Page 16 of Her Wicked Highwayman
Nelson gave a gruff laugh. “Youareyour father’s daughter.”
“I take that as a compliment.” She smiled. Her father had been a man who could do anything he’d put his mind to, up until he died. He’d once been quite talented at rubbing two shillings together to make several pounds. If their estate had poor crops one year or the tenant farms had trouble with livestock, her father had always had enough to keep his family and his tenants afloat. Diana was happy to think that she might have inherited her father’s skills, even in a small way.
“What’s in these?” Nelson asked, pointing to the two burlap sacks slung over the back of the saddle.
“Our salvation,” she replied.
He raised an eyebrow but asked no other questions as he removed the bags.
“Thank you.” She took the bags from him and he left, walking the mare and his draft horse back to the stables.
She shouldered the bags full of banknotes and climbed the steps just as the door opened and a tall, thin, but strong middle-aged man with dark gray-streaked hair came out to meet her.
“There you are!” Mr. Peele exclaimed. “Where is your valise, Miss Fox? Heavens, what happened to you?” The butler grasped her shoulders the way a concerned father would. “You look as though you’ve been out all night in the rain.”
“In a way, I was. ’Tis a long story, and I’m so very tired. Would you please find Mrs. Ripley and meet me in my study? I would speak with you both about something rather urgent.” She nodded at the bags. “I shall take these with me.” She went directly to her study.
She paused as she entered the room. The study had once been her father’s, and it still carried a hint of cigar smoke,something that always struck her heart when she’d been away from the room for a few days.
Since her father’s passing, she had tidied up his haphazard papers and rectified his disorganized system of records until she had a system that worked for her. Diana had perhaps a little more of her mother in her when it came to organizing. She went to the oak desk in front of the windows that faced the back gardens of the house. Towering bookshelves lined the left wall, and to the right was a fireplace where portraits of her parents hung on either side. After her father had died, she’d moved the paintings from the great hall to this room. She felt comforted to see them whenever she worked on matters for the estate.
The artist had captured them so perfectly. A young Florence and a young Stephen Fox, captured in the bloom of their youth with love and vigor warming their cheeks and illuminating their smiles. A lump formed in her throat as the vivid images from her dream flashed through her mind like quicksilver. Her hands clenched as she remembered trying to shatter the mirror to get to her family. Why had last night been so different from all her other dreams? Something about letting her walls down with Tyburn had resurrected an old heartache. Diana rubbed a fist against her chest and blinked away the burn of fresh tears.
Stop crying, you ninny. You have too much to do.
The weight of the two burlap sacks had grown a little heavy due to her own weariness, so she set them on the desk. She turned to face the door just as Mr. Peele and Mrs. Ripley entered. The butler closed the door behind them.
Mrs. Ripley breathed a sigh of relief. “Miss Diana, thank goodness you’re all right.”
Even though Eleanor had been gone for years, Mrs. Ripley still called herMiss Dianarather than Miss Fox, since she was now the oldest daughter and the lady of the house. But thisdidn’t bother Diana at all. In fact, she took comfort in what remained the same after losing so much over the last few years.
Mrs. Ripley took in Diana’s appearance. Her dark hair was a terrible rat’s nest, and her velvet dress was stiff from dried rainwater. “You look quite a fright. The stagecoach didn’t stop here yesterday, and we’ve all been worried sick. Nelson waited four hours for you in the rain. Mr. Peele had to command him to return to the house for tea and a hot bath so he wouldn’t catch his death.”
Diana felt a stab of guilt knowing the old groom had waited so long for her while she’d been experiencing her first taste of passion in a highwayman’s arms. She’d been warm and safe—relatively speaking—and her poor groom had been waiting in the rain for her to come home.
She sighed and gestured for them to sit in the two armchairs that faced her desk. “I’m afraid my coach was waylaid by three highwaymen.”
“Highwaymen?” Mrs. Ripley’s face paled. “Miss Diana, what happened to you? They didn’t harm you, did they?”
“No, no, they did not,” she rushed to assure them when she saw Mr. Peele’s eyes harden. “As hard as it might be to believe, they were, in fact, gentlemen.”
“But you’ve been gone so long,” said Mr. Peele. “Did the coach break a wheel after the highwaymen left?”
“No, that is not the reason I was delayed. I was forced to accompany the thieves to their hideout because I refused to give them my mother’s necklace. One of them was quite insistent on having it. So they left the other passengers and the driver on the road with the coach and took me with them.”
“The brigands kidnapped you?” Peele almost snarled. “Why, I’ll kill?—”
“They didn’t hurt me,” she reminded her protective butler. “Please, just let me tell you the rest of the story.”
The butler and housekeeper exchanged worried glances, so Diana continued.
“When the storm came, the men gave me shelter.” She stopped herself from reaching for the necklace that was no longer there but left behind, tenderly tied around her mysterious lover’s wrist.
“And then?” Mr. Peele prompted.
Diana found the will to smile despite her exhaustion. “I woke early, before they did, and foundthesewhile I searched their lodgings.” She opened one of the sacks and poured its contents onto the desk. Banknotes and fine jewels tumbled onto the oak surface.
Mrs. Ripley covered her mouth. “Good God.”
