A Most Dangerous Lady

A MOST DANGEROUS LADY

Elizabeth Moss

First published by: Thimblerig Press 2011

Copyright © Elizabeth Moss, 2011

Third Edition

All rights reserved.

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

No part of this book can be reproduced or transferred by any means without the express written permission of the author.

This Third Edition reflects minor changes made in the wake of the publication of
Poppeia and the Petticoat Club
, its prequel.

CHAPTER ONE

London, 1820

Lord Trajan Randall looked across at the dowdy, unprepossessing lady he was partnering in the cotillion, and forced a smile as they came together again.

     Lady Caroline, only daughter of the Earl of Lacey, had been an attractive enough chit in her first season - almost tempting him into an offer of marriage, he recalled with a shiver - but her debutante glow had long since faded.

     ‘Enjoying your evening, my lady?’ he asked, wincing at the banality of his question, but utterly at a loss what else to say.

     Lady Caroline’s aunt, a formidable lady in a purple turban, had cornered him earlier by the open doors into the garden.

     ‘Time you danced with my niece, Trajan!’ she had boomed in his ear, with all the crushing familiarity of a matron who had dandled him on her knee as a baby. Her subtlety was equally crushing. ‘You often danced with Caroline during her first season. Five years ago now, of course. And she’s still unmarried!’

     Hard to conceive why, the Viscount found himself thinking ironically, eyeing the timid bespectacled creature opposite as the music ended.

     ‘Indeed, my lord,’ Lady Caroline belatedly replied to his question as she straightened from her curtsey, a slight flush in her cheeks. ‘Very much so.’

     Trajan bowed gallantly enough to his partner, but inwardly he was reeling with boredom. Though not possessed of any keen desire for matrimony, he would soon have to make his choice from among the dozen or so eligible young debs making cow-eyes at him from across the room. He was leaving London tonight, and might not be back for a fortnight at least. Yet here he was, dancing one of the last dances of the evening with this unappealing dowd, famous for being marriage-shy.

     With such looks, and little conversation, it was a wonder Lady Caroline did not disgrace her fine name by living out her days as an eccentric spinster.

     ‘May I escort you back to your aunt, my lady?’

     And why must the foolish girl wear her hair drawn up in such a severe chignon, topped with those absurd feathers? She looked set to become an ape leader, an unweddable and unbeddable old maid.

     Yet her eyes, though marred by spectacles, were a pleasing enough blue, and Trajan seemed to recall that her hair looked to better advantage worn down.

     Lady Caroline accepted his proffered arm, then appeared to trip over her own feet, saved from a fall only by his swift grab at her waist.

     Clumsy too!

     A startled gasp escaped her ladyship as he righted her, still grasping her waist – which was, he could not help registering, alluringly slender.

     Hurriedly, before anyone could comment on their closeness, Viscount Randall withdrew his hands. Yet Lady Caroline continued to stare up at him myopically through thick-rimmed spectacles that sat most uglily on an otherwise elegant nose.

     ‘I’m sorry, my lord,’ she breathed, a flush daubing her cheeks. ‘I lost my balance. You must think me so g ... gauche.’

     ‘Not at all,’ he demurred, pretending not to have noticed that she was staring at him a little too hard.

     Trajan had seen her look at him like that before and was abruptly on his guard. Surely the little nincompoop had not developed some embarrassing
tendre
for him?

     ‘Ah – here is your aunt!’ he exclaimed with undisguised relief as they reached the refreshments table. ‘And your father too. A very good evening to you, Lord Lacey.’

     ‘Lord Randall, how are you?’ The Earl of Lacey shook his hand vigorously. ‘And how’s your mother?’

     ‘Hopefully well, sir. I am about to find out, since I am invited down to her estates in Kent. By breakfast tomorrow, I should be enjoying the charms of country life.’

     ‘What, you’re surely not driving down tonight?’

     ‘The roads are quieter by night, my lord. And there is a good moon tonight.’

     ‘Oh, quite so. I daresay you’re right. Damn ridiculous, the amount of traffic on the roads these days. So you’re to escape the clutches of London’s debutantes, eh? There’ll be some disappointed young misses in town when they hear of your departure!’

     Lady Caroline’s somewhat flushed papa finished his glass of Madeira, handed it to a passing servant and gestured for another.

     ‘Look here, Randall,’ he continued, ‘ what do you make of these wild goings-on up at Hounslow? Just been telling my sister all about it. Though I believe you have your own theories on the matter.’

     Trajan’s eyebrows shot up. He glanced with some surprise at the two ladies present. ‘My lord?’

     ‘Oh, don’t mind my sister Matilda. She was out in Spain with her husband for three years. Until he was shot, of course. Nerves of steel now. Won’t turn a hair, whatever colour the water. And Caro here’s the one who mentioned the dashed affair to me in the first place.’ The portly Lord Lacey turned to his only daughter with an indulgent laugh. ‘What did ye call it, m’dear? The Petticoat Club?’

     Not surprisingly, given the scandalous nature of the story under discussion, Lady Caroline blushed. Her voice sank to an imploring whisper.

     ‘Hush, papa. People are staring!’

     ‘Let them stare! Nothing better for them to do, I daresay. As for this Petticoat Club, it can’t possibly be true. Young ladies stripping a gentleman of his ... his
inexpressibles
, damn it! Then tossing the poor naked fella out onto the heath for all to see?’ His lordship made a snorting sound. ‘Never heard of any female doing such a thing.’

     Trajan nodded. ‘I agree, my lord. No gentlewoman would lower herself to such a breach of good conduct.’

     Lady Caroline was looking at him with that odd, hard stare again. ‘What, sir, not even in
revenge
?‘

     ‘My lady?’

     Viscount Randall frowned at Lady Caroline’s muttered question, delivered
sotto voce
and at such speed he doubted whether he had even heard her correctly.

     What a strange creature she was indeed.

     ‘You may depend upon it,’ Trajan continued more gently, turning to her, ‘this Petticoat Club is a figment of some gentleman’s imagination or injured pride. Your sex, and you must forgive me for pointing out the obvious, is neither physically powerful nor bold enough to undertake what is essentially a criminal act of highwaymanship. If Sir John Dallenby was indeed stripped and deposited on Hounslow Heath in the middle of the night, this was not achieved by a gaggle of girls scarcely out of the schoolroom, as Dallenby so ludicrously claims, but by some wrathful debtor in search of his money.’

     Lord Lacey clapped him on the shoulder approvingly. ‘That does seem the likelier explanation! Poor Dallenby, eh? Borrowed some blunt, forgot to cough up, found himself roasted for it.’

     Lady Caroline’s aunt frowned. ‘But what about the unspeakable Buckby? Didn’t the man claim his coach was held up by a gang of armed women?’

     ‘Another fantastic tale. Whoever heard of such an outlandish thing?’ Trajan was warming to his subject now. ‘As I’ve said before, the whole thing’s a hum. Buckby didn’t want to admit he was caught off guard by a highwayman. Thought he’d throw his lot in with this Petticoat story, make it less embarrassing. But no female would be capable of executing such a daring plan.’

     ‘My lord!’ Lady Caroline’s voice sounded strangled.

     Bowing over her hand, Trajan smiled into Lady Caroline's cloudy bespectacled eyes. She was not only a sorry antidote, he realised, but a simpleton to boot. Thank goodness he’d changed his mind about offering for her five years ago, or he might have ended up legshackled to this dim creature for life!

     ‘No one thinks any the less of your sex for it, Lady Caroline,’ he explained patiently. ‘It is the way of nature. Some deeds are simply impossible for a lady to undertake – and believe me, I would not have it any other way.’

CHAPTER TWO

Viscount Randall, enveloped in a thick, many-caped greatcoat and holding the reins in a slack grasp, his dark head slumped to one side, seemed for all the world like a man asleep as his new racing curricle – the envy of London’s keenest whipsters – dashed out of London on the newly-improved Deptford road. It was a breakneck pace, and although a lantern swung beside him, it remained unlit, his swift-moving greys guided only by the light of a full moon.

     A few miles south of the river, an odd wailing noise brought his lordship upright in an instant, slowing the horses. Instinctively, Trajan felt for the flintlock pistol he kept beneath the seat in case of attacks by highwaymen. But his hand came away empty.

     He cursed, recalling that the pistol was away at the gunsmiths. Nor was he carrying any weapons himself - not even a dress sword. Such precautions had seemed unnecessary on this short trip down to his mother’s estate in Kent.

     The eerie wail came again. Then a ghostly white shape darted out from the trees at the roadside.

     Some crazed woman, casting herself before the horses!

     The animals reared up in a panic. Not entirely unspooked himself by this apparition, but too busy dealing with the matter in hand to act the idiot, Trajan leant back and hauled on the reins, calling out to the pair in what he hoped was a reassuring manner.

     ‘Wooa there, Pepper! Come now, Salt!’

     As soon as the pair of high-strung greys had jerked to an unsteady and reluctant halt, Trajan jumped down from the carriage to investigate what had frightened them.

     Sure enough, a heavily-built woman in a white gown lay prostrate on the road before him, her head wrapped in a thick veil.

     Trajan hesitated, remaining at the horses’ heads for a moment. He glanced cautiously about himself in the darkness. It was a common enough trick, to send a woman out in front of the horses to stop a passing coach, after which the rest of the gang would descend, to rob the unwary inhabitants of their possessions. But the road seemed quiet in both directions; there was no one else in sight.

     A groan issued from the woman’s lips.

     Trajan frowned, looping the reins around the nearest tree branch. He knelt beside the fallen woman. ‘Madam, can you tell me what has happened?’ he asked gently. ‘Were you attacked? Are you hurt?’

     The loud click of a trigger being drawn back next to his ear made Trajan tense, then turn his head warily in its direction.

     Furious at his own idiocy, Trajan found himself staring down the barrel of a very menacing pistol. Behind it, equally menacing, stood a shortish man in black, muffled and hooded, his voice gruff but unyielding.

     ‘Hands up, m’lord! And no nonsense, or you’ll regret it.’

     ‘I’ve nothing of value on me,’ he began angrily, then fell silent as the cold muzzle of the pistol made contact with his forehead. ‘All right, no nonsense. What is it you want, fellow?’

     ‘I want you to stand up. Slowly! Slowly! Now, take off that cape. Throw it aside and put your hands behind your back. That’s it.’

     The man gestured impatiently at the woman, who had knelt up and was already engaged in securing Trajan’s hands behind his back with a length of rope.

     ‘Tie him securely and check for weapons. Don’t forget his boots!’

    
The woman came shuffling round, bent over, her hands slapping at his calves and thighs in a distinctly business-like fashion. Trajan realised with a shock that this was no woman. It was in fact a stocky man in a gown, his face partially concealed by a veil but decidedly too stubbly for a woman.

     At that moment the man glanced up at him with an unmistakeable grin, as though he found Trajan’s predicament entertaining.

     What a fool he was. Gulled by this pair of knaves like a regular green boy!

     ‘Now,’ his chief captor continued grimly, ‘start walking. My friend here will see to your curricle and horses. Go on, look sharp! Head for that gap in the trees. And don’t think of running off. I’ll be right behind you all the way, with this pretty little lady trained on your back.’

     Since the ‘lady’ he had referred to was the flintlock pistol, still cocked and pointing at his heart, Trajan nodded and started walking.

     Behind, he heard the slow crunch of wheels and realised that the man’s co-conspirator must be turning his curricle back towards London. He thought swiftly. These were no ordinary highwaymen, snatching gems and other valuables, then riding off into the night again.