Chapter Two
Wiltshire House
Middlesex
Edwina Sinclair galloped through the dense forest growth on Masquerade, her gray gelding. Her nimble steed jumped a hedge with ease and raced across an open meadow, where a tree-lined trail took her to the back entrance of the stables at Wiltshire House.
The baronetcy had been awarded to her great-great-great-grandfather by George I, and it was here that Edwina was born.
Sadly, it was also where her parents had both died from typhus.
When her parents became ill, they sent her to live with her grandmother, the dowager Baroness of Northumberland, at her ladyship’s country estate.
Edwina survived, but unfortunately her brother had not.
His death left her the only surviving heir to the baronetcy.
Upon her father’s untimely death, Edwina would have inherited the baronetcy immediately were it not for complications.
At the time of her beloved papa’s death, she had not yet come of age, and at present, her grandmother, who’d returned with her to Wiltshire House once the typhus epidemic had dissipated, held the baronetcy in entailment until Edwina reached majority.
The entailment her father had created would legally pass to her in a year.
The entailment also decreed that the baronetcy’s lands would remain intact and not be sold off, protecting the estate from any marriage partner or profligate heir.
The entailment also secured the baronetcy for any offspring of her marriage.
Her father had wisely arranged for his property and estate to pass to his daughter upon his death so long as there was not a male heir, which there was not.
Edwina felt the weight of this responsibility on her young shoulders, but she was resolute in her determination to uphold her father’s wishes.
Edwina led her magnificent steed Masq to his stall.
She threw a bunch of carrots into his feed bucket and shut herself in her tack room before any of the grooms noticed she’d returned.
She quickly disrobed, changed into her riding habit, and hid the mask and costume in her tack trunk.
The pouch filled with coins she’d taken from her victims she stored in a false compartment hidden at the bottom of the trunk.
It was filled with bags of coins that she’d relieved from other wealthy targets.
As a patroness of a parish orphanage at St. Albans in Middlesex and of the Foundling Hospital in the West End of London, she would deliver the bountiful gift to those who needed it most. Only last week, she’d struck gold and robbed a cruel landlord traveling to his country estate in Middlesex.
The St. Giles rookery was considered the worst in England, and Axel Hammond was the worst of the worst landlords of that blighted hell.
He leased dozens of overcrowded, rickety tenement buildings infested with rats and buried amid noxious fumes on narrow alleys and streets.
In these crumbling hovels, few lived beyond their twenties.
Open sewers ran down the center of St. Giles’s putrid streets, where children played among drunkards, prostitutes, and thieves, and disease and degradation abounded.
The poorly constructed hovels, stacked one against the other, were badly ventilated and without sanitation.
There, the most destitute of London’s population lived in veritable rat traps amid abominable conditions of squalor and filth.
Axel Hammond enriched himself from the misery of those without a voice, and Edwina was driven by a fierce sense of justice and determined to give them that voice and more.
She hoped to provide them with a way out of their wretchedness.
She’d set her sights on punishing Hammond by stealing the wealth he took from the poor.
She would be the hand of retribution, and her same helping hand would help provide for the forgotten, lifting them out of the hopelessness and destitution of their present existence.
Thinking about Hammond made her blood boil, and she put him out of her mind. It was much better to dwell upon the handsome gentleman whom she had robbed today. It was almost as if he could see behind her mask, which she knew he couldn’t.
Winnie studied herself in the mirror and stifled a giggle, remembering when the annoyance on his face turned to admiration.
It was silly, but she could not stop thinking about the man who’d seemed more amused at being robbed by her than angered or afraid.
Not to mention the audacity he’d had to eye her bosoms when she relieved him of the coin-filled pouch.
When their gazes met, the sparkle in his striking blue eyes had disconcerted her, while the strength of his chin and his dimpled smile caused a fluttering in her chest. His height was most impressive, and his broad shoulders had strained against the fine cut of his coat as he’d handed the sack to her.
And his voice, so deep and resonant, had sounded intimate, as though they were the only two people in the world.
Her skin flushed at the memory. She’d had an instant and immediate desire to find out why he’d looked at her with such a gleam in his eye, as though they were dancing the quadrille at a ton ball.
Her reaction to him perplexed her, and she reminded herself that it was an unseemly response to feel a quivering inside for a total stranger.
Nothing about his companion had captured her interest in such a profound way, though he was also quite handsome, so why this ridiculous attraction to the blue-eyed stranger?
Their interaction, though brief, had left a deep impression that aroused her curiosity.
And she could not help but wish their paths might cross again, under different circumstances.
She rubbed a dirty smudge from her cheek and smoothed her braided red hair.
Almost presentable, but it will have to do.
Winnie’s inner conflict between her public and private personae was a constant source of turmoil.
She longed to feel the independence that would be hers when the baronetcy passed into her hands.
The handsome stranger invaded her thoughts again, as she recalled he knew right away she was a woman and not a male youth, despite her disguise and her attempt to deepen her voice.
But that was nothing to fret over. Winnie had heard the rumors and exaggerated tales of the exploits of a woman highway robber for months now.
The Lace Bandit, a moniker given to her by the public, had even been written about in the press.
It was a persona she had adopted to carry out her mission of redistributing wealth from the corrupt to the needy, and she was intrigued by the stranger’s interest in her alter ego.
The impertinent man’s parting words, that they would meet again, had not felt like a threat but rather a promise, which, given that she hadn’t revealed any way for him to trace her, was rather dashing on his part. It amused her immensely.
I admit his braggadocio was exhilarating, adding spice to my successful day and the doldrums of my evenings.
Next week, she would take the coach to St. Albans and deliver the monthly spoils to the workhouse and the orphanage she supported.
Her rebellion, if one dared call it that, was born from the exciting folktales her mother had told her about Robin Hood, the medieval outlaw who took the bounty he stole from the rich and gave it to the poor.
When she inherited the baronetcy, there would no longer be a need to steal.
The coin her escapades provided would be nothing compared to the good her fortune could achieve.
The baronetcy would make her one of the wealthiest women in the kingdom.
Her father had wisely invested in the East India Company, which brought rich spices, fine silks, and tea from around the world to the island nation’s shores.
Winnie eagerly anticipated the day when she could use her wealth to help those less fortunate, those whose daily struggles were a battle to survive.
Pleased with her plans, she smiled at her reflection and blew herself a kiss. You are a cunning girl.
“Thomas, please see that Masq is bathed and brushed, and prepare a lovely mash for him. I rode him a great distance today, and he has been such a good boy.” She patted and rubbed Masq’s cheeks.
“Yes, your ladyship. I will see to it,” said Thomas.
He was not only a groom but also Winnie’s confidant, and he knew of her adventures.
It would have been impossible to continue her subterfuge without his help.
He was her cover when her grandmother sent the butler Gerald to inquire about her whereabouts.
She leaned in and whispered, “Thomas, I finagled a very large purse today, and the gentleman was quite clever, which made it all the more fun.”
“Please be careful, m’lady. It would not go well if you were recognized.”
The earnestness in Thomas’s puppy-dog eyes warmed her heart. “Don’t worry. I am cautious. He was interesting to observe in so many ways, and I must admit I am curious about who he might be.”
Thomas’s brow furrowed.
“Don’t fret. It’s unlikely I will ever see him again. Still, I did enjoy the encounter, as it made relieving him of his guineas all the more satisfying.”
Winnie walked through the kitchen garden, where the scent of fresh herbs punctuated the air.
She snipped sprigs of rosemary and thyme and pressed them to her nose, inhaling the sweet fragrance.
Hmm, the smell of herbs is so invigorating.
She couldn’t wait to get upstairs and have her lady’s maid bring her lavender for her bath so that she might cleanse herself of the dust from the road.