Highwayman Husband. Helen Dickson

linger for longer than was necessary. The shadows about him, giving the impression of skulking figures among the rocks, turned his bones to water. He was bedevilled and imagined the whispers and echoes of a past long since gone had become the present. With a primeval fear in his heart he quickened the horses, darkness making the road even more treacherous.

      Secure within the confines of the coach, Laura gazed out into the night. On the hem of the mist the moor was like some petrified sea in a silent world. The ground was strewn with rocks, and for miles around it was littered with ruined druid temples and ancient stone circles, darkness infusing itself into the rocks rising like sharp blades into the sky. She was drawn out of her reverie when Edward reached out and took hold of her hand.

      ‘Marry me soon, Laura,’ he said, in his firm, cultured voice, ‘and make me a happy man.’

      Laura turned and looked at him, her luminous eyes meeting his in the dim light. How attractive he is, she thought, and extremely prepossessing in his fashionably cut clothes. His dark brown hair was drawn back from his face in a style most becoming to his near-perfect features. The blue eyes were more often than not cold and unemotional, but his smile could be full of charm when he chose to exercise it.

      How she wished she loved him, but she didn’t. She greatly respected his ability and skill at managing his estate and his mine, Wheal Rose, and, while she often chafed at his high-handed conduct towards her, she was fond of him and immensely grateful to him for having taken her under his wing when her husband had died two years ago. But were fondness and regard enough to build a marriage on?

      ‘You are too impatient, Edward. We have only been betrothed one week. I would like a little more time to get used to the idea,’ she said in answer to his question.

      ‘We have known each other almost two years,’ he responded sharply, irritated by her resistance. ‘Time enough to get to know one another, I would think.’ He gave her a studied, half-lidded look. ‘There isn’t anyone else, is there, Laura?’

      ‘You know there isn’t. But you—you do care for me, don’t you, Edward?’ she asked tentatively, wanting reassurance.

      ‘Of course I do—I’m not in love with anyone else. I do believe we have it in our power to make each other happy. Besides, it’s time you thought of your future and realised that you can’t go on as you are—and stopped rattling around in that great, draughty old house.’

      Laura bristled, resenting his remark. ‘Edward, it is my home you are speaking of.’

      ‘Not for much longer. You will have no need of Roslyn Manor when you are married to me—which is good enough reason to avoid delaying the ceremony. You have done an admirable job running it for the past two years, but you will have to relinquish control when we are married and turn it over to your husband. I’m not sure what I’ll do with such a rambling old place, but I’m sure I’ll think of something,’ he retorted harshly.

      ‘Roslyn Manor is a beautiful house,’ Laura remarked, coming quickly to the defence of the house she had grown to love in the two years she had lived there, and she was deeply concerned about what Edward would do with it and the servants when they were married. It was a matter that still had to be discussed between them and both their lawyers. ‘I shall miss not living there.’

      ‘I am certain when the time comes you will be relieved to surrender the burden and apply yourself to running Burfield Hall instead.’

      Laura averted her eyes and reined in her tongue to keep from saying something that would anger him—something she would regret. Her brother Philip, who lived in London with his wife Jane and two small children, had expressed his desire to see her settled and favoured the match with such an estimable gentleman. When he had brought Jane and the children to Roslyn Manor recently, he had pressed her to accept Edward’s suit—harshly telling her that if she wanted to drag herself through the years ahead as a soured widow that was up to her, but she would live to regret it. Always willing to consider her brother’s wishes, she had seen the reason behind his directive, and so she had accepted Edward’s proposal, although it was a decision she was already beginning to regret.

      It was only in recent days that she had become aware of her late husband’s dislike of Edward, a close neighbour whose land ran adjacent to the Mawgans’, and the idea that she had consented to marry him made her uneasy. Suddenly her relationship with her betrothed seemed a mockery and a dishonour to her husband’s memory.

      Having lived all her life in London, on finding herself a bewildered young widow in a strange place, with no friends or relatives close by she could turn to, at first she had been touched by Edward’s quiet solicitude and attention, but it was only after a decent period of mourning that she had allowed him to call on her.

      No gossip had ever reached her ears about him—and she was not one to take much notice of it if it did, but on a recent visit to St Austell to do some shopping she had overheard him being discussed by total strangers and had lingered over the purchase of a pair of gloves while she listened. Since then the more she found out about the man she was committing the rest of her life to, the more she realised she didn’t know him at all.

      He was the owner of two small tin mines in the district—one, Wheal Rose, still operating, and the other closed years ago. To settle debts, his late father had sold a large portion of his land to the Mawgans, land Edward would like to repossess—particularly one piece of land that swept down to Roslyn Cove, which was an ideal place for landing contraband from across the Channel.

      Edward’s wealth had mysteriously increased over the last two years. On the occasions when he visited London he had begun to lead an exotic life, playing for only the highest stakes at the gaming tables, buying a fashionable house in Kensington, where he entertained on a lavish scale, and here in Cornwall his stables—as Laura had seen for herself—were filled with only the finest horses.

      There was no accounting for his sudden affluence, which, because production was low, could have nothing to do with his mine, as many people up in London believed. Of late, she had heard it whispered that he was the leader of a well-organised smuggling ring—an illicit yet highly lucrative trade prevalent on the south coast.

      At first she had discounted the truth of this, for no one seeing Edward Carlyle—a highly respected pillar of the community—would take him for a criminal, much less one hugely involved in bringing contraband from France or the Channel Islands and landing it in secluded creeks and coves on the Cornish coast. However, through the thought process by which Laura’s sensitive perceptions worked, taking everything into account, including Edward’s frequent trips across to France, despite the violent unrest in that country, she came to the conclusion that there might be some truth in these rumours.

      Her sharp eyes had recently observed the comings and goings of men in the middle of the night, and the dark, sinister shapes of boats and men down in the cove, of wagons stacked high and packhorses weighted down with barrels and packages disappearing onto the moor before dawn. She could have confronted them and forbidden them to cross Mawgan land, but, fearing reprisals, she thought it prudent to do as everyone else seemed to do in Cornwall and turn a blind eye to the activities of the smugglers. To inform on them would mean certain death.

      Having inherited her husband’s estate, it was only natural that Edward should want to marry her, but with these grave doubts about him now clouding her mind she was reluctant, which was why she played for time as the only ally in her favour.

      ‘I have to go away tomorrow morning,’ Edward announced in a more tolerant tone, although his features were set in an unsmiling expression as he regarded her. ‘I shall be gone one week, no more. It will give you ample time to think about our wedding. I would like you to be more decisive when I return.’

      ‘Yes, of course,’ Laura replied stiffly, averting her eyes once more.

      Edward stared at her profile, tracing with his gaze the fine, classic contours of her face, the brush of her long ebony eyelashes on her cheeks, the hollow at the nape of her neck where a mass of blue-black curls came to rest. He had never seen the like of her, not in London nor in Cornwall. She was quite extraordinarily lovely, but it was not for these