Helen Dickson - Highwayman Husband

‘I should have exercised more care and consideration for your youth and inexperience. I hurt you, and for that I implore your forgiveness. I promise not to treat you like that again. Please believe me when I tell you that the next time I make love to you it will be different from before.’ She looked so relieved that he smiled crookedly. ‘You needn’t work yourself up into a fevered anguish. You are reprieved—for now, at least.’

‘Thank you,’ she whispered. ‘I would be grateful if you would allow me a little time. I’m so glad you understand.’ Fixing his gaze on her lips, he smiled, a slow, lazy smile that made her heart leap. ‘Now what are you thinking?’

‘That the reprieve I grant you will be harder for me to bear than it will for you—so do not take too long.’ He lifted a brow in tender mockery. ‘I’m not cut out to be a monk.’

‘No?’ She laughed lightly, teasingly. ‘My mother always used to say restraint is good for the soul.’

‘I doubt your mother was referring to our making love,’ he countered, his gaze caressing her smiling face. The radiance of her smile heartened him.

‘No,’ she replied, pink-cheeked. ‘I don’t suppose she was.’

His eyes glowed warm and he grinned roguishly. ‘You are blushing—that’s charming. I don’t intend to spare your blushes. We know so little about each other, Laura, that we will find it interesting to discover more—and we have all the time in the world to make those discoveries.’

Picking his jacket off the bed, which Laura foolishly realised had been his true reason for crossing to the bed in the first place, and not because he’d had any designs on sharing it with her, he took two objects from the pocket and handed them to her—her sapphire necklace and the silver snuff box he had taken from Edward.

‘I think these belong to you.’

‘I could not understand why you took Edward’s snuff box and left the rest. Why did you?’

‘It was your betrothal gift to him, was it not?’

‘Yes, but I don’t see—’

‘I don’t like my wife presenting gifts to other men,’ he told her sharply.

‘How could you have known I had given it to him—or that he would have it on his person tonight, for that matter?’

‘I didn’t. I took a chance. It was John who told me you had given it to him.’

She frowned crossly. ‘I think I might have told John far too much. Why did you take my necklace?’

‘To make the robbery more convincing—and it pleased me to discover how reluctant you were to part with it.’

‘You took it all the same.’

‘And now I have returned it. And if you are ever accosted by a highwayman again, my pet,’ he chuckled, gently tweaking her cheek, ‘I expect you to guard it with your life.’ Collecting his pipe and tobacco pouch from the hearth, he strode towards the door.

‘I will. I promise. There is just one more thing, Lucas.’ He turned and looked back, waiting for her to go on. ‘Who was your accomplice tonight?’

He didn’t deign to reply, but cocked a brow and looked at her with ill-concealed amusement.

Laura moved closer, determined to find out. ‘Who was it, Lucas? Tell me.’

‘Don’t you know?’

She stared at him through eyes huge with horror and disbelief. She recalled how his accomplice had moved and mounted his horse with less agility than his companion, and with sudden clarity all the pieces of the puzzle fell into place, presenting the whole picture. ‘That was John, wasn’t it? Oh—Lucas, how could you? To take him, as old as he is, on such a dangerous mission—why, the poor man might have had a seizure.’

‘John may be sixty, Laura,’ Lucas said, opening the door, ‘but a doddering old man he is not. He’s as tough as old boots. Besides,’ he said, chuckling softly and with a gleam in his eyes, ‘he enjoyed himself.’

‘Did he, now?’ she said crossly, thinking that master and servant must have slipped into the house unnoticed while she had been telling Edward she wasn’t going to marry him. ‘Well, I shall have plenty to say when I see him in the morning. You see if I don’t.’

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