Wixom nodded with a conspiratorial smile and melted into the trees. Lucy’s fearful gaze found the wayward gentleman. She wrung her hands with stunned uncertainty while awaiting some indication of what he meant by “attending to her.” Steadman cocked his head side to side as he pondered his captive. Then, with his jaw set, he turned and began to stride away. She remained frozen by the riverbank.
“Come, Lucy Locket,” he called over one shoulder. “It seems that we are paired until such time as I determine how to dispose of you properly.”
She remained unmoving, bringing him to a halt. He glanced back to regard her with a quizzing arch of one eyebrow.
“What does that mean?” she asked.
“I do not know, as this is a most unexpected sequence of events. However, I cannot simply part with you now and pray that such action does not lead to my execution. That is the unvarnished truth of it.”
Lucy glared at him with uncertainty for the space of several breaths while the thief waited patiently. “Are you really a knight?”
He smiled warmly. “No. Sir Steadman is a moniker assigned to me by my admiring public. But I am a gentleman and you are a lady, both of us from noble houses. I promise to treat you according to your station and will start by insisting you call me simply Steadman.”
His smile reassured her, reminding Lucy of her father’s. Then, she recalled her father’s admonition of courage and decided to survive until she could reunite with him. She leaned forward and began tracing Steadman’s footsteps. When she reached him, he smiled and draped the locket around her neck.
“That’s a good lass. Let us leave this place before the hangman’s noose catches me at last.”
He began walking again with her in tow. She followed with her head low, feeling her life collapse further with each step. Thoughts of her frantic father, however, drove her resolutely forward.
Chapter Five
Henry approached Bow Street with Lucy in tow. She was apparently stewing over the prudence of telling him what had happened that day at the river eleven years earlier. He had simply nodded and asked no questions as her story had unfolded. They had exchanged few words since. With the goal nearly in sight, he turned to her.
“So, Sir Steadman never attempted to return you to your father?”
She shook her head. “He did, after little more than a week. However, thinking me perished, my father had sailed immediately for Italy in despair. His ship sank in a storm.”
Sadness dripped from her voice and she sniffled.
“I am sorry for that,” he said.
She waved a hand in dismissal, apparently swallowing old aches. “It is the past. It means nothing now. Meanwhile, I was deathly afraid of the duke. Afraid he might disown me for having a common mother. I begged Steadman not to send me away. He agreed, despite the personal danger of doing so, and I became his ward. Until yesterday.”
Henry nodded and offered the hint of a smile. He understood her fear of disownment far more than she could possibly know. “Thank you for telling me.”
“It is nothing.”
Within a minute, they turned left and made their way up Bow Street. When Henry halted outside the Covent Garden grounds, Lucy stared in awe at the grand theater while he retrieved the packhorse’s leader from her slack hand. She turned her eyes toward him.
“What now, Redbreast? Is this where we part?”
He paused, deep in thought over a tentative plan that had tortured him all morning. “See here, Miss Locket, I have an idea. What if I gave you some of the coins as a stake and then claim them lost in the struggle? Perhaps a few guineas to get you started?”
Her face fell. “Have I not informed you repeatedly that I am no thief? The coins do not belong to me.”
Regret nibbled at him for expressing the idea. “Wait here, then, while I see these to the office. I will return.”
“Return for what purpose? To arrest me?”
“No. I promised you freedom and my word remains ironclad.”
“Then why return?”
“To introduce you to the Duchess of Ramsbury.” He could feel his toehold on the slippery slope eroding even as he offered the suggestion. It was bad enough to let her go, but to aid her as well?
Lucy’s brow knotted. “How do I know your word is trustworthy?”
“Because I am a gentleman,” he replied with umbrage. “Not one of the thieves you know so well.”
Her eyes flashed. “A thief’s word is no less true than yours. The only differences between a gentleman and a thief are birth and opportunity. Integrity is a matter of choice. I have known cheats whose word was their bond and gentlefolk who would shake your hand and then stab your back the second you turned away.”
Henry frowned skeptically. However, he could not argue her point. His experience with men of all stations during the war lent credence to her claim. “As I said, my word is ironclad and you may trust it. I apologize that I have no written references handy. I did not expect an inquisition when packing my horse yesterday.”
Her brown eyes warmed hopefully. “Very well, then. But swear by your mother’s name not to break that trust.”
“You require an inordinate frequency of swearing by my mother’s name.”
She folded her arms, waiting. He relented. “I swear by my mother’s name to keep my word. Now, remain here and try to draw little attention.”
With instruction given, he led the packhorse along Bow Street a short distance before halting at the magistrate’s office. He motioned to three colleagues just entering the building.
“Sirs, would you kindly help me lug these bags inside?”
“What do you have there?” one asked with mild curiosity.
“Ten thousand guineas in gold coin liberated from highwaymen who stole it from a carriage yesterday at Shooter’s Hill.”
“Lord Colvin’s carriage?” they cried in near unison.
“Perhaps. I never heard the gentleman’s name.”
The patrolmen eagerly rushed to help him with the task. By the time he carried the last of the four heavy bags inside, everyone in the office had gathered around for a telling of the story, including the magistrate, Sir Nathaniel Conant, and a principal officer, Sir Hugh Chisholm. Henry recounted the events up to the point where he had caught sight of the packhorse. There he paused with thoughts of Lucy and how his identification of Sir Steadman might ultimately lead to her execution as an accomplice. In the throes of uncertainty, he did what only a tainted soul would do. He lied.
“The bandits fled in panic without the gold, perhaps thinking more of our ranks would soon arrive. I returned by a circuitous route to prevent them from tracking me.”