The Raider Read online

  “That’s better.” He smiled and drew a handkerchief from his pocket. His voice changed. “Now, Jess, we’ve got to talk business. You may be willing to eat your pride and try to clothe yourself with it, but those children deserve better. There are three trunks of clothes at my house that belonged to my mother and heaven knows Marianna couldn’t fit more than her left leg in any of those dresses. It’s time my father quit enshrining everything my mother touched. And there are trunks of children’s clothes in the attics. They were to be used for our children, but Marianna doesn’t look like she’ll have any, Adam and Kit are too busy doing glorious deeds to settle down, and no woman will have me, so you may as well take those clothes, too. No! Not one word of protest. In a way, this has been caused by a Montgomery and Pitman’s atrocities will be righted, as best they can be, by a Montgomery. Tomorrow we’ll look into finding you some furniture and something to eat. Now, I want you to go to bed and get what sleep you can.”

  Jessica managed a small smile through her tears. “You really were wonderful tonight, Alex. Thank you for saving the house from being burned.” She stood on tiptoe and kissed his cheek. “Thank you,” she repeated and went inside the house. She tried not to look at the debris around her, but just as she was turning toward the mattress where Eleanor was sleeping, she heard one of the children crying.

  She mounted the stairs to the loft. At first glance, all the children seemed to be asleep—but Nathaniel had his eyes too tightly shut. She knelt beside the bed and pulled the boy into her arms. He tried to do the manly thing and control his tears, but Jess rubbed the back of his neck and rocked him and he cried until he didn’t have any more tears left. Nate acted so grown up that sometimes she forgot that he was just a little boy.

  “Is he going to burn our house down?”

  “I don’t know,” Jess answered truthfully. Pitman had been thwarted tonight, but she didn’t know what would happen when Alex or someone else wasn’t around to stop him.

  “I’m scared, Jessie. Mr. Pitman hates us. Why?”

  “I’m not sure. I think he hates the Raider and he thinks we’re connected with him.”

  “But you are connected with the Raider, Jessie. You see him at night and you saved him from the gunpowder, didn’t you? You’re the only woman brave enough to walk into gunpowder. Maybe Mr. Pitman knows that about you.”

  “I’m not sure it’s bravery as much as stupidity. Someone had to save him. When Marianna told me—”

  Nate drew away from her. “Why didn’t she save the Raider? She came to you because you’re brave and she isn’t. And Mr. Alex is brave, too.”

  “That he is. Now you go to sleep. It’ll be morning soon and we have lots of work to do.” When he started to speak, she smoothed his hair. “I don’t know the answers to your questions. Maybe someday you’ll be like me and act before you think. But from now on, I’ll think of my family first. All right?”

  “Yes, Jess. Good night.”

  “Good night, Nate.”

  * * *

  Nick was awake by the time Alex returned from the Taggert house—as was everyone in the Montgomery house.

  “What have you done now?” Nick growled. “A man can’t get any sleep with you roaming about the country. Your father wants to see you.”

  “He can wait,” Alex said. Now that he was home and with someone who knew his secret, he didn’t have to hide his pain. “Help me undress. The blood’s stuck my clothes to me.”

  “Ah, I’d heard the Raider was wounded. Your brother-in-law has dogs looking for you and the woman.” Nick helped Alex ease out of his banyan, then his nightshirt. Under the garments was wrapped the padding and under that his tattered Raider costume. “It looks as if some of the gunpowder hit you.”

  “Just the debris. It removed some skin on my back.”

  Nick gave a low whistle as he pulled away the blood-soaked padding. Great furrows of skin were gouged from Alex’s back and embedded in the gashes were pieces of black silk. “I’m going to soak this with water. It’ll loosen the blood. I take it the woman was Mistress Jessica.”

  “Of course. Only she’d be fool enough to walk into a circle of gunpowder that was ready to explode.”

  “But she saved your miserable life, didn’t she? I’m going to have to use a knife to remove the cloth. My father would disown me if he saw me playing nursemaid.”

  “Stop bragging and get on with it.”

  “Where did you go after the explosion?”

  “To save Jessica’s hide. Pitman ran right to her, just as I thought he would.”

  “So now Mr. Pitman has another enemy: Alexander Montgomery. How are you going to smooth this one over?”

  Alex gritted his teeth against the pain as Nick pulled shreds of silk from the raw places on his back. If he could have had treatment soon after the explosion, it wouldn’t have been this painful because the blood would not have dried with bits of the fabric inside the wounds. But he didn’t regret his actions. He had been right in going to Jessica before having his own wounds seen to. As it was, he had barely made it to her in time. “I don’t know. I just want to sleep for a few days. Tell Pitman I am indisposed after my ordeal at the Taggerts.”

  “And let him suspect you may have injuries besides exhaustion?”

  “Then I’ll tell him I’m in love with Jessica and I couldn’t bear to see her come so close to harm.”

  “You’re in love with her? Or is the Raider?”

  Alex was quiet for a moment. “She risked her life to save a man she says she hates. She’s as bad as Abigail, in love with a dashing figure on a black horse.”

  “Sit up and I’ll bandage your ribs.”

  Alex struggled to sit up. “Alexander rides up and holds two pistols at the head of the king’s man and all he gets is a kiss on the cheek. Yet the Raider stupidly walks into a trap and he gets tears shed over his welfare. She was scared the bastard was bleeding to death in some ditch. And when I, Alexander, assured her he was safe, she bit my head off. Damned stupid woman! Why can’t she see who is the real hero in her life? Do all women fall in love with a pretty face and broad shoulders?”

  Nick poured a tumbler full of rum. “Tell me, if Nelba Mason had been standing on the porch that day of the first raid, would you have tried to kiss her? Would you have dumped her in washwater if she’d refused you?”

  Alex downed the rum and shivered at the thought. “I’d have celebrated,” he said a moment later. “It’s not the same thing at all. Nelba can’t remove that nose of hers and besides, she didn’t risk her life to save the Raider.”

  “Maybe she would if the Raider courted her in the middle of the night.”

  Alex refused to comment. “Get out of here and let me sleep. And take those bloody rags and burn them.”

  “Yes, master,” Nick mocked before leaving.

  Chapter Nine

  AND now the Montgomerys seem to have adopted the Taggerts,” Mrs. Wentworth said. “I think that if they wanted to exercise their Christian charity, they could have chosen a more worthy cause.”

  Mr. and Mrs. Wentworth were at breakfast with their only child, Abigail. There was nothing on the table, in the room or on their bodies that wasn’t of the finest quality, all of it imported from England. They wanted nothing to do with any crude American products.

  “Eleanor has worked for the Montgomerys for years—she practically runs that house—and of course there is the fact that if Marianna hadn’t married Mr. Pitman, the Taggerts might still have their belongings,” Mr. Wentworth said.

  “The Raider!” Mrs. Wentworth declared. “Don’t mention that highwayman to me. It’s people like him who are going to get us in trouble with England. We lose England’s support and then where will we be? What kind of government could we have without England to guide us?”

  Abigail was concentrating on a buttered roll. “What did you hear about last night’s explosion?”

  “Everyone thinks that Jessica Taggert was involved. Mr. Pitman had every right to search thei