Barbara Metzger Read Online Free Page A

the coaching office swore her note had been delivered. He’d also sworn Berkeley Square was a mere few blocks away. He wasn’t the one toting a ton of baggage in wet shoes, in bone-chilling weather. Neither was Lady Rotterdean.
    Kathlyn knew that she shouldn’t have come. She should have taken the vicar’s offer to stay with him and his family until she found a position close to home. She shouldn’t have let pride and determination send her haring off into the unknown, rather than accept charity. But the humble vicarage already held four children. Kathlyn had to make her own way in life, so she had to come to London. She simply should have planned better. But how could she have guessed the whole journey would be such a disaster?
    First came the roadblock. The Royal Mail was just two changes out of Manchester, where Kathlyn had gotten on, when the carriage suddenly halted, amid much shouting and jingling of harness.
    “It’s highwaymen!” shrieked one of Kathlyn’s fellow passengers. Mr. and Mrs. Tibbett were newlyweds visiting since Christmas with his family in Liverpool. A month with the in-laws was showing in the pale woman’s frayed nerves. Mr. Tibbett patted her hand and chewed on his lip.
    “Nonsense. It’s broad daylight and this is His Majesty’s Mail. No one would dare hold us up.” Still, Mr. Lundquist, a wool merchant who plied his trade between York and London, removed his wallet from his coat pocket and stuffed it between the seat cushions.
    Kathlyn lowered the window to see what was going on. Mrs. Tibbett screamed louder, as though the window were any protection from highwaymen. “There are two carts blocking the way,” Kathlyn reported, “and some men are arguing with our driver.” When Mrs. Tibbett’s cries turned to muffled sobs, Kathlyn could make out the driver’s angry words.
    “No ha’penny shire sheriff can stop the Royal Mail, and Oi don’t care how many bloody writs ye wave in me face. Now, get yer blasted turnip wagons off the road. Ye’re costin’ me time.”
    The local men stood their ground. “I got me orders from the magistrate,” their leader yelled up at the coachman on his box. “I’m s’posed to search every carriage an’ every wagon, lookin’ for a dangerous criminal what broke out of gaol. You’re obstructin’ justice, that’s what you’re doin’. An’ your guard is threatenin’ a minion of the law with that there blunderbuss.”
    “Yer hayseed minion’s goin’ to be missin’ an arm iffen you don’t move those carts.”
    Kathlyn shook her head, opened the carriage door, and got out, despite Mrs. Tibbett’s pleas. “This is absurd,” she told the men on the ground waving pitchforks. “There is no escaped felon on board. And you,” she added, addressing the box, “could have had us on our way ages ago if you’d only let them look.” She held the door open and gestured for the leader of the posse to come see for himself.
    The man bobbed his head and shuffled toward the carriage, one eye on the rifle in the guard’s hands. He could see right off that there was no desperate outlaw in the coach, but he made a point of holding a poster up to poor Mr. Tibbett, whose wife was clinging like a limpet to his neck, throwing dagger looks at Kathlyn for subjecting them to such horrid indignity. “No, too young.”
    Mr. Lundquist, in his expensive, fur-collared overcoat, was too old.
    “ ‘Sides, he’s sportin’ a mustache. Our man’s clean-shaved. You can cut it off, but you can’t grow it back. Lessen you glue one on, I s’pose.”
    “Yes, yes, but Mr. Lundquist wouldn’t do that. And you said yourself, he’s too old.” Which earned Kathlyn a scowl from that gentleman, but did end the scrutiny of the last of the rustic lawmen.
    Outside of Stafford, the coach was halted again. This time Mrs. Tibbett was right to get distraught. The two masked men who rode out of the woods, firing their pistols and wounding the guard, really were highwaymen. Mr.