Page 17 of Her Wily Duke

Wiggins sighed.

“I fear that we have seen the best days of this house, when the old Duke was alive. The future does not look bright..”

Silence fell in the carriage and the two men travelled on together through the tunnel of oaks. Of course, Wiggins’s professional loyalties were to his employer, but he felt his personal loyalties shifting ever more towards his employer’s brother. He hoped that the day wouldn’t come when he would be called upon to choose between them, but there was menace in the air and the tension in the whole household seemed to be approaching some hideous denouement.

Walham looked up, startled, as the carriage slowed. What could be making the coachman slow, here? They were quite some distance from Foxridge Park, yet. Then he heard something unexpected, for this was normally a very quiet road.

“Do you hear that noise?”

Wiggins strained to listen. He was getting older, and his hearing wasn’t what it had once been. At first he heard nothing — just the wind sighing. But no, there it was — the sound of hooves coming at a steady pace behind them in the darkness.

Wiggins turned to Walham with a puzzled expression.

“But who else could be going towards Foxridge Park at this time of night? Especially on this road?”

Walham had no answer. They had taken the more direct, quieter road, for better security of the funds they carried, as well as a faster journey. The road they were on led only to their estate. Any rider who had come this far must be heading to Foxridge Park for the night, or intending to cross over it under cover of darkness – and there was precious little beyond Foxridge Park for them to be going to.

“Should we call out to him?” asked Wiggins as they neared a narrow wooden bridge running over a small stream.

Walham shook his head, motioning to the worn looking satchel which Wiggins was carrying in his lap. Within the satchel was a large sum of money. Wiggins nodded in comprehension and Walham rapped on the roof and called out to the coachman to go faster. The coachman yelled to the horses, who broke into a canter, and the carriage lurched forward.

But the rider was upon them like a whirlwind, and before the carriage had even crossed over the bridge he had overtaken it. The coachman desperately tried to halt the now frightened horses, even as a whip came sailing towards him out of the darkness. The coachman cried out as it snapped over his head with a crack which reverberated in the air above the stream and seemed to be echoed by the thousand trees which surrounded them. They crossed the bridge, the horses slowing a little, and Wiggins hoped that they might keep going, and outrun the highwayman.

“Wiggins, the satchel!” shouted Walham, but it was too late. With a heroic effort the dark rider had already leant over, and opened the carriage door, then thrown himself into the carriage and lunged for the satchel as if drawn to the money by some secret instinct. Then, with a second leap, he soared out of the carriage and onto his horse, which was still cantering alongside the slowing carriage at a steady pace.

Wiggins shook his fist impotently at the masked thief, but could have sworn he heard him laughing as he cantered away into the trees on their left and disappeared from view.

Chapter Seven

“I don’t care how frightening and eerie he was.” The Duke threw open the doors of his study with a loud clatter and charged in. Behind him went Wiggins, Walham, and the coachman, and behind them two footmen bearing candles. “I want him found, I want him unmasked, and I want him thrown into the nearest prison!”

Wiggins and Walham had just returned from the bank, but had not returned with the money which had been the aim of their venture. On the way home the two men had debated the merits of telling the Duke what had really happened. Wiggins had reflected solemnly that the Duke was unlikely to believe them, but Walham had said that the truth was preferable to a lie, and infinitely preferable to no explanation at all. If they had shown up at Foxridge Park without the money and with no compelling reason for not having it…

“Well,” said Walham, “then you had better hope that our masked friend has room in the woods for us, because that’s where we’ll be living by morning.”

As a consequence, while the Duke was not pleased with the theft, he was level-headed enough to direct his anger at the true culprit, rather than the two servants, who, it was clear even to him, were completely blameless.

“Bring the candles,” said the Duke, sitting down at his desk and pulling out a sketchpad. “I want you to draw him for me. You got a good look at him, didn’t you? Enough to identify him should you see him again?”

Walham and Wiggins looked at each other with crestfallen expressions.

“Your Grace, we didn’t even see his face,” said Walham.

The Duke’s nostrils flared scornfully.

“You said he was in the carriage with you…”

“For all of three seconds,” said Wiggins. “It was dark. I could scarcely see my own hand in front of my face. And it all happened so fast. One minute we were crossing the bridge and the next he was on top of us.”

“And a black leather mask obscured his face, Your Grace!” said Walham.

The Duke ran his fingers through his hair, biting down on his lower lip with a vexed look.

“Then we have nothing to go on. Not the slightest clue to his motives. No hint of where he might have come from…”

“We did see where he went, at least the general direction,” said Wiggins. “We could send out riders to search for him.”

The Duke dismissed the suggestion with a wave of his hand.