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  The Merchant’s Lady (Chronicles of a Highwayman’s Adventures)

  by

  Katie Ayres

  Copyright 2014 Katie Ayres

  All rights reserved.

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  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re–sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to the bookseller and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Disclaimer

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Blurb: When highwayman, Jack Winter, stops a carriage passing near his hideout, he has no idea that he’s about to meet the new owners of Hawkstone Manor, the ancestral seat of the Winter family. Hawkstone was seized by the Roundheads and now Oliver Cromwell has given it to one of his supporters, Percy Threlfall, but it’s the alluring Lucy Threlfall who captures Jack’s attention. Will the highwayman lose his heart to the sharp-tongued beauty?

  The Merchant’s Lady is the first episode in an erotic romance series of short stories set during the turbulent 1600s.

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  The Merchant’s Lady

  Ruffian stamped the ground and I patted her neck distractedly, my mind more focused on the sound of the rattling carriage making its way toward the outskirts of Bane’s Wood where I waited. I had no idea whose carriage it might be or who it contained and I could not risk peeping to see. Were I to emerge from my hiding place prematurely it was a surety that the coachman would see me and sound the alarm. The coach’s occupants would thus have time to arm themselves and I would have lost all chance to relieve them of whatever riches they might possess. No, I had to be stealthy and cunning like the fox and bide my time before pouncing on what I hoped would be a plump and juicy prey, well worth my time and energy. Ruffian and I would remain hidden a little while yet.

  In the meantime, let me introduce myself. Captain Jack Winter, at your service, formerly of the King’s Army and, more lately, of the Road. My dear departed father no doubts spins in his grave at what he would consider my fall in station since we come from an old family. Lesser people have to address my first cousin as ‘Your Grace’ yet dear William is burdened with the cares of his estates and knows not a moment’s freedom from his duties as father, husband, landowner, and titled lord. I, on the other hand, sleep where I will and do exactly as I please. No man troubles me and, while it may be said that I am a trouble to others, yet still do I sleep soundly at night, having no cares and no expectation of the next day for all my needs are met and my wants are too minor to prove bothersome. Good eating, good drinking and good wenching are all I ask of life and Providence has seen fit to supply me amply with them all.

  Ruffian whinnied softly. The carriage was closer now, the clattering it made, much louder in the still air of the surprisingly sunny summer day.

  “Steady, girl,” I whispered. Ruffian has been my horse for more than a year now and I love her better than any woman. Loyal and true, she is fleet of foot and was altogether too good for the Bishop from whom I stole her. He was unworthy of her, never asking more of her than a simple plodding ride from one city to the next while, with me, she lived a life of daring adventure.

  “All right, girl.” I pulled the scarf around my neck up to hide the bottom part of my face and crammed my hat more firmly down on my head. It was almost time. I counted from one to three under my breath and then nudged the filly into action with my heel. We’ve done it often enough that she knew exactly what to do, bursting out from our hiding place and arrowing sure as a bullet, past the rearing horses, to the carriage. I didn’t worry with the coachman who’d dropped his whip in his fright. One glance at his aged face, his cheeks swollen with drink, and his skin mottled by poor diet informed me that he was no threat. I pulled the knife from my waist and quickly cut the horses free from their traces. A slap on the rump and they cantered away. The coachman groaned knowing it would be a five hour walk back to the nearest town but that was his concern, not mine.

  I brought Ruffian around, leaned down and wrenched open the carriage door before uttering those immortal words, “Stand and deliver!”

  I drew my pistol and the flintlock glinted in the sun as I pointed it into the carriage’s dark interior. When I was in the Army I killed many a man but, since then, I’ve sworn never to take another life yet these people do not know that. I have to make them believe they risk their lives should they defy me.

  A cadaverously thin and pock-faced man stepped out first, his hands held high in the air, his expression one of pure terror. Dressed in a somber black doublet, patterned black breeches and knee-high black boots, I would have recognized him as a scurvy Roundhead even if his hair had not been cut in that short contemptible style which the regicides like to affect. Despite his toned down clothing, the quality of his clothes suggested to me that my pickings that day would be rich enough to see me through the next month or two without any further effort on my part. I guessed that the man was probably a well-to-do merchant or landowner, certainly not a member of the working class but not of the nobility, either.

  I dismounted from Ruffian and was just congratulating myself on my anticipated rewards when a plump well-shod foot emerged on the step, quickly followed by its mate and then a young woman clambered down to the ground. Young and fresh-faced, she didn’t look a day over eighteen or nineteen and, clearly, had to be the man’s daughter. My interest quickened as she straightened up. Her modest moss-green woollen dress with its richly lace-trimmed collar couldn’t hide the generosity of her bosom. Her complexion was as pale as milk and her blonde hair, not totally hidden by her cap, glinted in the sunlight. Icy blue eyes regarded me with more than a touch of contempt and hauteur as she pursed perfectly-formed lips.

  “Certes, you have quickly risen in my estimation by having this beautiful damsel in your company,” I said to the Roundhead, raising my hat and beaming at her. “Her mother must be of exceeding good countenance. You are very lucky she did not take after you in her looks.”

  A little shocked silence greeted this speech. The young lady’s cheeks pinkened and she was just drawing breath when her companion beat her to it.

  “She’s my good wife, you untutored vagabond. Now let us be. We have nothing of value with us and you inconvenience us with this delay.”

  “You grow tired of my company already?”

  “We would never in a thousand years keep such company as yours,” the young woman said. She punctuated her little outburst by spitting at me. The little glob of saliva landed on my silk doublet. I glanced down at it, bemused. It wasn’t the first time anyone had spat on me but it was the first time by such an alluring beauty. Usually my charm is such as to disarm the most haughty of damsels but apparently not with this young Roundhead.

  “And whom, indeed, do I have the honor of addressing?”

  The man and his wife exchanged glances.

  “Percy Threadfall, not that it will mean anything to you,” the man said. “And this is my wife, Lucy.”

  Lucy sniffed and looked away down the empty road, no doubt hoping some rescuer would appear. This road skirting Bane’s Wood wasn’t as popular as the newer road to the east which passed through Dunton’s Heath, however. In
fact, the Threlfall’s carriage was the first that had passed by since I’d first returned to the area.

  “And what is your occupation?”

  The man’s lip curled. “I am a merchant. I do trade in New World goods.”

  “Ah, do you now?” Some merchants were richer than nobles. Mayhap I’d bagged myself a very rich prize indeed.

  “But we do not have anything to offer you,” the merchant added, his tone turning obsequious and pleading. “Knowing the danger, we packed nothing of value which might be of use to someone such as yourself. We are going to…er…to visit her family.” He gestured at his wife.

  “Oh?” My interest rose though I’m sure he’d hoped his information would have the opposite effect. “They live in these parts?”

  “Yes, er…they do.” But the merchant’s face suddenly turned guarded as if he feared he’d revealed too much.

  “Where?” I asked, my curiosity now thoroughly aroused by his evasiveness.

  “At Hawkstone Manor, to be exact,” the merchant’s wife snapped. Her husband sent her an agonized look but she was glaring at me too hard to notice.

  A sharp fury stabbed through me at this intelligence. Hawkstone Manor! The ancestral seat of the Winters since the time of the Norman invasion! My father, a staunch Royalist, had lost it when the Roundheads won the Civil War and Parliament seized the estates of all who’d supported the Royalist cause. A month ago, drinking in some tavern to the south, I’d overheard soldiers talking about the news that Charles Fleetwood, the Major General, had assigned Hawkstone to a Roundhead family. It was what had drawn me back to the area.

  A sudden suspicion assailed me. Was I now looking, not at their guests, but at the current owners of my family’s manor? Possessors, I corrected himself grimly, not owners. Now that Father was dead, I was the rightful owner.

  “You there,” I called to the coachman. “Take these down.” I gestured at the trunks strapped to the back. I would be the judge of whether or not they had anything of value to me. “And pull out whatever of their belongings may be in the carriage and open them.”

  “No!” the merchant cried. “Look.” He dug into his cloak and pulled out a small leather bung which he threw at me. I caught it deftly. By its weight, I judged it to hold upward of fifty shillings and, as I felt the outlines of the coins, I thought there might be a few sovereigns there too.

  “I thank you, kind sir. Go on.” This last I said to the coachman who had stopped to watch the exchange.

  Ruffian was standing patiently by. I strode over to her, slipped the bung into a saddlebag I’d brought for just that purpose and unslung a length of rope.

  “Mr. Threadfall, if you’d be so kind to let me do the honors.” I waved him to a nearby tree. I was being so polite and civil to the man who I suspected of taking over my family home because I had no intention of giving away my identity. Were I to interrogate and berate the man and lay about him with a stick as I really wanted Percy Threadfall would be left in no doubt about who exactly had attacked him. Yet my fury simmered in me, tightly lidded but so close to the surface I knew it would boil over should the man offer me the least resistance. And then, God help me, I wouldn’t be able to answer for my actions. I was in no doubt that it was the loss of Hawkstone which had so troubled Father that he’d died of a heart attack not a year later. The grief felt as fresh and sharp as ever.

  As if he sensed something of my barely controlled hostility and knew better than to aggravate it, the merchant went quietly to the nearest tree and meekly put his hands around the trunk.

  “You scoundrel,” Lucy Threlfall cried. “You’ll be drawn and quartered for this like the cur you are.”

  My lips thinned at the insult and a nerve worked at my jaw but I didn’t say anything as I quickly bound the merchant’s wrists to the tree.

  “Lucy, please,” her husband said, turning to her. “Shush, my dearest dove.”

  “I won’t be quiet! Will he hit a lady?” Lucy shrieked, raising her voice and suddenly flying at me. “He’s a lily-livered dog, a ruffian and a coward beside.” She thumped her fists on my chest but I quickly caught one wrist and twisted it behind her back, spinning her around.

  “And you’re no lady,” I hissed, my anger now getting the better of me as she tried to twist out of my grasp. For one quick second, she managed to wriggle away but then I’d caught her again, wrapping both arms around her in a powerful vise, and pulling her back into me. I caught a whiff of her own musky smell mingled with the delicious scent of frangipane and wondered if she’d taken a bath before they set out on the road. Then I forgot to wonder about that as I became suddenly very aware that all of Lucy’s squirmings and fight was having a somewhat predictable effect on a certain sensitive and very responsive part of my anatomy. Each time she twisted her hips she ground her fleshy ass on my prick and it had taken notice. It seemed that Lucy too, had realized what was happening because she froze and then tried to hold herself away from any contact with my body.

  I laughed. “And is this the first time you’re feeling a real man’s steel?” I mocked, my good humor restored. “It’s said that age dims not the desire, only the performance. Can you verify that Mrs. Threlfall?” Her husband was at least fifty if he was a day, surely he wasn’t up to giving her the kind of pounding a young girl like her needed. Still holding her firmly around her waist I bent and pressed a kiss to her ear.

  “Leave me alone!” Lucy screeched, outraged. She half-turned and spat at me once more. This time the gob of spittle landed on my cheek, just below my eye.

  My face hardened. “You’ll pay for that, my dear.” In response she tried to kick me but missed, stumbled and would have fallen if I hadn’t been holding on to her. My fury was like a red flag in my chest. I shoved her to a tree and quickly bound her to it then, before she could protest or move, I drew my dagger and plunged it carefully into the fabric at the small of her back and then pulled it down to the hem, slitting the skirt of her dress in two.

  “Oh!” the girl yelped. “No! What have you done?”

  “You know perfectly well what I’ve done,” I retorted.

  “Please don’t hurt her,” Mr. Threlfall begged. “Please. Take all of our things if you wish. Take what you want but don’t hurt her. Please, she’s a good wife.”

  I took no notice of him. Had his precious Lucy not treated me in such a low manner I’d have offered her no insult and allowed the pair of them to go on their way, perhaps a trifle poorer but none the worse for wear. But she’d spat on me. Not once, twice, and that was not to be borne. Next thing, word of it would get out and some wit would dub me ‘Jack Spat’ or some other equally odious sobriquet.

  I had no idea why Threlfall considered her a good wife. Certainly, she bid fair to become the greatest scold of her day but I’d teach her a lesson that afternoon, that I would. I held my dagger in my teeth, grabbed each side of her torn skirt and pulled. The little virago shrieked even louder and tried to throw herself away from me which only meant that the tear in her dress widened still further, fully exposing her plain linen underskirt.

  Afterward, I could never adequately explain to myself why I did what I did next. I’d already humiliated her far beyond the limits of courtly decency. I’d had no need to do what I did next to make her humiliation and debasement complete, but it was as if the hatred in her eyes, the way she’d spat at me, the scent of her body and the suspicion that she and her husband had been given what was rightfully mine had all fanned a terrible flame deep in my soul. It’s the only reason I can think of for why, with a sudden jerk, I tore apart her underskirt. A note of terror now entered the girl’s shrieks as she pressed herself in vain to the rough bark of the tree, snapping and pulling on her restraints but to no avail. Panting with the exertion of tearing at the strong, finely made garment, I fastened my eyes on the rounded pale ass now fully exposed to my view, and that of Mr. Threlfall and the coachman, of course.

  My prick hardened, stretched. There was nothing I wanted more right at that minu
te than to drive my staff into her plump twat. My member pressed eagerly against its confinement in my breeches, aching to be freed and to bury itself in what I was sure would be a soft, hot cunt.

  Instead, with a wrenching groan, I threw myself backward and away from the delectable rump. I’d never raped a woman in my life, not even those connected with the detestable Roundheads, and I wouldn’t start now. I left her there, whimpering in fright, her pale ass and the backs of her thighs fully exposed to us. Perhaps that was all the lesson she needed and now she’d mind her ill-tempered tongue!

  I stalked over to where the coachman stood gaping at the amazing tableau. The Threlfalls’ trunks and bags had been opened and I rifled through them, quickly throwing whatever had value into my saddlebag. The merchant had lied about not carrying anything of worth with him. I was particularly pleased with my find of a hidden cache of rings, necklaces and other jewelry in the false heels of a couple pairs of Mr. Threlfall’s shoes. But it was when I forced open a leather case of papers and quickly scanned them that I found the confirmation of my previous suspicion. A letter signed by the Major General and stamped with his seal turning over Hawkstone Manor to Percy Threlfall, and his heirs and assigns, along with the tithes owed by the surrounding parish of Wooton.

  A blade of pure white hot fury lanced through me. I wanted to rip the document into a thousand tiny pieces and scatter them to the four winds but no… I had to control myself. Surrendering to such evidence of strong feeling would surely prove my undoing. I had no wish to feel the kiss of the hangman’s noose.

  I swallowed my anger as best I could and continued searching through the case.

  “Please, my good man,” the merchant called out. “There is nothing that will interest you among my papers. You’ve found all the riches I had with me. Let us go now. Free us and I promise we won’t raise the hue and cry.”

  “How can you make such a promise?” his wife shouted. “Look at what the double-poxed dog has done to me.”