ChapterOne
April 1821
The Bath Road, just after midnight
Lady Lucy Lively’s heart was pounding so hard she almost missed the steady clip-clop of the approaching horse’s hooves.
Dante’shooves, Lucy thought to herself, giddy, staring up at the star-strewn blanket of the night sky.The fact that she knew the name of the black stallion ridden by the most famous highwayman of the age still had the power to steal her breath.
Though nothing was more likely to leave her breathless than the highwayman himself.The Gentle Rogue.
HerGentle Rogue.If Lucy had anything to say about it.
Tonight was the night.
Propping herself up on one elbow to quickly ascertain that all was in place, Lucy nodded in satisfaction at the wagon pulled neatly to the side of the road, with its left hind wheel tilted at a precarious angle.
That had taken her eons to achieve and had worked up quite a bit more of a lather than she’d anticipated, but she’d gotten the blasted wheel off and remembered to hide the crowbar under the quilt in the bed of the wagon so she could use it to fix the wheel when she was ready to return home.
Also secreted under that quilt was a wicker hamper packed with a lovely midnight feast for two, including two glasses and a bottle of her favorite cider.
Lucy hadplans.She even had a plan for the quilt itself.
If her quarry would only appear.
Anticipation swirled with nerves in her belly, filling her up with a fizzing warmth that made her want to jump to her feet and dash down the road to meet him.
But that wasn’t how their game was played.
Instead, Lucy arranged herself on her side, one arm outstretched beneath her head, and closed her eyes.
A light, lilting tune drifted on the breeze.Lucy caught her breath and hitched her skirts high enough to show a completely indecorous amount of silk-stockinged leg.She’d only just fallen still again when the hoofbeats and accompanying baritone voice came near enough for Lucy to make out the tune he was humming.
Molly Brown.So he was in a melancholy mood, then.
Lucy recognized the ballad as one young Flora Pickford liked to sing in the taproom of Five Mile House, the coaching inn Lucy’s family owned and ran.
A terribly sad story, wasMolly Brown, all about a young lover who mistook his sweetheart for a swan and shot her, but then her ghost appeared to the magistrate and begged for his life.
Oh, how it used to make Lucy’s throat clench and her eyes burn when Flora would trill the final line about the poor guilt-stricken swain’s misfortune!Not that she’d let any tears fall.
Lucy remembered looking about the room at all the listening faces, intent and appreciative, nodding and smiling or humming along, and she’d wondered what it meant about her that she felt the tragic romance of the song like a dagger through the heart—but couldn’t seem to muster up much interest in the flesh-and-blood boys she knew.
For Lucy, poems and novels and fairy tales had always felt more real, somehow, than real life.She’d felt more when in the throes of a good book than she ever experienced in day-to-day living.
The objects of every infatuation in her young life had been literary heroes.When other girls tittered and swooned at the sight of a dapper young gentleman across the park or in a crowded tearoom, Lucy had giggled along with them…but she’d never truly felt the pull they described.
How could one feel attracted to a man about whom one knew nothing, other than that a talented valet had the arranging of his hair and cravat?Fine looks had never been enough to catch Lucy’s interest.
But that was Before.
Before Papa died.Before their half-brother cast them out to starve in the hedgerows.Before her older sister, Gemma, descended upon the unsuspecting village of Little Kissington like a glamorous whirlwind, taking over the local coaching inn and using it to snare herself the local duke.
Before the inn’s cook, Bess, had become one of Lucy’s dearest friends, and subsequently another sister when she accomplished the Herculean task of transforming their tyrannical half-brother into a halfway decent human by making him fall violently in love with her.
Before Lucy ran away, causing such a fuss.
Before she met…him.
