Barbara Metzger Read Online Free PDF Page A

as soon as the chestnuts came to a halt, and St. Cloud reached into his greatcoat pocket. Too late. Two men rode out of the screening bushes, and one of them already held his pistol on the defenseless groom.
    “Stand and deliver.”

Chapter Three
    “ B loody hell.”
    “Nothing to get riled over, Yer Highness,” the man with the gun called out from Foley’s side. He was big and broad and had a scarf pulled up over his mouth and a slouch hat pulled down low over his eyes. “Just raise yer hands up slowlike, and everything will be aces.”
    The other highwayman had dismounted and was holding the chestnuts’ bridles. He was also bundled past recognition, but he was smaller, slighter, and as nervous as the horses he was trying to calm. He did not have a weapon in sight, so St. Cloud weighed the odds.
    “None of that, Yer Highness,” the first man said, catching the earl’s tentative movement. He used the butt end of his pistol on Foley’s head, then turned the barrel on St. Cloud.
    The other robber jumped. “What’d you go and do that for, Charlie? You never said nothing about—”
    “Shut your mouth, boy. Do you want to make him an introduction? Can’t you see the toff is a real out-and-outer? He was going to go for the gun sooner or later, and much help you’d ’a’ been. I couldn’t keep both of ’em covered, now, could I?”
    “But you shouldn’t’ve hit him so hard. What if he’s dead?”
    “If he is dead, Charlie,” the earl said in a voice that was like cold steel, “your life is not worth a ha’penny.”
    “Fine words for a gent what’s got his arms up in the air,” Charlie blustered, but he dismounted and nudged Foley with his toe until the little man groaned. “There, now can we finish this argle-bargle and get to business? You toss the pistol out first, real slow so I don’t get twitch-fingered. And remember, I ain’t tenderhearted like my green friend here.”
    St. Cloud’s wallet was next, then his gold fob, quizzing glass, silver flask, and emerald stickpin.
    “And the ring, too, Yer Highness,” Charlie said, searching Foley’s pockets for the groom’s purse but never taking his eyes, or the gun, off the earl.
    “It’s a signet ring with my family crest on it. No fence would give a brass farthing for the thing, for they could never resell it; if you’re ever found with it, it’s your death warrant for sure.”
    “Let it be, Charlie,” the youngster begged. “We have enough.”
    “Chicken gizzard,” Charlie grumbled, leading his horse closer to the curricle to pick up the booty from where St. Cloud had thrown it to the ground. A quick shake of the earl’s leather purse had him agreeing and getting back on his horse. “Reckon it’s a good day’s work, and it is the season for givin’, ain’t it? Stand back, boy.”
    The youth let go of the horses, but before St. Cloud could lower his hands and find the ribbons, Charlie fired his pistol right over the chestnuts’ backs. “Merry Christmas, Yer Highness,” he shouted after the rocketing curricle.
     
    The thieves were long gone by the time St. Cloud could catch up the reins and slow the frenzied animals, then turn them back to find Foley. The groom was limping toward him along the verge, holding a none-too-clean kerchief to a gash on the side of his head. St. Cloud jumped down and hurried to him, leaving the chestnuts standing with their heads lowered. There was no fear of their spooking anymore this day.
    “How bad does it hurt, Foley?” he asked, pulling off his own neck cloth to make a bandage. “Can you hold on to the next inn or should I come back for you with a wagon?”
    “Don’t fatch so, m’lord. I’ll do. ’Tain’t my head what’s botherin’ me as much as my pride anyways. The chestnuts could’ve been hurt in that panic run. And you, too,” he added as an afterthought, seeing the twitch in the earl’s lips. “To think I was taken in by that old trick like a regular Johnny Raw, why, I’m