The Lady and the Highwayman Page 5

  There was likely a great deal of truth to that. Elizabeth worried over the reception of her tales, having lived a decidedly different life than most who read them. She did attempt to include some of the vernacular her readers were accustomed to but felt certain her origins showed in her writing.

  “You know of Mr. Walker’s work?” Mr. Headley looked to his companion with surprise.

  “Fletcher Walker has been the undisputed king of the penny dreadfuls for some time now. Though I do not read those tales, I have most certainly heard of him.”

  Elizabeth’s respect for Miss Vance grew. Not all people from the higher echelons of literature were willing to acknowledge in any positive way the offerings from “the dregs.”

  “Then you have likely heard of Mr. King.” Ana whispered the name.

  Both Mr. Headley and Miss Vance nodded. Elizabeth did as well, not wanting to draw attention to herself while such a potentially disastrous topic was discussed.

  Ana looked to her. “I have heard a few of our girls mention Mr. King’s stories, though I do not know for certain if any of them have read his work.”

  “What do they have to say about these stories?” Heavens, she was tempting fate, but her interest was too piqued to be fully ignored.

  “Only that they have heard that his stories include dashing heroes and brave heroines, villains who try to thwart true love.” Ana smiled. “I don’t know that any schoolgirl could resist such a thing.”

  “Surely, you don’t encourage them to read the penny dreadfuls.” Miss Vance’s shock was tempered by a hint of amusement.

  “Could you imagine the uproar amongst the parents if we did?” Elizabeth had, in fact, imagined it many times, the certainty of the outcome convincing her to be vigilant in keeping her nom de plume a secret. “I have not heard there is anything truly untoward in King’s offerings, but parents expect schools to focus on literature of higher—”

  “—quality?” Mr. Headley supplied with a smile.

  Elizabeth didn’t argue, though she felt sorely tempted. “I intended to say ‘educational reputation.’”

  “One must also be concerned with the reputation of those who write these low tales,” Miss Vance said.

  “They aren’t the sort impressionable young minds ought to be influenced by,” Mr. Headley said.

  The others all nodded.

  Elizabeth’s heart pounded even harder. These were the very arguments that kept her silent about her secret writing projects. If Mr. King’s identity were revealed, she was certain that all her students would be pulled from the school.

  “And one cannot ignore the questionable Dread Penny Society.” Miss Vance’s voice was breathless with both amazement and shock.

  Mr. Headley raised his brows, not in surprise but agreement.

  “What is this?” Elizabeth asked.

  “The ‘Dread Penny Society,’” Miss Vance repeated. “It is rumored a group of penny dreadful authors has banded together to form a gentleman’s club.”

  “That does not seem objectionable.”

  Miss Vance shook her head. “Not a gentleman’s club in the traditional sense. They are involved in some very questionable activities.”

  “Nefarious activities?”

  Mr. Headley answered. “That is a point of debate.”

  This grew more intriguing by the moment. She leaned forward, eager to hear more. While Mr. Fletcher Walker had given the impression of being less refined than his friend or Mr. Headley or any number of fine gentlemen in attendance at the salon gathering, he had not struck her as a ne’er-do-well. Was he, in fact, the contemporary equivalent of the highwaymen of old? Harmless in the light of day but, in secret, a criminal?

  “It is rumored”—Miss Vance lowered her voice further—­“that they were involved in the disappearance of a child earlier this week.”

  Intrigue gave way to alarm. “Goodness.”

  “They are kidnappers?” Ana asked, shocked.

  “That is the debate,” Mr. Headley said. “There is no consensus as to whether the child was abducted or rescued. Some claim the master sweep from whose company the boy disappeared is, in fact, a brute of the worst sort and the Dread Penny Society somehow helped the child slip away unnoticed. Others say the man was no worse than most and that this questionable club spirited the boy away, perhaps to work as a servant at their headquarters, where, it is rumored, other children are similarly employed.”

  “Why does the magistrate not send a constable to their clubhouse and investigate?” A possible kidnapping seemed too drastic a situation to have been utterly ignored.

  “No one knows where it is,” Miss Vance said. “They are quite secretive.”

  Elizabeth’s suspicions rose. She had not spent hours of her time concocting plots and mysterious endeavors for Mr. King in vain, after all. “If they are so very secretive, how is it you—and apparently many others—know so much of them as to discuss such details?”

  That seemed to give them both pause.

  Ana, surprisingly, was the one to answer. “If they are connected to activities as noteworthy as children disappearing from the streets, whether for good or evil, the population cannot avoid some awareness of their society. That so much else is unknown only fuels speculation.”

  “A very sensible evaluation,” Miss Vance said.

  As the conversation turned to music and other, less drastic, topics, Mr. Headley leaned closer to Elizabeth. “I was reluctant for you to be introduced to Mr. Walker last week, considering he may be participating in these potentially nefarious undertakings. But Mr. Darby’s association with him makes him less objectionable. I don’t know that the introduction could have been avoided without causing a scene, as it was. I do apologize.”

  She thanked him for his concern but assured him she had not been injured by the acquaintance. Inwardly, though, something came alive.

  She, who had only ever written about women pursuing dangerous mysteries and encountering highwaymen and villains and countless people who were not what they appeared to be, had a mystery of her own to solve, complete with shady figures, secrecy, and handsome, intriguing men.

  Miss Black could not directly pursue the mystery herself.

  Mr. King, however, might manage the thing.

  by Mr. King

  Installment II,

  in which the actions of the Dastardly Highwayman are spoken of by All and Sundry!

  The dreariness of Calden Manor, where Lucinda was to make her home now, could not possibly be overstated. The crumbling remains of long-abandoned wings of the once stately home sat in the shadow of imposing towers with parapets and arrow slits that spoke of violent days gone by. The corridors were long and winding, dark and foreboding. The staff numbered but two: a housekeeper nearly as ancient as the house itself, and the rheumatic coachman, who also served as gardener and butler. She had no neighbors near enough for spotting from the windows of the house, no promise of companionship, and little beyond the nightly moan of the wind to break the silence of her new residence.

  Day after day, she watched the front drive in vain, longing with all the fervor of her tender heart for a neighbor to call. The local village must have included a church. Would not even the vicar welcome her? Had she been so abandoned by all in heaven and on earth?

  “I should very much like to call upon my nearest neighbor,” she told the coachman after a week of loneliness. “Do any estates lie within walking distance?”

  “One mustn’t walk through the forest, Miss Ledford,” he answered with trembling voice. “One mustn’t!”

  That dastardly highwayman had undertaken his villainy on the road running adjacent to the nearby forest. Had the encounter left her coachman so rattled? Poor man. Poor, poor man!

  “Have I no neighbors in the direction leading away from the fearful forest upon whom I might safely call?”

  �
��One is not safe anywhere near the forest.” The coachman shook his head as he spoke.

  “Am I never, then, to have the company of a neighbor or friend? Am I forever to be alone in this place?”

  The question repeated in her mind as more days passed with neither sight nor sound of anyone beyond the three unhappy inhabitants of the manor. The nights stretched long against the cacophony of the howling wind and rustling leaves of the forest.

  Until finally, a fortnight following her arrival, carriage wheels could be heard. She rushed to the widow of her sitting room, heart aglow with the possibility of companionship. She was not disappointed. No fewer than three coaches stopped on the drive below.

  “Company!” declared she. “At long last!”

  She paused long enough only to check her reflection and make certain she was presentable. A quick smoothing of her hair and a moment to straighten the paste necklace she had taken to wearing set her appearance to rights.

  Excitement quickening her steps, she flew from the room to the top of the narrow front stairs in time to see a veritable crowd spill in from the cold environs beyond the front door. She had dreamed of one visitor; she was to have nearly a dozen!

  “You are most welcome,” said she, wishing her eagerness hadn’t rendered her speech quite so warbly. “Please, please do come in.”

  A particularly beautiful lady, likely only a few years older than herself, spoke first. “Forgive our neglect of you these past two weeks. It is not safe to travel these roads alone. We have at last found a day when all of us could call at once, together.”

  So it was not only Lucinda’s coachman who found the area too dangerous. The housekeeper pointed the newcomers in the direction of the drawing room before shuffling off, apparently uninterested in or unable to see to their needs. No matter. Lucinda would make certain of their welcome.

  The drawing room, empty of all adornment other than the sparse furnishings, proved a mismatched choice for hosting so large a group. Oh, that her first opportunity for being amongst others might have been undertaken with greater dignity. The ladies occupied the chairs and sofas. The gentlemen stood. Lucinda blushed. What an impression to make on those she hoped would be friendly companions.

  Miss Higgins, as she was informed the lovely young lady was called, addressed Lucinda as soon as the group was settled. “Whisper has it you endured an encounter with our famous local highwayman.”

  “I fear I did.” She had been afforded time enough over the lonely fortnight to reflect on that interaction. She found herself less frightened than she had been at first, and increasingly confused. “He was surprisingly kind, though unsurprisingly rude.”

  “Rude?” a gentleman in the group asked, his voice nearly as high as Miss Higgins’. “I’ve not heard him described thus.”

  “I was afraid,” Lucinda said, “trembling, even. And he laughed. To laugh at the distress one is causing is, indeed, rude.”

  She received a few nods of agreement.

  “Are you certain he was laughing at you?” an older woman in the group asked, her eyes and hair the same bright shade of gray. “Our highwayman is known for finding humor in most situations. I suspect all of us have heard that deep, echoing laugh of his.”

  “Keeps his face covered, though,” another gentleman added. “Deucedly unfair of him, that.” The man met Lucinda’s gaze and, with a dip of his head, said, “Forgive my uncouth language, Miss Ledford.”

  “Our highwayman can be a touch unsavory in his language as well,” Miss Higgins said, “but never vulgar. One suspects he might be a gentleman after all.”

  “Or a clever mimic,” another suggested.

  “Have you all encountered him, then?” How odd that none of them spoke truly condemningly of the highwayman. Indeed, she sensed fondness in many of their recollections.

  “Oh, yes,” the higher-voiced man said. “Many times, in fact.”

  “Does he not feel he has stolen enough from all of you?” What could be left to take? Were her neighbors so very well-heeled that repeated robbery could be endured with such pleasantness and aplomb?

  The older woman swatted away the thought with a gloved hand. “He never steals a thing. None of us has what he is searching for.”

  Reflecting on her own interaction with the highwayman, Lucinda recollected a similar declaration from him. He said he had not found amongst her humble assortment of belongings what he wished to find. Indeed, he had even returned to her the very necklace she now wore, one she hadn’t realized resided in her carriage. Had he shown all his victims such consideration?

  “If he found what he is looking for, would he take it, do you think?” she asked them all.

  A gentleman who had not yet spoken answered. “I believe he would.” His deeper voice stood at odds with the other man who’d offered thoughts on the matter. This ­gentleman—for everything in his manner and appearance declared him as such—possessed a pair of eyes so lightly blue as to resemble ice more than pools of deep water, yet the effect was not an unpleasant one. “And I further believe he would not feel overly guilty about simply making off with the mysterious item.”

  She cast her eyes over the group, searching for some indication that they, as a whole, condemned such a thing. “Do you not find his actions insupportable?”

  “We are of two minds on the matter,” Miss Higgins said. “Many agree with me that our highwayman, in not relieving anyone of his or her belongings, has shown that his motivations are not truly dastardly. He must be in search of something of great importance, something that, we suspect, is of utmost significance for the safety and well-being of us all. Though Sir Frederick”—she indicated the man with ice-blue eyes—“has suggested our gentleman of the road is in search of a fantastical treasure and that we ought to all be wary of him and his band of thieves.”

  Lucinda looked to Sir Frederick and saw confirmation in his captivating eyes, but no anger or bitterness. His well-­defined jaw was not set with tension, but was at ease, and testified, somehow, of both strength and gentleness.

  “You do not think as well of this highwayman as your neighbors do,” she observed.

  “It is possible his motivations are pure and philanthropic, but one must question his approach,” Sir Frederick said. “He hides his aim and his identity, causes distress to good and innocent people. That must give us pause.”

  “You wish to see him punished? Or worse?” No matter that she had encountered the thief but once and had, at his hand, been made to endure very real fear for her person and safety, she found she could not be at ease with the idea of him facing imprisonment or the gallows. Heaven forfend!

  “If he and his comrades are doing such gallant and admirable work, then why undertake it in such a way that can’t help but call their admirableness into question?” he asked.

  Miss Higgins answered. “Perhaps something about the object he seeks requires that he do so under the shadow of secrecy.”

  “Perhaps,” Sir Frederick countered, “he is simply a villain.”

  “You are determined to think ill of him?” Miss Higgins demanded.

  “Not determined,” the gentleman answered. “I am simply wary. And”—his eyes moved momentarily to Lucinda—“disappointed to know he caused our lovely new neighbor distress. I wish for all the world that he had not.”

  The unexpected kindness touched her deeply. She pulled from the cuff of her well-worn dress a lace-edged handkerchief, holding it at the ready should this surge of emotion begin slipping from her eyes. Too many days alone. Too many nights spent listening to the unsettling wind in the fearsome forest. How she needed his gentle words. How she’d needed this visit!

  Her neighbors remained far longer than most casual calls permitted. She was grateful those particular rules of propriety were lax here in this empty corner of the world.

  Some two hours later, when it was time for her neighbors to depa
rt, she thanked them again and again as they made their way to their carriages. How she wished they could remain. She said as much, only to be met with firm and insistent imploring, that, were she ever away from home, she not remain long enough that her journeys would be undertaken in the dark of night.

  “Because of the highwayman?” she guessed.

  “No,” Sir Frederick answered, earnest and concerned. “Because what lurks in the forest is a far greater threat than he could ever be.”

  As far as Fletcher knew, no club in all of London other than the Dread Penny Society had a boxing saloon in its club building. But, then, the Dreadfuls, as they liked to call themselves, weren’t an ordinary sort of club.

  Fletcher tossed his shirt onto an obliging bench. He rolled his shoulders, stretched his neck.

  “Limber up all you want,” Hollis said. “Stone is still going to pummel you.”

  Fletcher smiled back at him. “’Ave a little faith in me.”

  “I have plenty of faith,” his friend insisted. “I also have a functioning brain, one capable of predicting precisely how this is going to end: with you prostrate on the floor.”

  Stone’s nostrils flared above his twisted mouth; it was his signature look of amusement. Fletcher didn’t know why Stone’s expression seldom showed anything but the slightest hint at his thoughts and feelings. He was a closed book, as the saying went. He was also a deeply good man. Brave. Unflinching. Steadfast. With a devastatingly fast and brutal fist.

  “Do you mean to treat me with kid gloves?” Fletcher asked with a laugh.

  “No.” Stone laid his shirt over a nearby stool, the cruel scars of his former life laid bare.

  “Irving would give you less of a challenge, Fletch.” Hollis made no effort to hide his enjoyment of the arrangement. “I could go get him. I believe he’s in the library.”

  A grumpy ol’ codger who couldn’t’ve felled a gnat, Irving occupied a creaky if comfortable place on the far side of seventy years old.