The Outrageous Lady Read online

  As Lady Roysdon appeared, they stared at her first in astonishment, then quickly slipped into the obsequious manner that was expected of them.

  Jake picked up his cockaded hat from where he had flung it carelessly on the ground and put it on his head.

  “You wish to leave, my Lady?”

  “Yes.”

  He hurried to open the carriage door and lifted the fur-lined rug from the seat so that he could lay it over her knees.

  “Home, my Lady?”

  “Yes, home,” Lady Roysdon agreed, then added, “and tell Hancocks not to travel on the highway. There is, I believe, another road over the Downs.”

  “I knows it, my Lady.”

  “Then hurry!”

  “Very good, my Lady!”

  The carriage door was shut. The footman climbed up on the box and the horses moved forward, passing the long line of waiting carriages extending to the front door.

  Lady Roysdon sat back in the shadows just in case she should be seen as they passed the front of the mansion and they moved down the drive at a smart pace.

  After barely a quarter-of-a-mile they turned off the Brighton Road onto a narrow dusty lane.

  Lady Roysdon had her reasons for choosing another route.

  She was well aware that the Earl’s horses and there were four of them, pulling a lightly-sprung travelling chariot, would easily outpace her own pair.

  She would not put it past him to draw them to a standstill and insist on joining her whether she wished it or not.

  She knew how difficult it would be in a confined space, alone in the darkness, to keep the Earl at bay, and even to talk to him in such circumstances would be to invite danger.

  The road over the Downs was longer and the surface was none too good, but to Lady Roysdon it was safer and that was all that mattered.

  She settled herself comfortably in a corner of the well-padded carriage and pushed the fur rug off her knees onto the ground.

  She bent forward to let down the window.

  Now she could feel the breeze blowing from the sea and it swept away the oppression that she had felt ever since arriving at the ball to find the Earl waiting for her.

  She wondered what she could do about him because, although two years ago she might have thought differently, she now knew that even if she was free tomorrow she would never marry him.

  There was something about him that repelled her physically even though she found him amusing.

  It was in fact because he amused her that she preferred him to all the other gentlemen who had laid their hearts at her feet.

  They tried in every way possible to persuade her that fidelity was a joke not a virtue and was something that no lady of fashion contemplated for long.

  But when their blandishments and pleadings had taken them nowhere, the majority of them had drifted away in search of easier prey.

  But the Earl remained.

  ‘I shall have to be rid of him somehow,’ Lady Roysdon decided.

  But while she could sound very determined on the subject when she spoke of it to herself, she knew it would be quite a different matter to convince the Earl of her intention.

  That she had in fact driven him almost to the edge of madness was, she knew, no exaggeration.

  Never in his thirty-six years had he ever been thwarted in obtaining anything he desired and, because she was the exception, she had become an obsession.

  He was almost insane in his determination that she should surrender herself to his demands and acknowledge him the victor.

  She did not know why, but in the last month her attitude had changed towards him.

  She began to find him very different from the man on whom she had smiled and to whom she had given her friendship since first she came to London.

  She began to feel that there was something rather menacing about the narrowness of his eyes and something cruel in the hard line of his thin lips.

  She had heard stories about him, of course.

  Was there anyone in the Social world who was not talked about disparagingly? Or about whom there were not innumerable anecdotes of an unsavoury nature?

  But she never listened to scandalous tales about her friends and, although she could not help hearing some of them, she seldom believed what she heard.

  Yet now where the Earl was concerned she began to be suspicious.

  With the suspicions came the feeling that he was gradually enveloping her in a net that she would not be able to escape from.

  For the first time since she had come to London and lived on her own, a wife without a husband to protect her, Lady Roysdon wished that she knew a man she could turn to for sympathy and understanding.

  It had always been the Earl who had got her into scrapes and then got her out of them.

  It had always been the Earl who advised her and, because he was an extremely influential member of the Social world and a very experienced man, his advice on the whole had been to her advantage.

  It was only now that she felt as if she was suddenly defenceless against him and he was gradually stripping her of every refuge there had been in the past.

  Deep in her thoughts Lady Roysdon had ceased to notice where they were going and only when suddenly the coach came to a grinding halt did she wake from her reverie.

  She looked out to see that they had stopped apparently in a wood, for there were trees on either side of the carriage.

  Then a tall figure appeared in front of the window, opened the door and said,

  “Would your Ladyship be gracious enough to alight?”

  For a moment she thought that the Earl had caught up with her after all.

  Then incredibly in the light from the moon and from the lanterns on the side of the carriage she saw that the man who had spoken was masked.

  He must be a highwayman!

  There was a pistol in his hand and behind him she could see his riderless horse. She thought wildly that she must scream, but was then too proud to show any form of weakness.

  Slowly and with a dignity that belied a sudden trembling within her breast she stepped from the carriage.

  The moonlight was bright enough for her to see quite clearly another highwayman who had his pistol pointing at Hancocks and Jake on the box.

  The highwayman who had told her to alight was tall and broad-shouldered and while she could not see the expression in his eyes behind the black mask that covered half his face, there was undoubtedly a faint smile on his lips.

  “What do you want?” she asked curtly. “Or is that an unnecessary question?”

  “Quite unnecessary, my Lady,” he answered. “And may I say that the emeralds at your neck are a quite superfluous adornment to your beauty.”

  “I am not interested in your compliments,” Lady Roysdon retorted coldly.

  “Then I shall have to make do with the emeralds, though I must add that they pale beside the loveliness of their owner.”

  Lifting her chin disdainfully to show what she thought of his impertinence, Lady Roysdon undid the necklace and held it out to him.

  He took it from her without taking his eyes from her face and casually dropped it into a canvas bag he held in one hand.

  As he did so, she realised that he was dressed in a very different manner from the way she had expected.

  Highwaymen, she had always thought, wore the full-skirted coat and tricorn hat of the fashion of twenty years earlier.

  But this man was dressed in the clothes that any buck might have assumed, a cut-away coat, tight-fitting breeches and highly polished Hessian boots.

  On his head there was a high crowned hat, which he wore at an angle.

  His crisp white muslin cravat was tied in an intricate manner that might have rivalled that affected by the Earl.

  As she looked at him, she could not help thinking that it would have been amusing to see the two men confronting each other if in fact the Earl had been with her as he intended.

  But then she would not have been on this road unprotected,
for which predicament she had no one to blame but herself.

  “I feel my collection would not be complete without the earrings on your Ladyship’s shell-like ears, the bracelets that encircle your wrists and, of course, the ring on your wedding finger,” the highwayman said, intruding upon her thoughts.

  Because it was impossible to refuse, Lady Roysdon handed him the large drop earrings, which were unique in the identical size of their stones and unfastened the bracelets one by one.

  As she handed him her ring, the moonlight glittered on another she wore on the fourth finger of her left hand.

  As the highwayman’s eyes went to it, almost involuntarily she gave an exclamation.

  “No!”

  He seemed surprised.

  “No?” he repeated. “Why not? I cannot believe your Ladyship would be adorned with anything that was not of value.”

  “It is in fact not very valuable, but it was my mother’s, the only thing of hers that I still possess.”

  She looked up at him, thinking that he would not believe her.

  After all, to speak of jewellery as having a sentimental value must be a plea that highwaymen regularly heard from those they robbed.

  “The oldest excuse in the world for not parting with one’s valuables,” she had heard someone say once, or had it been a line in a play?

  The highwayman seemed to hesitate and now, in a very different tone to that in which she had been speaking, she said,

  “Please – please – leave me that ring. It – really matters to me.”

  “Should that concern me?”

  “I suppose not,” she answered dully.

  Because she thought that there was no point in saying any more she pulled the ring from her finger.

  As she did so, the highwayman walked away from her and she wondered why he had done so until she saw him put the small bag into which he had placed her jewellery into his saddlebag.

  Without really thinking what she was doing, she followed him, until, as he turned from the saddle, he found her beside him.

  She held the ring out to him.

  “This is what you want.”

  “Do you often think of your mother?” he asked unexpectedly.

  “She died when I was fifteen,” Lady Roysdon answered, “but I still miss her.”

  “You loved her?”

  “Very much!”

  “As I loved mine,” the highwayman said. “She was with me until only a few years ago.”

  “Then you were lucky.”

  “That is what I thought – very lucky.”

  It flashed through Lady Roysdon’s mind that this was a very strange conversation to be having with a highwayman.

  There was a note in his voice that told her he spoke with sincerity.

  She realised it was an educated voice and he spoke as any gentleman of her acquaintance might have done.

  Because she was curious she stared at him, noting the firmness and at the same time the generosity of his mouth.

  Unlike the Earl’s narrow lips, his turned up at the corners giving the impression that he was smiling secretly at his own thoughts.

  “Who are you?” she asked.

  “That is a very indiscreet question to ask a highwayman. We are always anonymous,” he parried.

  “Of course, but I was wondering if this might be some jest at my expense – if you are robbing me for a wager.”

  He smiled.

  “That is perhaps the sort of thing you would do yourself, my Lady Roysdon, but I am in fact the genuine article.”

  “You know my name?”

  “Who could live near Brighton or London and not hear about you when you are so – famous?”

  The way he said the word did not make it a compliment and Lady Roysdon said in a low voice,

  “I think – from the way you spoke you mean – infamous.”

  “I would not be so impolite as to say so.”

  “But you think it.”

  “Does it matter what I think?”

  “I suppose not. I wonder which stories of my various indiscretions have reached your ears.”

  “There are quite a number of them. Shall I say that I believe only half of what I hear.”

  “How can I know if what you believe is the truth, if I don’t know what you have heard?”

  He smiled and she knew it was because she sounded more like a child than a grown woman.

  “You are very beautiful, Lady Roysdon!” he said after a moment’s pause. “Which is why I think it is a pity.”

  “What is a pity?” she asked.

  “That your name should be linked with the roisterers who drink to you in public houses, the bucks and dandies who toast you drunkenly in the London Clubs.”

  “How do you know this?” she asked angrily.

  He made a little gesture with his hand and then looked away from her to where the moonlight seeped through the trees, casting variegated patterns of silver on the mossy ground.

  “Gossip and scandal travel like the wind, even to places like this.”

  She followed the direction of his eyes and realised how quiet and beautiful it was.

  She felt suddenly as if he had given her eyes to see what she had never noticed before and that the peace beneath the trees was something she had always sought but never found.

  There was a long silence.

  “I think you understand,” he said at length in a low voice as if he had read her thoughts.

  Because it was strange and uncanny and she did not know what she felt about it, she held out the diamond ring and said quickly,

  “Take this and let me go!”

  “Keep it!”

  “Do you – mean that?”

  “You told me it belonged to your mother.”

  “Which is true.”

  “I did not doubt you for a second.”

  “I thought – perhaps you might – have.”

  “I think you would find it hard to deceive me.”

  There was a little frown between her eyes as she asked,

  “Why do you say that?”

  “You know the answer without my putting it into words.”

  She stared at him.

  Then he said in a different tone,

  “I had forgotten for the moment that I am a highwayman. If I let you keep the ring, you must give me something of equal value.”

  Lady Roysdon glanced towards the coach and back at him.

  “I have – nothing else with me – ” she began.

  Then, as she saw the smile on his lips, she was very still.

  He moved towards her, put his fingers under her chin and turned her face up to his. As she did not move, his arms went around her and his lips were on hers.

  For a moment she felt it could not be happening.

  Then, as his mouth possessed her, she felt a strange warmth that she had never known before creeping up her body, through her breasts and into her throat.

  It was gentle, sweet and inexpressibly wonderful, so that it seemed to be part of the beauty of the moonlight and the silver rays that percolated through the leaves of the trees.

  He drew her closer.

  Then there was an intensity of feeling like a sharp pain, which almost before she could grasp what was happening turned into a rapture so ecstatic, so perfect that she could hardly believe it was actually happening –

  She was free.

  They were standing a little apart looking at each other and it was almost impossible to breathe.

  He turned and walked ahead of her towards the coach and because it was difficult to think or to remember anything except the sensations she was still feeling she could only follow him blindly.

  He opened the door and she felt his hand on her elbow as he helped her into the carriage.

  He must have signalled the coachman although she did not see him do it, for the horses moved off and he took his hat from his head as the carriage passed him.

  She sat back against the cushions feeling her heart pounding
within her breast and the breath coming quickly from between her lips.

  Only when they were within sight of the lights of Brighton did she put her hands up to her jewel-less neck.

  Her emeralds were not there. What had happened had been real and not a part of her imagination.

  *

  The lights shone golden in the windows of the house on the Steine that she had rented.

  It was an elegant building and, although the furniture was slightly shabby, it was comfortable and there was plenty of room for the servants whom Lady Roysdon had brought with her from London.

  Despite the fact that a large number of new houses had been built in Brighton and the number had nearly trebled since the year of the Prince Regent’s first visit in 1783, there was still not enough accommodation.

  The wealthy and fashionable who flocked down to the spa in the wake of the Prince were willing to pay exorbitant prices for any accommodation however primitive.

  Lady Roysdon had thought herself fortunate to have obtained the house for three years in succession.

  She had not been compelled, as were many others of the Carlton House circle, to rent rooms or cottages outside the town or even to overbid in a most unsporting manner those who had previously booked into hotels.

  This week the town was more overcrowded than at any other time, since celebrations had been arranged, as was usual for the Prince’s birthday.

  As she returned home, Lady Roysdon could see the illuminations that had been erected along the Steine and on the outside of her house.

  She was glad that they were not lit because she had no wish to have the servants who had waited up for her to notice her appearance.

  As Jake opened the door of the carriage, she said in a low voice,

  “No mention of what occurred tonight is to be made to anyone, either the servants in the house or your friends in the town.”

  “I understand, my Lady.”

  “If you disobey me, I shall dismiss you instantly.”

  “I shall not speak of it, my Lady.”

  “Good! Please tell Hancocks what I have said.”

  “Very good, my Lady.”

  She walked quickly into the house. Because it was late the candles in the hall were flickering low.

  She had no wrap to conceal the bareness of her neck with so she hurried past the nightwatchman and was halfway up the stairs before he had closed the door behind her.