Chapter 9
“Get your hat!” Harriet all but bellowed the moment she spotted her friend skipping down the stairs.
Eglantine stopped mid-skip and grabbed the banister. She stared at Harry as if all her wits had tumbled out of her head. But being a good friend, she nodded without question and pivoted.
Quickly, Eglantine rushed back up the way she had come, leaving Harry to stand in the circular foyer and pace the inlaid wood floor, the ribbons of her bonnet all but flapping given the speed of her walk.
The butler, Fortescue, who she had known all her life, was following her with his gaze. He was unfazed largely because he had known her for her whole life.
She kept pacing, despite his attention, along a floor so polished with wax, one might have skated upon it if one had a mind to.
Fidgeting with the long, pink strings of her reticule, she kept gazing at the stairs, willing her friend’s return. She had not slept a wink. Oh no. She had spent the night envisioning the events in the park again and again. She had not been able to close her eyes without seeing the moment in which he had raced up and come to their aid.
And since she had not bothered to attempt sleep, driven by a deep instinct rioting within her, she had rifled through the special box of newspapers she kept under her bed. She’d reread every line ever written about the Gentleman Highwayman because her stomach had been in perfect tumult since the moment she had locked gazes with him. In fact, she had not been able to drive his blazing, blue gaze from her mind.
For in all her life, she’d ever only seen eyes so blue in one man which could affect her so deeply.
Just one.
“Would you care to sit while you wait, my lady?” Fortescue suddenly asked as he bounced lightly on his polished heels.
“No, thank you,” she said. “Such a thing would be impossible.”
“You seem most agitated, my lady.” Fortescue pursed his lips. “Would you care for a restorative?”
Given that it was not yet noon, she was not about to take him up on the offer and, really, why did ladies need to calm themselves? She had very good reason to be agitated!
She forced herself to stop pacing and smoothed her hands down the front of her white cotton gown, embroidered with strawberries. “That is unnecessary. Thank you, Fortescue.”
“If my lady should change your mind—”
Before he could finish, Eglantine bounded down the stairs, her bright yellow spencer flashing in the morning light and her bonnet propped jauntily on her curled hair.
“Shall we?” Eglantine asked.
“Indeed,” Harry declared, half-afraid Fortescue would begin plying her with potions for nervous complaints if she did not make her immediate escape.
Linking arms, they rushed out of the arched door, down the steps and out towards Park Lane. They made a quick right, both of them being fond of Speaker’s Corner.
As if sensing that the conversion would not truly begin until they found themselves in a rather isolated leafy spot, they bustled on in companionable but determined steps.
They hurried past the small crowd listening to a Scottish preacher pontificating about the sins of Covenant Garden at the corner and they quickly rushed onto one of the paths that wound through the grass of Hyde Park but avoided the crowded area of Rotten Row and the Serpentine.
The sun spilled through the flitting spring clouds. The leaves of the trees which had only been in bud but a few weeks ago, were now resplendent and a lush green overhead.
Eglantine squeezed her arm. “Now what is all this mad dashing about? Even for you, this is quite odd. I had not yet had my breakfast, you know. You’re quite lucky, that my maid brought me chocolate this morning. You know how feeble I am in the morning without—”
“Eglantine!” Harry cut in, knowing that once her friend was distracted, she could go on for a very long time. “I think I know who he is!”
Eglantine’s brows drew together. “He? He who?” Then her eyes rounded into twin saucers. “Did you meet your intended last night? How wonderful! How romantic!” She frowned. “Though, I cannot recall any particularly interesting men at the party last night, though I’m sure—”
“No! Not my intended,” she protested, barely able to grasp enough patience not to grab Eglantine by the shoulders. Men were so odd. Perhaps, now she would wonder if every fellow was hiding a double life behind his powdered hair and silk breeches.
For, if her suspicions were true, the entire way in which she viewed men might change entirely.
“Who then?” Eglantine asked.
Harry gave a weighty pause then confessed with aplomb, “The Gentleman Highwayman.”
Eglantine frowned. “Did your brother say something?”
Harry stopped and faced her friend. “I met him.”
“Your brother? Of course you did.” Eglantine snorted. “You meet him every single day.”
Harry tsked. “Eglantine, make an effort. I know you have not eaten your breakfast, but this is most important.”
Eglantine sighed then gave herself a little shake. “I shall endeavor. Now, explain it to me.”
Harriet leaned forward. “Last night, my mother and I were stopped by a highwayman on the way home.”
Eglantine’s rosy lips parted into a perfect O. “Him!”
“Well, no. Not him. Another highwayman. A quite frightening fellow, if you must know.”
“I am most confused.”
“It was quite an eventful night,” Harry assured, not feeling at all her usually composed self. “You see, a most rough fellow stopped our coach. He wielded a pistol and a cutlass and his eyes spoke murder, I swear. He ordered us out of the coach and demanded our coin and jewels. He also warned us that if we did not comply that he would search our persons most forcibly.”
Eglantine swallowed. “Goodness.”
She shuddered. “It was most unpleasant and rather frightening.”
“I can only imagine.” Eglantine shook her head. “I have imagined. But the reality—”
“Was quite horrible,” Harry said, the fear still palpable. “But then, the most remarkable thing occurred.”
“Yes?” her friend prompted.
“Another highwayman charged upon us,” Harry whispered, her voice barely audible above a sudden gust of wind up from the Thames.
“Two highwaymen?” Eglantine challenged. “How is such a thing even possible? Surely that is not very strategic of them.”
Harry nodded at her friend’s conclusion. “I do agree, but the second highwayman was him.”
Eglantine gasped. “And he saved you from the rough fellow?”
“It is rather galling to be saved.” She frowned thinking of the rather helpless feeling that had coursed through her for one shaming minute last night. “In my imaginings, I have always gotten the best of the highwayman, but the reality of being confronted with a blade and a pistol in one’s constricting evening frock is quite different than one dreams. But yes, he told the other fellow to hie off.”
Eglantine’s mouth dropped open in astonishment. “Did they come to blows?”
“The Gentleman Highwayman struck the first fellow with his sword when he first charged, and the other parried, striking him across the arm. But then the villain retreated quite quickly and left us, after some strong words between them.”
“Then what happened?” Eglantine all but demanded, her cheeks pink with excitement. “Did the Gentleman Highwayman demand your purse?”
“Not at all,” Harry denied. Then she thought of his powerful presence as he had locked gazes with her and she swallowed. “He merely looked at my mother and me and shouted, ‘Go now’. Then he raced away, his cloak wild behind him.”
“It sounds terribly romantic,” Eglantine gushed.
“It wasn’t. It was actually quite alarming.”
Eglantine’s cheeks blossomed red with embarrassment now. “How foolish of me.”
“Do not think to apologize,” Harry protested, taking Eglantine’s hand. “If I were to tell anyone else but you, I would make light of it as a grand adventure. But I never thought I might meet an unfortunate end before. Last evening was the first time I ever feared it. It certainly makes one think about what one is doing with one’s life.”
“Was he handsome?” Eglantine asked at last, squeezing her hand assuringly.
Harry bit her lower lip. Here it was. Did she dare say it?
“Well?” Eglantine asked.
“I did not see his face.”
“Not even a portion?” Eglantine looked aside, disappointed. “I had rather hoped to hear he had a remarkable jaw.”
“He hid behind a black mask and the lapel of his cloak was up.” Harry licked her lips, her heart pounding. “But I saw his eyes.”
“And?”
“I told you,” she whispered. “I think I know him.”
Eglantine’s brows lifted and her eyes flashed. “Truly?”
She nodded.
“Who is it?” Eglantine breathed.
“A part of me thinks I should not say, but it also seems foolish to tell no one.” Harry gazed at her friend, desperate to tell someone. “I can’t tell Harley. If I do, he’ll no doubt go pound him into the ground for his madness.”
“Who?”
Harry bit the inside of her cheek, hesitating, and thought of the man she’d known since childhood, of his devilish eyes, and the way they blazed the brightest cobalt blue. “The Duke of Blackstone.”