Had We Never Loved (14 page)

“Billy Brave!” Sep threw up his hands in mock horror. “
What
a unkind thing to say!”

There was a concerted laugh at this sally, and Greasy Waistcoat thrust his face at Glendenning and demanded, “Where's yer friends? You must have some idea which way you come.”

The viscount was contriving to stand very straight and hold his head proudly, but the thought of these animals discovering that a young and beautiful girl was all alone in the woods sent a debilitating wave of fear through him. “I told you, I don't know.” A remark of Florian's came to mind, and he went on: “But I'd as soon get out of these woods. They're said to be haunted.”

This dreadful assertion gave them pause. Greasy Waistcoat crooked the first two fingers of his right hand, just to be on the safe side; the cherubic youth drew a horse pistol; Billy Brave tugged at his grey hair nervously; and even Sep was silent. Witches and warlocks were known to frequent woodsy places at the dark of the moon, and tonight was dark indeed. Furthermore, since several highwaymen had been hanged on the great gibbet which stood at the crossroads on a nearby hill, the presence of a ghost or two was very probable.

Billy Brave glanced about uneasily. “I heered that, too,” he muttered. “This is a bad place, Sep. This nob's not no good to us. Let's get out.”

The youth recovered his nerve. “I got a pop here'll put paid to any ghost. Don't be scared, Billy.”

“Just shut yer jaw,” growled Septimus, his careful pronunciation slipping. “He's been helped, ain't he? So who helped him? Mebbe him as we're looking for.” Seizing the viscount by the arm, he added, “We ain't got all night to waste, and you don't look to be in good point, mate. A 'pothecary's what you need, and we'll fetch one, soon's we get you into shelter. Where's the harm in telling us who tied up yer leg?”

If he was sure of where he was, thought Glendenning, he could point them in the opposite direction. The devil was in it that he might very well send them straight to Amy. “I shall be perfectly all right here,” he said haughtily. “Just be—”

Greasy Waistcoat cursed, and shoved with brutal force.

Glendenning went down hard. His head smashed against a root …

Some indefinable time later, he could hear them talking and making a great deal of noise as they tried to construct a rude shelter from the rain.

“… and if it's them, they're prob'ly close by.” The voice of Sep. “This dog's meat gent couldn't have come far with that leg.”

“No. And we ain't going to get far tonight.” That cantankerous growl would be Greasy Waistcoat. “Prop it up with this 'ere branch, Billy. That's right. It's perishing dark, Sep. Even if the nob do know the way, he'd never find it now.”

“He knows it! So I says we wait till light, then make him show us. With that hole in his leg, it'll be easy to persuade him to do what he's told!”

“What?”
wailed Billy Brave. “Is you saying we gotta stay here
all night
? Why don't we just tie him to a tree and gag him? We can find a tavern and come back in the morning.”

The youth said contemptuously, “'Cause he might get loose, a'course, or someone else might find him 'fore we got back. 'Sides, the Squire says—”

Abruptly, Glendenning's misery was forgotten. He stiffened, listening intently. The
Squire?
Were these crude varmints referring to a simple country squire? Or was it possible that they spoke of the murderous leader of the League of Jewelled Men? No, that was ridiculous. More likely some local squire had sent them out after poachers. Clearly, they thought he'd been aided by someone they sought. That Amy and Absalom could have any connection with the business was out of the question. Unless … Amy
had
admitted stealing those confounded chickens. Was she being hunted down for that crime? It was not impossible, but on the other hand, would any squire send four men to track down the purloiner of two fowl? Whatever the case, there was no doubting what would happen if rogues of this stamp got their filthy hands on her. He tightened his jaw and made some grim resolutions. He might be a “lecher,” and “a poor excuse for a gentleman,” but, by Jupiter, he'd die before he'd lead them to—

“What you whispering about?” demanded Sep.

Billy Brave's voice shook. “I—thought I—heered something.”

“Of all the perishing—” began the youth scornfully.

“Stow yer gab,” snarled Greasy Waistcoat. “There it is again!”

There it was, indeed. A low moan that set the hairs lifting on the back of Glendenning's neck. A moan that rose into a hideous wheezing, then ended in an unmistakable
hee-haw!

Sep laughed shakily.

The youth said in mixed relief and disgust, “'Tis nought but a perishing moke!”

Greasy Waistcoat's voice had a shrill edge as it sliced through their half-embarrassed exclamations. “Listen! Pox on you!
Listen!
That ain't no dang ass!”

Silence, as they all strained their ears. There came a soft chuckling, gradually increasing in volume until it became a scream of insane laughter that died away, leaving a hushed yet throbbing quiet in its wake.

“Oh,” whimpered Billy Brave. “Oh! My Gawd!”

The youth asked threadily, “What the … hell … was
that?
”

“They do say,” quavered Greasy Waistcoat, “as Old Nick likes to change his shape! He appears first as a beast, and then—”

“Shut up,” ordered Sep fiercely. “Likely 'twere nothing worse than someone's donkey what's strayed and woke up a stupid owl. Any rate, it's gone now, so—”

But it hadn't gone. Sep's harsh words were in turn rudely interrupted. If anything, the chuckling was closer this time, and Glendenning's blood ran cold, for it echoed upon itself, as no earthly voice might do.

“Look!”
Billy's voice squeaked with terror. “Holy Christ!
Look!
”

With an effort, Glendenning managed to turn his aching head. He gave a gasp, and lay rigid.

An eerie glow was drifting through the trees. As it came nearer he discerned a long white robe, one abnormally long arm waving menacingly, and, tucked under the other—a human head. A ghastly, glowing, blood-streaked head, with a gaping mouth, and dark hollows for eyes. And ever, as it came, that horrible, bubbling chuckle came with it.

The youth uttered a choking sob of terror.

Made of sterner stuff, Sep jerked a long-barrelled pistol from his pocket. The night was reft with an instant of glaring fire and an ear-splitting retort followed by a brief and oddly musical sound.

The apparition paused. Its head was gone, but now both those long, handless arms rose to the sides. A piercing howl of rage rang out, and the nightmarish thing surged toward the petrified little group.

A shriek was closely followed by another. Four bold thieves fought tooth and claw in their frantic efforts to be first through the only other break in the dense shrubs that surrounded them.

Faint with horror, the viscount tried to drag himself up, but the thing was almost upon him. Crowding into his mind came memories of terrible tales of headless queens in the Bloody Tower; of vengeful ghosts and phantoms that at school had been gleefully related by senior boys to shivering new boys; the reports of foul fiends and witches so often recounted in hushed voices in London coffee houses and country taverns. The sounds of flight, the terrified shouts, were fading. He was all alone, and his bones were like water. He could do no more than throw up one arm to protect his head, and shrink back against the tree trunk, waiting in helpless dread for those unearthly glowing arms to touch him.

Silence.

He peeped from under his trembling fingers. Dear God, how hideous it was! Floating above him; those handless arms waving about, and a faint indeterminate odour emanating from it.

A high-pitched nasal wail pronounced, “Your sins has found ye out, evil one! Do ye repent of your vile scheme to ruin a innocent young girl?”

Dizzy and sick, Glendenning gasped out, “I—I do…”

“And does ye solemnly swear never to put your wicked hands on her no more?”

An illiterate bogle this, but one did not quarrel with so fearsome an apparition. Through chattering teeth, he declared, “I does— I do! N-never!”

Slowly, the arms sank. If only it would go away! ‘Please, God! Make it go, and I'll … nevermore…'

By all the saints! It was—it was folding in upon itself! Becoming smaller and smaller! Glendenning could bear no more. He was going to faint … like a girl.… Perhaps because his eyes were closing, the odour was clearer.
Fresh baked bread!

His eyes shot open.

The ghost had melted into a glowing pile on the ground, and was being gathered up by—

“Amy!”
he croaked.

She looked down at him. “Can you get up?”

“No,” he declared, humiliation very quickly replacing his superstitious fears. “Do you know you dam-dashed near caused me to have a seizure?”

With a muffled giggle she said, “I might've knowed I wouldn't get no thanks.”

He said in sudden anxiety, “Have they hurt you? That shot—”

“It broke me head. The one I had under me arm, lucky fer me.” She bent and took his hand. “Come on.”

With her help, he struggled to his feet. Dazed but persistent, he panted, “But, you …
glowed
! How, on earth—”

“D'ye want to wait about here and gab like a fool till they come back? Or would you as soon live a bit longer? Come
on
!” And then, in a kinder voice, “Oh, crumbs. You can't can ye? Poor lordship. A fat lot of good you done by running away.”

“I … wasn't running … away.”

“Not running, anyways,” she said, with a jeering laugh he thought most insensitive. “Lucky I brought Lot. You can ride him. It won't be the Lord Mayor's Coach, y'r honour. But it'll have to do.”

There was so much he wanted to say, so much he wanted to ask. But it was all he could do to lean against the tree where her strong hands had propped him, and, when she returned, to drag his protesting body onto the donkey's back and be carried, most unheroically, to safety.

*   *   *

“All I said,” repeated Enoch Tummet, adjusting the black bow that tied back his temporary employer's thick hair, and regarding it with approval, “was as it struck me as a odd thing. O-d-d odd.” He peered critically at the haughtily handsome face in the mirror, and reached over to loosen a lock of hair too tightly drawn back above the flaring right eyebrow.

“Devil take you!” snarled August Falcon, slapping his hand away. “Don't do that!”

Tummet's bright brown eyes twinkled in his square and rugged countenance. “Makes you look 'uming, mate,” he said irreverently. “Don't please the females if a gent looks like a froze codfish.”

“One,” said Falcon, his own midnight blue eyes glittering, and his voice dangerously quiet, “for the five hundredth time, do—not—call—me—
mate!
Two, since I appear still to live and breathe, I suspect I am sufficiently human—not necessarily a desirable trait. Three, I have no cause to believe the ladies are either displeased, or that they regard me as in any way ‘frozen.'”

“Right ye are, guv,” said Tummet agreeably. “Orf, I was. Ain't nothing froze about yer.” He turned away and, under his breath, muttered, “A perishing volcano, more like it!”

Falcon, the possessor of excellent hearing, murmured, “I only pray that someone, someday, will explain to me how I was so fortunate as to inherit you to impersonate my valet.”

“Easy, ma— sir. Me guv'nor, Captain Rossiter, went orf 'crost the water on 'is 'oneymoon. And I don't like boats.”

“Ships.”

“'Swhat I said. And then yer valet's pa come down ill, so 'e left yer. And, bang-and-slam, 'ere I am.”

Falcon shuddered. “I think my mind is failing me. Logical enough. Between you and Morris, there's—”

“Which reminds me. 'E's waiting. Dahnstairs, mate. Sir mate!”

Falcon's cold gaze slanted to him, and Tummet offered his broad engaging grin.

“Do I dare to hope your legal employer has returned with him?” enquired Falcon.

“'Ain't no 'arm in 'oping, is there?” But Tummet saw the dangerously thin line of the mouth, and added hurriedly, “The lieutenant come alone.”

Falcon rose, slipping a great sapphire ring onto his slender hand. “He shouldn't be here, when we're engaged to fight tomorrow morning! Damme, but the man has as much breeding as—” He directed a simmering glance at his pseudo valet.

“As me, eh guv? Lord love yer, I ain't got no breeding, and I knows it. Don't worry me none. What I see of them as got breeding, they're always running about losing all their rhino—that's money to you, mate—or shooting of each other if one looks at the other sideways, or being bored and miserable. Now—take me on the other 'and; I lives a very jolly life. I can—”

He was interrupted by one of Falcon's rare laughs. “I don't doubt you can, you accursed hedgebird. Get out my colichemarde and check the blade. Morris has likely come to tell me that Lord Kadenworthy is agreeable and our meeting will take place tomorrow, as scheduled.”

Tummet pursed his lips. “The lieutenant should've let 'is seconds come and tell yer that, guv.”

Falcon grunted, and strolled to the stairs thinking that James Morris was perfectly aware of the correct protocol to be observed in an
affaire d'honneur.
It would be astonishing if the pest was here for any other purpose than to moon over Katrina.

His suspicions were borne out when he entered the morning room to find his beautiful sister laughing merrily with the lieutenant, and holding a great bouquet of pink and white roses.