Page 1 of Escape of the Highwayman (Escape #3)
T he sun shone down on the bustling little market town of Greater Lessing. Although the populace appeared to be largely blind to the glories of the day, Jonathan Berry was not.
He enjoyed the warmth of the sun on his face, the dappled light on the cobbled stones of the busy market square and on the quaint, old half-timbered buildings, from the roofs of which, birds were singing their summer songs.
Mostly, he enjoyed watching the girls with smiles on their faces, scurrying or strolling about their business, many with baskets over their arms as they made the most of market day, not only buying and selling but chattering and laughing and flirting.
On days like this—and there hadn’t been so many of them recently—Jon felt almost human again.
He could have been anywhere in England, in Spain or Portugal, or anywhere in the world, and the scene would not be so very different.
Clutching his mug of ale, leaning against the corner of the inn, with Cavalo, his horse, breathing down his neck, he felt anxieties trickle away.
Close enough to be part of the scene before him, he was content merely to be still, to sip his ale and observe.
Until he saw her .
She walked among the throng with unhurried, natural grace, smiling occasionally at acquaintances in a familiar yet slightly distracted kind of way.
He imagined she had the face and poise of a dreamer.
It was certainly a rather lovely face beneath a wide-brimmed straw bonnet, threaded with what looked like wild flowers—an eccentricity for a lady, which she clearly was.
She wore a walking dress of bright, printed muslin and a neat little spencer, no newer than the clearly much-loved hat, and yet the overall effect charmed him.
His attention stayed with her as she moved among the stalls, drawing closer to him as she bought a few household items and added them to her basket. Perhaps his gaze was too intense, for she looked across suddenly and caught him staring.
In the circumstances, there was only one thing to do. He smiled, doffed his slightly disreputable hat, and inclined his head. He could have sworn that just for an instant, amusement lit her dreamy eyes. She might even have begun to smile back, only she was distracted.
A gaggle of children and a ferociously barking dog suddenly hurtled toward her from the other side of the square to the imminent danger of life, limb and several stalls.
“Miss Chloe, Miss Chloe!” the children called, skidding to a halt and surrounding her, all jabbering at once.
The fierce mongrel with the scarily deep bark rammed its head against her skirts and she reached down automatically to fondle its ears.
It gazed up at her adoringly, while she listened to the children as though she actually understood the incomprehensible babble.
A frown contracted her smooth brow, and as one of the smallest children actually tugged at her hand, an unexpectedly martial glint formed in her eye and she marched off in their midst, the dog at their heels.
Jon was disappointed, though from nothing more than idle curiosity, he continued to watch their progress.
It required only a very minor shift in his position and a nudge against Cavalo, who snorted and tossed his head, to see that their destination was a stall selling songbirds in cages.
In fact, most of the cages on the stall were empty, waiting to be sold, no doubt, with each bird, nearly all of which were crammed into one cage not much larger than the rest. The birds squawked and cheeped and pecked each other, trying and failing to escape the press of their companions. Nor could there be room for any water.
These conditions seemed to be what the lady and the children were objecting to.
Jon’s money was on the lady. Because for all her unworldly air, she was certainly telling off the stallholder in no uncertain terms.
From her gestures, she appeared to be instructing him to remove some of the birds to other cages.
If the man had had any sense, he would have obeyed, however temporarily, just to keep the peace, and it would, besides, have made his birds considerably more attractive to potential buyers.
But he clearly bristled at being told off by a strange woman and a gaggle of troublesome children whom he had probably chased several times already that morning.
He dug his heels in. His voice rose, angry and strident, gathering attention from round about. But if he had hoped to intimidate his chief critic by such tactics, he was disappointed. She merely let him rant without once dropping her gaze. The children and dog pressed close to her.
Intrigued, Jon eased his shoulder off the inn wall, retrieved the walking stick propped up there, and set his mug on the window sill.
“Stay,” he told Cavalo, and limped his way across the square toward the public altercation.
The stallholder paused for breath.
The young lady said clearly, “Then if you are so stupid as well as cruel, I am forced to buy all of your birds.”
He looked her up and down as though more used to Mayfair than Greater Lessing, and sneered, “You can’t afford to.”
Again, he misjudged his enemy. Although clearly pink with anger, she did not retreat in embarrassment or stalk regally away. Nor did she plead with the avid watchers for support. Instead, she simply reached up to the stuffed cage of noisy birds and unhooked the door.
In a massive flapping of wings and flurry of feathers, the birds all but exploded out of the cage, falling and flying and cheeping. The crowd ducked and the birds soared and scattered.
The children cheered. The dog wagged its tail. The stallholder, purple with anger, jabbed a fleshy finger at the young lady’s chest.
Jon acted without thought. He caught the man by the wrist before he could touch her or force her backward. And suddenly, all eyes were on Jon.
Not wise. And not what he had intended at all when he set out to indulge his curiosity. But, there, such blatant disrespect to a lady was not to be tolerated and nobody else had intervened.
“Tut,” Jon said mildly.
The beefy stallholder glared at him and tried to shake him off. He probably assumed it would be easy for Jon’s appearance was frail these days. Failing to free himself the first time, he tried and failed again.
“You see?” the young lady said triumphantly. “Not so pleasant to be captive, is it?” Over the stallholder’s straining arm, she met Jon’s gaze and inclined her head, though she addressed the larger man. “I bought your birds. I am entitled to free them if I wish.”
“Only once you’ve paid,” Jon’s captive growled.
Jon released the stallholder, who quite clearly thought of a randomly large number, doubled it and recited it with relish to the young lady.
“I’d want three hundred birds in separate gold-plated cages for that money,” Jon said, his attention straying back to Cavalo, who still waited where he’d been told, but seemed to have attracted the interest of two complete strangers.
“Can’t sell the cages with no birds, can I?” the stallholder reasoned with some bitterness.
“I will pay you for the birds I bought,” the lady said firmly, handing over a handful of coins. While the stallholder waited for the rest, she fumbled rather frantically in her reticule.
Jon saw at once that she did not have nearly enough, but the strangers poking around Cavalo, inspecting his withers and his saddle, made him extremely uneasy. Fishing in his pocket, he found the bank note he had placed there for emergencies and slapped it across the stallholder’s hand.
“There. That pays for your birds and your troubles—and your silence, so for the Lord’s sake, stop your incessant whining.” With that Jon walked away.
And discovered he was right to be concerned, for one of the men examining his horse wore a red waistcoat—and that was a sign that proclaimed Bow Street runner. And they had already seen him coming.
He swore beneath his breath and smiled amiably at the men.
“This your horse, sir?” asked the runner.
“No, but that’s my ale on the sill behind you, if I might trouble you to pass it.”
The other man passed the mug of ale from the sill while the runner said, “Know where the owner is?”
Jon shrugged. “Inside, probably.”
“And what might your name be, sir?”
“Bear,” replied Jon, who had decided to dilute his family name in a somewhat belated attempt to prevent embarrassment.
The runner’s eyes narrowed. “Would that, by any chance, be Captain Jonathan Bear ?”
“No,” Jon said with great dignity. “That would be Xanthippos Bear.”
He took a draught of ale and limped around the corner, as though heading for the inn’s front door.
In the tense silence that followed him, he could all but see the two men exchanging looks and nods.
So, they were looking for a fair man called Jonathan Berry, with a limp and a dappled grey horse.
And here Jon had thought he was far enough away to be safe.
Ah well . He sighed and pressed what was left of his ale into the hand of a surprised passer-by. Then he whistled, and though it was quiet enough not to arouse suspicion, Cavalo reacted immediately.
Jon heard the runner exclaim as the horse nudged him aside and the other man knocked over a stool getting out of the horse’s way. Cavalo arrived at Jon’s side at a fast trot, and without stopping him, Jon threw himself into the saddle.
It hurt like the devil, but at least he got where he needed to be.
“Oi! Stop him! Stop, thief!” yelled the runners, pounding after him.
Another large man stood dead in front, arms spread wide, so Jon wheeled the horse into the square away from him and urged Cavalo to a canter. Marketers gasped and shouted as they scattered.
“Highwayman! Stop him!” came the inevitable shout from behind.