Ravensdale Read online

Ravensdale

  Lucinda Elliot

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  Ravensdale

  Second Edition

  This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters and locations are the subject of the author's imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, locations or objects, existing or existed is purely coincidental.

  It is sold subject to the condition that it shall not by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the writer's prior consent, electronically or in any form of binding or cover other than the form in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. Replication or distribution of any part is strictly prohibited without the written permission of the copyright holder.

  Copyright ? 2014 Lucinda Elliot

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN: 0-9927361-2-9

  ISBN-13: 978-0-9927361-2-5

  DEDICATION

  I dedicate this book to my mother Doris Martin

  and to my late father, Philip Martin

  With love and thanks

  CONTENTS

  1. The Disgraced Heir1

  2. The Earl Highwayman11

  3. An Incorrigible Rogue30

  4. Infallible Disguise50

  5. Passion70

  6. Forces of Justice88

  7. Heroics107

  8. Abduction124

  9. Ruination145

  10. Melting Cousin168

  11. The Wedding186

  12. Foxhunt206

  13. Female Spirit226

  14. Heroics and Repentances247

  15. Confession268

  16. Humane Justice292

  17. Story Complete296

  18. Notes307

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I would like to thank the many people who have helped me

  with support, information and suggestions, including

  Jo Danilo, Robert Gregson and Robert Wingfield of INCA for their suggestions and invaluable help, Rebecca Lochlann, Jenn Roseton, Nat Wieckzorec, Curator at the National Army Museum and many others

  1.The Disgraced Heir

  April 1792

  Introducing the Disgraced Heir to an Earldom Turned Outlaw

  And the (Must Have) Spirited Heroine

  Even before the shooting started, Isabella Murray recognised Reynaud Ravensdale the outcast.

  As he rode up the hill towards the burial in the churchyard, either out of respect or bravado, he whipped off his hat. Isabella saw at once that he might have been the twin of his cousin, who now stood by the late Earl's grave. Though the outlaw son was muffled in a greatcoat, she noted his athletic movements. Even at the distance, she was startled at the similarity of their Grecian features

  Isabella felt sorry for the disgraced son. It must be miserable to watch a father's funeral from a distance. That remained true, even if the late Earl had been a drunken aging rou? in the habit of laying into his neighbours with a horsewhip.

  As he approached, Ravensdale's unusually long and heavy-lidded eyes glanced without interest at what he must take to be a plump boy. This afternoon, Isabella was out on one of her jaunts, straddling a horse in her brother's cast-off riding clothes, her hair hidden under the hat.

  As Ravensdale stared impassively at the funeral, heads in the crowd standing outside the graveyard turned to stare at him. Isabella could sense the rumour spreading: 'It's the disgraced heir who shot that Captain!'

  Another rider appeared, galloping up the hill towards them, yelling and frantically waving his hat.

  Ravensdale swore as he whipped out his pistol. "Get out of it!" he shouted to Isabella, turning his horse. A group of redcoats came into view behind the second rider.

  Shots rang out. Screams and shouts came from the crowd, and people threw themselves to the ground.

  Isabella was too busy fighting her rearing horse to take Ravensdale's advice and make for the copse of trees hard by. Meanwhile he was off down the hill, firing at the soldiers and roaring some order to his accomplice.

  There was more shooting and yelling and swearing. As Isabella brought her mount under control, she was sorry to miss the expressions. She liked learning the sort of language not commonly used before nice young ladies.

  The outlaws jumped the hedge at the bottom of the field, and the pursuit died away into the distance.

  "Well, he's got a fine horse for an escape," Isabella told her own mount as she made off for home. "An Arab cross, I'd say. I suppose that was one of the band of highwaymen he's said to lead as the gallant Mr Fox."

  She rode at a gallop back to the great house her father had bought on becoming a baronet, taking as many hedges as she could on the way.

  She told the horse, "I suppose poor Mama will have some new scheme afoot for marrying me off, as befits our new status. She'd have had poor father at the old toper's* funeral too, only that throw from your stable mate kept him inside."

  She sighed. "What a bore it is! I wish she'd have done and let me be an old maid. I'll have to get a cat; pity I'm so bad at knitting, eh? Now here's a high hedge with a tricky ditch: have at it, girl!"

  As they landed safely, Isabella patted her mount's neck, "Well done. You know, in some ways I'd rather have the hazards and discomforts of an outlaw's life, than the boredom of my own as a respectable young lady."

  The Disgraced Earl Turned Outlaw's

  (Must Have) Devoted Follower

  "You think they're still after us?" Longface glanced back as he and Ravensdale made their way down the bank of a stream in the middle of a birch wood.

  "How should I know, you looby? If we've shaken 'em off so damned easy, I'll be amazed."

  They rode on some way without speaking. As the horses scrambled up a bank, Ravensdale suddenly grinned, shaking off his gloom. "There's a piece of fancy shooting; they've winged your hat." He reached out and snatched it off his follower's head, his smile fading as quickly as it came. "It's not conspicuous or anything. Damned idiot, you'd have shambled into an inn like that."

  "How'd it stay on my knob?" Longface stared at it.

  Reynaud Ravensdale laughed heartlessly: "I thought I saw it dance up and down. Lucky escape for you, eh?"

  Longface burst out, "I call it foolishly quixotic, risking your neck like that to attend the funeral and then uncovering yourself. Paying your respects to your father was all fine and proper, but not sensible. It weren't as though you hadn't seen him before he died."

  Ravensdale scowled and said nothing. Perhaps he was being resolutely silent.

  Longface went on, "It's no good giving me one of your haughty looks, neither. How many times have I told you, it's all well and good to be a viscount - well, now you're an earl - but it don't do you no manner of good now, so you must set aside them aristocratic ways. I've told you a thousand times."

  "Try a million, Longface."

  "No, but you'll need telling one million times more, Mr Fox*, though being discreet, I never speak of what's known to me in front of others. Someone must've tipped off the redcoats."

  "That's clear, seeing they don't have the wit to find us out for themselves. Then you obligingly led 'em to me."

  At this, Longface couldn't contain himself. "Me? Nobody followed me - and me risking my neck to warn you of the ambush you wandered into unawares!"

  Reynaud Ravensdale or Mr Fox stared at him, eyebrows raised. "You idiot. I told you not to tag along. On the matter of your idiocy, by the by, how much d'you have in your purse*?"

  Longface searched though his pockets, his jaw lengthening.

  Reynaud Ravensdale suddenly hissed, "Quiet! What's that?" They paused,
staring back, and went on listening for another minute.

  "I only hear woodpeckers going at it."

  They started their horses forward again. Longface searched his clothing a last time before admitting, "The confounded thing's gone."

  Ravensdale made a coarse joke. "Jack and I had better sense than to lose our money that way. None of those wenches in that den was to be trusted from any point of view. Twice over I caught that ladybird perched on my knee with her hands in my pockets, and she laughed in my face."

  Longface looked even more mournful. "I'll have to wait and see, then. Lucky we're headed towards town and medical advice."

  As his chief snorted his contempt, Longface went on, "Pshaw! It's nothing that a spot of mercury* won't cure. What's the point of guarding our health? We'll be dangling at Tyburn before we're thirty."

  "I always forget you're short of thirty."

  Longface winced. "It's these teeth missing that age me."

  Ravensdale didn't bother replying. They rode on in silence for some minutes, and then he began almost gently, "What you say makes me think, Longface. For your sake, we should go our separate ways. I'm a careless rogue, and a danger to be about. You had best save your skin and leave villainy while you can. You have those papers. Start again and lead a decent life."

  Longface shook his head. "No, not until at least after the next great takings. I've not enough put by to live comfortable and marry a self-respecting woman."

  Reynaud Ravensdale made another coarse joke about an unexpected wedding present Longface might give a bride if he didn't take more care. As Longface flinched again, he added more suavely, "Longface, I'm urging you to look out for yourself."

  "No, I ain't leaving you. I'm older and wiser than you and them others, and I can make due allowance for your youthful impetuosity." He liked the sound of that, and repeated it.

  His companion was unmoved. "Listen, you simpleton, as your chief I'm telling you to go away now."

  Longface shook his head, smiling gently. "Not until the time is right."

  Ravensdale scowled. His horse, picking up his mood, turned round and snapped at him. He hit it, cursing.

  Longface murmured up at the beech trees, "I don't take it amiss; he ain't bad hearted; just a wild young buck what's unhappy how things is turned out." He examined the bullet holes in his hat. Suddenly he asked his robber chief, "Do you have a sister?"

  Ravensdale glared: "What's that to you, looby?"

  "I dunno. I miss mine, sometimes." Longface thought of Meggie's disappointment that he hadn't stayed working in haberdashery, and her warnings against a life of crime. Then he spent longer thinking about the hot cakes that she always made.

  Suddenly, Reynaud Ravensdale spoke, as if he couldn't stop himself, though despising himself even as he said the words, "I've a girl cousin who was as a sister to me."

  As the trees began to thin, he turned on Longface: "Take that damned thing off before we get back to civilization." He gave a bitter laugh: "Civilization? That is one place where we shan't call in."