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divested of their valuables by another brigand. There were several ruffians gathered around the coach, all of them heavily armed. Barbary was the last passenger to emerge. She looked around for Tibble and was glad to see him safe. “Perdition!” she muttered, as she recognized the villainous-looking Jacques among the highwaymen.
    He’d seen her. Too late now to try to hide behind Mrs. Smith’s broad back. Barbary could only try to put on a brave face so that the brute wouldn’t know she was quaking in her boots.
    “You!” she said as he strode toward her. “You should be ashamed of yourself, preying on harmless travelers, sir! If you must do so, I would think you would do better to concentrate on private carriages, since those passengers must have a great deal more money than we do. Than I do, at any rate! Oh! What are you doing?” It was a rhetorical question only; Jacques had grasped her arm and was dragging her away from the others. Barbary beat at him with her reticule, which accomplished her nothing at all.
    He came to a stop in the midst of the trees. “Que diable! You’ve led us a merry chase.”
    Barbary contemplated the pistol and decided that Jacques wasn’t going to shoot her outright. “I suppose you wish me to apologize for kicking you in the shin that night at the inn. Very well, I apologize. But you did deserve it, you know.”
    Jacques scowled. “Why did you leave so soon?”
    Barbary’s arm, where he gripped it, was going numb. “You knew I was in the diligence? Is that why you stopped us? I have said already that I was sorry. You go to great lengths.”
    “Chacun à son goût.” Jacques spat on the ground.
    Everyone to his own taste, indeed. Jacques was certainly not to hers. He had seemed to admire her. Did he mean to abduct her now? Barbary did not wish to be abducted, certainly not by Jacques. “You must not think such things!” she said sternly. “I am a married woman, sir!”
    “Bah! I do not care for that.”
    Barbary could not help but wish Lord Grafton had displayed such single-mindedness. Jacques flashed his strong white teeth. “What game are you playing, English miss?”
    “No game, I assure you.” Barbary wondered if she might be dealing with a lunatic. “Shouldn’t we be returning to your friends?”
    “Comment? With great intensity, Jacques began to quote:
     
    “Tis done—but yesterday a King! And arm’d with Kings to strive—”
     
    They were at this again? Best to humor the madman. Barbary countered:
     
    “ ‘And now thou art a nameless thing:
    So abject—yet alive!”
     
    Jacques shook his head. “You damn near put paid to our plans. No time for explanations! Here it is.” Roughly he thrust a packet into the bodice of her traveling dress.
    Barbary clutched her bosom. “What--”
    “You know what to do with it.”  Jacques whistled so shrilly that Barbary winced. Then he grasped her reticule and yanked it off her wrist. “We wouldn’t want anyone to get suspicious, would we? Go on, back to your friends.”
    Barbary needed no further urging. She fled.
    She supposed she should be grateful that she’d suffered no greater harm at the villain’s hands. But to lose what little bit of money she possessed—and it was not even her own money, but the remainder of the proceeds from Lord Grafton’s watch—sometimes life was almost too hard to be borne. What the deuce was in this packet that pressed so uncomfortably against her skin? What did Jacques mean when he said she would know what to do with it?
    “There you are!” cried Mrs. Smith as Barbary returned to the diligence. “I tell you, dearie, it made me palpitate to see that devil drag you off. Mark my words, I said to Sam, the rogue means to have his way with Miss! But here, you look none the worse for wear. Unlike that servant of yours, who fainted dead away. What did the rogue want? What did he say?”
    “Little enough.” Barbary removed the vinaigrette from Tibble’s pocket, uncorked it, and