She leaned closer, her eyes avid in her small, delicate face.“Why did you become a highwayman?”
Thorne was shocked to discover that he almost wished he could tell her.Not the bit about avoiding dreams, but about what he’d done with the money he’d taken from well-heeled travelers on the Bath Road.
If anyone would appreciate what he was trying to do, it would be this unconventional young lady who’d scorned a duke’s invitation in favor of sitting at home with an ailing relative.
Not that he would tell her—the very idea was absurd.
But for an instant, he wanted to.
Instead, he shrugged negligently and looked away, down the empty road.“For riches, of course.Why else?”
“Why else, indeed.Well even there, you likely owe some part of your success to the newspapers.I happen to know that once those stories began being widely circulated, the number of travelers we saw at Five Mile House, my sister’s coaching inn, tripled.More travelers, more purses to take.Although, I suppose, increased scrutiny also means a higher danger of being unmasked.”
He narrowed his gaze at her light, deliberately nonchalant tone.“There is no possibility that I will be unmasked.No matter how many purses I take.”
“Or how many kisses?”
The night really was unseasonably warm.Beneath his thighs, Dante shifted restlessly, reacting to Thorne’s sudden tension.“Why should that matter?”
She cocked her head.“Don’t you think it seems inevitable that eventually you’ll kiss someone as The Gentle Rogue whom you’ve also kissed in your normal life?And don’t you think she would recognize you by your kiss?”
Pricked by her smugly confident attitude, Thorne narrowed his eyes.“You’re so certain I’m a rake in my normal life, kissing women by the dozen.Perhaps I’m a stolidly married man, devoted to my wife.”
“A husband who kisses ladies upon the Bath Road while masked is not my idea of devoted.No, I don’t believe you’re married.I think you’ve kissed a great many women, both masked and unmasked.And, as one of them, I must inform you that this habit could get you caught.I would certainly recognize you in the light of day, at the first touch of your lips, if you were to kiss me with no mask between us.”
She should’ve sounded brazen, an aggressive flirt bent on seduction.But what staggered Thorne was how utterly matter-of-fact she was.As though they were discussing nothing more scandalous than the weather.
“If your memory of a couple of inconsequential kisses is still this sharp, you must not have done as much growing up on the Continent as you implied.”
“Have you ever noticed that some memories fade quickly, while others remain sharp and clear no matter how much time passes?”She smiled faintly.“I remember every moment we’ve ever spent together, Rogue.”
So did he.God help him.
He remembered every moment he’d spent in her company, both as The Gentle Rogue and as himself.
And now he had the answer to the question that had been plaguing him for days: the only one she wanted was The Gentle Rogue.
His hands tightened on the reins, making Dante dance impatiently beneath him.“Well, as delightful as it’s been to reminisce with you, Lively, I fear I must be going.”
“Wait!Don’t you want to know why I sought you out tonight?”
“No,” he lied through clenched teeth.
A subtle tension strung her willowy frame taut, though her voice stayed airy and bright.“It’s been five years since we last saw each other.”
“Has it?I haven’t kept track of the time.”Another lie.
She went on as if he hadn’t spoken.“I’m twenty-four now.”
“Good for you.So what?”
“So I’m no longer a child,” she said, her gaze watchful on his face.“I went away and grew up.As you requested.”
By God, she had.Always tall and slender, she’d filled out in all the right places.She’d always been a bold one as well, but Thorne couldn’t help but notice a new confidence in her bearing.A steadiness and surety she hadn’t had before.
No, she wasn’t a child.Though the years clearly hadn’t cured her of her girlhood obsession with The Gentle Rogue.
A strange sort of fury gripped him.This slip of a girl had been infatuated with The Gentle Rogue for half a decade now.She’d gone from throwing herself into his path to a years-long Grand Tour, apparently only because he’d asked her to stay away.
