Page 58 of The Lord who Captured Her Innocent Heart
“Oh? A clever man.” The bandit coughed. He reached behind him, drawing a thin black rod from his pocket.
A shiver swept up and down Peter’s spine. He ensured the fear didn’t flash across his face. He couldn’t afford to show a moment of weakness.
“I suppose it wouldn’t hurt for me to step out for a moment. It’s always pleasant to have conversations with those you might not meet otherwise,” Peter said.
He stepped towards the opening and strutted down the steps of the carriage. One hundred stories of various men — robbed and murdered from stagecoach bandits — raced through his mind. He gave the stableboy from the hotel a rueful gaze, one that said,If I ever make it out of here, the hotel will be alerted immediately.
As if that would change anything at all.
“What a fool he is, this one!” the once-carriage driver hollered, sounding like a child. “Thinks I’m gonna let him get all the way to London without taking what’s ours!”
“Be quiet, you,” the head bandit spat back. “We can’t afford all this talk. What’s best is to do what needs to be done.”
Peter leaned towards the right, sweeping his hands across his pockets. He lent the bandits a smile, saying, “Gents, it’s a wonderful pleasure to meet you like this. Truly, it is. I’m continually telling my father and friends — it’s a real shame we don’t leave the city at night more often. Think of all the men lurking out there, just waiting for us.”
“All this talk is making me dizzy,” the carriage driver tittered. He leapt up and down, sniffling a bit, like a dog preparing to devour his meal.
“I reckon you know which direction this conversation is going,” the head bandit said. “And it ain’t one of your nice ones, out at the estate. No sirree. What’s your name? You’re a fine looking man, you are.”
Peter wouldn’t give his name for all the world. “I’m Frederick. Frederick Pennington,” he said, drumming up whatever syllables came first.
“Pennington?” the head bandit said, stitching his eyebrows together. He cast his eyes back towards the stablehand, muttering, “I thought you said this here was a lord.”
The stable hand’s cheeks burned red. He fumbled in his pockets, seemingly looking for something — perhaps a receipt from the hotel. But he came up empty, giving the head bandit a shrug.
“That’s what they had been saying at the hotel. That these men, they come from real money,” he said.
The bandit leered at Peter. “Is that so? Do you come from real money?”
Peter had just a bit of money on him, certainly not enough to assuage the men. He took a delicate step towards the horse. The moon burned out from behind the clouds once more, a bit lower in the sky. It looked as though it was retreating. Peter wondered how much longer it would be before the sun stuck its head upward, casting light across the moors. Where would he be, then? In a ditch somewhere? Already rotting away?
“I can tell you that I don’t come from anything much at all,” Peter said, chuckling. “It’s a real regret.”
“Why are you running off in the middle of the night?” the head bandit demanded. He whacked his black rod across his palm, looking impatient. “Where are you going off to?”
“My father and I are lowly importer and exporters,” Peter offered. “He’s in the midst of negotiations back in Brighton, and I have very little to offer him, due to an illness. I’m heading back to London to speak with a doctor about treatment.”
The words poured from his mouth. He offered a small cough and then drew his fingers across his stomach, to highlight his internal struggle. “It’s really a great distress to me, to put my father through so much,” he continued. “I know he wanted so much more out of a son. But it seems to me that I shan’t have a normal life. Especially now.”
“Especially now?” the bandit asked. He spun his head back towards the poor carriage boy, wrinkling his nose. “Have you brought us a sick commoner, you imbecile?”
“No — I declare — he truly was, is! a part of the upper class!” the carriage boy bumbled. He cast glances towards Peter as if to ask him to “support” his mission.
Peter gave him a rueful gaze, trying to communicate the idiocy of the boy. “I can give you all I have in my bag,” Peter offered. He swept his finger towards the carriage, in which his bag remained. “Please, don’t hurt the poor boy on my behalf.”
The head bandit tilted his head towards the carriage, grunting. In response, one of the larger men burst forward, nearly ripping the carriage door from the side. He blinked down at the single suitcase, turning his head back towards the lead bandit.
“Marvin, it ain’t lookin’ too swell, I reckon.”
“Tear it open!” Marvin hollered. “Don’t be an idiot.”
Peter side-stepped away from the carriage, towards the horse. His heart beat hard, making his ears feel as though they might begin to bleed. He imagined red liquid coursing from within his head, staining his suit.
The second-in-command ripped the side of his suitcase, casting his various items to the ground. They shone in the slim moonlight. Marvin peered down at it, grunting. “He really is an imbecile, isn’t he?”
Meanwhile, Peter drew his hand towards the horse’s mane, sweeping it through the fine hair. He didn’t want to spook the horse, but it was his single-ticket out of the muck he’d found himself in. For a moment, he remembered all the horror stories of bandits he’d heard throughout his youth. None of them had a single happy ending. One man — a friend of a friend of a friend (and most probably someone who hadn’t even existed at all) — had apparently had his tongue chopped off, so that he would “keep quiet.” This wasn’t the sort of future Peter wanted for himself.
For a strange moment, he imagined himself and Ella at the pianoforte together, gazing into one another’s eyes. He would mumble, tossing his shoulders back and forth and exhibiting symbols with his hands. “Oh, of course, darling. Your tea,” Ella would response. But of course, he would never be able to respond in kind.
