“Enough!” Harry roared in his battlefield voice. There was no longer any point in silence. If there were accomplices close by, they were already on their way. “Meg, fetch the valise if you’d be so good. No one else is to move or, by God, my next shot kills, do you understand me?”
Meg, her eyes wide and frightened yet still filled with that wild excitement he remembered from their most daring youthful pranks, ran to the valise, stuffing everything in and fastening it shut. Though her hands shook, they did the work with swift efficiency, and she rose to her feet beside him.
“Both of you, turn around,” Harry ordered and watched them reluctantly obey. They probably thought he was about to kill at least one of them. Well and good. “Now, count aloud to twenty. If either of you stops or turns, I will shoot you.” He pushed Meg in the direction of the road and shouted to the thieves, “Start counting!”
On the count of “One,” he backed away.
“Louder!” he commanded.
“Two!”
Harry turned, snatched the valise from Meg, and grabbed her hand instead. They ran amongst the trees as “Eight!” rang out.
Meg’s fingers gripped his, and she let out a sob, but when he glanced at her in quick concern, her eyes were brimful of laughter and mischief, just as if they hadn’t faced down two desperate, armed thieves and taken back what had been stolen.
“You are mad, Meg Winter!” he said breathlessly, dragging her on. “Why couldn’t you stay in the carriage?”
“Why couldn’t you?” she threw back.
“Because they took the last gift of a friend.”
Her fingers tightened, but she asked no more.
Behind them, the thieves had stopped counting. He didn’t know if they had other weapons. At least, he could not hear them or anyone else in the woods, though he and Meg were making enough noise to drown out anyone being remotely stealthy.
As they reached the edge of the trees, he made out the rumble of carriage wheels in the road.
He paused. “Do you suppose strangers would take up such disreputable characters as you and I, if we explained about highway robbery?”
Meg laughed. “No need. Look.”
The carriage had stopped, and Aline Garrow was hanging out of the window, waving at them.
*
As she tumbled back into the carriage, and the coachman stowed Harry’s bag once more, Meg was conscious, chiefly, of exhilaration. Somewhere, the risk Harry had taken appalled her, for they were no longer children, and they hadn’t just faced an angry farmer or thwarted parents. In defying highwaymen with nothing to lose, they had had no privilege of birth. That was terrifying, but for now, all she felt was triumph and the sheer joy of reunion with her old friend.
“Oh, goodness!” Mrs. Garrow exclaimed while Basil jumped up and down with glee beside her. “I am so relieved to see you, the pair of you! What on earth happened?”
“Harry held them up, we stole their pistols, and took back everything!” Meg said merrily. “Oh, Harry, give Mrs. Garrow back her earrings.”
Mrs. Garrow accepted them as though entranced. “You are both quite insane! And where are our highway robbers? You didn’t shoot them, did you? For I heard a shot.”
Harry only smiled faintly at her, so Meg said, “No, though Harry did fire at one of them, and I really did think he would shoot the other. Oh, Harry, do you think the pistol really wasn’t loaded?”
Harry, easing his leg, stretched out his hand for the pistol she had taken. He examined it gingerly. “Well. It really wasn’t loaded. What a very odd highwayman, to be sure.”
“Perhaps they could not afford more bullets,” Mrs. Garrow suggested. “Is the other one loaded?”
“It is,” Harry said grimly. “I suppose they didn’t need more to threaten us.”
“But you were mad to go after them, my lord!” Mrs. Garrow scolded. “What on earth possessed you?”
The last gift of a friend. Harry smiled deprecatingly. “Pride.”
*
Thanks to his mother’s ploy of pretending the hold-up was a game—and Harry and Meg’s enthusiastic support—Basil did not appear to be in the least concerned about the highwaymen. In fact, he gazed constantly out of the window, eagerly awaiting more.
When they stopped to change horses, Mrs. Garrow took him into the inn for quick refreshment, leaving Meg and Harry strolling around the inn yard “to keep watch.”
“You don’t truly believe they will follow us here?” Meg said.
Harry shook his head. “No. They didn’t even follow us through the woods back to the road. I think their work was done.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, they were looking for something particular and already knew it wasn’t there.”
Frowning, she stopped beside a gate leading to a small paddock and looked up into his face. “Such as what?”
He shrugged. “That, I don’t know.”
“But…you mean, they picked our coach on purpose? It makes no sense.”
“Not yet,” he agreed.
“I don’t even see why you might suspect it.”
“Aline—Mrs. Garrow—was not afraid.” He lowered his gaze from the horizon to her face. “And she already had her story ready to keep Basil from fear. She even allowed you to follow me into the woods.”
“She could not have stopped me,” Meg said flatly.
A smile flickered across his face, banishing the unusually stern expression. “That is probably true. But leaving aside her possible involvement, I overheard the highwayman saying it wasn’t there, whatever it was. Besides, they were very well shaved for ruffians, and though I only saw one of their four hands without gloves, that was decidedly clean and smooth.”
“Some prank, perhaps?” Meg said doubtfully. “I’m sure Johnny once held someone up for a wager. My father was livid.”
“I did not feel…pranked,” Harry observed.
“Neither did I,” she admitted, resting one arm along the gate. She glanced up at him once more. “What did your friend give you that you pursued them for it?”
She suspected he might fob her off, but instead, he took the purse from his pocket and reached into its depths to bring out something small and gold. He held it out to her—a gold ring, minutely engraved around each edge.
Something twisted inside her. Had a woman, a lover, given him this? Indeed, there was some tragedy.
“He died after Toulouse,” Harry said abruptly. “Beside me in the hospital. Just before, he gave me this for his wife. I had been planning to go north and see her when I received your mother’s summons to Grosvenor Square.”
“I’m sorry,” she managed.
His lips quirked, and he dropped the ring back into its hiding place. “Don’t be. I was glad of the distraction. I still am. But I’m damned if I’ll lose the ring at this stage.”
*
With all the excitement, it was only as they drew onto Calvert land that Meg began to wonder nervously how many guests she would find with her sister, and whether or not she would be able to speak to her alone before Martha let the cat out of the bag.
Oh well, she would just have to brazen it out.
Footmen hurried out of the house to let down the carriage steps and carry in luggage. Meg alighted and swept up the steps to the front door.