The Most Eligible Bachelor Romance Collection: Nine Historical Romances Celebrate Marrying for All the Right Reasons (33 page)

“This time I will ask before I hold your hand. Or kiss you.”

Lightning sizzled along her nerves. “Well, that is some comfort, I suppose.” She laughed again at the ridiculousness of it, conversing with him like this. “So, how did you become the Highwayman?”

“Oh, my lady.” A rueful laugh, a sigh. “Truth be told, it started by accident….”

The moon stood overhead before a lull brought Sam to the realization of how long they’d talked. He cast an eye upward from his seat beneath an apple tree. Just a few hours till daylight—and he had one errand yet to see to.

He thought about leaving that until he and Jed were on their way south, but he feared delaying it any longer.

Sally’s languid sigh drew him. For that matter, everything she had said and done this night drew him. She sat facing him, braced as before against a tree trunk, head tipped back, eyes closed. “I suppose… I should go back, let you ride away to wherever it is you won’t tell me you’re going.”

“Ha.” He pushed to his feet, reached out to help her up. “It’s I who should let you return to your bed. I imagine a day starts early at Brewster’s.”

There was no hesitation this time when she put her hand in his and swung herself up. Neither did she try to pull away, but stood, studying what she could see of his face in the shadows.

Can you recognize me, Sally? Do you see anything of the man I truly am, beyond this costume?

He wanted her to know, but—as she had said, not yet. Perhaps never, depending upon how badly he’d aroused the magistrate’s ire.

Perhaps he could persuade Sally to come south with him to Charlotte Towne….

And for what? He hardly earned his own keep in his uncle’s household. What did he know that would provide for a wife and someday, God willing, a family?

Sally had begged him not to trifle with her. Was that not what he’d done, in calling on her, in lingering here?

And yet, he could not bring himself to release her hand. Or, it seemed, to stop his free one from cupping her cheek.

She leaned into his touch, her lashes falling for a moment and lips curving. “I don’t even know what to call you.”

He caught himself just in time from replying with his name. “Call me—ungentlemanly.” He dipped his head and lightly kissed the cleft in her chin. Oh, how long he’d wanted to do that.

With a tiny gasp, she went completely still, but did not withdraw.

He brushed his lips across one cheek then the other. “A rogue.” The tip of her nose, charmingly chilled from the cool of the evening. “A man who has, I fear, fallen most unsensibly in love with you.”

Her eyes opened wide. For a moment, time hung suspended, then she stretched to press her mouth to his.

Not stolen this time, but given with her whole heart.

Tipping his head to better meet her kiss, he gathered her against him, and she slid one hand around his neck. Oh, she was melting. She’d never dreamed it could feel so right to be in a man’s arms—or perhaps it was just the moonlight, the hat and coat, and—the loneliness that tore at her, night after night. He smelled faintly of the cedar scent she’d detected that first time, and of leather and green grass.

They broke, but he pressed his cheek to hers, his breath fanning her neck. “Sweet Sally. I cannot ask you to wait for me, but I will find some way to return to you—either as the Highwayman, or as myself. Before the year is out, good Lord willing.”

She could hardly think, let alone respond, except to tighten her arms around him.

“I should have asked if you have any suitors.”

“I do not,” she whispered. Sam did not count—poor lad, whose suit she might have welcomed if—

If she were not standing here, being held—and kissed, again—by the one of whom all the wild tales were told. So much for being sensible.

He drew back a little to look at her. “None? At all?”

“None.”

He stared at her so long she had to fight to not squirm, but at last he drew her close again, tucking her head to his shoulder. “I am glad of it.”

Poor Sam indeed.

Chapter 8

I
t was selfish of him to be glad she claimed no other suitors, but Sam could not deny the soaring of his heart at her words.

Nor the pounding fury that rose in him at the thought of that blackguard Willie Brown threatening to lay hands on her again.

Which was why a certain chief justice needed to know what kind of cur he’d spawned.

He’d seen Sally safely back inside the inn, but not before a last whispered assurance on her part that she did, indeed, welcome his calling on her again, and a last sweet but regrettably short kiss. Then he’d forced himself to hurry away. He’d already claimed far more from her than he’d a right to.

The magistrate’s dwelling was not difficult to find, being the largest and grandest home, on a hillside overlooking the town. Sam tied his horse at the edge of the property and crept forward.

The barking of a hound he silenced with a bit of jerky from his pocket. The stone wall proved no difficulty, either, nor the back entrance to the house.

This was where the lines between justice and vengeance blurred. He and Sally had discussed that very question this night—how to draw such lines—as well as many other things. How did he plan to keep this within the proper limits? He did not know.

Inside the main bedchamber, Sam eased back the draperies around the bed, letting the moonlight illuminate the bulk and features of an older man, flabby but pinched even in sleep. Beside him, an equally portly woman snored.

A woman’s presence might complicate matters. But it could work in his favor as well.

Once he had all the drapes pulled to the bedposts, Sam withdrew to the window, putting the moonlight behind him, and took his whip from the deep pocket of his coat.

“Magistrate Brown,” he said, slowly and clearly, “it is time to awake.”

A snort and a cough interrupted the snoring. Both sleepers inhaled as if surfacing from the depths of their slumber.

Sam repeated the injunction.

Mistress Brown gave a cry, clutching the bedcovers to her neck, as the magistrate startled and half rolled over, reaching for something beside the bed.

“Don’t move, either of you,” Sam said. “My whip is faster than your hand, and I’d hate to injure you before I’ve had my say.”

The man froze, his eyes glinting a bit in the dark. “Who are you?”

“Consider me a voice for the people. Word has it that you, as an official of the Crown, are subverting justice for the sake of lining your pockets.”

Slowly, the magistrate sat up in bed, his face set in hard lines. Beside him, his wife squeaked again. “Hush, Mary. I’ll not let him hurt you.”

Sam snorted. “You promise to protect your own wife, but what about wives and daughters of the men under your jurisdiction?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

A wry chuckle escaped Sam. “Your son and his cronies. Despite what he told you, he was not the innocent party in our little disagreement three weeks ago. Nor was it a chance meeting. I found them harassing the daughter of one of your more well-known citizens. She fears to step forward and make the truth known, because of your habit of favoring the boy.”

The magistrate sniffed. “A coquette, I’m sure. William would do no such thing.”

“And thus you prove my point. I saw his behavior toward her. She is no more the coquette than the goodwife here.”

The other man seemed to consider his words, then lunged for the table beside his bed. Sam was ready, had seen the twitch of the man’s muscles, the shifting of his gaze. With a flick of his lash, he caught the leg of the bedside chest and yanked the piece of furniture across the floor. The magistrate fell with a crash, cursing, then scrambled to his feet.

“Get back in bed,” Sam said, arm lifted for a second stroke. “My lady, do you stay put as well.”

The goodwife sank back to her pillows, and the magistrate sat on the edge of the mattress but made no other move to obey. “Look,” he said, his voice holding the weariness of one not used to being challenged, “if you leave now I promise to make it worth your while.”

“You think I care about coin? Your son is a rogue and a scoundrel who preys on those weaker than him. This is not manhood. Neither is winking at his misbehavior, which you do. You bring shame on yourself and this town by continuing to pretend your son is innocent.”

“You are one to speak,” The magistrate said. “Appearing in a man’s bedchamber at darkest night, terrifying him and his wife. If you want to be heard, petition the court.”

“Your court isn’t listening, Lord Magistrate. Your sense of justice is broken, and your son roves out of control. Any show of righteous indignation you might present me is a mockery of law.”

“The mockery is you standing here, looking like a brigand.”

“Like calls to like, perhaps. But be warned, your townspeople will not suffer this much longer. And if your son is brazen enough to do worse than he already has, I will see to it that he suffers the consequences. Whether that is at my hand, or another’s.”

Without missing a beat, Sam flicked the lash out again, once more catching the table leg, and pulled it farther from the magistrate’s reach. Then he stepped through the open window behind him and disappeared into the night.

The garden wall beckoned just below the balcony on which he perched. Behind him, the house erupted with the magistrate’s bellow and the shriek of his wife. The hound set to baying again. Sam swung easily over the balcony rail and onto the edge of the garden wall then ran the length of the wall to its far edge and over. He’d be well away before the magistrate roused anyone.

The thing now was returning to Jed before dawn, so they’d lose no time making the leg to Brewster’s.

A day at Brewster’s did indeed begin early. Too early. Not that Sally had slept a wink the night before.

The first vivid hues of sunrise rimmed the horizon when Sally decided that further lying abed was useless. She rose, washed and dressed with far more care than earlier, and made her way downstairs to kindle the hearth fires and begin preparations for another day of service at the inn.

A hum stirred in her throat as her hands flew, dividing bread dough and setting it in pans. The memory of the night’s adventure brought a smile to her lips. It was more than the kisses—fervent enough to warm her cheeks even now—but, he’d said he’d return for her. Not soon, possibly. Part of their conversation had involved how folk spoke of his nickname, whether they thought him knave or hero, how he’d never intended either when he’d first begun, but now—

It might have been only a lark at first, she’d suggested, but perhaps God intended his role for something more. Perhaps this matter was larger than the two of them, although it had crossed her mind more than once that their meeting was not by chance.

She’d always believed in God, without question. Whether God truly took notice of her, now, was a different matter entirely. Why would the happiness of one simple innkeeper’s daughter be of His concern?

But she’d been reared on scripture, and scripture said that not even a sparrow fell to the ground without His notice. Perhaps He did care, after all.

A rap on the back door startled her. Who could it be at this hour?