A Rogue’s Pleasure (4 page)

Phoebe reached behind and unfastened the necklace's clasp. She dropped the pearls into One-Eyed Jack's open palm, tears striping her pale cheeks.

One-Eye removed the weapon and stuffed the pearls into his coat pocket. “If 'tis any consolation, milady, these baubles will be put to good use. And,” he added with a wicked grin, “I have left your lord his to console you.”

“To the carriage, the lot o' ye, and be quick about it.” The elder highwayman gave Masters a shove toward the coach.

The driver's knees buckled.

“For the luv of…” The hulk turned to Anthony. “Don't just stand there. 'Elp 'im.”

Anthony shrugged even as his brain calculated his odds of success. “Can't, I'm afraid. Bad back.”

Cursing, the highwayman slung Masters's limp arm around his beefy neck and lugged him toward the coach.

Phoebe lost no time in responding to the directive. She picked up her skirts and fled.

One-Eyed Jack's gaze darted between Anthony and the coach.

“W-why are you still standing 'ere?” He gestured to the coach with his pistol. “Go…
now
.”

Smiling, Anthony advanced a step. “But I've no wish to end this encounter…just yet.”

Anthony lunged forward. Locking both arms around the boy's spare torso, he slammed him to the ground. He pinned One Eye's slender wrists above his head and squeezed. The pistol slipped from the highwayman's grasp.

“Let go!”

Even for a stripling, the boy was delicate as a sparrow, not nearly sturdy enough for such rough pursuits. Easily securing the joined wrists with one hand, Anthony pocketed the pistol.

He smiled maliciously into the frightened face, just inches below his own. “Well, my fine lad, alone at last.” He clamped his palm over the boy's mouth. “What, nothing to say?”

The taunt seemed to bring his captive to life. His fingers curled into fists, his arms straining to break Anthony's hold.

Laughing, Anthony remarked, “Well, One-Eyed Jack, for a fierce knight of the road, you certainly fight like a girl.”

Like a girl.

Anthony stared down at his prisoner, examining the small, flushed face beneath the hat with a critical eye. The features were as finely wrought as those of a Dresden china figurine, the uncovered eye lushly lashed and set beneath a delicately arched brow. Could it be that Jack was really a Jacqueline in disguise? The body beneath his felt soft in all the right places. He uncovered his captive's mouth in order to better examine the softly curving lips.

“Get off me this instant, y-you…you big bully!”

The high-pitched voice, nearly drowned by the din of shrieking horses, could belong to an adolescent boy…or to a woman.

Intrigued, Anthony replied, “All in good time, my little highwayman. But first, I think I'll have a closer look at you.”

With his free hand, Anthony groped for the lantern. His fingers brushed the toe of a large boot instead.

“Set 'im free as ye value yer life.”

Cursing, Anthony rolled off the boy and stood. Ignoring the pistol prodding him, he offered One-Eye a hand up.

“Bugger off.” Staring at his hand as thought it were a snake, the boy scrambled to his feet and took off toward a chestnut mare tethered to a tree branch.

Anthony started to follow, but the hulk blocked him.

“I'd save me strength if I was you.” He gave Anthony a hard shove toward the coach.

Anthony swung around. Raising the lantern, he saw that the traces hung empty. Only his lead horse had not shied away. It stood nearby, ears flattened and nostrils narrowed.
God only knows how long it will take to retrieve the others
. Muttering obscenities, he studied the direction of hoof prints and crushed grass.

Young One-Eye, you shall rue this day
. Anthony whirled in time to see the object of his wrath push a booted foot into the mare's stirrup and throw a shapely leg over.
You're getting away and there isn't a blasted thing I can do about it. At least, not tonight
.

Phoebe poked her head out the coach window. “Oh, Anthony, that horrid old man unhitched the team!”

“Yes, I can see that,” he snapped, tramping toward her.

Mounted, the thieves galloped past him, kicking up clouds of dust. Anthony's eyes burned and grit lined the inside of his mouth. When his vision cleared, he found himself standing alone in the middle of the road.

Coughing, he brushed the soil from his shoulders.
We shall meet again, One-Eyed Jack—or Jacqueline. And when we do, you shall either dance to my tune or at the end of the hangman's rope.

Despite the dirt clogging his throat, he smiled in contemplation of the reunion.

 

Following Jack's lead, Chelsea slapped Dulcinea's flanks and horse and rider plunged into the safety of the trees. After going two leagues with no sign of pursuit, they stopped at a small stream. Only then did she realize that she was shivering much like the leaves stirring in the late-summer breeze.

So now I'm a thief
. Lantern in hand, Chelsea stumbled toward the stream. She knelt at the bank and splashed water on her warm face, feeling as though the dark, angry sky might crash down on her at any moment.

Jack loped behind her. “You all right, lass?” The concern in his rough voice sliced through her stupor like a diamond cutting glass.

She managed a reassuring smile, although she was far from sure herself. Wiping her face on the back of her sleeve, she cobbled herself together and stood.
I may be a thief but at least I'm not a murderer
. The pistol she carried wasn't loaded; otherwise, she never would have had the nerve to brandish it so brazenly. Pulling back her shoulders, she admitted she'd rather enjoyed
wielding it to wipe the cocksure smile off that arrogant popinjay's face.

And a handsome face it was. Laughing brown eyes, aristocratic features, a strong, slightly cleft chin, and full, sensuous lips made for smiling…and kissing. For a moment when he'd loomed over her, a lock of dark auburn hair brushing his brow, she'd half hoped he would unmask her. What might have happened? Might he have
kissed
her?

Prior to the squire's assault, she'd been kissed only once, on her eighteenth birthday. One of Robert's school chums, a year her junior, had followed her outside after dinner and coaxed a kiss from her behind the old oak tree. The boy no doubt had been nervous. His lips were dry as sawdust, his mouth respectfully closed as it brushed hers. Beyond a vague sense of disappointment, she hadn't felt much of anything.

But the mere thought of kissing the gentleman in the coach sent a chill racing her spine. Imagining his mouth covering hers made her feel cold and hot—and strange.
It's only nerves getting the better of me
. She felt her way to the rock where she'd stowed her clothes. A clump of yew bushes provided a convenient dressing screen. Crouching behind them, she quickly changed into her wrinkled riding habit, and then stuffed the disguise into the saddlebag. She pulled the pins from her hair, and the thick braid thudded against her back.

Anyone encountering them would see Miss Chelsea Bellamy, out for a late evening ride with her family's aging retainer. Odd behavior, to be sure, but by no means criminal.

Calmer now, she picked up the lamp and bundle and stepped into the open. Jack was sitting near the stream, resting against the smooth side of a large rock. Holding the light aloft, she saw that his good eye was closed.

Poor Jack.
She had a tendency to forget that he was no longer the strapping playmate of her youth, who used to hoist both her and Robert onto his broad—and then straight—shoulders. Judging from his labored breathing and heightened color, their evening's adventure had taken its toll. She hoped they would not have to repeat the experience many more times before she amassed Robert's ransom.

She bent and gently touched his shoulder. “Jack, wake up.”

Jack came awake with a chortle. His open eye widened—and so did his grin.

“What's so funny? Don't tell me that my nefarious deed has me sprouting horns already?”

He guffawed. “Not 'orns, exactly.”

She frowned. Still edgy from her narrow escape, she was in no mood for games. “Really, Jack, pray share the jest.”

Tapping a finger against his covered eye, he sputtered, “Ye might want to—”

“Oh, dear.” Chelsea reached up and pulled off her patch. She stuffed it into her knapsack with the rest of her disguise.

Her shoulders sagged along with her spirits. She'd blundered…again. The patch linked her to One-Eyed Jack. In the future, she must be more careful…for Jack's sake as well as her own.

They remounted and emerged onto the open road. Although Chelsea's pulse was racing, she held Dulcinea to a canter throughout the ride home.

Later that evening behind the locked library door, she and Jack took stock of the haul. Seated at the desk, Chelsea opened the reticule first, pouring its contents onto the desktop. Remembering the woman's solemn promise that the purse contained only pin money, Chelsea was shocked at the quantity of gold sovereigns that tumbled out.

Jack came up behind her chair as she counted out fifty pounds. Dumping the coins back into the reticule, she tried to imagine what it would be like to belong to a world in which fifty pounds was pin money.

Putting the purse aside, she held the necklace up to a branch of candles. The pearls were of the finest quality, the workmanship of the diamond clasp exquisite. Even so, she found herself wondering what kind of woman would value jewelry over her fiancé's life.

She gave Jack the necklace. “How much do you think it will bring?”

Jack studied the clasp between his thumb and forefinger, holding it close to the light. “Too easy to recognize,” he concluded at length. “Whoever we fence it to will 'ave to sell the pearls separate. Still, it should fetch a pretty penny.”

Chelsea was too weary to ask just how much a “pretty penny” might be. Yawning, she handed him the gold pocket watch.

“What about this?”

He carefully bit down on the case. “Solid gold.” He wiped the timepiece on his sleeve. “'Ave to melt it down, o' course.”

“Why?”

He pointed to the scrollwork
M
engraved on the back. A falcon intertwined with a serpent formed the delicately etched background.

“'Tis the same marking as were on the side o' the coach. I'd wager me last farthing this belongs to Lord Montrose.”

“Lord Montrose!
Viscount
Montrose.” Her heart landed in her chest with a sickening thump. “Do you mean to say I just robbed a viscount?”

At Jack's solemn nod, a tremor shot through her. The estate Montrose had inherited from his uncle was only some twenty miles north, but Chelsea had never laid eyes on the viscount…until that night. The nobility kept to their own, rarely fraternizing with the local gentry at assemblies or church bazaars. And, like so many of his peers, Lord Montrose preferred London to the country.

But even absentee nobles wielded enormous power. No one would give much notice if a local squire's carriage was waylaid, but robbing a peer of the realm at pistol point was another matter entirely.

Shivering, she swept the stolen articles into a drawer, locked it, and dropped the key into her pocket.

Jack laid a reassuring hand on her shoulder. “Lovey, ye've gone pale as a ghost. Someone step on yer grave?”

Chelsea met Jack's concerned gaze with a tepid smile. “No, but I have a sinking feeling that Lord Montrose may help me to put one foot in it.”

Over the next five days, Chelsea and Jack robbed four more carriages. Although she hated to admit it, the risk they were taking far outweighed the gain. When they stopped a widow whose only valuable was a gold locket with her husband's miniature enclosed, Chelsea hadn't the heart to take it from her. But when on the fifth night she sighted a rickety traveling coach conveying the vicar's wife, Abigail Pettigrew, and her two obnoxious daughters, Chelsea had delighted in relieving them of their purses. They would have recognized Jack instantly from their visits to Oatlands, so Chelsea had bidden him stay hidden while she approached. The booty had amounted to less than twenty-five pounds, but striking unholy terror into Mrs. Pettigrew and her odious offspring had been priceless.

The following morning, Chelsea arrived at the vicarage. An hour late, she swept into the small dining room where the quilting circle Mrs. Pettigrew presided over was underway.

Bowed heads looked up from flashing needles.

“Forgive my tardiness, ladies.” Untying her bonnet strings, Chelsea glanced guiltily at the pile of colorful fabric squares in the center of the table. “I'm afraid I overslept.”

Chelsea didn't need to inspect the dark crescents beneath her eyes to confirm that her late-night escapades were taking their toll. Highway robbery was proving to be a good deal of hard work.

“Pray have a seat and catch your breath, Chelsea.” A big-boned woman with florid features and a pudding-bag figure, Abigail Pettigrew frowned when Chelsea removed her bonnet.

“I do believe your hair gets redder every time I see you.”

Chelsea felt her face reddening to match, but she looked Mrs. Pettigrew square in the eye. “I believe 'tis always been this bright, ma'am.”

I don't fit in anywhere. Not even now that I'm a grown woman. Especially not now.
Smothering a sigh, she smoothed a hand over the wild disarray of copper curls tumbling about her shoulders. Eyeing the other women's tightly controlled coifs—all sensible shades of brown and black and ash blond—she wished she'd taken the time to put up her hair.

No point in crying over spilt milk,
as Jack would say. She set down her sewing bag and slipped into the only unoccupied chair, which unfortunately was directly across from Mrs. Pettigrew. Swallowing a yawn, she took up a half-finished square and threaded her needle. Today's was another mindless but worthy project—a quilt to be auctioned at the upcoming church bazaar. She despised sewing but, as the daughter of one of the neighborhood's leading families, she wasn't in a position to refuse.

Mrs. Pettigrew turned to her eldest daughter. “Rosamund, dearest, please pour Miss Bellamy a cup of tea.”

“Yes, Mama.”

Rosamund, plump and awkward at sixteen, pushed away from the table and shuffled over to the sideboard where Chelsea's mother's tea service gleamed on its silver tray. Chelsea winced as the girl clanked the heavy teapot against a delicate porcelain cup. Not bothering to ask if Chelsea preferred lemon or cream, she handed her the cup, swimming in a saucer of spillage.

“Thank you, Rosamund.”

Rosamund grunted an acknowledgment and slouched into the chair next to her younger sister, Josephine, who was busy transforming a ball of thread into a series of Gordian knots. Two years Rosamund's junior, Josephine was a prettier, slimmer version of her sibling. To the despair
of those around them, both girls had inherited Mrs. Pettigrew's surly disposition.

Glimpsing Rosamund's smirk, Chelsea took a small, experimental sip of the bitter, unsugared tea and set her cup aside. Mrs. Pettigrew made no secret of her plan to give Rosamund a London Season, but Chelsea privately considered the effort a waste.

The magistrate's wife, Mabel Minnington, a small, nervous woman with a fringe of mouse brown curls, turned to Chelsea. “I suppose by now you've heard about poor Abigail's ordeal at the hands of that dreadful highwayman.” She shuddered. “With outlaws roaming the countryside, 'tis a mercy we all haven't been murdered in our beds.”

Chelsea lifted her eyes from her sewing, careful to inject a note of surprise into her tone. “No, I hadn't heard. What happened, Mrs. Pettigrew?”

“The girls and I were on our way back from visiting our Colbrand relations in Bath. Although Brighton is really more the thing and so much closer, Cousin Minerva is a stickler for spending the Season in Bath. She takes the waters for her gout, you know.”

In the five-and-twenty years since Mrs. Pettigrew's arrival in Upper Uckfield as a bride, she had never permitted anyone, including her long-suffering husband, to forget her connection to the Colbrands. But that illustrious family had many boughs on its tree, and Mrs. Pettigrew was a sprig from only a cadet branch—a point never raised. Through Rosamund, Mrs. Pettigrew resolved to regain the social status she imagined she had lost. When she'd discovered that her Colbrand cousins, including several eligible young bachelors, were to be in Bath for the Season, she had hustled her daughters there with unseemly haste.

“Of course, Bath isn't what it was when I was a girl.” Mrs. Pettigrew sighed. “But how could I refuse with dear Minnie absolutely insisting we stay with her?”

Behind her spectacles, Faith Pinkerton, the village schoolmistress, rolled her eyes. “The robbery, Abby. Tell Chelsea how the rogue forced your driver off the road.”

“Oh, yes, of course.” The vicar's wife's plump hand flattened over her heart. “It was dreadful, simply dreadful. When that brute tore open our carriage door, I thought the end had come for the girls and me.” She leaned forward and added in a confidential tone, “And with Rosamund blossoming into womanhood, I am sure you can all understand a mother's fears.”

Around the table, heads bobbed.

“He didn't—” Mabel Minnington coughed discreetly, “—that is to say, he didn't make any improper advances, I hope.”

Mrs. Pettigrew glanced to Rosamund, who had wrested the ball of thread away from her sister and was refusing to give it back.

Apparently satisfied that her offspring were oblivious to the dark undertones of the conversation, she continued. “No, but he had his lecherous eye on her the whole time. I must confess, ladies, the way he looked at my innocent child sent chills up and down my spine.” Mrs. Pettigrew's gelatinous bosom shivered in recall. “'Tis a mercy she wasn't ravished.”

“The brute!”

“Praise be!”

Chelsea bent her head to hide a smile.

Josephine lifted wicked eyes and announced, “Rosie has developed a tendre for One-Eyed Jack. In fact, she thinks she may be in love.”

A deep berry blush stained Rosamund's plump cheeks. Dropping the thread, she reached out and swatted at her sister. “Be quiet, you stupid chit. You know I said no such thing.”

Giggling, Josephine dodged the blow. “You certainly did. Why just last night, you said
you thought One-Eyed Jack was the handsomest—”

“Hush, both of you.” Mrs. Pettigrew pressed a palm to her temple. “You are giving me the headache.”

“Sorry, Mama,” Josephine apologized, sticking her tongue out at her sister as soon as her mother's gaze shifted.

Chelsea's eyes watered and her sides ached with the effort to hold in her laughter. So, the oafish Rosamund fancied One-Eyed Jack. If only the ridiculous child knew that the object of her adolescent affections was seated at her mother's dining room table.

Giving way to an evil impulse, Chelsea summoned her most innocent voice. “Is One-Eyed Jack a large man, Mrs. Pettigrew?”

“Gargantuan.”
Mrs. Pettigrew used her hands to sketch in midair a silhouette that could have belonged to the real Jack. Her broad shoulders quivered. “And if you could have seen his evil face…the one eye covered with a patch, the other black as pitch. Why, the very memory gives me the shivers.”

If the magistrate relies on Mrs. Pettigrew, I'll never be caught.
Chelsea chuckled to herself.

Faith Pinkerton bit off a piece of thread from her finished square. “The sooner that wicked felon is apprehended and brought to justice, the better it will be for all of us.”

Mabel Minnington surveyed the group and confided, “I have it on good authority that justice will not be long in coming.”

Around the table, six needles, including Chelsea's, stalled. All eyes were riveted on the magistrate's wife, all ears pricked for her next word.

“How so?” demanded Mrs. Pettigrew, face flushed.

Clearly relishing her new importance and wishing to prolong the moment, Mabel hedged, “Well, I really shouldn't say more. You see, I promised John—”

“What fustian,” Mrs. Pettigrew interrupted. “Mabel Minnington, you know perfectly well you can trust us not to breathe a word to a living soul outside this room.”

Faith Pinkerton urged, “Yes, Mabel dear, do tell.”

“You can trust us, Mrs. Minnington,” said Rosamund.

Heart pounding, Chelsea added her voice to the chorus. “Pray, do tell, Mrs. Minnington.”

“If you all give your word that anything I say shall be kept in the strictest of confidence.”

Heads nodded in solemn assent.

“Very well, then.” Mabel Minnington put down her sewing. “My husband has devised a plan to trap One-Eyed Jack and put a stop to this highway robbery business once and for all.”

“What kind of plan?” Mrs. Pettigrew demanded.

The magistrate's wife hesitated a moment more, then blurted out, “As of tonight, one of the local lads will dress up as a woman and parade himself on the road to London in Squire Dumfreys's coach. To anyone watching the roads, it will appear as though a wealthy woman were traveling alone, with only her driver. The bait will be irresistible. John is confident that sooner or later One-Eyed Jack will make his move. What the rogue won't know is that some of the best marksmen in the county will be hidden in the hedgerows along the roadside, not to mention my own John crouched on the carriage floor, armed. When the blackguard gives his call to ‘Stand and Deliver,' the men will come out of hiding and
bang
. Adieu One-Eyed Jack.”

A hush fell. Even Josephine and Rosamund stopped kicking each other under the table to absorb Mrs. Minnington's revelation.

Chelsea, who had kept her eyes fastened on the square she was furiously stitching, gasped.

“Oh, Mama!” Rosamund shrieked, pointing to Chelsea. “Look, she's
bleeding
all over the tablecloth.”

“Why, Chelsea, you've pricked yourself.” Tone vexed, Mrs. Pettigrew rose to inspect the damage to her best Irish linen. “Do try to exercise more care.”

“'Tis nothing, really,” Chelsea replied quickly, sucking the tip of the offending finger.

“Nonsense. We shall tend to that immediately. Rosamund, Josephine, one of you run and fetch a bandage and some salve.” She frowned down at the small scarlet stain. “And send the housekeeper in with a cloth and some water.”

 

It took every ounce of Chelsea's self-discipline to remain at the vicarage for the rest of the afternoon. Every time she felt on the verge of catapulting out of her seat, she reminded herself that to leave abruptly would only arouse suspicion. So, she forced herself to sit still, sewing and making obligatory conversation, until the hall clock chimed the four blissful notes that signaled her release.

What a relief it was to unhitch the pony cart at last. Anxiety soon replaced relief when she reached home and began to take stock of her ill-gotten gains.

She closed the study door, and then went to the desk. Unlocking the drawer, she removed the pouch and spilled the contents onto the desk. The brief inventory confirmed what she had known already—she hadn't anywhere near five hundred pounds. Aside from the money, the only articles of value were the pearl necklace and the pocket watch she'd taken from Montrose and his lady. En route to London, the viscount had lost no time in raising the hue and cry. The word that a dangerous highwayman was afoot had spread like fire. Thanks to Lord Montrose's swiftness in alerting the authorities, most travelers passing through Upper Uckfield now took the precaution of leaving their valuables behind.

Thanks to Lord Montrose.

Having played football with the neighborhood lads every Shrovetide until she turned sixteen, Chelsea was no stranger to being knocked down and pinned beneath a strong male body. Even so, lying beneath Lord Montrose she'd been bombarded by new and confusing sensations. Nearly a week later, she could still summon the surge of excitement she'd felt at being crushed beneath his broad chest, his large hands wrapped around her, his long, muscular legs tangling with hers. The mere memory filled her veins with liquid fire.

Was this…passion?

Passion
. Romeo and Juliet, Troilus and Cressida, Lancelot and Guinevere…Grand passions were invariably mutual—and invariably doomed. Focusing on the mutuality aspect, she asked herself if it were possible that Montrose felt even a flicker of the flame that still seared her? For a fleeting moment when their gazes collided, Chelsea sensed that his lordship's hold on her was motivated by more than the desire to retrieve his valuables.

Foolish, stupid girl. You were disguised as a boy.

Recalling Montrose's exquisite blonde traveling companion, Chelsea doubted that he would have looked on her more favorably even if she'd been dressed as a woman. Banishing that depressing thought, she allowed herself the luxury of slipping into pure fantasy. Embellishing on what might have happened if he'd succeeded in unmasking her made for a pleasant diversion
from the torturous thought of Robert in the hands of a ruthless kidnapper. A knock on the door jarred her out of the reverie. She dropped the bag into the drawer, locked it, then gave the call to enter.

It was Jack, announcing dinner.

When she made no move to rise, he prodded, “I know that look, child. Somethin's amiss. Out wi' it.”