‘As I recall, he didn’t take anything o’ yours,’ the guard retorted.
‘He stole the mail,’ countered the farmer’s wife.
‘And he assaulted my mistress,’ added Betty.
‘Which is why I came to enquire if she was hurt.’ The guard turned his attention to Charity. ‘Well, ma’am? Have you suffered any injury?’
Charity was reliving the memory of being imprisoned in those strong arms and her lips still burned from the highwayman’s kiss, but she would never admit that to a soul.
‘N-no, I am a little shaken, but I am not hurt.’
‘The rascal stole your brooch, Miss—’
‘Hush, Betty. It was a mere trinket.’ She turned to the guard. ‘Please, it is not important. Let us get on.’
The guard seemed satisfied with that. He nodded.
‘Then we’ll be on our way. We’re stopping at Beringham to change horses, so we will report the incident then.’
He closed the door and the carriage rocked as he climbed back onto the box beside the driver.
‘Aye, and I’ll be reporting this to the mail company,’ muttered the farmer as they set off again. ‘Never seen the like, a guard and driver made to look no-how by a lone horseman—why, between the three of us we could have taken him!’
‘That’s just what my mistress sug—’
Charity dug her maid in the ribs. She summoned up a bright smile.
‘Well, I for one am glad we came off so lightly. I pray we will have no more excitement before we reach our destination.’
* * *
Her prayers were answered, and the short journey into Beringham was uneventful. The passengers were invited to go into the inn while the constable was summoned.
After the chilly carriage, the sight of the inn’s blazing fire was very cheering, and when the landlord had supplied them all with a cup of hot coffee, even the farmer’s mood improved. The local constable turned out to be a stolid individual called Rigg who painstakingly wrote everything down, explaining that the magistrate would want to have all the details reported to him. Once the guard and driver had given their version of events, he turned to the passengers. Charity glanced at the clock. They should have been at Allingford by now, but the delay could not be helped, so she stifled her impatience and gave her attention to the matter in hand.
‘He got down off his horse and ordered you all out o’ the coach, you say?’ The constable looked at his notes. ‘So you had a chance to get a good look at the fellow, eh?’
The farmer shook his head. ‘Nay, ’twere too dark to see out by then.’
‘That’s true,’ affirmed Betty. ‘And he soon ordered us all back inside, except Mrs Weston.’
‘Weston?’ The constable looked up, all attention. ‘Mrs Weston, you say? Are you—?’
‘I am an actress.’ She smiled to atone for interrupting him. ‘Mrs Weston is my stage name.’
The farmer’s wife sniffed, her earlier smiles replaced now with a more haughty stare.
‘Ah, I see.’ The constable looked even more interested in that. ‘You’ll be on your way to Allingford, then.’ He added, with something like a sigh, ‘We have no theatre in Beringham.’
‘Nor any other entertainment,’ grumbled the farmer. ‘Even the inns ain’t what they was.’
‘But she was closest to the villain,’ put in the farmer’s wife, ignoring her husband. ‘In his arms, she was, and he was makin’ free with her—’
‘I beg your pardon, but it was no such thing,’ declared Betty, bristling in defence of her mistress. ‘He ravished her, quite against her will.’
Charity blushed and shook her head at the bemused constable.
‘He stole a cheap brooch, that is all.’
‘And he kissed her, too!’ cried the farmer’s wife in outraged accents.
‘Very understandable, ma’am, if you don’t mind my saying so,’ returned the officer of the law, then coloured to the tips of his ears.
‘It means she saw him better than the rest of us,’ said the farmer. ‘Right tall fellow, he was.’
‘Ma’am?’ The constable turned his eyes towards Charity, who shrugged.
‘I would not have said he was that tall. About medium height, I think.’
‘Bigger, surely,’ argued the farmer’s wife. ‘He towered over you!’
Charity remembered it only too well, but she shook her head now.
‘I was cowering a little.’
It was a lie. She had felt no fear in her encounter with the highwayman. There had been anger, yes, and excitement, but she had never felt afraid of him. The farmer’s wife was continuing.
‘A big man, all in black and astride a great black ’oss. And he had right broad shoulders.’
Charity remembered him coming close, the feeling that he was enveloping her in his shadow.
‘His coat was very large,’ she said. ‘It had several capes on the shoulders, which gave the impression of width.’
‘Did you see his face, or his hair—did he wear a wig, perhaps?’
‘He never removed his hat. And he wore a mask, so I could not see his countenance.’
That much was true. She could not even say with any certainty what colour his eyes had been, only that they were very dark and had bored into her, as if he could see into her very soul.
‘His horse, though—that should be easy to find.’ The coachman tapped out his pipe upon the hearth and set about refilling it. ‘It was a stallion, a great dark beast, pure black from mane to hoof.’
‘And he weren’t from around these parts,’ added the guard. ‘Irish, I do reckon.’
‘Aye,’ agreed the farmer. ‘Definitely Irish, no mistaking that brogue.’
Charity said nothing. She had spent her life working with actors and mimics and suspected that lilting Irish accent had been as false as the inflection she had adopted in London to make everyone think she had grown up south of the Thames. The landlord, who had been hovering by all the while, nodded sagely.
‘The Dark Rider. They say he comes from Dublin.’
‘Oh, Lord bless us!’ exclaimed the farmer’s wife, falling back in her chair. No one paid her any heed.
‘Nay, I thought it was
