Chapter Two

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 find you?”

…

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 like her was 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, not cock 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 not your job? 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.”

“You would not kill me.”

She clenched her jaw and pressed the blade more firmly into his neck. “How can you be so certain?”

“Because, though you ride with thieves, your eyes give you away. There is no violence in them.”

“And you are the expert on violent eyes?”

He grimaced. “Yes. Unfortunately.”

The pressure on his throat lifted as she seemed to waver. He cleared his loosened vocal cords. “You wished to make an offer?”

She pursed her lips in apparent consideration before nodding. “I do. I propose to spare your life. In return, you ride with me to London with the stolen coins and help us avoid any who might pursue, criminal and Redbreast alike.”

“A reasonable offer. I believe…”

“But you must agree to my terms.”

He narrowed his eyes. “And those are?”

“That upon our safe arrival in London, we part ways and pretend we never met.”

The proposal raised bile in Henry’s throat. An agreement with a thief was just the sort of action he had long feared—the first stumble down a slippery slope into the depths of criminality. However, he did not wish to die just yet. “A devil’s deal, for certain. My life in exchange for abdication of my duty and the soiling of my honor.”

She smiled grimly. “I doubt your honor is above soiling, Lord Virtue. Few of the gentry are as pure as that.”

“And you know this from experience?”

“Yes. Unfortunately.”

Henry watched her a moment longer. “What’s your name?”

“You don’t require my name.”

“That is my condition. Or you can just kill me.”

Those dark eyes grew darker still as a storm raged behind them. Her generous lips parted for the space of several breaths before she answered. “Lucy.”

He nodded. “Right, then, Lucy of Shooter’s Hill. I accept your desperate offer—terms and all.”

“Swear by your mother’s name that you will honor all points of our agreement.”

“You do not trust my word?”

“I would sooner trust a pickpocket.”

“Very well,” he said with a lofty sigh. “I swear by my mother’s name.”

She continued to eye him. “Do you even love your mother, Lord Dandy?”

“I never knew my mother.” Deep pain stirred, but he swept it aside. “However, I would walk through Hell’s fire to have known her for even a single day.”

Lucy seemed to consider his frank reply. Her hardened features softened to reveal a comely face that might even prove capable of a warm smile. She sighed and removed the rapier from his throat. In a single abrupt movement, he collected his saber, bounded to his feet, and leveled it at her chest. The immediate hurt in Lucy’s eyes unnerved him.

“But…you promised,” she said woefully.

She was right, of course. And breaking a vow was just another step on the downward path of the fallen. After the space of a few heartbeats, he lowered his saber and sheathed it. “I did promise. Now, let’s get on with this before I regret that fact more than I already do. Shall I help you mount your horse, or does Her Highness wish a gold carriage?”

“I require no such help, thank you. Inform me if you require assistance mounting yours.”

She seized the leader of the packhorse and swung into her saddle with a fluid motion that startled Henry. “Let us go, then, Robin Redbreast.”

She nudged her horse ahead into the trees without glancing back, pulling the packhorse behind. Henry rode in silence for some time, trailing her through dense woods.

“Do you know where you are going?” he finally asked.

“Yes. A southwesterly course will lead us back to the Dover highway and away from where the others planned to meet.”

“You fear your gang will not understand your actions, then?”

She tucked her chin. “Very much so.”

Her fear was all too familiar. His every action as a child had been second-guessed by his judgmental brother. “And are you certain our trajectory is southwesterly?”

“Of course, Sir Skeptic. Why? Are you lost?”

“Physically, yes,” he replied. “But morally, no.”

She cast a glare at him over one shoulder, clearly peeved. Over the ensuing minutes, Henry’s eyes returned frequently to the packhorse laden with bags containing ten thousand gold coins, and his low regard for her sank further. Finally, he could bite his tongue no longer.

“It seems the proverb is untrue.”

She glanced back at him. “Which proverb is that?”

“The one that says there is honor among thieves. But here you are stealing from your fellows.”

“I am no thief,” she shot back. “But then perhaps you view anyone not of the haute ton as a thief.”

He chuckled dryly. “I did not call you a thief. However, I did imply that you were worse than one, stealing for yourself what was obtained by all.”

She halted her horse and glared at him again, her dark eyes firing arrows into his soul. “You know nothing of me. Nothing whatsoever. The coins are not for me.”

“For whom, then? Your friends? Your family? Will you shower the poor with riches as a modern-day Robin Hood?”

She continued to attack him with those lively eyes, apparently incredulous at his words. “The coins are for you to return to Bow Street with no mention of me.”

Her simple reply struck him like a fist. His regret flared until she offered another caveat. “I request only one consideration.”

“There it is. Let us hear it.”

“I ask that you share a portion of any reward with me so I may find a living in London.”

Henry shook his head as his appetite for chiding her suddenly diminished. “Your plan suffers from a fatal flaw, Miss…”

“Locket.”

“Lucy Locket? Like the common street rhyme?”

“Yes, like that. You were saying?”

“Oh, yes. Your brilliant plan ignores the fact that the magistrate recently placed a moratorium on lower members of Bow Street claiming any reward for retrieved property, pending a mysterious ongoing investigation. Furthermore, should you return the money in person, you will be hanged.”

She glanced back at him again, her face stricken. “Hanged?”

“Yes. The penalty for highway robbery is death by hanging, with the body subsequently displayed in a gibbet at a crossroads until it rots. Several Bow Street patrolmen witnessed your participation in the robbery. While I might not testify to that fact, they will.”

“But I did not participate in the robbery.” The tremor of her words revealed deep dismay.

“You did, Miss Locket. It is a standard strategy of highwaymen to post sentries along the road to warn of lawmen. You shouted warning to the crew, without which we might have apprehended them on the spot. You are an accomplice, regardless of your intentions.”

“But you promised not to surrender me to Bow Street.”

“And I stand by that promise. But my associates may not.”

Her face fell before she turned away. Her shoulders began to shake as she cried silently. For the first time, he felt mild pity for the young woman’s situation. However, he pushed the emotion aside with the righteous logic that she alone was responsible for her unfavorable circumstances.