His Mask of Retribution

She knew that he smiled at the question, even though she could not see his mouth behind the kerchief. He smiled, but there was nothing of mirth in his eyes as he looked at her father.

‘Stand and deliver.’ The man’s voice was quiet and harsh, as if half-whispered.

‘You’ll rue the day you picked me to thieve from, you scoundrel.’

‘I think not.’ He cocked his pistols.

‘My daughter is on her way to be married.’ If her father had thought to reason with the highwayman then he was mistaken, for the man’s eyes did not so much as flicker. His gaze remained hard and relentless.

‘I have a purse of money.’ Her father scrabbled in his pockets, pulling out the small brown-leather pouch. ‘Here.’ He threw it in the direction of the highwayman. ‘Take it and be gone.’ The purse landed on the grass between them.

The highwayman did not even look at the purse, heavy and bulging with coins though it was. ‘I do not want your money,’ he said in his harsh half-whisper, his eyes fixed unblinking on Misbourne’s.

Her father looked at the highwayman for a moment, as if unable to comprehend the man’s answer, before speaking again. ‘There is my diamond cravat pin and my watch; both are gold.’ Her father’s fingers were trembling slightly as he unpinned the diamond and threw it down to lie on the grass by the side of his purse. The stone glinted and sparkled in the sunlight. Then he took the watch from his pocket, unfastened the fob and offered the watch and its dangling chain to the highwayman.

But the villain made no move to take it.

‘Marianne, take off your pearls and throw them down by my purse,’ her father commanded, adding beneath his breath, ‘Pearls before swine.’ But for all his bravado, his brow glistened with sweat as she reached for the clasp.

The highwayman shook his head. ‘Nor your jewellery, Misbourne.’

Her fingers stilled, then dropped away, leaving the pearls intact around her neck.

Her father frowned and she could see the suspicion and fear that flitted across his face. ‘You know my name?’ His voice was sharp.

‘I know a lot more than that.’

The two men watched one another. The silence was heavy, pregnant with foreboding.

‘Then what do you want?’ asked her father at last.

There was a pause before the highwayman spoke. ‘We’ll come to that in time, but for now I’ll take from you the same I took from the others—that which is most precious in the world to you.’

Every last trace of colour washed from her father’s face. His beard and moustache, grizzled and grey, stood stark against the pallor of his skin. Across the heath a blackbird was singing, and in the background was the gentlest whisper of the wind. Nothing else stirred.

Her father forced the semblance of a laugh. ‘You mean to kill me?’

‘No!’ Marianne stepped forwards in alarm. ‘Do not harm him! I beg of you! Please!’

The highwayman’s eyes met hers and they looked almost golden in the morning light. ‘Rest assured, Lady Marianne…’ how shocked she felt to hear her name upon his lips ‘…both your father and I know that it is not his life of which I speak.’ His voice was that same stony half-whisper, devoid of all emotion, but the look in his eyes was cold and hard as the deepest winter and filled with such implacable determination that she shivered to see it. He turned his focus back to her father. ‘Don’t you, Misbourne?’

‘No.’ Her father’s voice was little more than a croak. The denial was weak and something about his expression made her think he knew exactly what was meant.

The highwayman made a small movement with the pistol in his right hand. ‘I will kill you if you do not give me what I have come for. And once you are dead I will be free to take that which you seek to protect…without reprisal.’

‘Papa, please, if you have any knowledge of what this villain wants, I beg you to deliver it to him. Do not risk your life.’

Both men looked at her. Her father’s face was strained and haunted—he seemed to have aged a hundred years in those few moments—and the highwayman’s eyes held the strangest expression.

‘Run, Marianne,’ her father said, and there was agony in his voice. ‘Run, and do not look back.’

She shook her head. ‘I will not abandon you to him.’

‘Do as I say and run, damn you, girl!’

And she understood in that moment what it was that the highwayman wanted even before he said the words.

‘For what does a father love best in all the world, but his only daughter?’

‘You are wrong,’ she said. There was her mother and her brother. But she knew in her heart that he spoke the truth. Her father had always loved her best.

‘You shall not take her from me, you fiend!’ Her father threw himself at the highwayman, but the villain was taller and stronger and younger. In an instant his pistols were uncocked and out of sight. He caught Misbourne’s punch as easily as if it were that of a weakling and, in return, landed a hard fist to his face and then his stomach. When her father gasped and doubled over, clutching at his belly, the highwayman pushed him away and he stumbled back, hitting the side of the coach. He collapsed on to his knees, his right arm still wrapped around his belly. Blood was seeping from a cut on his cheek and his face was already beginning to swell.

‘Papa!’ Marianne made to rush to him, but the highwayman was quicker. He caught her around the waist and hauled her to him. ‘No!’ She kicked and punched and fought for all she was worth, but her captor was too strong. In an instant he had her held in his grip and facing her father.

Misbourne scrabbled to his feet from where he knelt in the dirt, the blood trickling down his poor injured face to darken and matt the grey hair of his beard. She tried to go to him, but the highwayman’s arm was firm around her upper arms and décolletage, restraining her, pulling her back until her spine tingled with the proximity of him, even though their bodies were apart.

‘What will you give for her safe return, Misbourne?’

‘Anything you wish.’

‘Anything?’ The highwayman’s voice was low and grim.

Her father nodded. ‘Money. Gold. Silver. Jewels. Name your price.’

Behind her she felt the highwayman move, although his grip upon her did not slacken. He threw a folded sheet of paper to land on the ground before her father. ‘My price, Misbourne.’

Her father retrieved the paper and opened it, and Marianne watched his expression contort with sudden shock and horror. He made not one move, spoke not one word, just stared at the piece of paper as if he could not believe the words written upon it. His eyeballs rolled up and he swayed before stumbling backwards. Only the panel of the coach door kept him upright—that and his stubborn will-power as he leaned, visibly shaken, against it.

‘Papa!’ She struggled, but the highwayman’s grip did not yield. ‘Papa!’

So much sweat beaded on her father’s forehead that his hair was damp from it. His face was ashen as a corpse. He looked old and weak, all of his usual strength and vitality exposed for the fragile mask it was. Yet the highwayman showed no mercy.

‘The exchange will be today, Misbourne. Be ready.’

Marianne felt his arm drop to her waist and then the world turned upside down as he swung her up and over his shoulder, balancing her there as if she weighed nothing at all. She wriggled and tried to kick, but the blood was rushing to her head and his grip tightened, securing her all the more.

‘No! Do not take her from me! Please!’ her father cried and collapsed to his knees as he tried to stagger towards them. ‘I beg you, sir. I will give you what you want.’ She had never heard her father plead before, never heard his voice so thick with emotion.

But the highwayman was unmoved. ‘Yes, you will,’ he said. ‘Watch for my message.’ Then he whirled around and, in the blink of an eye, was upon his horse, sliding Marianne to sit sideways on the saddle before him. The huge black beast reared, impatient to be off, and she found herself held hard against his chest, gripped so tightly that she could not move.

‘Who sent you? Was it—?’ her father shouted and she could hear the fear and trembling in his voice. But the highwayman cut him off.

‘No one sent me.’

‘Then who the devil are you?’

The highwayman’s arm was anchored around her waist as he stared down at her father. ‘I’m your past come back to haunt you, Misbourne.’ The horse reared again and then they were off and galloping at full tilt across Hounslow Heath, leaving behind her father, white-faced and bleeding, the horseless coach, and the battered remnants of her wedding flowers blowing in the breeze.