“What would you have me do? Surround myself with body-guards? Never venture forth in public or mingle with the people? What sort of leader would I be then?”
“A live one?” suggested Sebastian.
But Perceval only laughed again and shook his head.
Chapter 26
Hero’s plans to pay a call on Rachel Fairchild’s older sister, Lady Sewell, were frustrated by Lady Jarvis, who insisted upon her daughter’s company on a protracted shopping expedition that afternoon. As this was followed by an early departure for a dinner party being held that evening at the country house of one of Lady Jarvis’s childhood friends, Hero resigned herself to putting off the visit to the next day.
The estate of Sally, the Duchess of Laleham, lay only on the outskirts of Richmond, but Lord Jarvis insisted that both the footmen and the coachman be armed since they were traveling outside of London. At the end of the evening, as the carriage started on the long drive back to Berkeley Square shortly after midnight, Hero found herself unusually grateful for her father’s precautions.
“It’s the arsenic powder,” Lady Jarvis was saying as mother and daughter sat side by side, gently rocking with the motion of the carriage. “Or so I’ve heard. It utterly ruined her health. Which is a pity, because Sally was quite lovely when she was young. But vain.”
“Hence the too-liberal use of the arsenic powder,” said Hero.
“Yes.” Lady Jarvis settled more comfortably against the plush seat and sighed. In contrast to her daughter’s Junoesque proportions, Lady Jarvis was a tiny woman, small of bone, with a head of once golden curls now fading gently to gray. “Yes,” she said again. “But there’s no denying it does give one the whitest skin. Sally was so lovely when she was young.”
It was one of Lady Jarvis’s more irritating habits, this tendency to repeat nuggets of her conversation. Or at least, it irritated her husband, Charles, Lord Jarvis, to the point he could rarely tolerate her company. But Hero remembered a time when her mother had been different, when Lady Jarvis had been high-strung and emotional but not half mad and childlike.
The light thrown by the carriage lamps bounced and swayed with the action of the horses and the bowling dips of the well-sprung chaise. Through the window, Hero caught a glimpse of a copse of birch trees, a flash of white trunks and darkly massed leaves against a black sky. The crisp evening air was heavy with the scent of plowed fields and damp grass and the lush fecundity of the countryside. Normally this was a journey Hero enjoyed. But tonight she found herself scanning the shadows and listening to the drumming of the horses’ hooves on the deserted road. An inexplicable shiver coursed up her spine.
“Are you cold, dear?” asked Lady Jarvis, leaning forward solicitously. “Would you like the rug?”
“No. Thank you,” said Hero, annoyed with herself. The road might be deserted, but she was not one to imagine highwaymen behind every wall or stand of trees. “I’m fine.”
“The cream silk was a good choice,” said Lady Jarvis, casting an approving eye over Hero’s gown. “Better, I think, than the white I wanted you to wear.”
“Cream is always a better choice than white,” said Hero with a light laugh, her gaze still scanning the horizon. “White makes me look like a cadaver.”
Her mother shuddered. “Hero! The things you say! But you do look lovely tonight. You should crimp your hair more often.”
Hero swung her head to look at her mother and smile. “If you had any maternal feelings at all, you would have found some way to ensure that your daughter inherited all your lovely curls.”
Lady Jarvis looked troubled for a moment. Then her brow cleared. “Oh. You’re funning me. As if I had anything to say about it!”
Hero felt a pain pull across her chest and turned her head to stare out the window again. She loved her mother dearly, but there were times when the contrast between the way Lady Jarvis was now and the way Hero remembered her was enough to bring the sting of tears to her eyes.
The carriage lurched and swayed down a long hill, hemmed in on both sides by stands of dark trees undergrown with shrubs and gorse that pressed so close Hero fancied she could reach out and touch their branches. She became aware of the carriage slowing as the horses dropped down to a trot, then came to a shuddering halt as Coachman John reined in hard.
“Why are we stopping?” demanded Lady Jarvis, sitting upright.
Hero peered out the window at the horse and gig slewed across the road. “There appears to be a carriage in the way.” A man stood at the horse’s head, his voice a gentle murmur as he stroked the animal’s neck and said soothingly, “Easy, girl. Easy.”
“What’s the trouble there?” shouted Coachman John.
“A broken trace,” said the man, walking toward the carriage. By the pale light of the carriage lamps, Hero could see him quite clearly. He looked to be somewhere in his midthirties, rawboned and darkened as if from years under a tropical sun. But his accent was good, and he wore a neat round hat and a gentleman’s driving cape, which swirled around a fine pair of high-topped boots.
As he paused near the box, she became aware of the sound of hoofbeats coming down the hill behind them. One horse, ridden fast. Her gaze traveled from the man in the road to the double-barreled carriage pistol in a holster beside the door.
The gentleman in the cape said, “If one of your footmen could help me move the gig out of the road, you can be on your way.”
Reaching out, Hero slowly eased the carriage pistol from its holster.
Lady Jarvis said, “What on earth are you—”
Hero put out a hand, hushing her.
Hero couldn’t see the man who’d ridden up behind them, but she heard his horse snort. “Need some help?” he called.
“I think everything’s under control,” said the man in the road. Reaching beneath his cape, he drew out a pistol and extended his arm so the muzzle pointed up at the box. “Don’t move.”
“What the bloody hell?” blustered the coachman.
The man in the road said, “You’ll notice my friend here has a gun, as well. Throw down your weapons. We know you’ve got them.”
Lady Jarvis’s eyes went wide. “Oh, my goodness,” she said in a panicked, high-pitched whisper. “Highwayman. Hero, put that thing away. We must give them everything! Thank heavens I didn’t wear the sapphires tonight. But there are your pearls—”
Hero put her hand over her mother’s mouth. “Hush, Mama.”
She heard muffled thuds as the two footmen threw down their guns. The man in the road said, “You, too, Coachman.”
The carriage shuddered as the big coachman shifted his weight. His blunderbuss landed with a thump in the grassy verge. Hero tightened her grip on the handle of the pistol and carefully eased back both hammers.
“You didn’t tell me we was stoppin’ a lord’s rig,” said the second man, nudging his horse forward into the lamplight. “Two ladies in a carriage like this oughta be sportin’ some nice baubles.” Hero watched him swing down from his horse. He was younger than the man in the cape, and more coarsely dressed. She steadied the heavy carriage pistol with both hands and pointed the barrel at the door.