The Reavers. George Fraser MacDonald

whole encounter, cried: “Kiss my arse!” and died happy.

      Frantic stuff, and watched with finger-twisting admiration by our beauteous duo in the coach, respectively gasping with apprehension and emitting squeals of “Wow! Gotcha!” Now, as their saviour wiped his blade on a lace kerchief and louted low, plumed hat in hand, they let down the window, Kylie fairly gushing with girlish congratulation and even Lady Godiva warming the knight-errant with her most queenly smile. Indeed, a hint of blush undercoat appeared ’neath the ivory satin finish of her cheek, and her ruby lips parted with a soft splooch, for if this was not Master Errol Flynn in Elizabethan costume, she’d never seen him. Kylie, less mistress of her emotions, gaped starry-eyed and gasped: “Golly, quel hunk!” The newcomer shot them a brilliant smile and spoke.

      “Oll raight, gurls? Ai hope these belly reskals didn’t hurrt you. Ai’d hev hasted to yur aid even fester, but the road’s in a helluva state, simply fraightful. You shoor yur okay?”

      Being unprepared for the accent of Glasgow W2 from this Apollo, Lady Godiva was momentarily taken aback, but came off the ropes with speedy aplomb.

      “We are much beholden to you, sir,” said she, all peerless dignity, and extended a white hand over which he bowed reverent curly head, the bristles of his lip-cosy sending electric tingles up her arm to her smooth shoulder, whence they dispersed delightfully through the rest of her, a sensation which would have caused her to go “Eek!” had she not been schooled to hide girlish emotion.

      Little Kylie knew no such reticence. Proffering eager mitt in turn, and feeling her knuckles nibbled (this gallant can obviously tell top quality from mere talent, and responds accordingly) she exclaimed: “Yikes! Much beholden nothing! ’Tis miracle that sends such dashing champion to our aid – oh, sir, your footwork was brill, and how may we repay you?” As if I didn’t know, thought the wanton hussy, lowering coy lashes o’er worshipping orbs.

      “Och, don’t menshn’it – no bother, reelly,” was the modest reply. “Pleez, just sit taight while Ai round up those varlets of yurs, whurrever they’ve got to. Going laike the cleppers when Ai saw them lest. Heff a jiffy, end Ai’ll be beck!”

      And with another graceful bow and flash of gum-gear, he sprang lightly on his horse, and with the command: “Come on, Garscadden – away!” cleared the roadside hedge from a standing start and was off across the snowy fields shouting: “Ho there, leckeys! Get yurselves follen in! Where urr you, desh it? Yur mistress ken’t stay heer oll naight!”

      A faint furrow did its stuff ’twixt Lady Godiva’s delicately pencilled brows. “Methinks,” said she, “this gentleman should be a Scot, by his tongue.”

      “Who cares about his tongue?” enthused glowing Kylie. “Regard me rather those super shoulders, chiselled clock, sexy legs, and the Mephisto-gleam in his tawny eyes! And what a mover – nay, ’a went through those nasties like a dose of Dr Lopez his salts!” She sighed. “Bit of a waste of beefcake, if you ask me, but that’s the way the farl fractures. What makes you think he’s Scotch, Goddy?”

      “His speech, dum-dum!” quoth impatient Godiva. “Had ye but marked the dialogue in Macbeth^*,’ stead of ogling the husky who played the Bleeding Sergeant, you’d ha’ noted that the nobles of Scotland – you know, Angus, Lennox, McHaggis, whoever – spoke exactly as doth our rescuer. A quaint affected dialect, which they do term ‘toffee-nosed’, for that it apes gentility – sex are what they keep coal in, and a crèche is two carts colliding on Byres Road,” she explained, but with a musing, dreamy look that suggested preoccupations other than nutty slack and vehicle pile-ups. Aware of Kylie’s slantendicular smirk, her ladyship feigned a yawn. “Thus talks he – aye, and plies pretty rapier enough. For the rest,” she shrugged indifferent shoulders, “I marked him not.”

      “Get her!” scoffed Kylie. “You marked him ten out o’ ten! Going to offer him a lift, are we?”

      Disdain tilted the exquisite nose and squiggled the delectable mouth of the Thrashbatter heiress. “And if I so condescend,” she snooted, “to one that hath done me service, why, what’s it to thee, sauce-pot? He may be mere gentry and talk as if he had a mouse up his nose, yet is he the most presentable thing I’ve seen this side of Watford Gap.”

      “Does that mean I have to ride on the roof?” sniffed Kylie. “Or don’t you mind the competition?”

      “That,” quoth Godiva, patting complacent coiffure, “will be the day. Bear us company an ye list, sweet child – but try playing footsie with him and I’ll break your leg.”

      Thus it was that when the stranger had scooped in Samkin and the perspiring lackeys, with brisk halloo and cries of “C’mon, churrls, move it! Run laike stegs, you aidle shower!” and they had put to the horses and tidied the fallen reivers into the ditch, he found himself bidden to a seat in the carriage, his horse being anchored astern. Kylie, with pretty becks and flutters, proffered a brimmer of peach brandy, which he accepted with a courtly “Gosh, thenks, offly kaind of you, cheers!” while Godiva appraised him ’neath interested lids and concluded that, eccentric accent or no, this gorgeous specimen had the message for the Soroptomists, in spades. And vanity demanding that she exercise her charm on such male perfection, she thought, mm-m, right, we’ll give him the Languid Glow for openers …

      “We are deeply in your debt, fair sir,” she drawled, “and agog to know the name and quality of our gallant preserver. I am the Lady Godiva Dacre …” she inclined her regal scone to give him the full colour contrast of flame-tinted hair, creamy complexion, and violet pools “… and this my small companion, Mistress Kylie Delishe.”

      “Is thet a fect?” The cavalier paused courteously in mid-swig, and eyed her with a warmth that sent a tremor through her shapely knees. “Whay, you must be the grend-dotter of the old chep who popped his clogs et Threshbetter Tower lest Martinmess – offly sed, mai hurtfelt condolences.” And if you want a stalwart shoulder to cry on, dive right in, was the message in his smoky eyes, at which the love-gremlins let out her knees another couple of notches. Pity he couldn’t talk like a human being, but it could be a gas teaching him received pronunciation …

      “You knew my Lord Waldo?” she murmured, all decorative attention.

      “Och, heer end there,” was the airy reply. “Ai hendled a few property trensfurs for him … But enough of thet – let’s tock about yew!” Without warning he leaned towards her, masterful elbow on ardent knee, his classic profile cleaving the astonished air and coming to a stop inches from her own. “Mai God, but yur gorgeous! Who gives a tosser for business and ex-grendfethers in the presence of beauty that out-marvels th’exotics o’ the Orient, end would put Fair Helen hurself to the beck of the stove!” He raised his glass in passionate salute. “Ai pledge yur metchless loveliness, Godaiva – nay, Godess-aiva, I should say!” And he took a saturnine shlurp while her senses did the splits, one half bridling at his presumption, the other rendered momentarily legless by his worshipping regard.

      Of course, blast-furnace wooing was nothing new to one of her endowments, physical and financial. Raised at a court where they couldn’t even say hello without vowing undying devotion, she’d heard it all, and knew how to cope with supercharged acceleration of the love-god’s chariot. But now, ere her glance could refrigerate in reproof, he had flipped his glass to Kylie, crying “Ketch!”, done a lightning kneel, ’prisoned Godiva’s hand, and locked his eyes with hers, azure amaze tangling with amber yearn.

      “Ye spoke of being in mai debt!” he baritoned. “Ah, the gentlest touch of thet sweet mouth on maine, divaine creechur, the teensiest sook of those juicy wee lips, end that’ll take care of thet! For a furst instollment, anyway.”

      It needed not Kylie’s exclamation of “Strewth, talk about Speedy Gonzales!” to summon proud outrage to Godiva’s breast – and then, she knew not how, as the hypnotic spell of mischievous dark eyes and tang-fresh dentifrice enveloped her, some reckless imp of mad desire booted proud outrage aside, crying “Go on, why not?”, and yielding to that wild impulse she lowered tremulous lids and submitted parted lips (was it those outlandish words “juicy”