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‘It will be more difficult tomorrow when he returns and wishes to visit his betrothed. Although the story of our “carriage crash” being all over tomorrow’s newspapers should help. I’ve ensured the news is already being whispered in the clubs.’ His son was good at taking care of such details, but Misbourne offered no thanks; his mind was on other matters.
He slipped the crumpled sheet of paper from the pocket of his dressing gown and smoothed it out that he might stare at it again. The hand was bold, the words, few as they were, angular and angry. A place. A year. And the highwayman’s demand.
1795, Hounslow Heath
The document that was taken—in exchange for your daughter.
He was thinking, and thinking hard. There was only one other person that knew of the document and Misbourne had eyes and ears stationed in every main port in the south watching for his return. It was possible that Rotherham had evaded detection, that he was back in England already. Misbourne’s blood ran cold at the thought and he shivered as if someone had walked over his grave.
‘Father?’ Linwood was staring down into his face and he could see the concern and agitation in the eyes that were so like his own.
‘Let me think,’ Misbourne snapped. It made no sense. Whatever else Rotherham was, he was a man of his word and one who liked everything done exactly to the letter. There was still time left before he would come. Time enough for the wedding between Marianne and Pickering.
Misbourne lounged back against the pillows of his bed and read the words again. The criminal fraternity had a way of talking even when they’d been sworn to silence. A boast in the tap room of a public house, a whisper in the ear of the buxom wench beneath them. Thank God for illiteracy. He wondered how much the highwayman could possibly know.
‘You are not well, Father. Let me deal with this in your stead,’ said Linwood.
‘Don’t fuss so, boy, I tell you I’m fine.’ An idea was taking shape in Misbourne’s mind.
‘And I disagree,’ said Linwood without a flicker of emotion.
‘You always were a stubborn little sod.’
‘Chip off the old block, so they say.’ Linwood held his gaze.
Misbourne gave a smile and shook his head. ‘And they’re not wrong.’
‘Then let us go to the brotherhood,’ said Linwood without returning the smile, speaking of the secret society of which both he and his father were members. ‘Seek their assistance in this.’
‘No!’
‘It’s different now that Hunter is the Master. He’ll help us and—’
‘I said, no, damn you, boy!’ Misbourne felt a stirring of panic and knew he had to convince his son. ‘We manage this ourselves. This is family business; it does not go out with this room, no matter what else you might think.’
Linwood’s face was angry and defiant.
‘I will not risk Marianne’s reputation. I will not risk your sister’s safety. Do you understand?’
Linwood gave a sullen nod. ‘What is this letter from fifteen years ago that he wants?’ It was the question that Misbourne most dreaded to hear.
‘None of your damned business.’
‘Will you give it to him?’
There was a pause before Misbourne replied, ‘Yes, I’ll give it to him.’ His scowl deepened and he pinched at the bridge of his nose, a sure sign that he was trying to control his temper. ‘The day progresses and still we hear nothing.’
‘We will.’
‘What the hell is taking him so long?’ Misbourne’s upper lip curled in a snarl.
‘He means to make sure we take him seriously—and no doubt he wants to twist the knife a little. Whoever he is, he certainly does not like you.’
‘And, by God, I’ll give him good reason not to! By the time I’ve finished with him he won’t know what he likes and what he doesn’t.’ Misbourne was only slightly mollified by the thought.
A knock sounded at the study door. The butler entered, holding a silver salver with a single letter laid upon it.
‘Just delivered, m’lord, by an urchin.’
‘Does the wretch wait for a reply?’
‘No, m’lord. The boy ran off.’
Misbourne saw the servant’s gaze take in his tender swollen cheekbone and felt a spurt of annoyance. He took the letter and dismissed the man with a flick of his fingers. The seal broke easily, but his hands were trembling with impatience and fear as he unfolded the letter and read its content before passing the note to his son.
‘Aldgate High Street where it meets Fen-church and Leadenhall,’ said Linwood. ‘He’s chosen well. It’s a busy junction at the best of times; it will be pandemonium there at three o’clock. And with its links to so many roads and alleys it will be difficult to cover the whole area.’
‘Difficult, but not impossible,’ said Misbourne. ‘Once Marianne is safe…’
‘Once Marianne is safe, we’ll hunt him down like the villain that he is,’ finished his son.
From the rooms above came the sound of a baby crying and a man and woman arguing, shouting and swearing at full volume. An old man was singing a drunken bawdy song and outside, in the street, a dog was barking. Marianne sat very still on the single wooden chair and waited, just as she had waited through all the previous hours. It was the sole piece of furniture in the room. Her eyes ranged again over the pile of filthy covers in the corner that served as a bed. Mould grew on the walls and the floorboards were bare. Two buckets sat behind the door—one held water, and the other was so stained with filth that she did not want to contemplate its use. There was no coal on the fire, no pots or pans. Not so much as a cup to drink from. The dirt encrusted upon the windows made the light hazy and hid her view of the rookery beyond.
‘Who lives here?’ she asked. The filthy bed of rags in the corner gave lie to her denial that anyone could live in such squalor.
‘A family with five children,’ replied the highwayman’s accomplice from behind his pale mask.
‘All in this one room?’
‘Aye, lass. But he’ll pay them more than they get in a year just for the use of this room for a few hours. He helps where he can.’
‘I did not know such poverty existed.’ She had never seen a place the like of this, with its maze of streets and alleyways crowded with ramshackle houses. ‘The children are so ragged and thin, with eyes that seem too old for their faces, and their mothers…’ She thought of the women with their rotten teeth and low, revealing bodices, and how they had fanned their skirts high when they had seen the highwayman and his accomplice.
‘For some, it is the only way they can feed their bairns.’
She was horrified to learn it.
The light was a dull grey and the air was so ripe with rotting rubbish—and worse—that she wondered if she would ever clear the stench of it from her nose. Something small and brown appeared from beneath the mound of blankets and scuttled across the floor.
‘It’ll not be much longer,’ the accomplice assured her. ‘He’ll be here soon and then we’ll have you back with your pa.’
‘You seem to be a kind man. Why are you helping that villain?’
‘He’s not the villain in any of this, m’lady, for all that you think him. And I’m helping him because he’s a good man and he fought his way across a battlefield to save my life. Don’t judge him so harshly. He’s only doing what he must, to set his demons to rest.’
The words were spoken with such sincerity that she could not doubt that the accomplice believed them. And she thought again of the tall dark masked man with amber eyes that made her shiver. ‘Why does that involve my father?’
But the man shook his head. ‘I’ve already said too much. Pardon me, my lady, but that is not my question to answer.’
When the clock struck three, Knight was nowhere near Aldgate High Street. He was drinking champagne in the bow window of White’s Gentleman’s Club with Bullford, Devlin, Razeby and Fallingham, and making sure the ton of London knew that he was there. He knew the boy he had paid would wait for Misbourne to arrive before passing him the note.
‘What d’you make of the story of Misbourne’s carriage crash?’ Bullford was asking.
‘Maybe Pickering’s getting cold feet,’ said Devlin. ‘After all, she’s hardly good ton at the minute. It will take a while longer before Misbourne lives down the embarrassment over Arlesford. And it’s not as if Pickering needs the money.’
‘Lucky escape for little Lady Marianne, if you ask me.’ Fallingham swigged at his champagne. ‘Pickering’s so old that he’s in danger of dying on the job, if you know what I mean.’
All the men except Knight laughed.
‘What do you think, Knight?’ asked Bullford, draining his glass.
He should not give a damn about Marianne Winslow, but he did not wish to think about her lying beneath Pickering. ‘I think it’s time we opened another bottle of champagne,’ he said. ‘I’ve got better things to do with the rest of my day.’ Callerton should have the girl well in place by now.
‘Would that involve keeping a certain widow satisfied?’ Devlin asked.
Knight smiled, but said nothing.
‘Lucky bugger!’ said Razeby. The rest of the men chortled in appreciation.
‘Maybe you should be laying off the champers in preparation for tomorrow’s four-in-hand race. Do you think you’ll beat Hawick?’ asked Bullford.
‘Why? Are you thinking of wagering against me?’ drawled Knight. His eyes slid across the room to the grandfather clock in the corner.
‘Wouldn’t dream of it, old man,’ said Bullford.
‘We like to make money, not lose it,’ agreed Fallingham.
The champagne arrived. ‘A monkey on it that no one can down the bottle in one,’ said Devlin.
‘Prepare to pay up,’ said Fallingham, lifting the bottle and placing it to his lips. He began to drink while his friends stamped their feet and chanted their support around him.
Knight waited until another two bottles of champagne had been opened before he slipped away.
‘If this is a direction to yet another street…’ warned Misbourne, grabbing the letter from beneath the apple cart in Cutler Street. ‘This is the fourth note. He’s had us on a wild goose chase all over London. The villain’s intent on making fools of us.’
‘He’s intent on making it as hard as possible for us to track him…and Marianne,’ corrected Linwood.
‘Give the document to the boy by the organ grinder. Lady Marianne will be delivered to your home.’ Misbourne read the words aloud. ‘Are the men still following us?’ he added beneath his breath to Linwood, who gave a subtle nod and lifted his wolf’s-head walking cane from where it rested on the ground.
‘Then let us hope the boy leads them straight to the villain’s lair.’
‘You should let me go,’ said Linwood.
‘Having you running through the streets will attract too much attention. No, it is better this way.’ Misbourne slipped a folded and sealed document from his pocket and walked over to the fair-haired boy by the organ grinder. The boy saw him coming and Misbourne understood from the expression on his face that the boy knew what to expect. He took the document without a word and disappeared into the crowded street. And the two men lounging in the mouth of the alleyway behind Misbourne slipped into the crowd after him.
Knight took the document from the boy. ‘You’re sure you lost them?’
‘Easy as pie. I passed it to Jim, who passed it to Dodger, who passed it to me. We led ‘em a merry dance all the way down to the dockland just as you said and left ‘em there.’
‘Good.’ Knight slipped the coins into the boy’s grubby hand.
‘Pleasure doing business with you, gov, as always.’ And the boy disappeared again.
Knight’s heart was thumping hard. The folded paper was fragile and yellowed with age. He could see the shadow of writing shining through its thinness. His mouth dried with anticipation. The question had haunted him every day of the last fifteen years—now he held the answer in his hands. He took a breath and carefully unfolded the document.
His eyes scanned the faded ink. The document was dated for June 1795 and was a letter from a senior government minister of the time to Misbourne. Several sensitive topics were discussed and it was clear, from both the tone and the detail revealed, that the two men were on friendly terms. It was a letter that many might have paid to read, the stuff of petty scandal, but Knight crushed it within his hand as a red mist descended before him.
Marianne heard the footsteps outside in the alleyway before the highwayman’s accomplice did. The highwayman strode into the room wearing the same long dark coat he had worn upon Hounslow Heath, but his hat was the smart beaver she had watched him don in the coach, and beneath the coat she caught a glimpse of the fine white shirt and dark waistcoat. The mask tied around his face had moulded to his features and his boots left a trail of footsteps through the dirt of the floor.
After all these hours of waiting, he had finally come to return her to her father. Her stomach tightened with anticipation. Then she met his eyes, and they were not golden and light but dark and dangerous and filled with such a cold hard rage that she knew, before he even spoke the words to his accomplice, that it had all gone wrong.
‘Misbourne played us false.’
‘He didn’t deliver the document?’ The accomplice sounded as shocked as Marianne felt.
‘Not the right one. Does he think me so much a fool that I would not notice?’
‘You said he was a blackguard but, even so, what manner of man risks his own daughter?’ the accomplice whispered, but she heard him just the same.
‘No!’ Marianne leapt to her feet so suddenly that the chair tipped back and clattered on to the floor. ‘You’re lying! My father must be confused. You cannot have made it clear what you wanted.’
The highwayman walked right up to her and his eyes were dark and deadly. ‘Your father knows exactly what I want, Lady Marianne.’
‘No,’ she whispered, shaking her head, knowing that what the highwayman was saying could not be true. ‘He would not leave me here with you. He would do everything in his power to save me.’ She knew it with all her heart.
Something of the rage diminished in the highwayman’s eyes and the way he was looking at her made his words ring true more than any angry assertions could have done. ‘I am sorry, Lady Marianne.’
‘There must be some mistake.’
The harshness of his whisper softened. ‘There is no mistake.’
‘You’re lying,’ she said again and her voice was very quiet and controlled, in such contrast to the terrible frenzied thud of her heart. Of course he was lying. He had to be lying.
He said nothing, just stood there and looked at her, and she could not bear to see the pity in his eyes.
‘You’re lying!’ she shouted it this time. ‘You just want more from him!’
‘Lady Marianne.’ Gently he tried to take her arm.
‘No!’ She flinched and pushed him away. ‘Do not touch me!’
‘We have to move,’ she heard his accomplice say in the background. ‘What do we do with the girl?’
The highwayman did not take his gaze from hers as he answered, ‘We take her home with us.’
The accomplice gestured the highwayman aside. They talked in hushed tones, but Marianne could hear some of what they were saying.
‘Maybe we should just let her go. If Misbourne isn’t going to give up the document…’ The accomplice was arguing to release her.
