Chapter 10

The sun was setting when Bess went out to collect some firewood for the inn that night. The temperature was just starting to drop and a few moths had begun their night-time explorations when she began stacking wood into the old wheelbarrow in order to take her selection to the back door. Since Lady Rochester's coach had been held up a few days previously on the road from town, there had been a few less patrons at the inn. Bess didn't blame people for being apprehensive of venturing onto a road that someone had been attacked on. Perhaps now that several of the highwaymen had been hanged, the townspeople might feel more safe. The thought had just crossed Bess' mind when she heard her name.

She turned and dropped the piece of wood she was holding. "Will…" He was shuffling across the innyard toward her, and Bess hurried across to him, throwing her arms around him as soon as she was close enough. "You're okay!" Bess pressed her face into Will's shoulder as his arms came around her waist, holding her gently. When he didn't say anything, she looked up at him. Had he been into town? Upon seeing the blood dried down the side of his face, she lifted a hand to his cheek. "What happened?"

Will blinked and just looked back down at her and Bess frowned and took his hand. "Come inside." She said, pulling him toward the back door. She glanced over her shoulder as he allowed her to pull him along. He seemed a little dazed and she was worried about what might have happened to him. Roland was in the kitchen, and so Bess led Will out into the inn and to a table by the fire as the inn was not yet open and so the place was empty. He still hadn't spoken and she directed him into a chair. "What happened?" she asked him again, sitting down opposite him. After a moment, he drew a slow breath and frowned.

"I…" he shook his head. "There was a fight… I woke up out on the moor not long ago…"

Bess just looked at him, waiting for him to elaborate on that. Apparently reading her expression, Will tilted his head and began again. "Last night… we… things didn't go to plan… and we were followed… a man found me… Warleggan… He tried to apprehend me… I fought him."

"And what happened?" She asked, looking him over. It wasn't just his head that was bleeding, blood stained his sleeve as well, and Bess' hand crept closer, reaching toward him.

"I don't actually remember." Will murmured, "I… remember running through the dark… and then I woke up not far from here…"

Bess got to her feet and moved closer to inspect the headwound. "Can he identify you?" she asked, tilting his head to better see where the blood was coming from.

"I don't believe so."

"Let me just get something to clean this…" She hurried back into the kitchen to collect what she would need. Was that what had happened to the other members of Will's group? Had they been caught by people who had followed them last night? Had Will been extremely lucky this Warleggan man had not succeeded in apprehending him? Would he also be dead now if he had not gotten away?

Bess put everything she needed on a tray and carried it back out to Will. She set about slowly cleaning the dried blood from his face while he just stared at the fire. "So… am I correct in assuming that you've not been into town?"

Will's brown eyes flicked up to meet her gaze. "I have not."

"Ah…"

"Why?"

Bess bit her lip and put the damp cloth down on the tray. "I'm sorry…" she said, sitting down again. "I went this morning…" she didn't know how to tell him what she had to, and so decided to just say it simply. "This morning the redcoats hung four men they're saying were highwaymen who have been attacking people around the area…" Will's eyes widened and he paled as he stared at her.

"Who?"

Bess shook her head, "I thought you were…" she drew a slow breath, "The only one I recognised was the man with red hair who was with you the night we met…"

"They're dead…?"

She just nodded.

"Four?" He asked softly.

"I'm sorry…"

"Agh…" Will lifted his hands to his hair, tugging on it roughly.

"No…" Bess took his hands in hers and pulled them away from his hair. "Don't…"

His eyes were still wide, and Bess didn't know what to say to him, so she just held onto his hands while he obviously tried to slow his breathing and regain control. "My God…"

"Okay…" she soothed, "You're okay…"

Will's eyes closed and he was still for several minutes. When he opened them and looked at her Bess leaned forward. "Jaimes?" he asked, and she shook her head.

"Jaimes wasn't there."

She jumped when Will got straight to his feet. "I need to go and check on him…"

Catching his wrist, Bess pulled him back down. "You need to let me check you over." She said, "You're bleeding…"

"No.."

"Will…" Bess got to her feet and stared at him, "Sit down." He stared back at her, dark brown eyes on her black. "Sit…" she said more gently, "Jaimes was not among them, therefore he likely got home safely, and he will be safe when you get there. You need to be checked. There's blood all over you." She waited for him to sit back down, hoping that he would as he appeared a little unsteady and she wasn't entirely sure that he would be able to make it back to wherever his house was in his current state. After a moment of apparent hesitation, Will sank back into his seat, and Bess tried to hide her relief.

She moved forward again and began rolling up his sleeve while he just watched her. "Thank you," he murmured, and Bess met his gaze silently for a moment.

"Don't mention it." She began cleaning the cut across Will's arm, sure it was from a rapier and she supposed he must have been very lucky indeed. Working silently, Bess set about bandaging him up wondering if he would be leaving now. If his friends were all hanging in town, perhaps he and Jaimes and whoever else was left would leave the area. "Warleggan…" she began, now clearing the blood from his face and hair, "Is he dead?"

"I don't know." Will told her, "I don't remember killing him."

"I suppose if he cannot identify you, it doesn't really make a difference." Bess washed her cloth out and Will nodded his agreement. When she had cleared all the blood away, and discovered that the wound was mostly superficial, she applied a salve and began packing everything away. She had picked her tray up and turned to take it away when she noticed her father standing not far behind her, watching silently. "Uh…" Bess fell silent, not able to come up with anything to explain what was happening right away. Her father's dark eyes moved over her and then over Will, and Bess knew when he got to the blood stained clothing.

"Bess…" he said, his voice low.

Bess found her feet apparently frozen to the ground, and she just looked up at her father, "He needed…"

"I see that."

She knew her eyes were wide and she couldn't seem to do anything about it. Her father moved closer, and Bess figured that a good way out of whatever this situation might become was with some good old fashioned civility. "Papa, do you know Will?"

"I recognise him." Her father replied, his eyes going back to Will. Bess' breath caught in her throat. Surely her father couldn't know what Will did, although she was sure that he had overheard some of the conversation she had just had with the highwayman. Relief flooded through her when her father inclined his head toward Will. "I have no love for the redcoats and their actions toward the people of this county… You are welcome here."

Will sat slightly straighter and nodded his head, "Thank you, Sir…" Bess nodded her agreement when Will's eyes flicked questioningly to her. He looked back to her father and smiled. "That is kind…" Bess' own smile spread across her face as she looked at her father, pride swelling in her. She hadn't thought that he would be the kind of man to call the redcoats down on Will, but to make the offer of being welcome here, to provide a safe place, because he too saw what was happening in the town and surrounding areas, was wonderful. She truly loved her father, and moments like this were a reminder of what a beautiful man he was. Flinging her arms around her father's neck, she hugged him tightly. "You'll have to be more discreet than this, however." Her father continued, gesturing at the tray of bloodied water and cloths. Bess nodded again, releasing him.

"Yes, of course. I was going to shift it right now."

Will got to his feet, pulling his coat on. "And I must go." Trying to look carefully at him to determine if the man were still disoriented, Bess bit her lip. She really had no cause to keep him here, and it seemed a little cruel to try and keep him from checking on his friends after what he had learned. Her father lifted the tray she was holding from her hands and nodded toward the door.

"See your friend out, I'll put this away."

She led Will slowly to the door as her father disappeared back into the kitchen. "Your father really is a good man…"

"Yes." She murmured, "He has always had compassion for others." Drawing her braid over her shoulder, Bess fiddled with it as she looked across the innyard and out onto the purple moors. The moon had risen full and moonlight was bathing the landscape an eerie paleness. "People often tell him their troubles, with his job." She continued, "Both people he has known for years and strangers passing through. He hears a lot about the worst bits of people's lives… so, I really should not have been surprised that he would agree with you. He often has talked to me about dreading the patronage of the redcoats… I doubt he would join you, but I would suggest that if you need a safe place or somewhere to hide, you would find it here." She looked up at him, "Do you think you'll be safe after last night?"

"Yes." He told her gently, a hand coming to brush against the end of her dark braid, the dark red ribbon he had given her trailing from it and catching in the light breeze, "I've not been identified. Nobody has reason to press me."

Bess' fingertips traced the sleeve of his coat. "Don't disappear on me." She told him, and Will smiled briefly at that.

"I'd not think of it."

Bess could sense Will's eagerness to be gone. He wanted to go and check on Jaimes, and so she did not seek to hold on to him any longer. Taking a step back, she smiled at him and let him go. Will bent and pressed a quick kiss to her cheek before he had turned and hurried away into the dark and she was left staring after him, wondering if she should have offered him the use of a horse. Will didn't strike her as the kind of person who would shy away from asking if he had have needed something, however, and so she simply turned and headed back inside.

The moment Bess was through the door, she spotted her father sitting at the bar waiting for her. Pushing her braid over her shoulder, she walked over to him and sat on the stool to his right. "Papa…"

The man turned to look at her and Bess could easily read the wariness in his face. "So, I'm just going to ask you a few questions, Bess." He told her, "I just want you to talk with me about this."

Frowning, Bess agreed. "Alright."

"How long have you known that man?"

"Since the night he first came here with some of his friends…"

"And how often have you seen him?"

"Whenever he has come here…" Bess replied, "Also, he was the one who brought me home that day the storm caught me out on my walk…"

"Have you known he was a highwayman the whole time?"

"No… only since Lady Rochester's coach was held up."

"And yet you trust him."

"I do…"

Bess' father nodded. "I must admit I have heard talk of these highwaymen and what they do with the money they steal." He ran a hand through his thick hair, "Thomas Beider's widow and children were given a new roof this last week, and food to last them until next season…"

"That is good news…"

"It is." Her father mused, "I meant what I said. The people helping these things come about are welcome here, but they need to be discreet. If it is known we harbour these men, we will both likely hang along with them."

"I understand." Bess nodded, trying not to picture the men she had seen swinging from the noose in town, but unable to prevent it just the same. She shuddered at the thought of being made to stand before the towns people on the gallows while she waited to be dropped to her death. That was not the way she wanted to go.

"Will…" her father began slowly, "You like him?" Bess met her father's gaze and knew what he meant by this question, so there was no point even pretending she had misunderstood him.

"I… I think I do." She replied, "Which is confusing, I know. I know that I haven't even known the man for six months, and that we have probably only had a dozen or so real conversations." She absently drew her braid over her shoulder and began winding the end of the red ribbon around her finger, "But he appears to understand me better than most, and I find him more interesting than any of the other kinds of men that I meet night after night here in the inn…" Bess bit her lip as she looked at her father, "He has different experiences, and he knows of the world…" Her father was just nodding now, and Bess fell silent.

"As long as you trust him…" the man eventually said softly, "And he behaves as a gentleman should toward you…"

"Of course." Bess nodded, "I think that is his way." She watched her father process what she had told him and nod decisively. Bess had always been grateful for the open and honest relationship she had had with her father since her mother had died. As it had only been the two of them and they had only had each other, it had become essential that they had become this way. It made things far easier, and each always knew where the other was at in their thoughts and decisions. "Thank you, Papa." She said, leaning across to hug him on his stool. Bess' father returned the hug tightly, and she smiled, feeling secure. She really did have the best father in the world. `