Page 4 of Everything a Lady is Not
Lucy sagged in her saddle, weary from three hours of hard riding through forest and fields, skirting towns and villages along the way. The packhorse tugged at the lead in her left hand, perhaps tired of its burden. Lucy bolted upright when Steadman and his horse emerged from the trees after a brief reconnaissance. The utter annoyance painting his features answered her unasked question.
“The Redbreast still follows,” he said. “The man is relentless. I have no recourse but to draw him away.”
Before she could register the import of Steadman’s decision, he slid a rapier into her belt. “We part ways here.”
Her eyes flew wide with alarm. “But I don’t know where I am! Or where I am going!”
He shook his head and smiled softly. “You underestimate yourself, as usual.” He pointed into the trees. “That direction, no more than a mile away, lies the Thames. Turn east, follow the river, but stay off the roads. Within two hours, you should arrive at Gravesend. Wait for us in the meadow behind Milton Chantry. And try to believe in Lucy Locket as much as I do.”
Before she could ask the thousand questions clanging through her brain, the forest swallowed Steadman. She heaved a stuttering sigh and urged the horses in the direction he had indicated. Within minutes, she found the Thames and moved eastward through fields and wood, slowed by hedges of stone piled by possessive farmers to mark their territory. Chaos shaped her thoughts. What would become of Steadman if he were caught? Wasn’t the penalty for highway robbery still death? What would become of her, regardless of outcomes?
Arriving at yet another low wall, she dismounted to coax the horses over the stones. As she prepared to remount, a shout froze her.
“Bow Street Patrol! Lay down your weapon!”
Lucy lifted her eyes to find a lanky young man clad in the long blue coat and red waistcoat of Bow Street Horse Patrol, emerging from the trees. He was on foot and armed with a saber. Sunlight glinted from his auburn hair as he leveled blue eyes and his weapon at her. She could not help but notice what a fine figure he cut in his uniform, despite his ill intentions.
“Lay down your weapon!” he repeated.
She glanced to her right hand with surprise to find the rapier in her grip, raised in defense. When had she retrieved it? She stared at the stranger in horror. “I am not a thief!”
In response, he stepped forward with his sword. Lucy panicked even as her training from Steadman assumed control. As the Redbreast swung his saber with the clear intention of disarming her, she slipped sideways and slashed his greatcoat, laying open the garment from chest to waist. His look of surprise quickly clouded.
“I do not wish to kill a woman, but will if necessary.”
She stared at him with fear and determination while maintaining a fencer’s stance. He lunged at her forward thigh, a move typically intended to disable without killing. As he did so, she slipped aside again, caught his blade near the guard with the center of her rapier, and twisted it from his grasp. He glanced with apparent shock at his empty fingers before stooping almost languidly to retrieve his weapon. Although equally shocked by her success, Lucy heeded Steadman’s training. She brought down the hilt of the rapier sharply against the base of the man’s skull. He glanced up with a startled half smile before crumpling face first to the earth.
Lucy breathed rapidly while waiting for him to rise. When he did not, she prodded him with her rapier. A muffled moan was his only response. She plunged her blade into the earth, grabbed the sides of her head, and began to pace wildly.
“What have I done? Oh, what have I done?”
The man moaned again and his hand spasmed to clench dirt. She froze, trying to summon reason. He could regain sensibility soon, and then what? He would apprehend her. She would be forced to disclose Steadman’s identity. Steadman would be hounded by Bow Street until he swung from the hangman’s noose. She would suffer an uncertain fate.
Or.
An alternative course of action unfolded in her mind like a great dog uncurling from a nap. The absurd notion imbued her with an insight that promised a narrow window of escape for Steadman…and freedom for her. The Redbreast’s increasing movement gave her no time to vet the idea. She retrieved her rapier, stepped toward him, and planted the point of the weapon in the hollow of his throat just as he rolled to his back. His blinking eyes stilled when he recognized the steel at his neck. He swept his gaze from her face to her feet and back again. Despite his perilous condition, he smirked.
“In what gutter did they findyou?”
…
Henry winced as the woman’s dark eyes flashed at his insult. She seemed a wild thing, with brown hair drawn into a ragged braid and her form swallowed whole by an oversized shirt and loose trousers. However, smudges of dirt on her cheeks served to highlight a pert nose and startling eyes that sparkled with intelligence. Under other circumstances, he could lose an afternoon in the study of such a face.
“Shut your bone box, cock robin,” she said through gritted teeth. “Before I change my mind.”
Henry seethed before discipline returned him from the brink. He could not allow his base nature to rise up, to sink its teeth into him, to drag him into darkness. Putting away criminals likeherwas the surest path to retaining his tenuous hold on integrity. Asserting his rank was the staunchest defense against his brother’s claims of his unworthiness. He gathered calm and lifted his chin. “I am the son of an earl, notcock robin.You will address me as ‘sir’ as befits my station.”
She raised her eyebrows in mock surprise. “The son of an almighty earl? If only I had known! I would have called to the kitchen for tea and scones.”
“Is that notyourjob? Delivering tea and scones?”
Her nostrils flared. “Self-righteous prig! Even in the face of death, you believe yourself lord and master of all those you survey, and me a mere worm to be trod beneath your overly expensive boots.” In her indignation, the tip of the rapier drifted away from his neck. “You apparently lack the good sense to hold your tongue long enough to return alive to your pampered life, where you may resume self-serving leisure while crushing common folk beneath your heel. Your arrogance is matched only by your astounding stupidity.”
His resolve nearly buckled as the accusation stirred the demons in his soul. He inhaled a calming breath and raised his chin farther. “I will not be lectured by a failed scullery maid. You should return at once to the gutter from which you escaped, before your father misses you in his bed.”
When the rapier’s point pressed again into the hollow of his throat, Henry admitted that he had likely overplayed his hand with his tactical bluster. His strategy to unnerve her with bravado was failing badly. Her trembling hand grew coldly still.
“Despite my utter disdain for you,sir,” she said, “I offer you a choice between life and death.”
