From the look on his face, he was quite aware of everything Lucy wasn’t saying.Aware, and amused by it.
Do not become distracted, Lucy lectured herself as she retreated into stoic silence for the rest of the interminable dinner party.She didn’t allow Thornecliff to draw her into any more verbal sparring matches, despite his various inciting comments, and at length he finally departed.
Retiring to her bed soon after, pleading travel weariness, Lucy settled into the soft, familiar mattress and stared up at the ornate plasterwork adorning the ceiling of her bedchamber as the rest of the house settled into quiet outside her door.
She wondered again what Thornecliff was about, making up to her brother and turning Bess’s head by pretending to have nice manners and a newfound—and completely implausible—interest in charity.
But she had not come home to England to bandy words with depraved dukes.Lucy thrust Thornecliff from her thoughts with a sense of relief.
She had chapters to write.She had a public—and a publisher—to satisfy.She had a sister-in-law to aid and comfort, and a niece to befriend and care for.
And she had a highwayman to hunt down.
Lucy Lively was back.All grown up, and ready to meet her destiny.
ChapterThree
The Gentle Rogue had been eluding capture for years.He was notoriously slippery.He worked alone, unlike many highwaymen, and no one on earth seemed to have the slightest notion of who he was or how to find him.
No one except Lucy.
She’d finished her new chapter ofThe Midnight Rider.Lucy wasn’t entirely happy with it; some of the transitions felt rushed and she worried she’d overdone the dialogue, but there was no time to dither.She had to get the chapter to her publisher, so that it would be printed and run in the newspaper, and The Gentle Rogue would have a chance to read it.
That was how she’d find him.
Early on in her obsession with The Gentle Rogue, years ago, she’d realized that he read his own press.To help her sister, Gemma, in her attempt to turn their coaching inn into a thriving stop along the Bath Road, Lucy had hit upon the idea of embellishing The Gentle Rogue’s legend by writing a story that claimed he stole kisses as well as purses.
It wasn’t true, but Lucy thought it would be good publicity and would make people flock to the Bath Road in hopes of a run-in with the famous highwayman—and she’d been right!
She’d also found out that, after her article ran inThe London Observator, The Gentle Rogue did begin to bestow kisses upon the prettier ladies he robbed.
The thrill of power she’d felt in that moment still took her breath away.But it could’ve been a coincidence, so Lucy had tested it out.She’d next submitted an article claiming The Gentle Rogue had a lovely singing voice…and, lo and behold, reports began to come in from his actual victims, claiming they’d heard him humming and whistling while going about his business of relieving them of their valuables.That had clinched it.
The Gentle Rogue liked to read about himself in the papers.And…he was suggestible.
It wasn’t until after Lucy met him in person, that night she ran away from Ashbourn House and he found her and helped her get home to Little Kissington, that she realized she could use what she’d learned to make certain their paths crossed again.
She wrote a new piece for the paper, and she made sure to include in it a very specific tidbit: that The Gentle Rogue was known to haunt a particular stretch of the Bath Road right outside Thatcham.
The night after that article ran in the paper, Lucy had snuck out of Five Mile House and ridden the coaching inn’s big, placid draft horse to Thatcham.And there he was.
It had worked.
From then on, whenever Lucy wanted to see The Gentle Rogue, she dropped a location into a newspaper article and turned up there herself.It didn’t work every single time, but often enough that she’d successfully lured him out to meet her five times before he’d finally told her it was over.Before he’d sent her away to grow up.
Well, she’d gone.And now she was back, and though she had no idea if her old method of planting a suggestion for The Gentle Rogue to find would succeed, she had to try.
Even if it seemed she wasn’t the only one hunting The Gentle Rogue.
She’d found out only after she turned in the new chapter ofMidnight Riderwith its insinuation that The Gentle Rogue had been seen on the Maidenhead Bridge.
Her editor’s face flashed across Lucy’s mind, as he’d appeared in those brief moments earlier this week at the end of her visit to the print shop.
With his ubiquitous pipe clamped between his teeth and his dark brows lowered over his sharp brown eyes, Mr.Jeremiah Singh was not a man given to dramatics.
So when he’d taken her aside at the end of her visit to issue a warning, Lucy had felt a distinct chill pass through her.
“Bloke came round,” he’d said briefly, gaze shrewd and watchful on her face.“A Sir Colin Semple.Said he was an agent of the Crown.Looking for information on the author of our paper’s most popular feature,The Midnight Rider.He seemed to think the author might be able to help him catch a real highwayman.”
