Moonrise

The best thing would be for both her and Jack to stay out of the way as much as possible while the gentleman was here. That would be no problem at all for her brother, whose comings and goings were little noted by the other members of the household. But in the past couple of years her widowed uncle had come to rely more and more on Sarah as mistress of the house. There was no way she could escape dining with their guest.

She rubbed her telltale palms together and wondered if Baron Rutledge had noted them. She was sure that at court a lady would rather be caught naked than riding without gloves, but Sarah was unaccustomed to such refinements. She had been raised in a thoroughly male household. Her mother had died giving birth to Jack, and John Fairfax had been too involved in his Puritanism and his politics to worry about finding a replacement.

Well, Sarah said to herself resolutely, if Lord Rutledge were to be so ungentlemanly as to comment on her roughened hands, she would merely tell him that life in Yorkshire was not as soft as in the palaces of London. Here in the country ladies worked rather than whiling away their days stitching fine tapestries or planning elaborate masques.

She was so lost in her own arguments that she almost missed seeing Jack skirt around the crumbling ruins of an old enclosing wall and make his way toward the stables. At her call he detoured in her direction.

“Have you just come from the horses, Sarah?” he asked eagerly. “I’ve heard there’s a royal surveyor visiting from the king.” His smile died as he took in Sarah’s sober face. “What’s the matter?”

Sarah motioned with one hand for him to lower his voice. “You heard right. There’s a representative from the king. And you’re not going anywhere near him.”

“Is he very grand, Sarah? Are his clothes as magnificent as they say?” Her brother’s eagerness was unabated.

“Do you understand what I’m saying, Jack? I don’t want him to know you’re here. It’s bad enough that he’s already got his eye on Brigand.”

As the import of her words gradually dawned on him, the smile faded from Jack’s face like the dimming of a lantern. “And you think he might have heard reports of the robberies?”

Sarah shrugged. “I don’t know. He’s supposed to be just a royal surveyor, but it makes me nervous to have a king’s man staying here, especially one who knows horses. There’s not a horse like Brigand in all the surrounding shires.”

“And when the villagers tell their tales of the moonlight bandit, they sing the praises of the magnificent moonlit stallion ‘he’ rides,” Jack added soberly.

“I probably should have ridden one of Uncle’s horses,” Sarah said ruefully. “Though Brigand has taken me out of more close scrapes than we can count.”

“Well, it’s too late to do anything about it now. The horse is already known.”

Sarah gave a deep sigh. “We’ll just have to make sure that master surveyor Rutledge has absolutely no reason to suspect any connection between the highwayman and anyone here at Leasworth.”

“And how do you intend to do that?”

Sarah felt her cheeks grow warm again as she remembered her intense reaction to the man back at the stables. “Perhaps I can turn his thoughts in other directions.”

Jack eyed her suspiciously. “What do you mean...other directions?”

Sarah gave him a determined smile. “Never mind. Let’s just hope he won’t be here for long. And you, brother dear,” she added, putting her arm around his neck, “are to stay well out of his way.”

Jack pulled away from his sister’s embrace. “It’s about time you stopped giving me orders, Sarah. I’m eighteen now—full grown.”

“Eighteen you may be, but you’re still my little brother.”

Jack bristled. “Norah Thatcher didn’t think I was so little yestere’en after the Wiggleston fair.”

Sarah’s eyes grew wide. “Jack! What are you saying?” she asked, her voice rising with shock.

Jack’s neck colored just below his ears. “It’s just that I’m not a lad anymore, Sarah, and it’s time you recognized the fact.”

Sarah was still taking in the implications of Jack’s earlier statement. Norah Thatcher was one of the more notorious of the village maids. If she had been with Jack late at night after the fair, there was only one possible interpretation. “Fornication is a sin, Jack,” she said sternly.

Jack dropped his defensive expression and gave an easy laugh. “Hadn’t you heard, Sarah, love? There’s no such thing as sin in the merry reign of King Charles.”

Sarah looked at her brother closely. He was no different than he had been when she had broken fast with him this morning, but all at once she realized that he had shoulders as broad as their father’s had been. His chin showed traces of a man’s whiskers. His clear blue eyes and thick blond hair were no longer those of a boy. “Surely you’re not going to pattern your morals on the court’s,” she said soberly.

Jack, his typical good humor restored, leaned over to give his sister an affectionate kiss. “As I was just saying, Sarah, I’m a man now, and my morals are no longer the concern of my big sister.”

Tears stung Sarah’s eyes. “Don’t ask me to stop worrying about you, Jack. I don’t know what I’d do if anything happened to you. You’re all I have.”

Touched by her unaccustomed show of emotion, Jack took her in his arms. “We’ll take care of each other, Sarah. You’re all I have, too, you know.”

Embarrassed by her tears, Sarah pushed at him and gave his chest a glancing blow with her small fist. “I’m all you have? What about Norah Thatcher?” she teased, covering the emotion with a grimace.

Jack grinned. “Norah has become...shall we just say, a good friend.”

Sarah shook her head and laughed. “You’ve ever been bad, Jack Fairfax.”

“Now that’s funny,” he said innocently. “Norah says I was ever so good.”

Sarah felt her cheeks grow hot again. This was a side of her brother she was not sure she was ready for. She had been both sister and mother to him for so many years. It was difficult to think of him moving on in life into activities that could not, by their very nature, involve her.

Jack’s smile faded as he saw that he had truly embarrassed her. “Don’t mind me,” he said, pulling her close to him once more. “You’re absolutely right. I am bad. But it’s just that...bad’s a lot of fun, Sarah.”

Unaccountably, Sarah once again had a vision of the almost carnal look in Lord Rutledge’s dark eyes as he had watched her in the stables. She stepped back from Jack and tried to rein in her spinning thoughts. “Just promise me you’ll do as I say, Jack, and stay out of the baron’s way.”

Jack looked down at her, his eyes full of love. “If it will make you happy, big sister, I’ll make myself as scarce as hen’s teeth.”

She gave his arm a squeeze, taking note of his rock-hard muscle. When had Jack suddenly become so big? “Thank you, little brother. I only wish I could do the same. But, alas, I must be the proper hostess for our guest. And if I don’t get up to the kitchens, the grand baron from London will be supping on raw rabbit stew,” she added with a giggle.

Jack joined in her laughter. “Run along, then. I’ll just take myself off to the village. Perhaps Mistress Thatcher needs some help today in the tannery.”

“Jack!” Sarah chastised.

“You said you wanted me out of the way, remember?”

Sarah gave a reluctant smile. “Just mind what you do, little brother.”

Jack grinned. “Oh, I intend to mind it very well, Sarah.” Then he turned and took off toward Wiggleston in a dead run.

* * *

Anthony stretched out his long legs toward the huge fire that blazed in the great room of Leasworth manor. He was tired, though not entirely displeased with the results of his day. Oliver, his colleague on the mission, had reported that his men had made some progress in the village gathering information about the moonlight highwayman. And as for Anthony’s own day at Leasworth, it had been more than satisfactory. To his surprise, Thomas Fairfax actually did possess a number of horses that would rival any in London. There was one in particular that was a magnificent animal, a dark gray roan stallion with sleek lines and powerful legs that made it look as if it could run the breadth of the country without stopping.

And then there was the girl. Fairfax’s niece. She had the look of a little country dove in her plain gray dress, but she had the features of a classic beauty, and her body... He’d only held her for a moment, but that had been enough. She had all the lush curves of a woman, but with an underlying strength that promised that she would be an exhilarating match in bed.

It was a pity that he was too tired to woo her yet tonight. She should be willing enough, he reasoned. As he’d come out of the stables, he’d seen her with what must have been one of her country swains. She’d been embracing the strapping young lad. She’d even kissed him there in the plain light of day. It shouldn’t be too hard to get her to turn her attentions to an experienced courtier like himself. After all, he had wooed and won the most brilliant women at court, at least those that Charles had not marked for himself.

The door to the cavernous room opened. It was she, the niece—Sarah. The name was plain, but it suited her elegant simplicity. So did the gown she was wearing—solid black, with a stark white vee bodice that emphasized her full breasts and narrow waist. Her hair was swept up from her slender neck in a graceful twist. Her finely etched cheekbones glowed in the firelight. She looked serene and dignified, but her gray eyes watched him with the deceptive calm of a wolf ready to strike. He rose to his feet. Perhaps he wasn’t too tired, after all.

Chapter Two

“Please don’t trouble yourself to rise, sir.”