer. The stench of ale and stale sweat was strong around him. ‘Dinnae be shy, miss, there’s no one here to see.’
‘How dare you, sir? Release me at once. I insist upon it.’
‘Insist, do you?’ The highwayman pulled his mask down and leered at her to reveal his discoloured teeth. It was all Phoebe could do not to panic. Vying with the fear was a raging well of fury and indignation. But she stayed calm and delivered him a look that spoke the depth of her disgust.
He laughed.
And as he did she kicked back as hard as she could with her stout walking boots against his shins. He was not laughing then.
A curse rent the air and she felt the loosening of his hands. Phoebe needed no further opportunity. She tore herself from his grip, hoisted up her skirts and, abandoning her bag, began to run.
The man recovered too quickly and she heard his booted footsteps chasing after her. Phoebe ran for all she was worth, her heart thudding fast and furious, her lungs panting fit to burst. She kept on running, but the highwayman was too fast. She barely made it a hundred yards before he caught her.
‘Whoa, lassie. No’ so fast. You and I havenae yet finished our business.’
‘Unhand me, you villain!’
‘Villain, am I?’ With rough hands he pulled her into his arms and lowered the stench of his mouth towards hers.
Phoebe hit out and screamed.
A horse’s hooves sounded then. Galloping fast, coming closer.
Her gaze shot round towards the noise, as did the highway man’s.
There, galloping down the same hill she had not long walked, was a huge black horse and its dark-clad rider—rather incongruous with the rest of the sunlit surroundings. He was moving so fast that the tails of his coat flew out behind him and he looked, for all the world, like some devil rider.
Black Kerchief’s hand was firm around her wrist as he towed her quickly back to where his accomplice still stood waiting. And she saw that he, too, had pulled down his mask so that it now looked like a loose ill-fitting neckerchief. Jim grabbed her and used one hand to hold her wrists in a vice-like grip behind her back. She felt the jab of something sharp press against her side.
‘One sound from you, lady, and the knife goes in. Got it?’
She gave a nod and watched as Black Kerchief stood between her and the road, so that she would be obscured from the rider’s view as he sped past.
Please! Phoebe prayed. Please, she hoped with every last ounce of her will.
And it seemed that someone was listening for the horseman slowed as he approached and drew the huge stallion to a halt by their small group. Not the devil after all, but a rich gentleman clad all in black.
‘Step away from the woman and be on your way.’ Hunter spoke quietly enough, but in a tone that the men would not ignore if they had any kind of sense about them.
‘She’s my wife. Been givin’ me some trouble, she has,’ the taller of the men said.
Hunter’s gaze moved from the woman’s bonnet crushed on the grass by the men’s feet, to the neckerchiefs around the men’s collars, and finally to the woman herself. Her hair glowed a deep tawny red in the sunshine and was escaping its pins to spill over her shoulders. She was young and pretty enough with an air about her that proclaimed her gentle breeding, a class apart from the men who were holding her, and she was staring at him, those fine golden-brown eyes frantically trying to convey her need for help. He slipped down from the saddle.
‘She is no more your wife than mine. So, as I said, step away from her and be on your way … gentlemen.’ He saw the men glance at each other, communicating what they thought was a silent message.
‘If you insist, sir,’ the taller villain said and dragged the girl from behind him and flung her towards Hunter at the same time as reaching for his pistol.
Hunter thrust the girl behind him and knocked the weapon from the highwayman’s hand. He landed one hard punch to the man’s face, and then another, the force of it sending the man staggering back before the villain slumped to his knees. Hunter saw the glint of the knife as it flew through the air. With the back of his hand he deflected its flight, as if he were swatting a fly, and heard the clatter of the blade on the empty road.
The accomplice drove at him, fists flying. Hunter stepped forwards to meet the man and barely felt the fist that landed against his cheekbone. The ineffective punch did nothing to interrupt Hunter’s own, which was delivered with such force that, despite the villain’s momentum, the man was lifted clear off his feet and driven backwards to land flat on his back. The shock of the impact was felt not only by the accomplice, who was out cold upon the ground, but seemed to reverberate around them. The taller highwayman, who had been trying to pick himself up following Hunter’s first blow, stopped still and, as Hunter turned to him, all aggression evaporated from the scoundrel.
‘Please, sir, we were only having a laugh.’ It was almost a whimper. ‘We wouldnae have hurt the lassie; look, here’s her purse.’ The highwayman fished the woman’s purse from his pocket and offered it as if in supplication.
‘Throw it,’ Hunter instructed.
The man did as he was told and Hunter caught it easily in one hand before turning to the woman.
She was white-faced and wary, but calm enough for all her fear. In her hand she gripped the highwayman’s knife as if she trusted him as little as the villains rolling and disabled on the ground before him.
Hunter’s expression was still hard, but he let the promise of lethality fade from his eyes as he looked at her.
He held the purse aloft. ‘Yours, I take it?’
She seemed to relax a little and gave an answering nod of her head. The man must have taken it from her pocket while they were struggling.
He threw the purse to her and watched her catch it, then barked an order for the highwayman, who was leaning dazed upon the stile, to pack the jumble of women’s clothing lying in a heap at the side of the road into the discarded travelling bag. Only when the filled and fastened bag was placed carefully at his feet did Hunter move.
‘To where are you walking?’ His voice was curt and he could feel the woman’s stare on him as he swung himself up into the saddle.
She glanced over at the highwaymen and then back at Hunter.
‘Kingswell Inn.’ A gentlewoman’s voice sure enough. The pure clarity of it stirred sensations in Hunter that he thought he had forgotten.
He urged Ajax forwards a few steps and reached his hand down for her.
She hesitated and bit at her lower lip as if she were uncertain.
‘Make up your mind, miss. Do I deliver you to Kingswell, or leave you here?’ Hunter knew his tone was cold, but he did not care.
She took his hand.
‘Place your foot on the stirrup to gain purchase,’ he directed and pulled her up. As he settled her to sit sideways on the saddle before him the woman glanced up directly into his eyes. The attraction that arced between them was instant, its force enough to make him catch his breath. The shock of it hit him hard. For one second and then another they stared at each other, and then he deliberately turned his face away, crushing the sensation in its inception. Such feelings belonged to a life that was no longer his. He did not look at her again, just pressed the travelling bag into her hands and nudged Ajax to a trot.
‘Did they hurt you?’ The chill had thawed only a little from his voice.
Phoebe stared and her heart was beating too fast. ‘I am quite unhurt, thank you, sir. Although it seems you are not.’ She smiled to hide her nervousness. Clutching her bag all the tighter with one hand, she found her handkerchief with the other and offered it to him.
His frown did little to detract from the cold handsomeness of his face, but it did make it easier for Phoebe to ignore the butterflies’ frantic fluttering in her stomach and the rush of blood pounding through her veins. The bright morning sunlight cast a blue hue in the ebony of his hair and illuminated the porcelain of his skin. Dark brows slashed bold over eyes of clear pale emerald. Such stark beautiful colouring upon a face as cleanly sculpted as that of the statues of Greek gods in her papa’s books. A square chiselled jaw line and cleft chin led up to well-defined purposeful lips. His nose was strong and masculine, his cheekbones high, the left one of which was sporting a small cut that was bleeding. Phoebe could feel the very air of darkness and danger emanating from him and yet still she felt she wanted to stare at him and never look away. She ignored the urge.
‘You have a little blood upon your cheek.’
He took the handkerchief without a word, wiped the trickle of blood and stuffed the handkerchief into his own pocket.
She could feel the gentleman’s arm around her waist anchoring her onto the saddle, and was too conscious of how close his body was to hers even though he had taken care to slide back in the saddle to leave some room between them. He might not care for manners, but Phoebe’s papa had raised her well.
‘Thank you for your intervention, sir.’ She was pleased to hear that her voice was a deal calmer than she felt.
The pale eyes slid momentarily to hers and she saw that they were serious and appraising. He gave a small inclination of his head as acknowledgement of her gratitude, but he did not smile.
‘They meant to rob me and steal a kiss.’
‘That is not all they would have stolen.’ She could almost feel the resonance of his voice within his chest so close was she to it, deep and rich and yet with that same coolness in it that had been there from the very start.
She looked up into those piercing eyes, not quite certain if his meaning was as she thought. She was so close she could see the iris, as pale and clear a green as that of glass, edged with solid black. She could see every individual dark lash and the dark wings of his brows. The breath seemed to lodge in her throat.
‘If you have no mind to lose it, then you will not travel this road alone again.’ He looked at her meaningfully and then he gee’d the horse to a canter, and there was no more talk.
As the horse gathered speed she gripped the pommel with her left hand, and held her bag in place with her right. The man’s arm tightened around her and their bodies slid together so that Phoebe’s right breast was hard against his chest, her right hip tight against his thigh, his hand holding firm upon her waist. Her heart was thudding too hard, her blood surging all the more and not because of the speed at which the great black horse was thundering along the road. It seemed that the man engulfed her senses, completely, utterly, so that she could not think straight. The time seemed to stretch for ever in a torture of wanton sensations.
He did not stop until they reached the coaching inn.
The high moorland surrounded them now, bleak and barren and vast, stretching into the distance as far as the eye could see. The breeze was stronger here, the birds quieter, the air that bit cooler.
And when he lowered her gently to the ground and she looked up at him to thank him again, the words died on her lips, for he was staring down at her with such intensity she could not look away. All time seemed to stop in that moment and it was as if something passed between them, something Phoebe did not understand that shimmered through the whole of her body. Finally he broke his gaze and turned, urging the great horse out of the inn’s yard, out onto the road and, without a backward glance, galloped away across the moor.
Phoebe stood there with the dust caked thick upon her boots and the hem of her faded blue dress, the travelling bag in her hand, and she watched him until the dark figure upon his dark horse, so stark against the muted greens and purples and browns that surrounded him, faded against the horizon. And only then did she realise he had not asked her name nor told her his. She turned away and walked over to the small stone wall by the side of the inn and sat down in the shade to wait. The clock on the outside of the inn showed half past six.
Chapter Two
Out on the moor the land was washed with a warm orange hue from the setting sun. At Blackloch Hall Sebastian Hunter stood, sombre and unmoving, by the arched-latticework window of his study and stared out across the stretch of rugged moor. A cool breeze stirred the heavy dark-red curtains that framed the window and ruffled through his hair. The clock on the mantel chimed nine and then resumed its slow steady tick. He swirled the brandy in the crystal-cut glass and took a sip, revelling in the rich sweet taste and the heat it left as it washed over his tongue and down his throat. He was only half-listening as Jed McEwan, his friend and steward, sitting in the chair on the opposite side of the desk, covered each point on his agenda. Rather, Hunter was thinking over the day, of Bullford and Linwood’s appearance in Glasgow, and more so over the happenings upon the road—of the highwaymen and the woman. Inside his pocket his fingers touched the small white-lace handkerchief.
‘And finally, in less than a fortnight, it is the annual staff trip to the seaside. Do you plan to attend, Hunter?’ The inflection at the end of McEwan’s voice alerted him to the question.
‘I do.’ It was a tradition passed down through generations of the Hunter family, and Hunter would keep to it regardless of how little he wanted to go.
‘We have covered every item on the list.’
Hunter moved to top up McEwan’s brandy glass, but McEwan put a hand over it and declined with thanks.
‘Mairi been giving you a hard time?’ Hunter asked as he filled his own glass.
‘No, but I should be getting back to her.’ McEwan smiled at the thought and Hunter felt a small stab of jealousy at his friend’s happiness. The darkness that sat upon his soul had long since smothered any such tender feelings in Hunter. ‘My father is arriving tonight.’
Hunter felt the muscle flicker in his jaw. He turned away so that McEwan would not see it.
But McEwan knew. And Hunter knew that he knew.
Through the open window, over the whisper of the wind and the rustle of the heather from the moor, came the faint rumble of distant carriage wheels.
Hunter raised an eyebrow and moved to stand at the window once more. He stared out over the moor, eyes scanning the narrow winding moor road that led only to one place—all the way up to Blackloch. ‘Who the hell …?’ And he thought of Bullford and Linwood again.
‘Sorry, Hunter. I meant to tell you earlier, but I got waylaid with other things and then it slipped my mind.’ McEwan picked up his pile of papers and came to stand by Hunter’s side. ‘That will be your mother’s companion, a Miss Phoebe Allardyce. Mrs Hunter sent Jamie with the gig to Kingswell to meet the woman from the last coach.’
