“Stand and deliver!”
* * *
Gabriel de Vere, Duke of Thornecliff, watched the curricle’s approach and wondered if he would ever again feel the surge of exultation that he used to derive from his midnight rides.
It had been the better part of a decade, and it had lasted longer than many of the other things he’d tried.All-night parties, gambling, orgies, drunken routs, illicit boxing rings—he’d do anything that kept him awake long enough that when he finally tipped into bed as the sun was coming up, he’d sleep without dreams.
He’d thought being The Gentle Rogue was the perfect solution, and of course it had also carried the benefit of an infusion of ready cash when he needed it most.But his finances looked very different now than they had when he began, and it turned out even highway robbery became a chore if one kept at it for long enough.
He wasn’t entirely certain what had pushed him to take up the mask tonight.Perhaps it was sheer, cursed stubbornness.A recent crackdown had sent another highwayman to the gallows this past week—rest in peace, Swift Nick—and Thorne’s sources indicated that whoever was behind this most recent arrest would not be satisfied until every last highwayman had been apprehended.
So of course Thorne saddled Dante and tied on his mask and rode out, thumbing his nose at the law and daring Fate to do her worst.He’d almost hoped for a hair-raising chase, a close call that might set his blood pumping and clear his head.
Instead, he’d stood here brooding on this bridge for a solid hour without a single traveler happening along to break up his boredom, and his head had remained full the entire time, as it had every minute of every day since that irritating dinner at Ashbourn House.
Full of Lucy Lively, the most aggravating chit in all of London.
This was not the moment to contemplate what he had thought when he saw her again after so long.Oh, he had to admit that her tall, willowy form had grown into all the grace hinted at by her earlier adolescent gawkiness.
The porcelain radiance of her skin was burnished gold by the Tuscan sun.The mahogany sheen of her hair had gleamed in the candlelight while the red of her lips made him wonder if her nipples would be the same tart berry color.
And those fine eyes of hers, blue as the heart of the hottest flame, had flashed with the same animosity that had always simmered between them.
At least, in the light of day.Their night-time rendezvous, on the other hand…
Thorne enjoyed knowing things about people.He collected information—what some people called gossip—the way a magpie collected shiny trinkets.It had served him well in the past, that natural instinct honed by years of study and practice.
And what he wanted most to know about Lady Lucy Lively was this: Was she still infatuated with The Gentle Rogue?
Her feelings for the Duke of Thornecliff—namely, hatred—certainly hadn’t been dimmed by the passage of years.
He took a certain amount of pride in that, but he couldn’t dwell on it now.
The Gentle Rogue had a task to perform, and with any luck it would be enough to distract Thorne from his contemplation of the exact shade of Lucy Lively’s nipples.
Spurred on by the thought, he urged his horse forward.
“Stand and deliver!”
The little curricle halted at once, the driver exercising admirable control of the horses.Thorne peered through the fog but could only make out a shadowy shape, and the exceptionally fine quality of the pair of matched Thoroughbreds.
Thorne kneed his mount past the grays to draw alongside the driver’s box.Closer now, he saw with a shock that the driver appeared to be female.
A woman, all on her own, in the middle of the night.And handling the nervously dancing grays as though she’d been born with a whip in her hand.
For some reason, a frisson of something traced down the nape of his neck like a single soft fingertip.Foreboding, perhaps.
It can’t be.
But it was.A breeze swept up, dispersing the mists, and the woman calmly transferred the reins to one hand so she could take down her hood with the other.
Lady Lucy Lively smiled at him.
“You,” he growled, the word scraped out of him without thought.
Her smile never faltered.“Did you miss me?”
How the devil was she here?And how in the name of God had she known to findhimhere?
