Free 06.The Penniless Peer (The Eternal Collection) by Cartland Barbara Page A

under one of your riding-caps, I promise you I shall look a most ferocious Highwayman.”
    She turned the mask over in her hands.
    “This only covers the upper part of our faces,” she said. “I believe that Highwaymen always wear a black scarf which they can pull up over their chins. That means only their mouths can be seen and it is very difficult to recognise a person by their mouth only.”
    “You are right,” Lord Corbury cried. “I have a scarf somewhere which will be just what we need. And anyway I will wear my oldest clothes.”
    Fenella was just going to say that she thought however old his clothes he would look extremely elegant in them, because with his good figure, it was difficult for him to look anything else. Then she decided it was best for him to take a lot of trouble to disguise himself.
    She could not help feeling that if she saw Periquine however well he was masked she would recognise him.
    There was something about his broad shoulders and narrow hips, the manner in which he walked and sat a horse, the carriage of his head and his whole lithe athletic body which made him different from other men.
    Very different indeed from Sir Nicolas. Different too, she was sure, from the majority of his contemporaries.
    Yet there was no use in splitting straws. Periquine was intent on this escapade and although she was a little doubtful of its being successful, she knew that any arguments she might present were not likely to prove effective.
    Every time he saw Hetty it made him more anxious to marry her and more infuriated with his impecunious position.
    The five thousand pounds they had left from their robbery were not going to last for ever. In fact Fenella had the feeling that Periquine would soon spend it, not on riotous living, but on the sheer necessities of everyday existence at the Priory.
    ‘We have to have some money somehow,’ she thought to herself as she went upstairs thinking of what lay ahead.
    It was true quite a lot of Highwaymen were hanged, but at the same time there were undoubtedly a large number of them still at large. She could only hope they would be lucky.
    She gave a little sigh.
    “And if we fail — we fail together,” she whispered to herself. “I do not mind hanging if I am hanged beside Periquine.”

Chapter Four
    It was a misty evening with a promise of rain and the small wood seemed dark and drear.
    Lord Corbury however was in high spirits and Fenella could not help thinking he looked a romantic figure with his black mask and a black silk handkerchief lying on his chest ready to be pulled up over his chin.
    “What do you wager we will take in our first haul?” he asked.
    “If they are carrying many valuables, they will undoubtedly do their best to protect them,” Fenella replied.
     “Still afraid that I shall have a piece of lead blown through me?” he asked mockingly.
    “I am sure that having survived the war your luck will remain proverbial,” she replied. But she wished she felt a little more optimistic in herself.
    It seemed to her a really foolhardy adventure with nothing planned, with no knowledge of what they were up against, and however much she might try to ignore it the shadow of the gibbet lay over the whole escapade.
    Lord Corbury was riding a stallion which was such a fine piece of horseflesh that Fenella felt nervously it was an animal that no-one would be likely to forget.
    And she herself in riding-breeches was astride a roan on which her father had expended quite a considerable sum.
    He never economised where horseflesh was concerned, or indeed when it came to anything that appertained to his own comfort.
    His only economies, Fenella thought a little bitterly, lay in feminine fancies and her own in particular.
    Lord Corbury’s horse was a little restive despite the fact that they had ridden for over an hour to reach their present destination.
    He had chosen the place because although it was not on a highway, it was on a fairly frequented road lying