Chapter 13
Reckonings
Angel avoided Mr Cleaver’s—Leo’s—gaze as he offered her his hand to help her up into the gig. She took it, releasing it the moment she was up.
“Thank you,” she said, smiling hesitantly and wishing she didn’t feel so awkward around him.
Like the gentleman he was, he helped Milly next. She sat down, eyeing both of them with interest.
A breeze picked up, stirring Angel’s bonnet ribbons and hair. Though the morning was overcast, there was no hint of rain for the moment and the air was fresh. Angel picked up the reins, arranging them between her fingers and steadfastly avoiding Milly’s curious gaze.
By the time she had returned to their room last night, Milly had been sound asleep, and so she had avoided any difficult questions.
This morning they had both overslept, and so there had been little time to wash and break their fast, and no time for private conversation.
Angel did not regret that, aware that Milly was bursting with curiosity.
She could hardly blame the woman. Leo was watching her with the kind of quiet intensity that made her think of the great cats for whom he was named.
“Cards, was it?” Milly asked, sotto voce, as Angel guided the pony out of the yard, the clatter of his hooves on the cobbles turning to soft thuds as they made their way out onto the rutted lane.
Angel glanced at her. “Yes.”
Milly snorted, folding her arms. “I’ll swallow that when it grows feathers.”
Blushing, Angel glanced behind her to see that Leo had hung back to speak to Toby, who sat on the box behind them. “It wasn’t my fault,” she muttered, slanting a glare at Milly before turning her attention back to the road. “I beat him at cards—”
“Naturally.”
“—and my prize was that he went away after he saw us to Penenden Heath.”
“Oh, you didn’t?” Milly exclaimed, turning to stare at her in dismay.
Angel’s mouth fell open. “Well, I like that. I thought you’d be pleased. You’re the one telling me I’m going to get myself into trouble with the fellow—and you’re not wrong. It was a close thing last night.”
“Oh? Well, even so, to cast him aside so ruthlessly, after he’s been so kind to us,” Milly reproached her.
Guilt slithered about in Angel’s belly. “I know, I know. That’s why I went after the wretched man.
He was all noble and self-sacrificing, and I knew I’d hurt his feeling, drat him.
And so, to make up for it, I kissed him and—and, well, that’s what being kind gets you.
I was lucky to escape with my virtue intact. ”
“Pushed his luck, did he?” Milly asked, more sympathetic now, her eyes soft with concern.
“No! I did,” Angel said in exasperation. “Well, no, we both did, but he came to his senses first and made me go back to my room. Honestly, masculine wiles is no joke. He’s a woman-trap.”
Milly’s mouth quirked into a smile.
“What?” Angel demanded.
Milly just sat back, looking smug.
“What?” Angel asked again, but Milly only shook her head. “Milly, I am already vexed and out of sorts—”
“That’s baulked lust for you,” Milly observed with a snort.
“Argh!”
Her shout of frustration soared into the sky above, where the joyful, cascading chatter of skylarks filled the air.
Angel looked up, wishing she could fly and leave her troubles behind her too as she watched one spiral into the sky.
Around them, the countryside wore a fresh cloak of green, the jaunty yellow blossom of the gorse and broom bushes brightening the edges of the fields.
“Everything all right?”
Angel started in surprise. Letting out a breath, she rearranged her face as Leo trotted up beside the gig, his expression one of concern.
“Quite all right, Leo, thank you,” she said, touched by his concern.
A slow smile curved his mouth as she said his name and Angel decided it might be safer to return to addressing him as Mr Cleaver. Still, he tipped his hat and slowed his horse again, returning to his conversation with Toby.
Angel turned and glared at Milly.
“Leo,” Milly mouthed, eyebrows aloft.
Angel pressed her lips together in a thin line.
“Oh, pet. Don’t be cross,” she said, laughing softly. Reaching over, Milly put her hand on Angel’s arm, making her look at her again. “You like him,” she whispered.
Angel’s shoulders slumped. “I know,” she said helplessly. “But what good is that going to do me?”
“You never know. Mayhap he likes you too. Certainly, he acts like he does.”
“He’s a man,” Angel grumbled. “That’s what men do. Good Lord, Milly, how have you lived this long and not got in the family way if you believe everything that men say?”
“Oh, I don’t. But I think I recognise a good man when I see one. I think your Mr Cleaver—Leo—has gone a fair way to proving he’s worth putting your trust in him.”
“You’re not serious?” Angel exclaimed, aghast at the suggestion. “You’re saying I should tell him about Pops’ treasure?”
Milly turned her head to gaze at the countryside about them and gave a little shrug. “I’m not saying anything, love. I’m just suggesting you think on it. After all, finding Jenny’s grave is just the start of it. How are you proposing to get your hands on it—whatever it is?”
A gust of wind caught at Angel’s skirts as the road crested a shallow rise, the shelter of the trees giving way.
The skies seemed wider suddenly, less friendly, and a sudden stab of apprehension jabbed at her, reminding her of everything that was to come.
The closer they drew to Jenny’s grave, the stranger and more dangerous the challenge became in her mind.
This was what she had come for: to find Jenny and to retrieve Pops’ treasure—her inheritance—but things were suddenly a good deal more complicated than she had bargained for.
Though they had seen no further sign of the two thugs who had attacked Leo, she could not dismiss them. Perhaps the one Leo had felled had taken fright. Perhaps the one she had shot was badly hurt. A gunshot was no small thing, not if infection took hold.
Or perhaps they were closer than she realised.
Angel shivered. “Finding the grave is the first challenge. We do not know if there’s any sign, any marker.
It might be impossible,” she said, though the thought of giving up and not completing her grandfather’s challenge made her want to weep.
“But if we find it, then we must return at night and dig it up.”
“Lord have mercy,” Milly said with a shudder.
“I wouldn’t blame you if you wanted no part of it,” Angel said softly.
Milly sat up straighter, glaring at her. “I ain’t no white feather.”
Angel laughed, gazing at her fondly. “No, indeed. You’re pluck to the backbone. I know it. All the same, digging up a grave in the dead of night… well, I can’t say I’m looking forward to it.”
Milly let out an uncertain laugh, her complexion becoming somewhat pale and waxy. “No, pet. I can’t say I am either.”
Penenden Heath, Maidstone, Kent, 10th April 1816
Angel’s sense of foreboding increased as the landscape opened into heathland.
Drawing back beneath the canopy of the gig’s hood, she told herself to buck up.
Yes, she was exposed here, out in the open for all to see, but that meant she could see all around her too. Surely no one could creep up on her.
There would be no nasty surprises.
Hopefully.
Still, Leo’s stalwart presence and the heavy thud of his horse’s hooves on the damp ground were comforting, steadying her.
They had barely spoken today, certainly not about her request that he leave them once they’d found Jenny’s grave.
The idea of demanding he go sat in her stomach, an unwieldy lump she could not face.
Yet how could she involve him when he might decide he wanted the treasure for himself?
She did not think him a villain, far from it, but if Black Jack’s legacy was as rich as she suspected it might be… well, a sum like that could turn a man’s head.
Any conversation had long since died as the wind howled about them. It snatched at sounds, tugging them away and distorting others, disturbing the senses and making it hard to gauge what was miles away and what was right under their noses.
The knowledge that this place was one of judgement, of death, lingered here.
That she would have known and recognised the sinister quality of the land about them even if it hadn’t been so notorious was hard to refute.
There was a watchful quality to the scrubby landscape, the sense that it had seen too much, witnessed more human misery than it could bear.
Thin trees, gnarled and bent, shivered in the wind as the pony picked its way along the well-trodden path, the packed earth beneath its hooves white and studded with lumps of chalk that poked up like bleached bones. A sparse landscape of gorse and tangled undergrowth surrounded them.
Angel squinted against the glare of the sky. The harsh light made her head hurt.
“Bleedin’ hell,” Milly murmured, shifting closer to Angel on the bench.
They exchanged glances, needing no words to underscore the strange atmosphere.
Angel knew hundreds of people came to watch the executions, many folks thinking it grand entertainment, a jolly day out. The thought made her stomach roil.
The soft thud of hooves made her turn her head, and she saw Leo riding beside the gig.
He’d taken Toby up before him again, and she was glad.
Toby was no sheltered child, his life had been harsh from the time he was born, but he was a child still, and to see Leo guarding the lad, his muscular arms bracketing him on either side, made her heart hurt and soar all at once.
She lifted her gaze to his. The warm hazel of his eyes brimmed with concern. Are you all right? he asked, without ever speaking a word.
A good man.
Angel nodded silently.
They carried on, not speaking, until Angel could stand it no longer.