The Marsh Hawk (30 page)

“Excuse me,” Jenna murmured to her mother, and made her way to the vicar's side.

“I told you it wouldn't matter,” he said emptily, gazing over the rim of his cup toward Evelyn gliding by in the arms of the dapper young dandy. Giving a start, he gestured toward the punch bowl. “May I pour you some?”

“No, thank you,” Jenna declined, shaking her head. “Why haven't you asked her to dance?”

“I'm a dreadful dancer, Jenna,” he confessed. “I'd maim her sure as check.”

“I shall be the judge of that,” Jenna challenged. Taking the punch cup from his hand, she led him out onto the dance floor in the midst of a gallop in progress. “You lie,” she observed, as he easily swept her along without missing a beat. “A shamefully shocking foible for a vicar, I daresay.”

“You mock me now.”

“No, I'm not that cruel; I'm sorry that you think it. I'm simply trying to loosen you up a bit. You're strung as tight as a fiddle bow, I can feel it.”

“Do we have a truce, then?” he murmured.

“For the moment,” she replied. “I've put too much into this to risk failure. Did you come here simply to sit on the sidelines and moon over her all night? You make a poor wallflower. She isn't going to jump into your arms, you know, Robert. You're going to have to take some initiative here. I know you can do it. I've seen the other side of you—the bold and daring Robert Nast, who isn't afraid to come to the aid of his friends, pistols blazing if needs must. Remember?”

“Are things any better between you and Simon?” he asked, as Simon waltzed awkwardly by with her mother. “I was watching you two dancing before, and I thought perhaps . . . that is, I was hoping—”

“Don't change the subject,” Jenna snapped. “You aren't at all adept at it, you know.”

“I'm not trying to be. I'm worried about . . . about both of you.”

“You'll have to take that up with Simon.”

“That's just it. He won't say.”

“Well, that's unfortunate, because you've had your last confession from me!” she snapped, well aware of the bitter tears in her voice. She couldn't disguise them, though she blinked them back bravely for the second time in less than half an hour.

“I thought as much,” he said through a sigh. “Jenna—”

“I am not important tonight, Robert. Neither is Simon. You and Evelyn are. When the music stops, I want you to march out there and ask that girl for the next dance.”

“I'm too embarrassed, especially now, since she . . . knows. Besides, her dance card is certainly filled, judging by that lot waiting in the wings.”

“Embarrassed, is it? You're going to be a good deal more than that unless you swallow your ridiculous pride and fight for that girl!”

He didn't get much chance. The minute the musicians stopped playing, the other dancer swept Evelyn into the garden through the terrace doors. After a moment, acting on an instinct he couldn't explain, Robert followed, but discretely, at a distance close enough to observe unseen as the young buck led her through the rose arbor where the shadows hid them, forcing him to draw nearer still.

“I think we shall be missed, sir,” Evelyn said, her voice unsteady and thin.

“James—call me James,” the dashing young Corinthian replied.

“Yes, uh . . . James, Ireally think we ought to go back in now.”

“But you said you were overheated from dancing. Let the sea breeze cool you a moment.”

“It's very dark tonight,” she hedged. “Th-there's no moon. W-why, I can hardly see you, sir.”

“There's more than enough light for what I have in mind,” the man replied. A guttural growl followed, then a rustling followed by Evelyn's muffled cries. The man seized her in rough arms and covered her mouth with his own. His familiar fingers plunged inside her bodice, groping the breast beneath. He had freed it from the low-cut décolleté, and was attempting to hoist her skirt when Robert's quick hand separated them and spun the dandy around, his white-knuckled fist splaying the man out flat at his feet.

The young man's outcries, more of surprise than pain, in concert with Evelyn's hysterical screams as she covered herself, ruptured the silence. The racket rose above the music filtering from the ballroom, bringing a flood of people pouring through the terrace doors into the garden.

“How dare you lay hands upon Lady Evelyn, sir?” Robert seethed, hauling the man to his feet.

“Look here! Do you know who I am, you gudgeon?” the Corinthian spluttered.

“I know that you are no gentleman, but a rake and a rattle!” the vicar said, shaking him. “That is all I need know.”

“Oh, come now,” the young man chortled. “It's not like I've offended the honor of a lady. Word all over town is she's been diddling her . . .'benefactor,' and that he's staged this whole vulgar show to trick some unsuspecting prospect such as myself to take her off his hands.”

Simon had reached them. His arm shot past Robert's in an attempt to relieve him of the young buck, but the vicar would not relinquish his hold.

“Not this time, Simon,” he said through his teeth. “Not—this—time!” Shoving Simon's hand away, he launched a rock-hard fist that splattered blood over the young buck's neckcloth and silk waistcoat, and sent him sprawling on the manicured lawn.

Jenna's firm hand on Simon's arm turned him around with a jerk. She didn't say a word, but her eyes and wagging head spoke an emphatic “no.”

The crowd had increased, surrounding Simon and the vicar, who had knocked the young buck senseless, and Evelyn, who stood sobbing in the dowager's arms. Nobody noticed Jenna; she had fallen behind in the crowd. It was the perfect opportunity, and in the confusion of the moment, she slipped away.

The Grand Ballroom was deserted when she reached it. Even the musicians had fled, and she slipped the key to the tower from her beaded chatelaine purse, stole out through the Great Hall into the courtyard, and ran to the orchard.

She would not light the coach lantern inside the tower; it might be seen from the house. In minutes, she had rummaged through the chifforobe and exchanged her delicate silk frock for a pair of Simon's black pantaloons and shirt, and one of the light cloaks she found inside, along with his mask and dated tricorn hat—the perfect thing for covering her hair. The pantaloons were a poor fit to say the least, but that couldn't be helped, and the boots were a problem. Her feet swam in them. Tugging them on over her morocco leather slippers took up some of the slack, however, and, hoping she wouldn't have to walk too far in them, she snatched a brace of pistols from the chifforobe drawer, loaded them, and picked her way gingerly through the woodbine groundcover to the burgeoning fruit trees beyond. Then, following the sound of Treacle's nervous snorts at her approach, she groped her way along in the darkness, as black as coal tar pitch without the moon to light her course.

The horse seemed to know his way through the orchard in the shortcut the vicar often took on his visits, and Jenna gave him his head until the path spilled out onto the road that stretched between Newquay and St. Enoder. There she took charge and moved more cautiously. The highway was deserted. She wasn't sure if that was a good sign, or bad. It was still early, and the stretch of road ahead was straight enough for her to see that there were no visible carriage lights One of the few wooded patches that might give a highwayman shelter caught her attention. Nothing seemed untoward, and she proceeded past the spot with caution, only to draw an easy breath once it was behind her, telling that her judgment was sound.

Revisiting this desolate stretch of road riddled her with gooseflesh. What madness was she embarked upon? What had possessed her to stage the same scene—re-create the same nightmare that had begun all her woes? That it was illogical had never occurred to her then, nothing had, except that she do what she'd set out to do what seemed a lifetime ago: avenge her father.

Was she really ready to gun down another brigand? No. She'd never meant to do that in the first place—which even Simon knew.
Simon
. Though her heart ached to put all to rights, she wouldn't even try. There wasn't any use. His pride was too obdurate.

How could she ever have thought that Simon was capable of murder? How could she ever have doubted him? What a ninnyhammer she had proven to be, knowing the measure of the man, his sterling devotion to those close to him and those under the yoke of oppression; his loyalty and tenacity to prosper their lives with a blatant disregard for his own. He had never shown her anything but kindness, and a heartfelt devotion the likes of which she had never known. How could she have thrown all that away? Her heart was rent in two over it . . . but it was too late.

She had nearly reached the bend in the road when she came upon another wooded patch. Instinct made her leave the path and take to the thicket beside. She saw no carriage lanterns, but there was . . . something ahead, some sort of foreign noise violating the quiet. Though she couldn't quite identify it yet, it spoke of danger, and she reached inside her cloak to reassure herself that the pistols were still tucked into her belt.

Edging closer, she commended Treacle for his silence with a fond stroking, but a pistol shot made an end to that. The horse pranced nervously, rearing back on hind legs, faced with the highwayman who had stopped a coach in the middle of the road.

Jenna freed one of the pistols from her belt, cocked it, and rode out onto the highway. It wasn't until she came abreast of the carriage that she recognized the Marner device on the carriage door. It was too late to turn back now. She'd already been seen.

“Hold! Stand, sir, and deliver!” she demanded, her voice deep and disguised. Though apprehension nearly paralyzed her, she spoke forcefully, without a tremor.

The man had just stopped the brougham, and Rupert was climbing out. Her heart leapt for fear that he might recognize her, but she steeled herself as another man followed, a man she didn't recognize, dressed in silks and neck frills suggesting French nobility.

“And, just who might you be, Jack?” the highwayman inquired of Jenna, claiming her attention again.

“Drop the pistol,” she replied.

“Come, come,” said the man, addressing Rupert and his lace-bedecker companion. “Turn out your pockets, and hand over those baubles.”

Jenna watched their eyes oscillate between her and the real highwayman, as they emptied their pockets and removed their jewelry. Their confusion was evident, but what was more confusing was the highwayman's blatant disregard for her, and she fired a shot over his head to attract his attention.

“Give that here,” she demanded, gesturing toward the sack he'd been cramming the spoils into. “And the pistol, sir.”

The man ranged his mount alongside and, after a brief hesitation, tossed her the sack and relinquished his gun, though she had no doubt in her mind that he had another concealed somewhere on his person—just as Simon had that night on the old Lamorna Road.

Out of the corner of her eye, Jenna spied another carriage approaching around the bend from the east, where the road narrowed. Rupert's brougham was blocking it. The road wasn't wide enough to turn the vehicle, and the coachman snatched up his blunderbuss instead and took broad aim at the entire circumstance, jerking it this way and that, clearly at a loss to identify his target in the confusion of the moment. At sight of it, the first highwayman bolted, attempting to flee, and Rupert's companion's thunderous shouts rising over the ensuing racket ran Jenna through like a javelin.

“Hold where you are, the pair of you!” he demanded, drawing two concealed pistols. “I'm a Bow Street Runner, and you're caught dead to rights!”

The highwayman paid no attention, and Jenna watched wide-eyed as the Runner's pistol shot brought him to the ground in a cloud of road dust and acrid pistol smoke. A paralyzing rush of blood surged through every cell of Jenna's body. She was caught.

“Drop that pistol,” the Runner barked at her, “and the sack.” He waved one of his own guns, meanwhile backing toward the fallen first brigand.

“‘Tis all right, gov'nor, I've got 'im covered!” the driver of the other carriage called out, leveling his blunderbuss at her.

“Much obliged,” the Runner replied. Rolling the fallen outlaw over, he felt his neck for a pulse then straightened, swaggering back in Jenna's direction. What a ridiculous figure he cut in his ostentatious French frills, barking commands in a Cheapside accent. “Come, come, hand it over,” he charged. “He isn't going to help you, he's dead.”

Shrill outcries were coming from inside the second coach—a woman's hysterical voice. Her turban was barely visible poking through the carriage window, with nothing but the coach lamps to pick it out in the moonless dark. Jenna's mind was racing. To obey meant imprisonment and hanging. She'd been caught with the spoils. Her only chance was to try and escape, and she took advantage of the darkness. Bending low in her saddle, she dug her heels into Treacle's sides and drove him straight toward the thicket.

Shots rang out: the thunder and boom of the coachman's blunderbuss, the sharp crack of the Runner's pistol. It was the pistol shot that brought her down, but all she felt was the impact that unseated her. She landed hard in a cloud of dust from the parched roadway, raised by Treacle's flying hoofs as the horse fled back along the highway the way they had come and disappeared.

Her hat was gone, and her hair had come down around her shoulders. She moaned as the Runner ripped her mask away, and shrank from his hot breath, fetid with stale onions and ale. The woman's screams seemed louder, ringing in her ears, but the Runner's face was fading.

“What do you make of this, Marner?” he barked, glancing back over his shoulder. He craned his neck. “Marner?
Marner
!”