Memoirs of a Hoyden Read Free

shrug of their shoulders, and one of them decided to be gallant. He lifted my hand and kissed a very wet glove. “Mam’selle.” He bowed, and hopped on his horse.
    It wasn’t a terribly exciting performance. I had expected better of the highwaymen—and the passengers. Other than that final kissing of my hand, I began to think I could write a better scene for Aurelia myself. There had been no brutality, no roughing up of the passengers—possibly because they had all acted as tame as rabbits. I remembered the groom’s wound and turned to help him.
    Before I took a single step, the new passenger strode up to me and stood glowering down from his six feet and a few inches. I measure five feet eight myself, and was not likely to be intimidated by a tame English coward after doing business with Emir Mohanna, the Bedouin chief, and the dreaded Turkish Pasha Suliman. The Turkish pashas had been known to remove the nose, one eye, and one ear of a previous visitor.
    “May one enquire why you got out of the carriage, madame?” he sneered, in an accent I wouldn’t use to the lowliest saice. “You made it impossible for us to defend ourselves, with a lady present.”
    “Is that your excuse for tugging your forelock and handing your money over to common thieves?” I replied tartly. The drooping eyelids lifted a fraction, revealing a flash of anger. “Five of you men against a mere three of them! I assure you the lady would have a better opinion of you had you defended yourselves—and her.’’ The gentleman looked taken aback at my answer, but I elbowed him aside and took a look at the groom’s arm.
    “Am I dying?” he asked fearfully.
    “If you’ll get in the carriage, I’ll tie a handkerchief around this scratch. Fortunately, you were only grazed. Ronald, you’d best go after the team, as it’s clear no one else here has his wits about him.”
    Ronald provided a handkerchief before leaving, with the chastened passenger in tow. I took the groom into the carriage and did what I could in the dark to provide him a dressing. “Do you coach drivers not carry a gun?” I asked.
    “The shot came out of the dark and winged me before I could draw. I wasn’t looking for scamps on a night like this.”
    “Surely a moonless night is the likeliest time for attack?”
    “Moonless, not bloody pouring rain!”
    “How about the man sitting on the perch with you?”
    “Kestrel was driving. The bucks like to take the reins.”
    I was familiar with this strange desire on the part of sportsmen to play at being coach drivers. “Is that his name?” There was, in fact, a hawkish quality to the man’s face—something in those hooded eyes—but he was no small hawk. More an eagle than a kestrel.
    “It’s a title,” the groom replied. “Kestrel’s a lord, one of the Corinthian set.”
    Oddly enough, Ronald had been urging me to ingratiate myself amongst the nobility. There was some discussion the other night about my receiving an order for meritorious public service. Were I a gentleman, Moore felt, I would certainly have been knighted. I would have been well pleased with a lesser token of recognition. Not anything so exclusive as the Most Noble Order of the Garter, but some sovereign recognition of my accomplishments. My being a female was all that prevented it, according to people who know more about such things than I. Only strong noble connections could induce Prinney to reward a lady. It seems the only honor a lady may receive is a pat on the head, unless the sovereign decides to go whole hog and create her a peeress in her own right. This is about as likely as the sky falling in. In any case, I had scotched any possibility of Kestrel’s setting up a lobby to gain me a meritorious order.
    “How far are we from civilization?” was my next concern.
    “Chatham’s ten miles ahead.”
    “There must be something closer than that.”
    “There’s a stretch of hop farms hereabouts. You must have seen the oasthouses—them