Pryor Cousins

Chapter 2

“Did you see that, mes amies?” Minette asked, in the dark, swaying closeness of the carriage.

mes amies“I saw a number of things,” Ella replied. “Which one are you referring to?”

“That is rather the question,” Arthur rumbled, from his corner of the carriage.

isElla nodded, although it was too dark for either of her companions to see that gesture.

Minette and Arthur had been their usual marvelous unflappable selves, setting up such a fuss that the highwaymen had been on the verge of abandoning them to seek easier prey . . . and then that had happened. Although Ella wasn’t quite certain what that had been.

thatthat“His punch sent the fellow clear across the road,” Arthur said. “Five or six yards. Not sure if that’s possible, not without a rope and pulley.”

Ella agreed: she didn’t think it was possible. The highwayman had pitched across the road as if a giant invisible hand had grabbed the back of his coat and yanked.

She’d also seen the same highwayman fling himself over his horse and land in the dirt on the other side, which could conceivably happen if a man were panicked enough, but . . . three times?

Again, it made one think of giant invisible hands.

And then there’d been that stone. She could have sworn that Mr. Pryor hadn’t thrown anything, but she’d definitely seen a stone strike the final horse’s rump.

Which brought one back to invisible hands.

“What happened to le troisième brigand?” Minette asked.

le troisième brigand“Who knows,” Ella said, but something obviously had happened to the third highwayman, because there’d been that plaintive “Help,” from back in the trees. What had Pryor done to the man, and how?

hadShe frowned. Decimus Pryor had singlehandedly defeated three highwaymen. Without a weapon. It did seem rather unlikely. Pryor was a dilettante, not a soldier. He was skilled at flirting, not fighting.

But the alternative, that he’d had help from an invisible person—a giant?—a ghost?—seemed even more unlikely.

“I think . . . I shall invite him to take tea with us tomorrow afternoon.”

“An interrogation?” Arthur inquired.

“An interrogation,” Ella agreed.

Minette gave a delighted clap of her hands. “We shall pluck out his secrets like a worm from its shell!”

There was a beat of silence; then Arthur said, “Snail.”