The Marsh Hawk (23 page)

“And you've come here now to plead his case, is that it?” Jenna said icily. “He
has
no case, Robert. Simon is the Marsh Hawk. He didn't even try to deny it!”

“Yes, he is the one they call the Marsh Hawk,” the vicar returned, “but the Marsh Hawk is not responsible for your father's death, Jenna. And, no, I haven't come to plead his case. Speaking with you is entirely my idea. Simon doesn't know. I've come with a message for Phelps, actually.”

“Then you'd best deliver it. I have to go. I want to leave before Simon returns.”

“Simon isn't returning,” the vicar said, getting to his feet. “He's on his way to London. I have come to instruct Phelps to join him en route.”

Jenna's face fell. Something wrenched her stomach as though a fist had clenched around it, and her lower lip began to tremble. Why should she care? She was running from him, after all, wasn't she? Why did this news seize her heart in such an icy grip?

“Jenna, you and Simon love each other,” the vicar said, interrupting her thoughts. “You need to talk this through. Running away is never the answer.”

“Tell that to Simon!” she retorted. “He has a head start on me, so it seems.”

“I just did.”

“Well then, there it is!” Jenna snapped, throwing up her hands.

“He isn't angry that you shot him, you know. He's hurt that you could actually believe him capable of murder, and that you didn't trust his love for you enough to make your confession to him instead of to me.”

Jenna rose from the love seat as steadily as her trembling knees would allow. “I have to go,” she said. “The coupe is in the drive, and I don't want to keep Barstow waiting.”

“Where will you go?”

“Home . . . to Thistle Hollow. I shall hire a coach in Newquay, and Barstow will return with the coupe straightaway.”

“You're taking Molly, of course.”

“Molly is part of Simon's household,” she said, her voice frosty. “I want nothing of his, Robert.”

“But . . . it isn't safe, a woman alone . . . unchaperoned! There are dangers . . . there are . . . there are—”

“Highwaymen?” Jenna said. She flashed a cold smile. “Nothing I could possibly suffer at their hands could compare to that which I have suffered at the hands of my ‘friends.' Now, if you will excuse me? I don't want to keep Barstow waiting.”

“Jenna, are you going to . . . Will you expose him?”

She had been expecting that question, but it didn't make it any easier to hear, especially from Robert. That she held his words in contempt was evident; she made no effort to hide it. For a long moment, she stared at him through angry tears.

“Will you?” he urged during her silence.

“Good bye, Robert,” she murmured with disdain, and fled.

It was dark in the taproom at the Heatherwood Arms, where Simon waited out of patience in a shadowy corner, nursing a flagon of bitter black ale. Was he nursing his wounds as well, as the vicar had accused? Possibly, though he wouldn't admit to it then, not even to himself, as he absently drew on his clay pipe. It tasted flat—as bitter as the ale. Not even his custom-blended tobacco satisfied. He wondered if it ever would again.

The barmaid across the way was vying for his attention—a furtive glance, a well-displayed bosom strategically arranged to catch the lamplight. There was a time when he might have accepted the invitation in those doelike brown eyes trained so seductively upon him, but that was all a very long time ago, before he'd fallen in love with a mysterious beauty with hair like spun gold in the setting sun and eyes that shone like mercury.

All at once Jenna's image passed before him and he recalled those quicksilver eyes dilated with desire, glazed with a passion that he alone had awakened. Oh, how she had loved him. With what unfettered abandon had she reverenced—yes, that was the word—
reverenced
him. No lover had ever reverenced him before. And he knew with a sinking heart that he would never again know so complete a surrender of rapturous innocence. What heaven it had been to be drenched in the dew of her first awakening. No woman would ever again receive him with so pure and complete a submission to the very essence of love.

A soft moan escaped him, and he drowned it in a rough swallow of the Heatherwood Arms' infamous black ale. He grimaced as it burned all the way down to the empty, growling pit of his clenched belly, mercifully cooling the fire that those bittersweet memories had kindled in his loins. The notorious brew wasn't potent enough, however, to extinguish that fire altogether. Something primeval still stirred in the very core of him, reliving that ecstasy, and he shifted uneasily in the chair that creaked with his sleek, muscular weight.

He took another swallow—just to be sure that heat was doused—and grimaced again. No, not quite. And if this poisonous stuff couldn't do it, he was doomed. Would nothing quench the damnable fire? In that wretched, turgid moment, if he were a betting man, he would have wagered heavily against it.

Phelps was nearly upon him before he saw the straight-backed valet threading his way through the crowd. He tapped the dead ash from his pipe against a salver on the table, and tucked the pipe away inside his waistcoat pocket as he got to his feet, scudding the chair out behind him.

“Well, it's about time!” he complained. “What kept you, man? It will be dark in an hour, and we've a long ride ahead. Who's driving the coach?”

“I haven't got the coach, my lord,” said Phelps. “There is a graver press.”

“What ‘press'? What's happened now?” he queried, with a hitch in his stride as he led the valet toward the taproom door.

“The countess has taken it upon herself to run off to Thistle Hollow, my lord.”

“And?”

“Alone,”
Phelps pronounced, his eyebrow inching up in its inimitable manner.

“Bloody hell!” Simon spat through clenched teeth, steering the valet outside into the warm, late afternoon haze. “How has she gone, Phelps?”

“Barstow drove her into Newquay in the coupe. Mister Nast said she planned to hire a coach there to take her on to Launceston.”

“Alone and unchaperoned—with night coming on? And he couldn't stop her, go after her?”

“Evidently not, my lord. A burial has detained him, that's why he sent me to bring you. He was most distressed, my lord. He said for me to tell you that no matter what your feelings for my lady, neither of you needs her meeting with foul play upon your conscience. Begging your pardon, but what did he mean by that, my lord?”

“Never mind!” Simon snapped. “Go round back, fetch my horse and follow me. I'm taking yours. We've got to make some time by nightfall.”

“Oh, no, my lady, I'll not hear of it!” Barstow barked, hat in hand. Decked out in full coachman's regalia from red woolen scarf and caped coat, to cord knee breeches and painted top boots, he was facing Jenna beside the carriage house at the coaching station in Newquay. His outburst had turned more than one head as he argued with her. “I know my place right enough,” he said to her indignant sputtering, “but I also know my duty, and you'll not be going on to Launceston in the dead of dark all on your own. Why, the master'd kill me if I let you! He'd skin the hide clean offa me if I ever let you go off alone with night coming on. You was raised here in Cornwall, my lady, you know night comes quick on the coast. You see that sky up there? It'll be black as coal tar pitch in an hour.”

Jenna stamped her foot in defiance. She didn't want Simon's coupe or his groom or
anything
that belonged to him. That was all supposed to end right there at the Newquay Coaching Station. She needed no reminders of her broken heart.

“You don't seem to understand,” she said, aiming for restraint in her fractured tone. “I'm not coming back, Barstow. I'm going home for good.”

“That's between you and the master,” he said with a shrug. “This here is between you and me, and I'll not have you spoil my sleep for worrying over what's become of you. I'm taking you on to Launceston, and that's the end of it. I've got old Effie up top; she's loaded and at the ready, and I'll use her if needs must to get you where you're going safely. It's a pretty rough stretch between here and Launceston, my lady. If I'd known this was what you was planning, I never would have stopped. I'd have drove right through!”

“Barstow, please,” Jenna pleaded. “I know you mean well, and I bless you for that, but I really want to go on alone.”

“You've got enemies, my lady, I seen it myself, and you can't deny it,” the groom argued. He folded his arms and thrust his bearded chin out stubbornly. “You can hire yourself a carriage if that's your pleasure; I can't stop you, but you'll be wasting your blunt, since I'm going to follow right along after you. So you might as well get right back into this coupe here.”

As frustrated as she was, Jenna almost smiled. Barstow had an endearing quality about him; she had recognized and bonded with it at their first meeting. His incontrovertible demeanor told her that he meant every word. Considering his point, she had to admit that his presence was a comfort, and so was his trusted flintlock, Effie. The light was fading fast. Soon it would be full dark. She dared wait no longer to set out for the south, and she took a ragged breath that brought her posture down.

“Very well, Barstow, you win,” she conceded.

“Give me your valuables,” he said, holding out his leathered palm; it looked as though it belonged on a man twice his age.

“Excuse me?” she murmured.

“Them earbobs there, and your rings, my lady,” said the groom. “I'll not lie to you, the roads hereabouts are crawling with thatchgallows. Unless you want to be donating those doo-dads to the first brigand that stops us, you'd best let me hide them away up top.”

She glanced down at her hands. She had meant to leave her jewelry behind with everything else Simon had given her, but she'd left in such a hurry she'd forgotten all about it. She took off her earbobs, and the beautiful ruby and diamond ring Simon had slipped on her finger when he proposed, and handed them over without batting an eye. But when she came to her wedding ring, she hesitated, clouding, before she yanked it from her finger and thrust it toward him also.

“Better give me what's in that reticule, too,” Barstow prompted, gesturing. She held the purse out toward him, but he fended it off with a raised hand. “No, my lady, leave a pound or so, and whatever coins you've got in it, and give me the rest to hold for you. If we are stopped and the gallows dancers find your purse empty, they're bound to be suspicious, and it could get ugly. It's best to let them have a little if it comes down to it, rather than suffer a search of your person for the lot they think you've put by, if you take my meaning, my lady.”

Jenna gulped and handed him the notes. Was that the sort of thing Simon would stoop to on his forays? She shuddered to wonder, but the picture it painted in her mind caused jealousy to arise right along with disdain.

“There's a space under the seat—a false bottom so to speak,” Barstow explained. “The master had one built inta all his coaches. Your notes and gewgaws will be safe enough up top under my arse. Begging your pardon, my lady.”

Jenna didn't reply. The blood drained away from her face suddenly. He was right, of course. It all seemed like a nightmare, and she prayed that she would wake beside her husband in the spacious mahogany four-poster. She prayed there would be no wound in his shoulder, no highwayman costume in the tower, and no pistols—still warm, smelling of gunpowder—in the drawer of the chifforobe there. But the nightmare was real, and she climbed into the coupe and leaned back against the padded leather squabs in defeat, while the groom snapped the whip and set the horses in motion.

It wasn't long before darkness fell and Barstow lit the carriage lamps. Clouds hid the moon, bringing to Jenna's mind another night, dark and still—perfect for highway robbery. Cold chills played along her spine upon making that comparison. She couldn't help dwelling upon Barstow's precautions. Was she being unduly overset and he overly cautious? She wanted to believe it, but she still wished she had the sort of security one of the weapons from her father's collection would have provided.

Nothing was visible through the isinglass windows of the coupe. Tall oaks and ancestral chestnut trees formed a natural arbor over the road for long stretches, barring what stingy spurts of moonlight the clouds begrudged now and then. There wasn't even the flicker of lantern glow from the coaches of fellow travelers to comfort her; the road ahead and behind was deserted.

Now and again she heard Barstow's scratchy voice asking after her comfort as the milestones zipped by unnoticed in the dark. In spite of herself, she was glad that she'd given in and let the faithful groom convey her after all. She felt safe with him in the driver's seat, and it wasn't long before the rhythmic clopping of the horses' hooves and the swaying of the coupe as it sped over the highway began to nudge her toward sleep. Finally, she gave in to it.

Soon, however, another sound bled into that sleep, touching off strange dreams of cracking whips and mad commands to horses that seemed suddenly to fly, their hooves scarcely touching the ground. All at once it seemed as if she were cast adrift in a rocking boat instead of the compact two-seater coupe, listing this way and that as it careened around the treacherous hairpin curves of her dream. Then came the gunshots at close range, and Jenna tumbled out of her nightmare and into heart-stopping reality as she pitched forward off the seat and landed in a heap on the floor of the carriage as it pulled to a creaking, shuddering halt in the darkness.

“Stand and deliver, I say!” a strange voice boomed gruffly, close beside the shuddering coach window.