As the midday sun started to wane and the temperatures dropped to a more comfortable level, the three men in the shadows of the trees prepared themselves for the afternoon’s business. Jack Black had been a Highwayman for these last fifteen years. He was in service as a footman as a lad and came into contact with many of the gentry from the big families. His rugged blonde good looks and healthy physique had made him a special favorite of the ladies. He had bedded many a so-called lady while their husbands were away.

Of course, the unmarried daughters of their lordships were his favorites. Young, nubile, and chaperoned around men of their own class, they were usually wild in the hay when he got the chance to get them alone and out of the house.

Many a daughter had been married off quickly or sent to a convent a couple of months later, after he had knocked them up with his virile cock. The shame of being made pregnant by a servant always kept the girls quiet about who the father was, though, and they tried to pass on the blame to some young lord or other.

Sadly, this good life had ended one day when one of his lordships had returned home unexpectedly to find him bedding her ladyship in her chamber. He had been beaten nearly to death by the master of the house and his guests and left for dead in a bloody pulp in the roadway.

After that, he could never again work in service. Once the story got around, he was personally ostracized by the gentry. Besides the scars he carried on his face from that incident, they had removed his good looks for all time, and no one would want to hire a man with an ugly face to be around their families.

So now aged forty, he made a sort of living on the King’s Highway as a Highwayman, robbing the rich to give to himself. His two helpers were other men of the road who would assist men like him for payment or a cut of the spoils. They were more muscle than brains and incapable of planning heists on their own, but useful to have around to protect one’s back.

He had spent weeks planning this particular heist, and paid out a small fortune for information on the movements of the family involved from servants and family retainers. Lord DeBear and his family always moved from their family estate in London every summer to their summer home in the rolling hills of Kent. His Lordship always made the journey a couple of weeks before the rest of the family, taking the majority of servants with him, along with wagon loads of the possessions that they would need for the summer months.

Once the house had been cleaned and prepared, the rest of the family, his wife and two daughters, would join him, traveling light in a carriage with just their personal clothes and jewel collections. It was this carriage that he was waiting for, in the trees where the road passed through the forest. He was on one side of the road in the trees while his two colleagues were waiting in the foliage on the other side. Their horses were tethered to fallen branches enabling them to graze, although they were still carrying the highwaymen’s equipment ready for immediate mounting.

Finally, the sound of an approaching carriage could be heard through the trees and the men mounted up and got into position. As the carriage drew level, the three men rode out of their hiding places and onto the road. One of the men blocked the track in front of the carriages’ lead horses, while Jack and the other man approached from different sides, level with the driver and coachman sitting on top of the vehicle. All three men had two cocked pistols at the ready and masks covering their faces.

“Stand and Deliver.” Jack shouted at the top of his voice, and at the same time, fired one of his pistols into the air for effect. The carriage driver pulled up sharply on the reins to avoid a collision as the footman reached for a large old blunderbuss weapon under his seat. The man on the other side of the carriage fired one of his pistols at the man, who was hit in the shoulder. As the large lead ball smashed into his body, the man was propelled backwards off the carriage running board, to lie moaning in the dirt on the ground.

The driver was ordered off the carriage, and while Jack and the other man at the side covered both the two men and the carriage doors, the third highwayman approached, dismounted, and tied up the driver and footman to a tree. Once the servants were well and truly secured and gagged, the three highwaymen turned their full attention to the carriage itself. Ordering the occupants to get out with their hands in clear view, while they covered the doors with their pistols in case of any surprises.

The first to get out was the Lady Elisabeth DeBear herself. An attractive woman aged about thirty-six in a long red wig. She had on a high-necked black long-sleeved dress, drawn in to a slim waist, with pearl buttons from the neck down to her waist.

As she stepped down from the carriage, the men caught a glimpse of her black calf-length lace-up boots and a flash of white silk stockings on a pair of shapely legs. Her face looked strangely familiar to Jack, but this was not unusual, as he had met a lot of the gentry at one time or another during his years in service. The woman was made to stand at the rear of the coach while the other occupants disembarked.