Finessing Clarissa Read Free

dare.’
    ‘Do be quiet, Hubbard, I’ve always wanted to try one.’
    Clarissa succeeded in lighting the cheroot. She drew in a lungful of smoke and then fell about the carriage coughing and gasping.
    The carriage lurched to a halt.
    ‘Stand and deliver!’ called a voice from outside.
    ‘Highwaymen!’ screamed Hubbard. ‘We’ll be killed dead.’
    ‘It can’t be highwaymen. Not on this road,’ said Clarissa.
    Still holding the smouldering cheroot, she tugged at the strap and let down the glass and stuck her head out. It was a clear, starry night. There was a masked figure on top of a black horse, waving a pistol in a threatening way.
    ‘Step down from that carriage,’ called the highwayman, ‘and bring your jewels and money with you or I shall shoot your coachman.’
    ‘Oh, very well,’ grumbled Clarissa. ‘Find the jewel box, Hubbard. If we give this fellow what he wants, he may ride off and leave us unharmed.’
    But the fat maid was rolling on the carriage floor, sobbing and screaming. Clarissa bent down and pulled the jewel box out from under the seat and, putting it under one arm but still holding the forgotten cheroot in her free hand, she stepped down from the carriage. The highwayman edged his horse close to her. ‘Hand it over,’ he growled.
    Clarissa took a step forward, but she was in her stockinged feet, and one foot came down on a sharp piece of flint. She let out a yell and dropped the box and stumbled forward, the lighted end of her cheroot brushing against the horse’s flanks. The horse reared up and threw the highwayman onto the road. He fell with a crash and lay still.
    ‘You are not very good protection, are you?’ said Clarissa to the two outriders, two grooms, and coachman. ‘Bring me a lantern until I get a look at him.’
    She tossed her cheroot into the carriage. The maid had tumbled out onto the road, where she was now sitting, sobbing dismally.
    One of the grooms brought a lantern and Clarissa took it and bent over the still figure on the road. She knelt down and removed the black velvet mask.
    ‘Why, ’tis only a boy!’ she cried. She loosened his cravat. Tom had only been winded but thought it better to feign unconsciousness. ‘I need water to bathe his temples,’ said Clarissa. She looked at the side of the road and caught a faint gleam. She took out a large serviceable handkerchief and went over to the ditch, soaked the handkerchief and then placed it on Tom’s brow. The ‘highwayman’ sat up with a roar. ‘Eugh!’ he cried. ‘What a smell!’ Clarissa sniffed her fingers and said in dismay, ‘It must have been an open sewer. I am so sorry. For heaven’s sake, Hubbard, stop wailing and get me the bottle of drinking water. Why did I forget that?’
    ‘No, no,’ said Tom. ‘Don’t do anything more to me, I beg. I am frightfully sorry. A joke, ma’am.’
    ‘In poor taste,’ said Clarissa severely.
    The grooms, coachman, and outriders had gathered around Clarissa and the fallen Tom in a circle. Hubbard pushed her way through them and looked down at Tom. In the light of the lantern, she saw a very young man with a mop of fair curls and a face that might have been handsome had it not been smeared with Clarissa’s offering from the sewer.
    ‘Pooh! What a stink,’ said Clarissa. ‘Fetch me the cologne, Hubbard.’
    Clarissa’s cheroot, which she had tossed into the carriage, had fallen onto the open pages of a book which she had been reading, and it had proceeded to burn merrily while she was administering to Tom. The flames had travelled to the maid’s cane basket and taken greedy hold.
    As Hubbard approached the carriage, a long tongue of flame shot out of the window. ‘Fire!’ she screamed.
    Swearing horribly, the coachman and grooms ran to unhitch the plunging and frightened horses and lead them to safety. Tom scrambled to his feet. His own horse had run off. But before he got a few yards down the road, a ball whizzed over his head. He stood