Pale Moon Rider (13 page)

That two-year escapade earned him more lash
-
marks and a stint in a British gaol. It was there he had met Robert Dudley, the victim of an unlucky tumble off a wagon running barrels of Scots liquid gold—
uisque baugh
—across the border into England. Robbie had been thrown into Tyrone’s cell with the broken bones of his left leg protruding out the skin, denied the services of a doctor because, according to the guards, he would likely be hung before they could justify the expense of needle and thread to stitch the wound closed.

Having learned a little about tending wounds on board the privateer, Tyrone set the bones as best he could and tore strips from his own clothes to bind it in a makeshift splint. Hart had not been in the best shape himself, for his gaolers were convinced he knew the location of the reivers’ hoard of stolen goods, and were as liberal with the lash as they were with their fists hoping to persuade him to reveal it. By the end of two weeks’ confinement, it was Robert Dudley who was dragging himself across the cell to tend the most recent battery of bruises and bloody flay
-
marks on Tyrone’s nearly lifeless body.

The night before
Dudley
was scheduled to hang, he badgered the guards to come and get Tyrone. Hart had suffered a particularly brutal beating the previous morning and he was, Dudley claimed, quite dead and beginning to stink, which, for a condemned man’s last night on this earth, was too much to have to endure. One of the guards, tired of listening to
Dudley
’s protests, came alone and unwisely into the cell, ostensibly to break
Dudley
’s other leg and shut him up until the hangmen came to fetch him at dawn. He got no farther than the initial threat before Tyrone, rising miraculously from his mouldy straw deathbed, lunged from behind and slammed the guard into the stone wall with such force, his skull cracked open like a ripe walnut.

Using the guard’s keys, and a confiscated blunderbuss, Hart and Dudley were able to escape, and, deciding Scotland had become too warm for both of them, rode south in search of good English ale again. It was on a dark stretch of road outside of
Exeter
that they came across a richly appointed coach waylaid with a broken axle. The owner of the coach had been in the process of collecting a stallion he had won as a wager, and when the axle broke, he had attempted to mount the stallion and ride it the rest of the way home. The beast, black as night with sparks of fury blazing out of his eyes, had refused to oblige and was being whipped so savagely by the young lord, his flanks were covered with blood.

Tyrone had ridden straight for the owner and knocked him half senseless on the first punch. While
Dudley
occupied the driver and the groomsmen’s attention with the blunderbuss, Tyrone had taken the leather whip and thrashed the young man’s flanks equally bloody. Leaving him screaming by the side of the road, they had ridden away with the stallion, a hefty purse full of gold, and a fine new sense of purpose.

That had been six years ago, and neither Dudley nor Hart had been given cause yet to regret the path they had taken. They chose their victims and their turnpikes with equal care, mapping out ten ways of escaping any particular stretch of road before they even ventured into the moonlight. Despite denying the fact to Renée d’Anton, they were careful never to rob from those who could not afford it, which meant they stayed away from the local post coaches and only stopped the smuggler’s wagons to purchase—at a fair price, negotiated with thieves’ honor—some of the black market goods. There were others, like Doris Riley, who were not reluctant to share information if a little profit was to be had, and innkeepers who thought it a fine joke to see the lobsterbacks chasing after their own shadows.

At the same time, Tyrone did not try to fool himself into believing he was infallible. He could make a mistake, or one of Roth’s tin soldiers could get lucky. That day might even be coming soon when the temptation of a two thousand pounds reward would prove to be too much for those innkeepers to resist. Even so, if the rope were to tighten around Tyrone’s throat on the morrow, he could still laugh and say he’d had a damn good run at life, beholden unto no one but himself, grudging himself nothing he wanted, nothing that might otherwise have been forbidden him because of his lowborn station in life.

A rare, boyish smile crept across Tyrone’s face as he stopped with his foot on Doris Riley’s porch and watched the last sliver of the waning moon sink below the distant treetops. In his mind’s eye, he could still see it riding high and swollen in the night sky, casting a luminous stream of light through an open window to render a scanty, damp chemise all but transparent around the curves of a silver-haired beauty. Renée d’Anton. Even her name was exotic and ethereal. Her eyes, when she had discovered him there in the shadows, had been positively luminous, and her mouth had simply proved to be too much of a temptation to stare at too long without doing something about it. Her lips had been warm and sleek, as velvety as he imagined the rest of her body would be, and he could not help but wonder, had he held that kiss a moment longer, or let his hand caress the provocative fullness of her breast … would he be standing on
Doris
’s doorstep contemplating the mist and the darkness?

The sliver of moon disappeared in a wink, leaving him with the image of a man and woman straining together in a crumple of satin bedsheets. He felt a pleasantly heated rush of blood to his extremities and was starting to climb the last few steps when his smile began to fade and the faces of the two imaginary lovers became clear. One of them was undoubtedly the French beauty, but the other belonged to Edgar Vincent, and Renée was not writhing beneath him in pleasure, but pain. He was forcing himself between her thighs and she could do nothing to stop him, for her wrists and ankles were bound to the bed with blood red ribbons.

Tyrone drew a deep, startled breath. At almost the same moment, a very real sound intruded on his thoughts and he melted quickly into the deeper shadows that flanked either side of the doorway. He reache
d instinctively for one of the s
naphaunces, but remembered too late he had left them in his saddlebag. With scarcely a second to spare, he vaulted over the low wooden rail and crouched down beneath the level of the shrubbery, barely avoiding the wide swath of light that shattered the darkness as the door swung open to a tinkle of feminine laughter.

“Enough,” the voice cried. “You’ve already torn one of my best gowns tonight, you lusty brute.”

“I’ll happily tear a dozen and replace them with a dozen more.”

Tyrone felt the fine hairs across the nape of his neck bristle end to end as he saw a tall, burly man step out onto the veranda, his hands dragging a reluctant but laughing Doris Riley into the evening air. Her laughter was briefly muffled beneath a wide-mouthed kiss, and there was the distinct sound of a seam parting as her companion squeezed and kneaded the voluptuous shape of her breasts.

Her groan was half appreciative, half seductively chastising as she twisted expertly out of his grasp. “You were the one who said you had to leave,” she reminded him through a pout. “And that was two hours ago. Won’t the colonel wonder what has become of you?”

The bulge in the man’s breeches was massive, testing the strength of his own seams as he apparently weighed the importance of whatever appointment he had been resigned to keep against the thin, transparent veil of
Doris
’s gown where it parted in the breeze, revealing the long slender legs and lush round hips beneath.

“What the hell,” he grinned. “The bastard isn’t even expecting me in
Coventry
until tomorrow night. Why should he have all the fun?”

Doris
laughed and welcomed her eager lover back into her arms, squealing with delight as he scooped her up and carried her back inside, slamming the door behind them.

Tyrone waited, his palms cool and clammy, his pulse racing. The brief glimpse he’d had of the man’s face had been enough to stiffen his spine and set the muscles in his jaw into a square ridge.

It was Edgar Vincent. Real. Not just a ghostly illusion. And nothing—not even the memory of the fishmonger standing naked on a moonlit road—could evoke a smile now.

CHAPTER SEVEN

R
enée stared, transfixed, at the candle flame. Vaporous blue at the heart, it expanded to tarnished yellow, then fiery orange before the scorched tip sent a thin, dark pencil of smoke curling upward. Made of tallow, it gave off the unpleasantly murky scent of unwashed sheep. Although the odor eventually permeated the air, curtains, fabric, and clothing, Mrs Pigeon would sooner have danced naked on shards of broken glass than squander the extra pennies it cost to burn candles made of beeswax.

Distracted from the game of chess she was playing with Antoine, Renée glanced, at the clock on the mantelpiece, certain it must be gone
midnight
. It was barely ten. The last time she had looked, the ornately scrolled minute hand had been standing straight up and down. Now, as she stared in disbelief, it was just creeping past the numeral one. She knew it was working; she could hear the faint
ticka tocka ticka
over the low hiss of the fire. She could also hear the wind rattling against a loose pane of glass, and the little
snaps
the tallow made when the flame encountered dampness in the wick. Every now and then she could even hear the faint
gurgle
and
burp
from Antoine’s stomach as it protested the remnants of the evening meal.

In the five and a half months she and Antoine had been in
England
, Renée had yet to eat a meal seasoned by a spice other than mustard. The cook at Harwood House rarely ventured beyond the extravagance of boiled meat and cabbage, mashed turnips, and some round green légume of unknown and unpalatable origin. Renée could weep when she thought back to the meals her mother used to design. The d’Anton household had once boasted six chefs, four
pâtissiers
, and a bevy of cooks’ apprentices all of whom conspired each night to provide meals of eight and nine full courses, each with different tastes and textures, some sweet, some light, some so rich and frothy the sauce alone made the mouth water.

Nothing, so far, in English cuisine made anything but her eyes water.

It did not help that the air in Antoine’s bedroom was tainted with the smell of a mustard poultice. The morning after Renée had found him shivering under the bed, he had wakened with a slight fever and a dry, raw cough. For the past two days he had been kept abed with plasters and hot bricks, and while the fever had met defeat against Finn’s battlefield regiment of broth and strong herbal teas, the cough was persisting and Renée was worried his lungs might fill with the rattling, hacking malady he had suffered as a child.

Antoine tapped a finger on the edge of the chessboard to draw her attention.

If you insist on leaving your queen unguarded, I will take her, make no mistake.

They were sitting in his bed with the game board between them and although he had been tolerant of her frequent distractions, there was a limit to how much he would endure. In this instance, she had only one move possible: to save her queen she had to sacrifice her knight. Even then, it was only a temporary reprieve, for the queen was still vulnerable to attack on three sides and the checkmate would come within the next two moves.

Renée sighed but just as she leaned forward to reach for the poor, doomed knight, a trick of the candlelight changed the ebony armor, shield, and lance it carried to a multi-collared greatcoat and tricorn. Her fingers recoiled without touching it and, despite the fire blazing in the hearth behind them, she felt a chill ripple across her skin.

What had seemed like such a brilliant, clever scheme two days ago now seemed ludicrous and foolhardy in the extreme. What had seemed daring and bold and romantic was just plain suicidal. Hire a highwayman to steal the Dragon’s Blood suite? Double-cross Roth and expect to get away unscathed?

It was madness. Madness to assume she had the courage to carry off the charade, and madness to put her faith in a shadowy villain who, regardless of if he was as handsome as Lucifer and twice as cunning, offered no guarantees she and Antoine would be left any better off than they were now, nor any assurances they would not be a good deal worse.

What did she know about him? Starlight was a thief and a murderer and had not troubled himself to deny either charge.

Two brief encounters hardly qualified her as an expert on his character and a single incident of reckless bravado—lifting her hair and offering him her throat to throttle—scarcely proved she was his equal in nerve or courage. The fact that he spoke well-mannered English instead of broken cockney and offered his hand in a gentleman’s agreement did not signify anything other than a refined sense of humor and an ability to imitate his betters. How did she know
he
would not set a trap of his own to outwit Roth and double-cross her in the process? What did he care if she was forced to marry a man against her will or choice?

It was not without some grave misgivings that she had earnestly begun to believe her early impressions of the intrepid Captain Starlight had been tainted by the moonlight and shadows. Since then she’d had two long days and nights to rethink her position, weigh her chances, recognize her limits. She’d had Finn’s reprobation to contend with too. The doughty old valet had turned scarlet when she had told him about her late night visitor. He had been all in favor of packing up what little they had and leaving then and there, taking their chances with a fast coach and an open road. They had eluded Robespierre’s bloodhounds, he had declared, surely they could evade Roth and his damp-behind-the-ears Volunteers.