Louise Allen - Regency Pleasures and Sins Part 1

‘Black Jack has a certain fame for being a sporting man. A name for courage and being game. Not like him to let an innocent man hang in his place. Where’s the pride in that?’

Now she could sense the presence directly behind her. He moved as silently as a cat. ‘Good morning, sir.’ She spoke without turning, before he could take another step. ‘Please, will you not join me? Another tankard for the gentleman, if you will.’ Katherine released the girl’s wrist with a smile.

‘I won’t say no.’ The big man who appeared by her side was so like Nick that she almost gasped. Then he sat down opposite her and she could see the difference. This man was perhaps ten years older; a good thirty-eight, if not forty. His nose had been broken and his face was rounder with less apparent bone structure. He picked up the tankard the barmaid put in front of him and tossed half of it back without taking his eyes off the woman before him.

‘What do you know about Black Jack Standon, mistress?’

‘Nothing, except for his reputation. I know the man taken up in his place: I am married to him.’

‘Then tell the authorities who he is.’

‘I cannot prove it. No one can. The only way to prove my husband innocent is for the real Black Jack to be seen again. I am sure if he knew of the situation he would want to help.’

The brown eyes looked into hers for a long moment then he grunted. ‘Huh. What would be in it for Black Jack?’ ‘Pride,’ Katherine said simply.

In the yard John did as he had been ordered and watered the horse, checked the harness, then sat in the gig. Every nerve quivered with the urge to disobey. He squinted up at the sun. Ten more minutes, fifteen at the most and he was going in, no matter what Miss Katherine said.

He was on the point of climbing down from the vehicle when the door opened and Katherine stepped out, speaking over her shoulder as she did so. ‘Thank you. I will send word. I knew I could not be mistaken in you.’

In Newgate Nick paced back and forth in front of his bench, wishing he could stop thinking about Kat, returning to those very thoughts time and again as the only pleasant recollection he could conjure up. He felt uneasy about her and could not say why. Foolishness—she was safe enough in London now the risk from the bailiffs was gone.

The object of Nick’s concern was experiencing a far more unpleasant time than she had during her encounter with the highwayman. With the freedom of an old family retainer, John was giving vent to his anxiety and his self-reproach at letting her meet the man at all, let alone by herself.

‘And it’s no good you telling me you’re a married lady now, Miss Katherine, and can do what you want!’

‘I haven’t said that,’ she replied mildly. ‘But I must do what is necessary and I fear you are going to like the next adventure even less than this one. And I will need your help,’ she added, gazing trustfully at him.

‘Don’t you go batting your eyelashes at me, Miss Katherine!

It might work on some highwayman, but I know when you are up to no good.’

‘Let us hope that Jenny has had as much success as we have and then we can all go home the day after tomorrow,’ Katherine promised.

Jenny was waiting for them at the inn and positively bubbling with both the amount she had found out and her own cleverness in doing so.

‘I went to Mr Highson’s house, it’s but a mile out of town. And I went round to the back door and started chatting to the kitchen maid; told her I was new to the area and looking for work and wondered what was this place like.’

‘Jenny, that was brilliant,’ Katherine said admiringly. ‘Was she not suspicious?’

‘Not in the least. Bored to death, cook’s day off and she was left to make the day’s meals for the master. I settled down and helped her with the vegetables and she told me all about the household. The magistrate is unmarried and has a valet, a rather elderly footman, the cook and herself. When she said she had to lay the table for his luncheon I said I’d help her so along we go, right through to the dining room.’

‘Jenny!’ Katherine stared in admiration. ‘What else did you find out?’

‘Well, I said wasn’t it awfully exciting, her master being a Justice and all? Weren’t desperate characters dragged there at all hours of the day and night? I wondered what his study must be like—did he have a great chair like a judge?’

‘And?’

‘She showed me his study. She says that when he’s home he works there every day in the afternoon between two and four. It is on the ground floor and looks out on to the garden. See, I’ve drawn a plan.’

‘You’d make a fair good spy,’ John grunted with grudging admiration. ‘But how to we know which days he’ll be there?’

‘Every day this week,’ Jenny said triumphantly. ‘Mary—that’s the maid—said it was a nuisance because it made more work when he was home.’

Katherine sat back and closed her eyes against the sudden rush of relief. Thank goodness! Her biggest fear throughout was that they would not find the magistrate at home and she would have to persuade Jack Standon to travel to wherever he had gone.

Blinking, she pulled the plan of Mr Highson’s house towards her and conned it. ‘Now, this is what we must do. Listen carefully.’

At three the next afternoon Katherine stood with her two supporters in a small spinney a few hundred yards from Mr Highson’s front gates. Would Black Jack Standon come after all? Was she placing her trust in the highwayman’s pride and arrogance too high?

Then there was a crackling of broken branches behind them and he walked out of the trees, the reins of a handsome bay gelding looped over his arm. Nick’s horse, Katherine thought. Now was perhaps not the best time to ask for it back.

‘Good afternoon, Mr Standon,’ she said as calmly as she could. ‘May I introduce you to John Morgan and Miss Pilgrim.’

‘G’day.’ He nodded to the others. ‘You know what you’re doing, I hope, because if this is a trap I’m not going easily and who’s to say who will get in the way of these.’ He pushed back the edges of his greatcoat and Katherine saw the butts of two large horse pistols.

John stepped forward belligerently, but she put a detaining hand on his arm. ‘It is all right, John. Mr Standon, here is a plan of the house Miss Pilgrim drew after her visit yesterday. Mr Highson will be in his study, John will be with me, but will stop at the door so we are not interrupted. You have the article?’

The highwayman grunted and patted the pocket of his waistcoat. ‘Pity to hand it back to him.’

‘I have compensated you for it,’ Katherine said firmly. ‘We have a bargain, have we not?’

‘You’re a cool one,’ he said grudgingly. ‘What’s your lay, then? Gentry morts aren’t commonly found slumming with highwaymen.’

‘My lay, as you put it, is simply to get my husband out of Newgate, Mr Standon. I find it surprising how cool one can be when an innocent life is at stake.’

‘All right, all right, there’s no cause to rub it in,’ he grumbled, looking uncomfortable. ‘How was I to know the cove had no way of proving who he was?’

‘Then let us not delay. The sooner we do this, the sooner an innocent man will be free.’ It will work, she told herself fiercely. It must work—the consequences of failure were too awful. ‘Come along, Jenny, John. You, Mr Standon, need to be on the far side of the house.’