All the prickly, incensed aggravation he’d felt while sparring with her over the dinner table threatened to swamp him, raising Thorne’s blood and making his heart beat faster.Was he never to be free of this damned woman?
He fell back on the part he played.Pitching his voice deliberately rougher, in the tones he used whenever he robbed someone who knew the Duke of Thornecliff, he said, “Why?Did you go somewhere?”
She narrowed her eyes.“To the Continent.I went on a Grand Tour of France and Italy.I thought of continuing on to Athens or perhaps Constantinople, but in the end I decided I’d been away long enough.”
Long enough for what?
The question hung in the air between them, unspoken.Thorne had a feeling he didn’t want to hear the answer.
“I don’t suppose you have anything worth stealing, have you?”he asked tersely.“Only I’ve been at this bridge all evening without a nibble and I’d prefer the entire night wasn’t wasted.”
Lucy blinked.“You’ve never taken anything from me before.”
Not true.He’d taken a kiss, and very nearly quite a bit more than that.He still didn’t know why he’d done it—or why his long-dormant conscience decided to rouse itself on her behalf all those years ago when she’d attempted to throw herself away on him.
“Times have changed, Lively.No one gets a free pass these days.”
“Highwaymanning not going well?”she inquired solicitously.
“I do fine,” he muttered, annoyed all over again.He needed to keep this moving.“But I have expenses, like everyone.Where’s your purse?”
“Didn’t bring one.Sorry to disappoint.”
“No need to apologize.I never leave a robbery with nothing.”
The pink of her flush looked darker in the moonlight.She was thinking about being kissed.“It would’ve been sheer folly to travel with a heavy purse.After all, I heard there was a famous highwayman along this stretch of road.”
“Famous.”He brushed a speck of dirt from the sleeve of his black velvet coat.“The papers make such a fuss of my exploits.”
“Oh yes,” she agreed readily.“Though I fear you’re in danger of being eclipsed by The Midnight Rider.Isn’t he the most popular highwayman in the papers these days?”
“The Midnight Rider is the product of some so-called writer’s fevered fantasies.And he’s no more than a thinly veiled caricature of me,” Thorne snapped, needled.“But I suppose these papers will publish anything at all to boost circulation, even the most errant nonsense.”
“The Midnight Rider has quite a devoted following,” Lucy pointed out, a trifle sharply, before pasting on a smile.“But of course, nothing compared to the readership for your own exploits.”
Thorne snorted.“Those are even worse, because they purport to be factual.But one of those ridiculous authors decided I’m a ginger, and that’s why I wear the scarf to hide my distinctive hair.Another claimed that I must be French, based on the seductiveness of my manner with the ladies I rob!French!”
Lucy nodded gravely, though her eyes were sparkling with mirth.“I wonder that you bother to read these articles and stories at all, since you find them so offensive.”
“I prefer to know what’s being said about me, even if it’s wrong.All information is useful information,” he said, the familiar words dredged up from the depths of his childhood.
Uncle Roman would hate that Thorne used one of his axioms to justify stroking his own vanity by reading the stories about The Gentle Rogue.Lord Roman de Vere would rather die than allow his name to be bandied about in the tabloid press, but if it were, he certainly wouldn’t lower himself to read it.
Thorne, on the other hand, had found the tabloid press a useful, if occasionally distasteful, ally.One only needed to understand how to manipulate the flow of gossip to one’s own advantage.
It was a skill Thorne had been forced to learn by himself, with a metaphorical gun to his head, and he’d be damned if he’d apologize for it now.
“I have some experience of reading slander and falsehood about my family in the papers,” Lucy said, a shadow passing over her face.“I know how awful it feels and I don’t mean to make light of it.”
Forcing an easy shrug, Thorne said, “Oh, let them have their fun and over embroider their florid tales as they wish.No doubt they’re paid by the word.”
“They’re not—or at least,” she mumbled, “so I’ve heard.At any rate, it could be argued that you owe the authors of those newspaper articles and serialized novels a debt of gratitude.”
“Gratitude!For profiting off my deeds and propagating dreadful slanders about my nationality?”
“For spreading your fame far and wide!”Lucy gestured out over the sleeping village of Maidenhead as though to encompass the throngs of The Gentle Rogue’s adoring public.
Thorne snorted.“It may surprise you to hear that I didn’t become a highwayman in order to be famous.I thought the mask might have been a clue.”
