The year is 1862.
Within the seaborne nation known as the British Isles there exists the northern coast of Wales and its holdings of Denbigh and Caernarfon: maritime Counties bounded north by the Irish Sea. The mountains of the Clwydian Range rise 2500ft behind the hilly counties of the coastland. There is level ground along the coastal strip.....and on this coastal strip sloping towards its crescent wide beaches curves the Abergele Road.
It runs from the ancient sea village of Llandudno beside the Colwyn Bay to Pensam and tens of miles beyond...to Liverpool in England. Along this limestone and green coast are castles estates, farms and abbeys built centuries ago...marked by the towering point of Great Orme ....named by Vikings...appearing to them as a dragon's head in the fog.
Abandoned Llandudno castle on its point with the town at its foot...the Abergele road runs east towards the wilderness if the Welsh coast.
On that Abergele Road , under a quarter moon, a rider stood his mount across the cobbled road poised on the high ground with pistols brandished , rapier sheathed at his belt. he bade the carriage warning lest it proceed further and had its driver and guard sitting in the rockrose hedge before its passenger was noticed. trotting to its door, he leaned to its handle and demanded her exit. When she refused, the rider dismounted to forcibly remove a furious maiden amid a flurry of insults. Even in the night her eyes were fire, the flaxen hair spilling from beneath her shawl forswearing the righteous anger of her father and his men when this grievous assault was reported...."And surely it will be!" she pointed her finger, her spirit the epitome of a righteous indignation that only could come from her wealthy status.
She fell to silence when the cowled stranger threatened to take more than her jewels if she couldnt control herself yet more than the threat: the intonation of his voice was nothing like the northern Welsh of the county, and his words: English of an accent unfamiliar.
" You will still your tongue and relieve yourself of every jewel and ring, my lady. " he demanded while emptying a satchel of its monetary contents.
With a flourish, he separated the carriage and its occupants from their valuables, freed the horses from their tack, sent them galloping afield by a rump-slap with the flat of his sword, mounted and without turning back :rode the slope towards the darkened beach of Colwyn Bay, leaving them staring into darkness as the rider disappeared.
" We will HUNT HIM DOWN. I WILL HANG HIM IN THE ROAD!" her father stood and slammed both fists onto his table . He had sent his men across the counties to track down the highwayman...for weeks... to the frustration of the wealthy Landowner the bandit remained elusive. Had his beautiful daughter not kept her silence, Elam Raven might well have had the highwayman in his clutches in short order.
But Jenny, the only of the three who heard the bandit's voice, had also seen the dark mischief in the man's eyes...had felt his hand in her wrist, had sensed the man gently assisting her carriage exit with a hand placed on her lower back, had felt him brush lightly against her in the altercation...and knew his height and stone. Keeping her awake nights; she kept these memories in her heart. And when, weeks later, her father boarded ship for purchasing in Liverpool, she made it her duty to find him.
Without inquiries, her eyes searched the faces of her countrymen for strangers; for Llandudno couldn't have many. That sabbath she saw him...KNEW it was the same man... and the thrill that coursed through her veins both shamed and ruled her actions...unable to keep from it; she approached him there in the street.
" Sir, " she stopped him, her voice trembling. How with all the authority mustered at their last meeting, did her confidence fail her now in broad daylight?, " I know you, sir."
