My Lord Highwayman Read online

  “However, there is a certain mischievousness to Mr. Lavant that has caused a deal of discomfiture in those who happen to be the brunt of his little jokes. I daresay that is why Sarah is as strong-willed as she is. But you will learn all of this soon enough. Ah, here we are. Is not this a lovely town? I have always thought myself, from the day my own carriage brought me to Three Rivers Cross as a governess, the luckiest creature in the world to have settled here. Yes, it is true. I was a governess at one time, just like yourself.”

  If Abigail was a little surprised by all that Lady Waldron so readily revealed to her, she was soon distracted by the beauty of the town as a string of country shops came into view. The architecture was quite ancient and charmingly draped in the prettiest thatching imaginable.

  Lady Waldron suddenly said, “You must come to my soiree. Miss Lavant, of course, will be attending even though she is not yet officially ‘come-out,’ so I hope you will accept of my invitation.”

  “Of course I shall.” Abigail found herself grateful to Lady Waldron. Governesses were not always treated so kindly in society nor invited everywhere as a general rule. “I look forward to your soiree exceedingly.”

  * * * * * * * * *

  Only after he had put two miles between himself and the beautiful young lady he had just kissed did Lord Treyford slow his departure. He brought his horse to a walk, much to the relief of his servant, who had just confessed he was far too old to be galloping about the moors at midnight and playing at Robin Hood of old.

  Still sustaining his Spanish inflection, Treyford said, “But with such a moon, Pilton. How can you speak such things?”

  “My lord,” Pilton returned, “I can bear anything except the sound of your voice in that odious disguise.”

  “What of your own tonight?” he asked, laughing. “You sounded like a bear. No, no. Pray, none of your reproaches. Even your ill humors will not disturb me tonight. Did you see her face? By God, there has not been such a beauty in Devonshire in many a year.”

  At that, he heard Pilton sigh. “She is a beauty, a diamond of the first water, unquestionably.”

  Lord Treyford could not have agreed more, besides which she kissed with great experience, which made him hopeful in a way that caused his horse to break into a canter. “Whoa, Daedalus.”

  “But if I might be bold, m’lord, I am confused on one point.”

  “And what might that be?”

  “Well, I could not help but observe that you have never before kissed a lady in quite that manner. Ordinarily, you reserve the hand or wrist for your salutes. Why did you alter your conduct?”

  Treyford laughed, for this much was true even though he knew quite well that several of the neighborhood damsels had insisted he had kissed them quite thoroughly. He had, for that reason, earned the appellation Don Juan, however undeserved.

  “In truth,” he responded, “I do not know what possessed me to kiss her as I did. She spoke of being a daughter of the moon, and from that moment on I was lost.”

  Pilton merely grunted his disapproval.

  “My dear Pilton, you have begun to make sounds like an old man. Are you having a recurrence of your gout?”

  “It was not the gout, m’lord,” he returned severely. “I have told you often and often. I rammed my foot against the bedpost.”

  “Of course,” Treyford stated in an entirely provoking manner, which caused Pilton to glare at him. He laughed. “Whatever you do, do not injure it again, since you are to be married.”

  This abrupt and happy turn of subject finally brought a smile to Pilton’s face. He was secretly betrothed to Lady Waldron’s abigail, and it was from this fine lady’s maid that Treyford had learned the hour at which Sir Christopher and his wife would be traveling across the moors that evening.

  Whatever Pilton’s concerns, however, Treyford could not be overset by having surrendered to his desire to kiss the prettiest, most willing female he had encountered in a decade. He could only wonder, however, who she was, what her age might be, and how it came about that she was traveling alone on the moors at so late an hour. Her voice was perfectly genteel, so why had she not been traveling with a companion or at the very least her maid? Was she perchance a relative of one of the numerous families residing about Three Rivers Cross?

  He frowned suddenly. He hoped most sincerely she was not related to Lady Waldron, else he would never see her again.

  Twenty years earlier, he had fallen deeply and desperately in love with the wrong woman, fought a duel that had nearly cost him his own life, not to mention the life of his opponent, and because the young woman’s sister had been Henrietta Young, now Lady Waldron, he had paid for succumbing to Cupid’s seductions nearly as long as he could remember.

  His thoughts settled into the rhythm of his horse’s steady trot.

  Lady Waldron had been relentless in her determination to make him suffer for the scandal he had brought to her beautiful sister, the Duchess of Chandos. He would never have thought it possible that one person could sustain an animosity over a period of two decades, but so the lady had.

  As it happened, he had been awaiting Henrietta’s carriage, when the daughter of Artemis chanced along. His lips settled into a grim line. Lady Waldron’s hatred of him had infected her husband equally, and he did not know which of them had become a more serious or determined adversary: Sir Christopher Waldron or his wife. His personal mission, to see an orphanage built at Three Rivers Cross, had been stymied at every turn by one or the other, but primarily through Sir Christopher’s opposition. He had ventured onto the moors this night intending to relieve the arrogant baronet of perhaps another hundred pounds both by means of punishment as well as to further the completion of the building itself.

  A year before, he had entered enthusiastically into Mr. Clark’s plan to fund through local donations a much-needed orphanage. Mr. Clark was the vicar of Oakmont and well-connected to the families of Three Rivers Cross. However, when it became known that Treyford was a primary support of the project, Sir Christopher mounted a campaign to make certain the orphanage came to naught.

  More than one neighborhood family had commended his efforts but had hinted at the impossibility of aligning themselves with a duelist and near murderer. Yes, he had been forced into a duel, though entirely against his will. But to have been charged with the intention of murder when he had deloped twice, only to have Lord Chandos reload and fire his pistol twice more, was going beyond the pale. Perhaps it was his stubbornness that prevented him from defending himself to Sir Christopher and the others, or perhaps his disinterest in belonging to a set of people who had judged him so harshly from the time he was nineteen, he could not say. Whatever the case, he had given up a long time ago attempting to ingratiate himself into the good opinion of a group of people set so firmly against him.

  Instead, he had gone about his affairs, tending to his estates, enjoying his Seasons in London and in Parliament, caring for his infirm sister in Plymouth, and spoiling his niece as often as possible. He had excellent friends and a wider society than the one that had cast him out so long before.

  Only, where would the daughter of the moon fit into Three Rivers Cross society, and would he ever see her again?

  Two

  The following morning, Abigail quit the Mermaid Inn and clambered aboard a rather ancient coach of questionable reliability. Mr. Lavant’s home was some five miles from Three Rivers Cross, and with only a pair of horses to pull the large, cumbersome vehicle, the journey would require at least an hour, perhaps more, to accomplish. She might have considered walking, but she had brought with her any number of portmanteaus and bandboxes that would need to be carted to the manor anyway.

  She left the lovely thatched town in something of a bemused state, since the Mermaid’s publican, a kind, balding man by the name of Mr. Pennymoot, had taken pity upon her and extended himself to reveal a little of Sarah Lavant’s nature to her. Apparently, Miss Lavant had a reputation for incorrigible conduct toward her governesses,
not least of which was the secreting of snakes—albeit the harmless garden sort—beneath the covers of her victim’s bed.

  She was surprised that a young lady of seventeen would engage in such antics, but Mr. Pennymoot felt that her occasionally odd conduct was a result of the death of a beloved governess, Miss Fursden, some five years past. She understood then that her task in guiding Miss Lavant through her come-out ball might not be as easy as she had at first supposed. She smiled to herself, for she had entered service into more than one household with seemingly insuperable difficulties before her, and she felt equal to this post.

  She glanced out at the Devonshire landscape. The vale was so very different from the moorland. Three rivers and innumerable streams created a lush appearance. Tall stands of growing cornstalks as well as several flocks of sheep could be seen everywhere. The day was quite beautiful, for there was not a cloud in the sky and the temperature was not so warm yet as to make the trip to Oak Hill in the least uncomfortable. How different Devonshire was from London.

  The metropolis had many advantages—theaters, circulating libraries, museums. However, was there anything so fine as an undulating green landscape and the sounds of birds busily employed in the hedgerows?

  For some reason, as she pondered the differences between London and Devonshire, Abigail suddenly thought of Geoffrey, her most recent betrothed. He had never been fond of the country. Even though he had a large property in Bedfordshire, he rarely visited his ancestral home, as he squabbled with his father and brothers more often than not whenever he did so. Her heart ached at the thought of him. His love of gaming and disinterest in his family had made it impossible for him to provide the one thing she desired the most, to belong to a community.

  Her father’s interests had been so insular, and she an only child, that her growing up years had been wretchedly lonely. She knew she could never be happy in any marriage that dictated by its nature she must live apart from society. Such a union would have been hers had she wed Geoffrey regardless of how much she loved him or how much he loved her.

  The truth was, she had been in and out of love a great deal too much since her orphan days, unreasonably so.

  She could not help but laugh at herself a little. She seemed to fall in love with the mere turning of the seasons or anything else that prompted Cupid to prick her with one of his golden arrows. She tumbled in love when the rabbits grew their winter coats and when icicles dropped from barren branches. She had known violent passions when the strong winds of March blew across the island, when the blackthorn bloomed in the hedges, or when Londoners left for Brighton, Bath, or Tunbridge Wells at the end of June. She was truly susceptible to Eros at any time—in the full heat of summer or when the beech woods turned into a flame of copper, or when the Yuletide season arrived to brighten the bleakest of winter days.

  Yes, she was an easy mark for Cupid, which set her thoughts in an entirely different direction. For some reason, events of the night before came sharply to mind. She recalled vividly the highwayman’s astonishing kiss and the feelings that his embraces had created within her breast, how warm and safe she had felt held so tightly in his arms. Her lips parted and she issued a quiet, ‘Oh, dear’, within the confines of the tumbledown coach. She sensed in the trembling of her limbs that Cupid was yet again toying with her as a child batting about a well-worn ball, with more enthusiasm than care. Was she in danger of losing her heart again, only this time to a bandit?

  Well, she had one consolation—she doubted she would ever encounter the highwayman again. After all, she had no way of contacting him, and he could not know who she was. She could therefore be at ease. The whole business would end here and now. Even if the bandit crept into her dreams on occasion, as he had last night, that would undoubtedly be the most she would ever see of him.

  These thoughts brought her around to another set of perplexing circumstances she had been unable to resolve happily in her mind. On the night before, Lady Waldron had been quite emphatic about the necessity of keeping Lord Treyford separated from polite society, but what she had overheard in the taproom that morning while enjoying her breakfast made her wonder at the man and his peculiar situation in the vale.

  Several farmers and tradesmen had gathered, as seemed a habit to them, in order to debate a variety of matters that concerned the Three Rivers community. She could hear snatches of their conversation and was particularly intrigued when Treyford’s name arose within the overall discussion. What followed were so many compliments concerning his character that her attention had been caught. She had even let her eggs grow cold in order to listen better. Treyford, it would seem, whatever his past crimes, was a man held in the highest esteem by any number of the local inhabitants, which, of course, Lady Waldron had told her last night. However, she had not expected to hear his lordship praised so highly.

  Treyford, it would seem, was considered to be a man of honesty and integrity who knew how to manage his lands and whose generosity had extended itself to paying for a full fourth of an orphanage presently under construction. It was further revealed that the good vicar, a Mr. Clark, who had initiated the building of the orphanage, was only meagerly supported by the rest of the gentry, something that caused a grumbling to ensue in the taproom. The farmers and tradesmen clearly did not approve of how the community had responded to Mr. Clark’s plans once it was known Treyford would be a major support of the project. Treyford’s involvement had apparently prompted most of the other gentlemen in the vale to withhold their support of the much-needed facility.

  Abigail had a good deal to contemplate in this. Was this truly the same man Lady Waldron had vilified in the early hours of the morning? Was it possible Treyford was not nearly as vile as her ladyship had indicated? She wondered, for instance, whether Treyford had actually been in love with Lady Chandos, or whether, as Lady Waldron had suggested, he had merely toyed with the duchess’s affections, perhaps even delighting in facing the duke across a dueling field. Lady Waldron’s opinion was that he had been and still was a libertine, a very bad man, yet all that she had heard about him from the local inhabitants did not comprise so odious a creature.

  Still, what a man might admire in another man was not necessarily what a lady could admire, not in the least.

  Here was yet another mystery, she thought.

  Again, Abigail smiled. She loved a mystery and she loved arriving at new places, meeting new people, and learning all she could about her new home. Only, how would she find Sarah Lavant? This thought broadened her smile a little more.

  Just before taking her last sip of coffee that morning, she had heard the gentlemen in the taproom lay wagers on precisely how long Miss Abigail Chailey would remain at Oak Hill. There seemed to be a score of doubts that she would last even the night. She was greatly pleased when Mr. Pennymoot himself wagered a shocking sum—ten pounds.—that the new governess would reside at the manor an entire month and not a day less. Praise, indeed, she thought with no small degree of pleasure even though a round of disbelieving laughter accompanied this wager. Should Mr. Pennymoot win the bet, he would in one day acquire a tidy sum.

  So it was, she had taken up her place in the old, rickety coach and set to bouncing her way to Oak Hill Manor.

  * * * * * * * * *

  “You seem rather distracted this morning, Treyford.”

  Lord Treyford turned from the window of Sylvester Lavant’s private study and regarded his host with a conscious smile. “I suppose I am. I did not sleep well last night.”

  “It is a full moon.”

  At that, Treyford chuckled. “It was not the moon that kept me awake.”

  “Ah,” he breathed with some satisfaction. “You’ve a lady at last.”

  “No,” he murmured, turning back to look out the window. “The dream of a lady, perhaps.”

  Treyford allowed himself the pleasure of a smile. He was remembering the daughter of the moon and the kiss he had placed on her willing lips. He had dreamed of her and found himself longing, yes,
longing to see her again.

  “Well, this is at least encouraging,” Lavant said. “You have never spoken of the dream of a lady before.”

  Treyford turned to him, smiling ruefully. “You will not be satisfied until I am wed, will you?”

  “No,” Lavant stated bluntly.

  Treyford could only laugh. Lavant had proved an excellent friend over the years, and he was always happy to be in his company.

  Oak Hill was a snug property, he mused. One his host kept in immaculate condition. He was the primary inhabitant near the hamlet of Oakmont. Neither the village nor Lavant’s home possessed a single oak, which was a curiosity in itself. Any number of pigs, but no oaks from which the acorns might fall to entice the rooting creatures.

  Sylvester Lavant was one of the oddest gentlemen he had ever known, and had Treyford not disgraced himself so thoroughly when he was nineteen and suffered as a result of that disgrace his banishment from local society, he might never have come to know the fine man Lavant was. He was among a handful of genteel folk in the vale who had stood by him steadfastly once the horrific duel had become common knowledge at Three Rivers Cross. Lavant, his own friend Henry Ditchling, and Emily Marisfield were the three he could count as true friends. Even Emily’s husband rarely frequented Treyford Hall.

  “I’ve heard a little gossip in town,” Lavant said, “which I believe you will find interesting.”

  “Indeed?” he queried, glancing back for a moment.

  Lavant opened the jar of snuff that he kept on his desk and took a pinch. “Sir Christopher has hired a Bow Street Runner to flush out our highwayman; I believe he has tired of being forced to pay for the orphanage almost single-handedly. Can’t blame him, really.”

  Treyford shrugged in what he hoped was a nonchalant manner. “Waldron is as rich as Croesus. He could afford to build ten orphanages and have enough left over to fund a cathedral.” He had for several weeks suspected that Lavant knew of his nocturnal activities but was grateful his friend had never once addressed the subject openly with him. “Although, I must say, it took him long enough to hire a professional to cope with the nuisance.”