Page 19 of Escape of the Highwayman (Escape #3)

“Y ou have enough to do, Mama,” Beatrice said over luncheon the following day. “I can easily take the glass and plate to Mrs. Dunwoody. Chloe can come with me.”

Chloe, whose mind had been entirely elsewhere, glanced up at the sound of her name and tried to make sense of what she had heard before it.

“Glass and plate?” she said vaguely.

“For the ball,” Beatrice said impatiently. “Mama is lending it to the Dunwoodys for the evening.”

“Yes, I remember, but can’t the servants take it when they go to help?” She felt quite pleased with herself for remembering that they were lending servants for the occasion, too.

“She wants them before the evening itself, of course,” Beatrice almost snapped. “Why are you trying to wriggle out of going to Ellscombe?”

“I’m not,” Chloe said in surprise. In fact, she wanted to know the latest news about the highway robbery and whether there had been any further incidents or arrests.

“I suppose you imagine you are avoiding Mr. Black?”

“No,” Chloe said honestly, since the man had not troubled her thoughts since Jon’s departure. She blinked at her sister. “Are you looking down your nose at me, Bea?”

To her surprise, Beatrice blushed.

Mama said impatiently, “Stop squabbling. I will be obliged if you take the glass and plate over and make sure Mrs. Dunwoody knows she can call on us for anything else she needs.”

Celia, who knew Jack Dunwoody was not returning until tomorrow, the day of the ball itself, did not offer to accompany them.

So Beatrice supervised the loading of the packed glasses and silver plate and cutlery into the carriage, before she and Chloe squashed themselves in around it.

As the coach bumped and jolted along the road to Ellscombe, they were fully occupied in preventing boxes of glass from sliding off the seats and moving about the floor.

They were greeted outside the house by an army of servants and a rather flustered Mrs. Dunwoody.

“How very kind of dear Lady Lessing! And of you girls to accompany it! Do go around to the garden. The young people are there, I believe. I shall join you shortly... Don’t you dare drop those, Thomas!”

Chloe and Beatrice strolled around the side of the house to the formal garden where Laura was playing pall-mall with Robert Berry, under Mr. Black’s benevolent gaze. It was Mr. Black, however, who noticed their arrival first, and sprang out of his chair with apparent pleasure.

“Miss Barclay! Miss Chloe. What a delightful surprise.”

Beatrice offered a regal hand, so Chloe felt obliged to do likewise. Laura and Robert began to walk toward them, too, with much laughter.

With the greetings over, they all sat down in the shade of the chestnut tree, and Chloe, who seemed to have abandoned all pretence of subtlety, asked, “So what is the latest on the highway robbery? Have they caught him? And how is Sir Denbeigh?”

“Oh, Sir Denbeigh seems none the worse for his adventure,” Laura said. “He is with Papa now, breathing fire and retribution.”

“Then they have not caught the culprit?”

“Of course, you have an interest in him don’t you, Chloe?” Laura said. “Having met him already.”

“We don’t yet know he is the same man,” Robert pointed out, his voice mild but his anxiety—which had seemed to be absent when Chloe first arrived—now quite clear.

Laura blushed with mortification. “We are already sure he cannot be your brother.”

“Well, we shall know soon enough,” Mr. Black said amiably. “I believe your father just received word that the constables have captured a suspect and are already on their way here – though I can’t imagine they mean to join the party.”

Chloe’s stomach lurched unpleasantly. This was not how she dreamed about meeting Jon again. But she could not believe he had been stupid enough either to hold someone up or get caught, certainly not so soon after leaving her, and still wounded as he was.

And he had promised.

For an instant, her gaze met Robert’s, and his eyes seemed to reflect her own fears. At least the moment reminded her to guard her own expression.

“Hardly,” Laura said. “Papa had part of the cellar converted into a cell when he became justice of the peace. Not that it is used much—Mama hates when it is—for there is a better and larger gaol in Greater Lessing.”

“You make the area sound like a den of crime,” Beatrice said, “instead of which, the magistrate rarely has to deal with anything more serious than the odd dispute between neighbours or a fight on market day.”

Mr. Dunwoody and Sir Denbeigh emerged from the house shortly afterward and Chloe commiserated with the victim on his bad luck on the highway.

“Indeed, indeed,” Sir Denbeigh said, his beetling brows tugging furiously downward. “I was just saying to Dunwoody what a shocking disgrace it is. Never heard of such a thing in our neighbourhood as long as I’ve been alive!”

“Then you are convinced the perpetrator is a stranger to these parts?” Robert said carefully.

“I am, sir, I am.”

“Was he very gentlemanly, sir?” Chloe asked, since Robert could not seem to find the words.

“Who?” Sir Denbeigh demanded.

“Your highwayman.”

Sir Denbeigh blinked rapidly. “Good grief, no! A gentleman does not hold up another gentleman’s coach and steal his snuff box and the rings off his fingers! To say nothing of his purse!”

“Of course he does not,” Chloe said hastily. “But perhaps he spoke like a gentleman?”

“He most certainly did not! Common ruffian with dirty fingernails and a hat I wouldn’t stand on to avoid a puddle! Rough as they come!”

Again, Chloe met Robert’s gaze and his eyes were lighter. His lips even gave an upward quirk, making him look, for an instant, heartbreakingly like Jon.

“And were you robbed in broad daylight, sir?” Chloe asked, trying to sound shocked.

“Well, yes, for it can’t have been later than nine in the evening. It was still light.”

Relief washed over her. And at nine that evening, Jon had still been in the stable loft. If the prisoner proved to be him, she could prove his innocence...

Mrs. Dunwoody and a tea trolley arrived at this point, and Robert immediately gave his chair to his hostess and took up a wobblier one between Chloe and Beatrice.

“You were afraid they had arrested your brother,” Chloe murmured to him, under cover of the general conversation.

“So were you.”

“I have a soft spot for the man who paid to free my birds.”

“So do I, although sometimes it’s a very muddy spot too.”

Chloe laughed. “Are you very different?”

“Only in things that don’t matter.”

“What was he like as a boy? Before he went to war?”

Chloe was fascinated by his tales, which made her laugh, and which Robert seemed to enjoy telling.

She could see in her mind’s eye the boy he described—happy-go-lucky, a little wild, but good natured and fascinated by military history and strategy.

His toys and his friends had all marched across the landscape of his family’s estate to the orders of General Jon.

Then Robert was silent for a moment, his smile at the memory fading.

“He did not just lose part of his limb at Salamanca. I’m beginning to understand that he lost the army which was his life.

He finds it hard to adjust—exchanging the life of adventure for one of a disabled country gentleman. He is bored.”

The conversation gave her fresh insight and understanding as to how Jon had fallen into his role as highwayman.

It had probably seemed more real and even worth-while than tending the estates his father and brothers already had under control.

She drank Robert’s words in because they seemed to bring Jon nearer.

Only then she glanced up and caught Laura’s gaze upon them.

Her friend’s hopeless expression suddenly pierced Chloe’s self-absorbed shell, and a bolt of fresh understanding struck her.

Laura’s gaze dropped to her teacup. She might have wanted to oblige her family by marrying Mr. Black and she had most certainly been displeased by Chloe’s perceived competition. But Robert Berry was different. As Jon was different to Chloe.

The way Laura and Robert had laughed walking across the lawn this afternoon, the way she had glanced up at him with shy yet shining eyes... With Robert, Laura’s heart was engaged.

Feeling suddenly guilty—for she had cause to know similar pain—Chloe changed positions, going to crouch down by her old friend’s chair.

“You will take him, too, won’t you?” Laura said with dull intensity. “Could you not just be happy with Mr. Black?”

“No. Nor with Mr. Berry, who only speaks to me because he thinks I know his brother. As for me, my heart is entirely elsewhere, and I think it is time you and I both stood up to our families. They caused their own financial misfortunes, and I have come to the conclusion that it is not our duty to give up our happiness to save them from the consequences.”

Laura stared down at her, her jaw dropping slightly. On the other side of the table, people had moved again, and Mr. Black now sat beside Beatrice.

Chloe directed Laura’s gaze with her own. “And I don’t think Mr. Black is interested in either of us any longer.”

***

C HLOE WAS WONDERING how to extend their visit until the captured highwayman was delivered, and how to counteract any move by Beatrice to drag her home.

But despite Mr. Black’s attentions—or perhaps because of them—Beatrice appeared to be in no hurry either.

How odd the way minds and hearts changed and grew. ..

In the end, Mr. Dunwoody himself solved the social difficulty of overstaying their welcome by saying to Chloe, “Would you mind very much waiting to identify this highwayman fellow the constables are bringing in?”

“I am happy to,” Chloe said promptly. “Though I can only confirm he is the man I saw at the market.”

“Well, I think between you and Berry and Sir Denbeigh we should be able to clear that little matter up.”