The highwayman laughed again as he noticed the expression on her face. “Sorry, lovely, I wish I had time to play.” He looked her up and down and she cringed. “Very nice for an old ’un,” he said softly.
“Leave my wife alone!” Sir Thomas shouted. “Just take our belongings and go.”
“Shut up, old man,” the robber said quietly.
Lady Carol shivered and reached for her husband, clinging to him. She had never been so terrified and never felt so helpless in her life. She needed Sir Thomas, she knew now how much she needed him, just as this man was threatening to take him away from her.
“Hand over all your valuables. Now!”
Lady Carol whimpered as Sir Thomas handed his fob watch to the masked man. “That’s all I have,” he said angrily although he had stopped shouting and was trying to remain calm. The highwayman frightened him, too, but mainly because of the way in which he was looking at his wife. “You’ve held up the wrong coach. We’re bankrupt.”
“So they all say. Out of the coach!”
Sir Thomas assisted his frightened wife down from the coach.
“Jewelry,” demanded the highwayman.
With shaking hands Lady Carol fumbled with her pearl necklace and when she couldn’t open it burst into tears. Just as it seemed the highwayman was about to rip it from her throat, Sir Thomas gently undid the clasp and handed the pearls over.
“Blunt?” asked the man.
Sir Thomas handed over some coins. “I told you, we’re bankrupt. We have no more.”
One of the other men got down from his horse and began to search Sir Thomas. He checked his pockets and patted him down, then he climbed into the coach and searched there but found nothing. Finally, he’d turned to Lady Carol and seeing she was next to be searched she began to scream.
“Be quiet, woman!” the highwayman growled, but Lady Carol was beyond reasoning now. She screamed louder and louder and even Sir Thomas could do nothing to stop her. With a nervous glance over his shoulder, the highwayman muttered, “We’d better be off before her screeching brings the law down on us.”
“Yeah, they ain’t got nuffink anyways,” said one of the other men. “Not worf swingin’ for.”
The next moment they were gone.
It took Sir Thomas some time to calm his hysterical wife, and then he checked on the coachman, who was unconscious and thankfully not dead. The road they were on seemed very quiet, and despite the noise Lady Carol had been making, no one had come to their rescue.
“Looks like we’re going to have to rescue ourselves, my dear,” Sir Thomas said with a wry smile. “Can you help me with this fellow? We’ll get him into the coach.”
Lady Carol tottered over, and the two of them began to drag the coachman toward the coach. He was heavy but thankfully not a large man, and with much huffing and puffing, they got him up and into the coach and made him as comfortable as possible. When they were done, Sir Thomas found his silver brandy flask still in its spot in a pocket of the seat and drew it out triumphantly. He was about to take a swig when he saw his wife, white-faced, slumped on the ground, and sank down beside her.
“Here, my dear, have a sip of brandy.”
For once she did not protest, and took a sip and then another. By the time Sir Thomas had taken his gulp of the fiery stuff, she was looking a little better, and her cheeks had some color in them.
“What are we going to do, Thomas?” she said, her green eyes wide.
He slipped an arm about her and gave her a comforting squeeze. “Looks like we’ll have to drive ourselves, my dear. It’s been a good while since I drove my phaeton. Do you remember it? Marvelous vehicle. I used to bowl along with you at my side.”
Lady Carol smiled reminiscently. “I remember. We were very dashing, weren’t we?”
“We’ll just have to pretend this lumbering coach is a phaeton. Come on, my dear”—and he helped her up—“the sooner we get on, the sooner we will find an inn. Do you know,” he added, as his wife took his arm, “I never thought I’d be glad of Harold’s miserly ways, but I am today. If he’d given me the blunt to pay my own bills, we’d have lost the lot.”
Lady Carol stretched up to kiss his cheek. “I’m sorry I’ve been horrid, my love. It takes something like highway robbery to make one realize what is important to one. Things are just things, but if I’d lost you . . . it doesn’t bear thinking.”
Sir Thomas smiled. “We have each other, and whatever becomes of us, we must remember that.”
“We must.”
There was a sparkle in Lady Carol’s eyes he hadn’t seen for some time, and Sir Thomas felt an enormous weight lifted from his shoulders. The world had turned topsy-turvy, but he had his beloved wife back again.
Chapter 21