Regency Pleasures and Sins Part 1. Louise Allen

was singing tunelessly in the back quarters, but the voice was male and not young and she wanted to find the barmaid. Clinking noises from the front sounded more hopeful. Following the sounds, she made her way through to the bar room. A young woman in a plain gown, low cut to show the edge of her chemise and kirtled up to keep her petticoats clear of the newly washed floor, was replacing tankards behind the bar.

      She spun round at the sound of Katherine’s tread and the flare of wariness and fear in her eyes gave Katherine hope. The woman collected herself quickly. ‘Yes, ma’am?’

      ‘A glass of your best ale,’ Katherine said pleasantly. ‘I will be glad of a short rest on my journey.’

      ‘Yes, ma’am,’ she repeated, turning to one of the great barrels propped up behind the bar.

      Katherine took a table on the far side of the room and waited until the girl came and placed the tankard in front of her. She took a sip. ‘Excellent. You brew here?’

      ‘Oh, yes, ma’am. Famous hereabouts the Lamb and Flag is.’

      ‘And for more than your ale, I hear,’ Katherine said smoothly, dropping her hand over the girl’s wrist to detain her. ‘You have a notorious highwayman amongst your customers, so I hear.’

      ‘Yes, ma’am.’ The girl seemed unsure of how to deal with the detaining hand. ‘But no longer, ma’am. The troopers took him near a month past.’

      ‘Did they, indeed?’ Katherine kept a firm grip of the slender wrist and pulled the girl down to sit beside her. ‘Tell me all about it. Did you know this desperate villain well?’

      Something in the quality of the air changed. Someone else was in the room. A powerful presence. Katherine’s heart missed a beat.

      ‘He’d come in from time to time, I s’pose,’ the girl said sulkily. Katherine watched her eyes flicker to the doorway behind her. The air stirred. She watched the dust motes dance and offered up a silent prayer.

      ‘So I imagine you were relieved that they got the wrong man?’ she remarked conversationally.

      ‘Yes … No! What do you mean?’

      ‘That it was not Black Jack Standon they caught, of course. Fortunate for Mr Standon and his friends, a pity for the man they are about to hang.’ Her ears strained for the slightest sound from behind her. ‘Not what I would have expected from a man of Black Jack Standon’s reputation.’

      The maid’s eyes flickered and she tried to pull her hand free. ‘What do you mean?’ she repeated dully.

      ‘Black Jack has a certain fame for being a sporting man. A name for courage and being game. Not like him to let an innocent man hang in his place. Where’s the pride in that?’

      Now she could sense the presence directly behind her. He moved as silently as a cat. ‘Good morning, sir.’ She spoke without turning, before he could take another step. ‘Please, will you not join me? Another tankard for the gentleman, if you will.’ Katherine released the girl’s wrist with a smile.

      ‘I won’t say no.’ The big man who appeared by her side was so like Nick that she almost gasped. Then he sat down opposite her and she could see the difference. This man was perhaps ten years older; a good thirty-eight, if not forty. His nose had been broken and his face was rounder with less apparent bone structure. He picked up the tankard the barmaid put in front of him and tossed half of it back without taking his eyes off the woman before him.

      ‘What do you know about Black Jack Standon, mistress?’

      ‘Nothing, except for his reputation. I know the man taken up in his place: I am married to him.’

      ‘Then tell the authorities who he is.’

      ‘I cannot prove it. No one can. The only way to prove my husband innocent is for the real Black Jack to be seen again. I am sure if he knew of the situation he would want to help.’

      The brown eyes looked into hers for a long moment then he grunted. ‘Huh. What would be in it for Black Jack?’ ‘Pride,’ Katherine said simply.

      In the yard John did as he had been ordered and watered the horse, checked the harness, then sat in the gig. Every nerve quivered with the urge to disobey. He squinted up at the sun. Ten more minutes, fifteen at the most and he was going in, no matter what Miss Katherine said.

      He was on the point of climbing down from the vehicle when the door opened and Katherine stepped out, speaking over her shoulder as she did so. ‘Thank you. I will send word. I knew I could not be mistaken in you.’

      In Newgate Nick paced back and forth in front of his bench, wishing he could stop thinking about Kat, returning to those very thoughts time and again as the only pleasant recollection he could conjure up. He felt uneasy about her and could not say why. Foolishness—she was safe enough in London now the risk from the bailiffs was gone.

      The object of Nick’s concern was experiencing a far more unpleasant time than she had during her encounter with the highwayman. With the freedom of an old family retainer, John was giving vent to his anxiety and his self-reproach at letting her meet the man at all, let alone by herself.

      ‘And it’s no good you telling me you’re a married lady now, Miss Katherine, and can do what you want!’

      ‘I haven’t said that,’ she replied mildly. ‘But I must do what is necessary and I fear you are going to like the next adventure even less than this one. And I will need your help,’ she added, gazing trustfully at him.

      ‘Don’t you go batting your eyelashes at me, Miss Katherine!

      It might work on some highwayman, but I know when you are up to no good.’

      ‘Let us hope that Jenny has had as much success as we have and then we can all go home the day after tomorrow,’ Katherine promised.

      Jenny was waiting for them at the inn and positively bubbling with both the amount she had found out and her own cleverness in doing so.

      ‘I went to Mr Highson’s house, it’s but a mile out of town. And I went round to the back door and started chatting to the kitchen maid; told her I was new to the area and looking for work and wondered what was this place like.’

      ‘Jenny, that was brilliant,’ Katherine said admiringly. ‘Was she not suspicious?’

      ‘Not in the least. Bored to death, cook’s day off and she was left to make the day’s meals for the master. I settled down and helped her with the vegetables and she told me all about the household. The magistrate is unmarried and has a valet, a rather elderly footman, the cook and herself. When she said she had to lay the table for his luncheon I said I’d help her so along we go, right through to the dining room.’

      ‘Jenny!’ Katherine stared in admiration. ‘What else did you find out?’

      ‘Well, I said wasn’t it awfully exciting, her master being a Justice and all? Weren’t desperate characters dragged there at all hours of the day and night? I wondered what his study must be like—did he have a great chair like a judge?’

      ‘And?’

      ‘She showed me his study. She says that when he’s home he works there every day in the afternoon between two and four. It is on the ground floor and looks out on to the garden. See, I’ve drawn a plan.’

      ‘You’d make a fair good spy,’ John grunted with grudging admiration. ‘But how to we know which days he’ll be there?’

      ‘Every day this week,’ Jenny said triumphantly. ‘Mary—that’s the maid—said it was a nuisance because it made more work when he was home.’

      Katherine sat back and closed her eyes against the sudden rush of relief. Thank goodness! Her biggest fear throughout was that they would not find the magistrate at home and she would have to persuade Jack Standon to travel to wherever he had gone.

      Blinking, she pulled the plan of Mr Highson’s house towards her