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  ‘I’m afraid he still does.’

  ‘Poor old Dick! Devil takes the woman! Does she bully him? I know what he is – always ready to give in.’

  ‘I am not so sure. Yet I’ll swear if ’twere not for John his life would be a misery. He misses you, Jack.’

  ‘Who is John?’

  ‘Did not Warburton tell you? John is the hope of the house. He’s four and a half, and as spoilt a little rascal as you could wish for.’

  ‘Dick’s child? Good Lord!’

  ‘Ay, Dick’s child and your nephew.’ He broke off and looked into the other’s face. ‘Jack, cannot this mystery be cleared up? Couldn’t ye go back?’ He was clasping Jack’s hand, but it was withdrawn, and the eyes looking down into his were suddenly bored and a little cold.

  ‘I know of no mystery,’ said Carstares.

  ‘Jack, old man, will ye be afther shutting me out of your confidence?’

  A faint, sweet smile curved the fine lips.

  ‘Let us talk of the weather, Miles, or my mare. Anything rather than this painful subject.’

  With an impatient movement O’Hara flung back his chair and strode over to the window with his back to my lord. Jack’s eyes followed him seriously.

  ‘If ye cannot trust me, sure I’ve no more to say, thin!’ flashed O’Hara. ‘It seems ye do not value your friends too highly!’

  My lord said never a word. But the hand that rested on the desk clenched suddenly. O’Hara wheeled about and came back to his side.

  ‘Sure, Jack, I never meant that! Forgive me bad temper!’

  Carstares slipped off the table and straightened himself, linking his arm in the Irishman’s.

  ‘Whisht, Miles, as you’d say yourself,’ he laughed, ‘I know that. ’Tis not that I don’t trust you, but –’

  ‘I understand. I’ll not ask ye any more about it at all. Instead, answer me this: what made ye come out with unloaded pistols?’

  The laugh died out of Carstares’ face.

  ‘Oh, just carelessness!’ he answered shortly, and he thought of the absent Jim with a tightening of the lips.

  ‘’Twas that very reason with meself thin!’

  Jack stared at him.

  ‘Miles, don’t tell me yours were unloaded, too?’

  ‘’Deed an’ they were! Ecod, Jack! ’tis the best joke I’ve heard for a twelvemonth.’ They both started to laugh. ‘Sure ’twas bluff on my part, Jack, when I told ye yours was unloaded. And me lady was determined to set you free from the moment I told her all about it this morning. We were sure ye were no ordinary highwayman, though I was a fool not to have known ye right away. But now I have found ye out, ye’ll stay with us – Cousin Harry?’

  ‘I cannot thank you enough, Miles, but I will not do that. I must get back to Jim.’

  ‘And who the devil is Jim?’

  ‘My servant. He’ll be worried nigh to death over me. Nay, do not press me, I could not stay here, Miles. You must see for yourself ’tis impossible – Jack Carstares does not exist; only Anthony Ferndale is left.’

  ‘Jack, dear man, can I not –’

  ‘No, Miles, you can do nothing, though ’tis like you to want to help, and I do thank you. But – oh well!… What about my mare?’

  ‘Plague take me if I’d not forgotten! Jack, that scoundrel of mine let her strain her fetlock. I’m demmed sorry.’

  ‘Poor Jenny! I’ll swear she gave him an exciting ride, though.’

  ‘I’ll be trying to buy her off ye, Jack, if I see much of her. ’Tis a little beauty she is.’

  ‘I’m not selling, though I intended to ask you to keep her, if –’

  A quick pressure on his arm arrested him.

  ‘That will do! I’m too heavy for her anyway.’

  ‘So was that devil of a groom you put on her.’

  ‘Ay. I’m a fool.’

  ‘I always knew that.’

  ‘Whisht now, Jack! Ye’ll have to take one of my nags while she heals, if ye won’t stay with us. Can ye trust her to me for a week, do ye suppose?’

  ‘I don’t know. It seems as though I must – oh, I retract, I retract. You are altogether too large, the day is too hot, and my cravat too nicely tied – Egad, Miles! I wish – oh, I wish we were boys again, and – Yes. When may I see your son and heir?’

  ‘Sure, ye may come now and find Molly, who’ll be aching for the sight of you. Afther you, Sir Anthony Ferndale, Bart!’

  Eleven

  My Lord Turns Rescuer and Comes Nigh Ending His Life

  Late that afternoon Carstares left Thurze House on one of his friend’s horses. He waved a very regretful farewell to O’Hara and his lady, promising to let them know his whereabouts and to visit them again soon. O’Hara had extracted a solemn promise that if ever he got into difficulties he would let him know:

  ‘For I’m not letting ye drift gaily out of me life again, and that’s flat.’

  Jack had assented gladly enough – to have a friend once more was such bliss – and had given Miles the name of the inn and the village where he would find him, for O’Hara had insisted on bringing the mare over himself. So Carstares rode off to Trencham and to Jim, with the memory of a very hearty handshake in his mind. He smiled a little as he thought of his friend’s words when he had shown himself reluctant to give the required promise:

  ‘Ye obstinate young devil, ye’ll do as I say, and no nonsense, or ye don’t leave this house!’

  For six years no one had ordered him to obey; it had been he who had done all the ordering. Somehow it was very pleasant to be told what to do, especially by Miles.

  He turned down a lane and wondered what Jim was thinking. That he was waiting at the Green Man, he was certain, for those had been his orders. He was annoyed with the man over the incident of the pistols, for he had inspected them and discovered that they were indeed unloaded. Had his captor been other than O’Hara, on whom he could not fire, such carelessness might have proved his undoing. Apart from that, culpable negligence always roused his wrath. A rather warm twenty minutes was in store for Salter.

  For quite an hour Carstares proceeded on his way with no mishaps nor adventures, and then, suddenly, as he rounded a corner of a deserted road – little more than a cart-track – an extraordinary sight met his eyes. In the middle of the road stood a coach, and by it, covering the men on the box with two large pistols, was a seedy-looking ruffian, while two others were engaged in what appeared to be a life-and-death struggle at the coach-door.

  Jack reined in his horse and rose in his stirrups to obtain a better view. Then his eyes flashed, and he whistled softly to himself. For the cause of all the turmoil was a slight, graceful girl of not more than nineteen or twenty. She was frenziedly resisting the efforts of her captors to drag her to another coach further up the road. Jack could see that she was dark and very lovely.

  Another, elderly lady, was most valiantly impeding operations by clawing and striking at one of the men’s arms, scolding and imploring all in one breath. Jack’s gaze went from her to a still, silent figure at the side of the road in the shadow of the hedge, evidently the stage-manager. ‘It seems I must take a hand in this,’ he told himself, and laughed joyously as he fixed on his mask and dismounted. He tethered his mount to a young sapling, took a pistol from its holster, and ran softly and swiftly under the lea of the hedge up to the scene of disaster, just as the man who covered the unruly and vociferous pair on the box made ready to fire.

  Jack’s bullet took him neatly in the neck, and without a sound he crumpled up, one of his pistols exploding harmlessly as it fell to earth.

  With an oath the silent onlooker wheeled round to face the point of my lord’s gleaming blade.

  Carstares drew in his breath sharply in surprise as he saw the white face of his Grace of Andover.

  ‘Damn you!’ said Tracy calmly, and sprang back, w