The Captain's Mysterious Lady

‘Tell me about the man who died. What manner of man was he?’ Amy asked.

‘I know nothing of him. He boarded the coach with you, and your tickets were in his pockets, so one supposes he was looking after you,’ James replied.

‘So I was totally dependent on him,’ she mused.

‘It would seem so.’

‘How did I get from the overturned coach to the inn?’ she wanted to know.

‘I rode one of the coach horses with you in front of me. Have you no memory of that?’

‘None at all,’ she said swiftly. But that was her memory. A slow ride, cradled in front of him on a horse with no saddle. She had felt warm and protected, with his arm about her and his coat enveloping them both. She did not remember arriving at the inn, so she must have drifted into unconsciousness again. ‘How difficult and uncomfortable that must have been for you.’

He noticed the colour flood her face and felt sure she had remembered it. How much more was she concealing? He would have it out of her, one way or another, before another day was through.

Born in Singapore, Mary Nichols came to England when she was three, and has spent most of her life in different parts of East Anglia. She has been a radiographer, school secretary, information officer and industrial editor, as well as a writer. She has three grown-up children, and four grandchildren.

Recent novels by the same author:

TALK OF THE TON

WORKING MAN, SOCIETY BRIDE

A DESIRABLE HUSBAND

RUNAWAY MISS

RAGS-TO-RICHES BRIDE

THE EARL AND THE HOYDEN

CLAIMING THE ASHBROOKE HEIR (part of The Secret Baby Bargain)

HONOURABLE DOCTOR, IMPROPER ARRANGEMENT

THE CAPTAIN’S MYSTERIOUS LADYis the first in Mary Nichols’The Picadilly Gentlemen’s Club

Look out forTHE VISCOUNT’S UNCONVENTIONAL BRIDEComing May 2010

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Early spring 1750

A breathless James arrived at the Blue Boar in Holborn just in time to see the stage disappearing out of sight. He stood and watched it go and swore roundly in several languages.

‘Dammit, Sam,’ he said at the end of this tirade. ‘The devils have slipped through our fingers again. They’re as slippery as eels, the pair of them.’

‘Yes, sir. Do you think they knew we were on to them?’

‘Couldn’t fail to, could they? We have been hounding them for two years. But they need not think this is the end of it, for I will not give up while there is breath in my body.’

Captain the Honourable James Drymore turned from the sight of the back of the stage disappearing from the end of the road and went into the inn to enquire about its passengers. He did not expect to be given names; they would have meant little if he had. Those two, whose real names he had ascertained were Morgan Randle and Jeremy Smith, would have used aliases and probably disguises, too. If his informant had been right, they were finding his pursuit of them too close for comfort and had decided to leave London for the provinces. He did not know their destination, but he had learned, only that morning, that they had arranged to meet at the Blue Boar at nine in the morning with the intention of boarding a coach north. He had rushed home to pack a few clothes, put some money and his pistol into his pocket and, with Sam in tow as he always was, made all haste to the inn.

‘Two men travelling together,’ the proprietor repeated, when James finally persuaded him to stop rushing about issuing orders to his servants and speak to him. ‘Well, there were two, clerical men I should say. Dark clothes, bob wigs, shallow hats.’

‘And was one a spidershanks, without an ounce of fat on him, and the other a beefy fellow with a bulbous nose?’ James asked, mentioning attributes it would be hard to disguise, even if their clothes and wigs were changed.

‘You could so describe them, sir. What might I ask is your interest in them?’

‘I am empowered by the Bow Street magistrate to arrest them for theft and murder, so if you know anything of them you should tell me at once.’

‘I don’t ask the passengers for their histories when they board one of my coaches, sir. I’d never do any business that way.’

‘I understand that, but perhaps you could tell me their destination.’

‘They bought tickets to Peterborough. Where they were going from there I cannot tell.’

‘And when is the next coach going in that direction?’

‘To Peterborough? Not until tomorrow, but there’s one going to Lynn in half an hour. You could leave it at Downham Market and find your way to Peterborough from there.’

‘That will have to do.’

He bought inside tickets for himself and Sam, his friend as well as his servant, and went into the inn’s parlour to wile away the thirty minutes they had to wait. There was a good fire in there and they sat warming their frozen toes on the fender and drinking mulled wine.

James had every reason to want to see Randle and Smith brought to justice. The victim of the murder he had spoken of had been his own wife. Poor, innocent Caroline had simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time when those two had run into the silversmiths’ to rob it at gunpoint. According to the shopkeeper, she had been buying a silver cravat pin as a present for him. She appeared well and happy and had told him she was looking forward to having her husband home again after two years at sea. The thieves had waved their pistols about and when he had been too slow in obeying their commands to hand over everything of value, one had fired and the ball had ricocheted off the wall behind Caroline and mortally wounded her.