“You don’t have to spread the word to everyone,” Alex said as he pulled on the boots.
Nick shrugged. “There is no one here but my cousin and his wife.”
“And a hundred or so servants.”
“What do they matter?” He looked up from the trunk to a servant who held out a large, black-dyed ostrich plume.
“The countess sends her regards,” the servant said before leaving the room.
Within minutes Nick had Alex dressed in black. He cut holes in the handkerchief and tied it about the lower half of his friend’s face, then set a large tricorn hat on his head. The plume curled about the brim, a few tendrils hanging over Alex’s forehead.
“Yes,” Nick said, standing back and admiring his work. “Now, what do you plan? To ride about the streets and frighten the men and kiss the girls?”
“Something of the sort.” Now that he was dressed, Alex wasn’t sure what he’d originally planned.
“There is a horse in the stables, a beautiful black. It’s in the end stall. When you return, we will drink to…the Raider. Yes, we will drink to the Raider. Now go and have your fun and return soon. I am hungry.”
Alex smiled and then followed Nick’s directions down to the stables. Under the cover of darkness, he faded into nothing in the black clothing, and as he moved about, he began to have a sense of purpose. He thought of the soldiers pulling the girl into the alley and he thought of Josiah losing his ship. Josiah had taught the three Montgomery boys to tie their first knots.
The horse Nick recommended was an angry devil that had no desire for any man to ride it. Alex pulled it around, then mounted, fought for—and won—control of the beast. They shot out of the stables and headed toward the streets.
Alex moved the horse quietly along the outskirts of the main street and watched for a place where he might be useful. It didn’t take him long to find it. Outside a tavern, a pretty young woman, her arms full of small kegs of beer, was being surrounded by seven drunken soldiers.
“Give us a kiss,” one man said. “Just one little kiss.”
Alex didn’t waste time before spurring his mount from the shadows and into the group. The horse, its feet flying, was nervous enough to make the men stop and take notice, but the man clad in black on top, his head silhouetted by the lamplight made them step back in fear.
Alex hadn’t considered how he would disguise his voice, but when he spoke, he spoke with the accent of an upperclass Englishman, not with the flat voweled English that had developed in America over the last hundred years.
“Try someone your own size,” Alex said and drew his sword as he advanced on two of the men who were stepping backward, away from the apparition and the angry black horse.
Deftly, Alex removed the buttons off the uniform of first one man, then the other. The buttons clattered on the cobblestone street and the horse crushed one under its iron-clad hoof.
Alex backed the horse away, already moving into the shadows. He knew that he had surprise on his side and that as soon as these men recovered their senses, they’d attack or call for help.
He swung his sword through the air with a loud whoosh and brought it to rest under the chin of another soldier. “Think before you harass an American again or the Raider may find you.” He pulled his sword tip down the man’s uniform, carefully laying it open to his skin, but not so much as scratching the man.
With that, Alex laughed, a laugh of pure pleasure, a feeling of triumph surging through him that he had the upper hand with these overbearing louts who traveled only in packs. Still smiling beneath his mask, he turned his horse and headed down the street at a breakneck pace.
But no matter how fast he was going, he couldn’t outrun the bullet that was fired at his back. He felt something hot tearing through his shoulder. His head flew backward and the horse reared, but he managed to hang on.
He turned back to the woman and soldiers still standing there, one of the men holding a smoking pistol in his hand. “You’ll never catch the Raider,” he said with triumph in his voice. “He’ll haunt you day and night. You’ll never be free of him.”
He was wise enough not to press his luck any longer but turned the horse and tore down the street. Shutters on the houses were beginning to open and people were looking out just in time to see a man in black fly past their windows. Behind him, Alex could hear a woman, probably the barmaid he’d rescued, shouting something, but he was too concerned about his bleeding shoulder to hear what she was saying.
He rode the horse to the edge of town and knew that he had to get rid of the animal. As he was, he was too conspicuous atop the black devil. Near the docks, in the shelte
r of the confusion of the ships and ropes, he dismounted, slapped the horse on the rump and watched it head back toward its stables.
Alex couldn’t see his shoulder, but he could feel that he was losing a great deal of blood and he knew that he was losing strength rapidly. The nearest point of safety was Nick’s ship, docked not far away and guarded by Nick’s crew.
Weaving between the ships and keeping himself hidden, he listened to the increasing pitch of the people in the streets. It seemed that the entire town was coming out of their houses and joining in the search. When he reached Nick’s lugger, he prayed that the Russian crew would allow him on board. The Russians could be as fierce as they were loving.
But Alex need not have feared, for one of the crewmen saw him and swung down to the dock to help him aboard. Maybe they were used to their master’s friends arriving in the middle of the night wearing blood soaked shirts. Alex didn’t remember much after the sailors helped him aboard the ship and half carried him into the hold.
* * *
Alex opened his eyes to see the familiar swing of a lamp as it swayed to the rhythm of the sea.