Page 23 of Escape of the Highwayman (Escape #3)

C hloe had not really expected a constable to be on guard, so she got quite a fright when the man stood up from his chair at the foot of the stairs and gawped at her.

For an instant, she froze. Think, Chloe!

“Oh, you are the constable, are you not? Mr. Dunwoody needs you around at the other side of the house. I said I would pass on the message.”

The constable took off his hat and scratched his head. “What’s to do, miss?”

“I’m not very sure,” she confided. He seemed reluctant to move, so she added quickly, “He was quite urgent that you should go.” Now that she could see him properly, she realized she knew him.

In fact, she and Joe and others had run rings around him as children, so he had every right to be suspicious. “I’ll come with you, if you like.”

To her relief, he began to lumber up the stairs toward her. “Best show me.”

“Well, I’ll try,” she said doubtfully, “though I doubt he really wants me to be there. Let’s see.

” Emerging through the door, still chattering, she led him on toward the front of the house where all was quiet since it was too late for any guests to arrive now, and too early for anyone to be leaving.

“I suppose I should have asked him what was happening, but no one ever tells us young ladies anything. I wonder if some strangers wearing masks have tried to enter the house? No, but they might be lurking around the side there...”

As they approached the corner, she wondered if she would ever be able to throw him off with enough time to speak to Noddock, never mind free him.

“Now I think if it,” she said, inspired, “he might have said tell him to come in ten minutes or so, if you see him . But I’m sure he meant this side of the house.

Otherwise, you would be there already, would you not?

On the other side, I mean, where your office is.

.. Certainly, you should give him those ten minutes or even a few longer.

.. Will you need me, Mr. Riley?” she asked, finally recalling his name. “Or will you manage on your own?”

He scowled at her as he was meant to. “Of course I’ll manage on me own! You get off back inside in them flimsy clothes. This is men’s work after all.”

“Of course it is,” Chloe said with relief, “and to be honest, I don’t really want anything to do with it, what with highwaymen and so on.... Good night, Mr. Riley!”

She fled back the way she had come and all but skidded back through the door to the lock-up. She hoped her dancing shoes were not damaged by all this outdoor walking, though she imagined a shepherdess would have difficulty keeping her shoes clean...

She swept down the steps, her mind all now on Noddock and what had happened and if he knew where Jon was. She was sure Jon would want Noddock free, though he would not want her involved in the escape.

And she wasn’t sure she should be.

“Mr. Noddock?” she said, going closer to the cell.

“Are you awake?” She could make out someone inside, sitting forward on the pallet with his elbows on his knees.

He lumbered to his feet and moved so suddenly that he seemed to loom out of nowhere.

At the same time as he thrust his hands though the bars, she saw that this was not Noddock but a complete stranger.

She gasped, whisking herself backward out of his reach, and he clawed the air instead.

“There’s the pretty,” he said, low. “Fetch me them keys, and I’ll owe you my life.”

“How gullible do you think I am?” Chloe demanded, quite affronted. “Where is Noddock?”

The stranger grinned, revealing a row of blackened teeth. “Behind you.”

Though she didn’t believe him, she swung around. Surely something moved and bumped at the top of the stairs?

Her nostrils twitched, not for the unpleasant reek coming from the prisoner, but for some other faint, familiar scent—horse and soap, of the kind Jon had kept in his saddle bag and washed with in the hay loft...

Her breath caught.

He had been before her and swapped Noddock for this ruffian. She knew he had!

And suddenly the world was wonderful and exciting and everything was possible again. Smiling at the startled-looking prisoner, she all but danced to the stairs and ran up them.

Outside, she could see no one, hear no stealthy footsteps. She sniffed the air like a hound. Discerning nothing unusual on the breeze, she hurried back to the terrace and blatantly replaced the lantern on the wall while a giggling couple watched her.

She had no idea who they were and suspected they did not know her either. Masquerades were really rather fun. She sailed across the terrace and re-entered the ballroom through the glass doors.

She found her shepherdess’s crook still leaning against the table where Jerome had left it hours ago, and snatched it up, using it like a walking cane while she strolled around the ballroom, glancing at every masked man for a sign he could be Jon.

He would limp, of course. And he would not be dancing.

Beatrice was, she noticed, with Mr. Black who was dressed in knightly chain mail.

In the same set were Celia and Jack Dunwoody.

Chloe walked on and saw Laura strolling with Robert Berry, wearing a curled wig and a slightly ill-fitting suit of gaudy clothes from at least fifty years ago.

Laura carried a glass of lemonade in her hand and a tremulous smile hovered on her lips.

The evening was suddenly wonderful. If only Jon were still here...

No one was limping. Male guests strolled past in Roman togas and Charles the Second wigs and jewelled rapiers. She spotted a couple of youthful Lord Nelsons and an oddly louche Oliver Cromwell with a large stuck-on wart. She would have giggled if she had not been so set on discovering a limp...

And then she found herself gazing at a walking stick.

Glimpsed through a gaggle of legs it was propped up against the chair of a seated, piratical man with a red kerchief tied over one eye and another spotted one over his hair. He wore rough clothes and no domino cloak, and a sabre hung in its scabbard at his belt.

She had to dodge around a lady in wide skirts, and by the time she could see the chair again, it was empty. And the villainous pirate was limping away through the crowd. Worse, the dance had ended, and everyone was on the move, hiding him.

Frustrated, she tried to weave faster through the throngs—until she was brought up short by a masked highwayman in an old-fashioned tricorn hat.

She knew him from his grin. Maurice, the vicar’s younger son. “Miss Shepherdess, I believe it is the supper dance. Would you be so bold as to waltz with me?”

She could waltz, because she and her sisters had practised it together when Mama was not looking, but she very much doubted she was supposed to, the waltz still being regarded as improper in some circles.

On the other hand, she had no wish to dance at all at this moment, being fixed on finding the pirate who had to be Jon.

“Could we dance later?” she asked, glancing past him. “I am really quite in need of air.”

“Good grief, you’re not going to faint, are you?” Maurice said in alarm. “You never faint!”

“That’s because I make sure to have plenty of fresh air,” she said.

“Come, then,” he said. “I’ll take you onto the terrace and then we can dance when you feel more the thing.”

It was a kind offer, and she wished him at Jericho for it. “But,” she began, still searching for an excuse to rush on alone. “But...”

“But this is my dance, is it not?”

His voice sliced through her heart as well as the conversation, and she found herself staring at a raffish, one-eyed and masked version of Jon. She would have known him anywhere, in any disguise.

“Not, sir,” Maurice said firmly. “I asked the lady first.”

“No, you only asked her most recently, but of course, the lady must choose.”

Maurice’s good nature had limits, and he scowled. “Take a powder, Sir Pirate! The lady is in need of air, and her parents would expect me—”

If he thought the mention of her parents was a trump card, he was doomed to disappointment.

“Pirates do not ask parents for permission.”

Chloe stood on tiptoe. “It’s a secret, Maurice,” she whispered in his ear. “I’ll tell you later...” Then she laid her fingers on the pirate’s arm and walked beside him through the throng.

“ Can you dance?” she asked breathlessly, for her heart was beating like a drum.

“Not with my stick and your crook.”

A choke of laughter shook her, and she was afraid to speak until they slipped out onto the terrace. They were quite alone, since everyone was inside either hoping to waltz or watching others doing so.

Releasing his arm, she swung on him, reaching up to seize his face in her hands. “Jon, are you well? What is happening? Why are you here? Oh, and is Noddock your man and who on earth is...?”

“Hush,” he said, taking her wrists and drawing her hands from his face, although he kissed both of them before holding them gently in his while he searched her face. “I am well. Are you?”

“Why, yes, of course,” she said impatiently. “Your wound?”

“Healing nicely. I’m gritting my teeth to remove the stitches any day now.”

“You didn’t go home.”

“I ran into a pair of old friends who told me Noddock had been taken.”

“I was afraid you would come back to give yourself up for him, or do something foolish and... Who is that man in the prison cell?”

“The man who robbed your Sir Denbeigh, of course. Nasty piece of work. And a very useful...reflection, I think you called him, a guilty highwayman who can be blamed for all our deeds. Unfair but definitely convenient. He’s a nasty type.”

Chloe was stunned, because he had remembered her ramblings and had acted upon them. “And Noddock?” she asked faintly.

“I sent him on his way, just in case. He is accident prone. There is evidence to convict Whitey—our man in the cell—so my hope is that our host will be content. If I come out of this unscathed, it’s more than I deserve, but less than I owe my family. And you. Chloe?”