Page 94 of Thief Taker

By five o’clock it was dark and they’d taken up position in a copse by the side of the Bath Road, the winter trees sparse and bony around them. The morning’s bluster had sunk away, taking with it the clouds, and it was a calm and moonlit night.

An ill night for business such as theirs.

“This damned moon,” Hartwell grumbled as they waited. In its pallid light, Kit could see the gleam of his eyes. It washed his tanned skin of colour, rendering him stark against the black of his cocked hat and the scarf he’d soon use to hide his face.

Kit didn’t like the moonlight either—too easy to be recognised, too easy for one of Marlborough’s men to get a clean shot. Entirely too dangerous, and on any other night they’d not take the risk. “We don’t have a choice,” he said, to himself as much as to Ned. “They’ll be in Slough and tucked up at the Black Horse before the moon’s set.”

Hartwell grunted his agreement. “Doesn’t mean I have to like it.”

Kit shrugged and began examining his pistol to distract himself from the anxious wait. It was cleaned, loaded, and primed—he’d already checked it a dozen times. He hoped he wouldn’t need to use it for anything more than stopping the coach, but he couldn’t deny that the prospect of pointing it at Marlborough gave him a certain satisfaction. To see the man scared, to see him beg, would be something. Kit’s pride had been injured after Marlborough knocked him down outside Salter’s. It was unworthy, perhaps, given everything else, but he would enjoy redressing the balance. Even if Marlborough didn’t know who held the gun.

His lips curled towards a smile, the devilish anticipation of a raid beating fast in his chest. There was no denying that he relished the daring and the danger—even the risk. What did it say of him, that he could defy the law so easily and with such little compunction? Moreover, that he enjoyed doing so…

Next to him, Hartwell’s horse huffed and stepped a few paces. Ned leaned forward, a gloved hand to her neck soothing her. But Kit sensed it too, a spike in tension like lightning arcing across the sky ahead of the thunder.

“A coach,” Hartwell said softly, sitting up and pulling the scarf over his mouth and nose. “It’s him.”

Kit adjusted his own scarf. “Are you sure?”

There was a pause while Hartwell listened, and in the still silence Kit heard it too—the distant beat of hooves, a team of at least four, the trundle of coach wheels over the rutted road. They would have to travel slowly here, the winter roads making it treacherous for horses and wheels alike. It’s why Wessex favoured this particular stretch of the road, after all.

“Yes,” Hartwell said eventually. “It’s them, but—” He listened, frowned, then shook it off. “It’s them, I’m certain.”

“Then this is it,” Kit said and for a moment they stared at each other, both hidden beneath cocked hats and scarves, two rogues on the road. Kit held out his hand to Hartwell. “Good luck, my friend.”

Hartwell took his hand, a firm shake. “I’ll see you back at Marylebone. Don’t be late.”

Kit couldn’t see his mouth, but a smile glittered in his eyes before he turned his horse and circled around to position himself behind the coach. Heart racing faster than the approaching horses, Kit walked Nero into the road as usual. Despite the icy night, sweat slicked his skin as he steadied the horse and drew his pistol. It gleamed silver in the moonlight and he cursed Ned’s ostentatious choice; if it gave him away too early, gave Marlborough’s coachman time to reach for his weapon…

No matter. There was no option but to carry on, and no second chance. Everything was at stake and he was going to make damned sure he came out the winner.

Positioning himself with the most commanding view of the road, he waited until the coach lights appeared in the distance. Hidden by a bend in the road, and the copse that loomed alongside, he could only see the lights as they flickered ghostly through the trees. The rumble of hoof beats was growing closer. He flexed his hand around the pistol and waited…waited…

The coach rounded the corner, lamps swaying, a gold motif on its door catching the moonlight. Marlborough’s crest. Kit held himself still another moment longer, then raised his pistol and fired.

The gunshot cracked the night, the flash lighting everything starkly for a heartbeat. Then there was cursing from the coachman as he struggled with the startled horses, the carriage careening towards the side of the road. Kit watched, as he always did, and reloaded his pistol, as he always did.

But this time his blood was pumping with banked triumph, and he could hardly keep still. This was Marlborough: the man who had ruined James, and through him their whole family. And tonight, Kit would have his revenge. He could hardly wait for the carriage to stop, for the moment Marlborough understood that here, at least, he had no power.

So fixed was he on the coach trundling to a stop that he didn’t realise anything was amiss until he heard Hartwell shout. “Wessex!”

Kit’s head jerked up. At first, he didn’t know what he was seeing, but then he realised it was a second carriage rounding the corner, light and fast and travelling unlit behind Marlborough. Madness, to traverse these roads at night without lights.

He cursed. But there was nothing to do but hold both carriages; he wasn’t going to let Marlborough escape for the sake of some drunken fop racing his curricle.

The curricle was already stopping, and he left Hartwell to take care of it. Didn’t matter, though; whoever they were, they’d be on their way as soon as Kit got back what was rightfully his.

Keeping his pistol aimed, he walked Nero forward. Adopting the American accent he used for Wessex, he spoke to Marlborough’s driver, “I don’t want to hurt you, sir. But if you reach for your weapon, I will need to disarm you. Think carefully about whether your master would risk as much for you.”

The coachman hesitated, one hand stretched out towards the gun on the box at his side. It was easily within reach, but he didn’t move.

Wise man.

Kit spared a quick glance for the curricle—the silver of Hartwell’s pistol gleamed in the moonlight where he aimed it at the driver.

Turning back to Marlborough’s coach, Kit tapped on the window with the muzzle of his pistol. “Your money and your valuables, if you please.” Beneath his scarf, Kit smiled as he imagined the man’s outrage. It was all he could do not to crow out loud. “Come, come, sir. I don’t have all night.”

There was a moment of silence, and then the window dropped. Marlborough’s face appeared, pale with outrage rather than fear. Kit should have expected it; a man like Marlborough was not easily frightened.