Read Coach and Four: Allisandra's Tale for Free Online

mouth. It was an exceedingly fine mouth, which, because he was well and closely shaven, was more the evident. He started to pull her towards him but she exclaimed, “You forget, sir, that these are things not to be wondered at; but one should wonder were you to leave us otherwise, what the reason might be. You have stopped a gentleman and a lady at point of pistol; you have robbed the earl of his purse and a paper.”
     
He raised an eyebrow.
     
She continued, “And you have put his lordship to great distress and discomfort, as well as myself.” He tilted his head. “Are you, then, at great distress and discomfort? I had not thought so.” A little smile lit his face.
     
“I am in distress. You have robbed me—of something of myself. I cannot say what, precisely, but it is something, I know it!”
     
“Would it please you better,” he asked, with that little smile, “if I robbed you of your purse and left the earl for dead?”
     
“No. I meant--”
     
“I know what you meant, luv,” he said, bending his head down towards hers.
     
“The penalty for murder is hanging,” she cried hastily, “and so I have done you a service, if, in some way, I kept you from that horrid deed.”
     
“Ah, but the penalty for treason be hangin' also, milaidy, an' I'm wonderin' just what you are about bein' in the company of a traitor.”
     
“A traitor! Methinks you are mistaken! Lord Weldon is no traitor. You are the outlaw here.” He paused, and pulled from his waistcoat pocket the paper which she had earlier seen him receive, which had come from the earl's waistcoat.
     
“This,” he said, in a low tone, “is part of a plan against the King. Your noble friend,” he added, with a peremptory nod in the earl's direction, “is involved in a plot to remove our monarch from his throne—indeed from the earth.”
     
Allisandra gasped, dumbstruck. Until she recalled that she had only this man's word upon it. The word of a highwayman.
     
“Do you doubt me?” he asked, as though reading her thoughts.
     
“I have only your word on it,” she responded, “unless you would like to show me the paper.”
     
“You're safer not seeing it,” he answered. “And my word is that of a gentleman. You may rest upon it, what I tell you is the truth.”
     
She heard and recognized the accents of perfectly normal aristocratic speech, this time. “Why do you speak as a highwayman—indeed, as a seaman or pirate, when one thinks upon it—when you are capable of speaking the King's English as well as any other well bred man?”
     
Instead of answering her, he responded by saying, “I 'av to go, luv. Say goodbye to me, then.”
     
She hesitated, not wishing to grant his request. But he had done nothing beyond kissing her—embarrassing enough to be sure, but not treacherous.
     
“Goodbye.” Her eyes were serious. “Go with God!” She was surprisingly sincere in the wish.
     
“To do that, you must introduce us,” he quickly responded, and then, pulling her towards him, added, 'I ain't well acquainted with that gallant, though I know you are a devotee. Keep me in your prayers, milaidy.”
     
To her dismay, he kissed her again, this time going about it with more passion than he had displayed, earlier. She was well taken aback by this change of approach and merely eyed him with a dull surprise, afterwards, which, (since she hadn't attempted to escape him) he took as tacit permission to repeat the action.
     
But Allisandra remembered herself enough to push away from him, saying, “You tarry too long, and the earl must think the worst of my conduct in allowing it.”
     
“Then I'll shoot 'im,” he responded.
     
“No! No. Is that the only means you can devise to solve your problems?”
     
“Nay; but it's the least troublesome. In addition to which, he is a filthy traitor.”
     
“Good night, my lord highwayman,” she said, trying to sound firm.
     
“Good night, my lady,” he returned, with a smile for both of