“The M-m-m—” the youth stuttered.
“Don’t think to disobey me, laddie,” Simon warned, shaking him in punctuation. “I’ll know. And you won’t like my haunting.”
Simon let him go then, and the youth leapt up on his mount and rode off in a southerly direction without even trying to locate his pistol. Simon laughed, plucking it out of the mud. Staring after the boy, arms akimbo, he stood with Phelps until the sound of hoofbeats grew distant, and the horse and rider were long out of sight. Then, as though nothing untoward had occurred, the valet resumed his seat beside the coachman, and Simon climbed back into the brougham.
“Oh!” Jenna cried, exasperated. “Do you really think Lieutenant Ridgeway is going to appreciate this, Simon—foisting off a thief on him after all he’s done for us?”
“You don’t know Nate,” he replied through a chuckle. “He’ll straighten that little would-be thatchgallows right out. Don’t worry, I’ll write him from Roxburghshire.” He chuckled again. “That poor young ne’er-do-well doesn’t know yet if he’s just had an encounter with flesh or spirit, he was so struck with terror.”
“You can’t save every brigand in the realm, you know.”
“No, surely not, but there’s hope for that one. Poor bungling lack-wit would be dead in a week but for the Marsh Hawk’s ghost.”
“Is that why you put the mask on? I don’t understand.”
“That lesson needed to be taught anonymously, my love,” he replied. “Believe me, the Marsh Hawk was far better suited to the task than the Earl of Kevernwood.” Pulling her closer, he attempted a kiss.
“Ohhhh, no, not until you give me that mask,” she demanded, turning her head aside. If he thought he was going to fox her with his kisses, he had another think coming. She extended her hand, working impatient fingers. “Give it here,” she said with resolution.
He reached into his pocket and withdrew the mask. Serving her one of his irresistible lopsided smiles, he placed it in her open palm, closed her fingers around it, and kissed them gently. When she promptly tossed it through the barouche window, he burst into deep throaty laughter.
“I fail to see the humor in this,” she said frostily.
“The humor in it, my wonderful, beautiful Jenna, is that you presume it to be the only mask I own.”
“Oh!” she cried, pounding his chest with playful fists. “Simon Rutherford, if you ever, even for a moment, entertain the thought of—”
His warm mouth swallowed the rest as he pulled her closer still. It was no use. His kisses held sway over her heart, mind, and soul. And she surrendered to the promise of his passion, melting against the lean, turgid length of him as the coach rumbled on through the misty green darkness toward what promised to be a very provocative future.
Cover
Title
Copyright
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Epilogue