there had been a strange scandal associated with his name, and in its wake he had been passed over.
“Please, please, everyone. Go about your business. We will solve nothing here, and all of you know that,” Sir Angus told the crowd.
There were continued murmurings, but there was movement, as well.
The crowd was apparently dispersing enough for Shelby, Lord Stirling’s coachman, valet, assistant and man of all work to drive the carriage through the streets. As he carefully wended his way, Ally saw that Thane Grier, still keeping his silence and his distance, was busy scribbling notes on a pad he pulled from his vest pocket.
She dropped the curtain as they left the small village square behind and headed along the road through the forest.
She didn’t notice at first when the carriage began to pick up speed. She had dropped deep into thought, worrying about the state of the realm, then about her own situation. She couldn’t help but wonder about the summons that was bringing her to the castle. It undoubtedly had something to do with the fact that her birthday was fast approaching. Though she had considered herself an adult for quite some time, her guardians had wanted to protect her from the world as long as possible, and it was only on this birthday that she would finally be considered an adult in their eyes. She loved those who had raised her and cared for her, but she was eager to have a say in her own life. Though her upbringing had been sheltered, she thrived on newspapers and books, and had savored each of her few excursions into the city, to a world of theaters and museums. She certainly considered herself intelligent and well educated, even if most of that education had taken place in a small school in the country or from the private tutors who had been sent to her humble home deep in the woods.
She had managed a bit of a peek at the real world. Though she had grown up in the care of her three “aunties,” she’d also had the benefit of her three sets of godparents. How she had been so blessed, she couldn’t even imagine. Three wonderful, sweet women to actually raise her, and as an incredible addition to her life, three couples numbered among the peers of the realm to see that she received the best education and many benefits. Those latter three ladies—Maggie, Kat and Camille—were amazing, unique, and had once been hellions, she dared say to herself, even if not to them. She was glad of their wild past, because if they were to become angry when they discovered she had been taking her future into her own hands, she could remind them they were rather modern women themselves. Lady Maggie had defied all convention to minister to the prostitutes in the East End, Camille had met her Lord husband through her work in the Egyptology department at the museum; and Kat had already ventured out on several expeditions to the pyramids of Egypt and even into the Valley of the Kings. They could hardly expect her to be meek and mild and not want to make her own way in the world.
As she brooded, the carriage began to go faster and faster, and finally it began to career madly down the road.
Ally was roused from her meditations when she was slammed from one side to the other. She struggled to find her seat once again, and then held on for dear life. She wasn’t afraid, just puzzled.
Was Shelby worried that the protesters who had filled the village square might be coming after them? That couldn’t be. Surely he knew that frightened farmers and country shopkeepers would offer no real threat. Especially not when there were such illustrious men as Sir Harrington, Sir Cunningham and Lord Wittburg there to assure them.
So why was Shelby suddenly driving like a maniac?
She frowned, scrambling for balance, and realized that the deaths that had brought on the fear and frenzy in the village were certainly frightening enough. Two men murdered, public figures whose views opposed the Crown and who had pushed for an end to the monarchy. The deaths were terrible, and the times in general were hard. The poor queen, Victoria, aging and still so sad; Prince Edward taking on more and more duties; the threat of war in South Africa again…naturally, people were distraught. For many, poverty and ignorance superceded the amazing progress that Victoria’s reign had brought in the fields of education and medicine. Workers were protected now, as they had never been before. There were those who protested the allowance given the Royal House. Those who felt that the royals did not do enough to warrant the money spent on the upkeep of their many properties and lavish lifestyle. England had a prime minister and a Parliament, and many felt that should be enough.
With a sharp thunk, a wheel went into a pothole, and she nearly hit the ceiling. What was going on? Shelby wasn’t the type to be easily alarmed. He wouldn’t be frightened by law-abiding protesters. Then again, the protesters were not the ones actually causing the tremendous unease in the streets and the press at the moment. That unease could be laid at the feet of those trying to inflame the crowd by making people believe that the monarchy was behind the murders of those politicians who were speaking out against them. There were far too many people willing to believe that the Crown was silently behind the murders.
She knew from her studies that anti-monarchists were not new to English politics, and she even understood, at least to some degree, why such a movement had come to the forefront again now. Despite Queen Victoria’s determination to bring abstinence and goodness back to the Crown, her children, including her heir, had behaved scandalously. Back in the days of Jack the Ripper, there had even been a theory that her grandson, Prince Albert Victor, was the murderer. Since that day, a very vocal faction of anti-monarchists had not hesitated to step forward. These current murders, said by many to be the monarchy’s attempt to quell that faction, had brought the political fever to such a rabid pitch that many of the country’s sanest politicians were warning that there must be compromise and temperance, or there would be civil war.
Ally had never met the queen, but from all she had seen and heard, she couldn’t believe that the woman who had brought such progress to her empire and still mourned a husband lost decades ago could be guilty of such horror.
But for all her knowledge of history and politics, she realized, she still had no idea why the carriage was racing so terrifyingly fast.
Suddenly, with a jerk, the carriage began to slow.
Surely, she thought, this could have nothing to do with the furor going on because two men, two politicians and writers who had viciously slandered the queen, had been found dead, their throats slit. Or with the distraught people in the streets, bearing their signs to protest the queen and Prince Edward. No, the cause of this had to be quite different, and if so…
If so, she knew the answer.
They moved slower, the horses walking now, not galloping. She heard the sound of a gunshot, and froze. There was shouting from nearby; then she heard Shelby calling hoarsely in return, but she couldn’t understand his words.
“Stop the carriage!” a deep, authoritative voice thundered.
Tense, knowing that they were nowhere near the castle, Ally leaned toward the window, pulled back the drapery and looked out.
Her eyes widened in surprise, and it was then that icy rivulets of fear at last snaked through her system.
She had been right.
There was a rider right by her side, a man seated upon a great black stallion, clad in a black coat, hat and mask. Other riders shifted restlessly behind him.
The highwayman!
She had never dreamed that such a thing could happen in her humdrum life. As a devotee to several newspapers, she’d read about this man and his accomplices. In an age when more and more automobiles were finding their way onto the roads, they were being threatened by a highwayman on horseback.
He hadn’t killed
