Midnight Raider Read online

  Setting her plate aside, she did her best to imitate one of his careless shrugs. “It makes it easier to pass as a lad.”

  He slouched lower in his chair. “Of course. Well then…” He raised his ale in a salute. “You may grow it long again, because your highwayman days are over.”

  Elizabeth’s temper flared. “I have no intention of quitting, my lord. And you won’t stop me unless you—”

  “I won’t have to do anything. You’ve a big enough price on your head to attract every addlepated clod with a pistol to take a shot at you. Keep giving them opportunities, and one of them is going to end your illustrious career as an outlaw—and your life.”

  “The thief-takers will never catch me.”

  He choked out an oath. “You can’t be that naive. You can’t even defend yourself properly. I checked your pistol the night I brought you here—and it wasn’t even loaded. What kind of reckless fool are you, raiding with an empty gun?”

  She dropped her gaze to her lap, her fingers twisting in the folds of the silk robe. “I don’t want to hurt anyone.”

  “You… don’t want to hurt anyone,” he echoed in a tone of disbelief. “And did you reach that decision before or after you shot me on Hounslow Heath?”

  She glanced at his arm and her stomach knotted painfully. Somehow, the memory of having wounded him was more vexing than before. “I’m sorry about that. It was an accident. I haven’t carried a loaded pistol since that night.”

  When he didn’t comment, she glanced up.

  He was staring at her with a look of utter confusion. “How in the name of God and all the angels did a soft-hearted woman like you ever end up behind a black mask?”

  “I’m not soft,” she spat the word like a curse. “I’m strong and I’m smart. You said so yourself! I know what I’m doing—”

  “You don’t know a damn thing.” He put his empty goblet down sharply. “Guns rule the world, madam. If you can’t accept that, you’d better get out of the game now. Before someone takes you out. Permanently.”

  “I’m not going to give up just because you order me to! And the thief-takers will never catch me, for the simple reason that the man they’re seeking is a woman. No one would ever believe a woman could possibly do the things I’ve done.”

  “I did.” He pushed to his feet and stalked around the desk. “I tracked you down. I caught you. And I could have turned you in right then. How long do you think it will be before someone else does the same?”

  “You only found me because I let you get close enough to see my face that night on Hounslow Heath. I made one mistake! I won’t make it again.”

  “You’ve already made one mistake too many. Like naming yourself after the Blackerby Inn.” He bent down and braced his hands on the arms of her chair, his eyes glittering. “Someone might make the connection between you and a certain Elizabeth Blackerby.”

  Elizabeth felt all the color vanish from her cheeks. “I-I don’t know what you’re—”

  “Don’t bother denying it. I’ve been to Northampton.”

  She gaped at him in shock.

  “That’s where I’ve been these past three days. Carrying out a little reconnaissance, just like you,” he informed her coolly. “‘Know thy enemy.’ First rule of any battle.”

  “Is that what we are?” She felt breathless, and inexplicably hurt. “Enemies? In a battle?”

  “Enemies, rivals, call it what you will. What I can’t figure out is what happened between the time you left there and your first raids here.”

  She gave him an icy stare. If Lord Darkridge considered them enemies, so be it. She wasn’t going to give her enemy any potentially helpful information.

  “The last thing anyone in Northampton remembers,” he continued, his dark gaze locked on hers, “was that you left for London with your new husband. No one could recall much about him, except that he was a stranger who wore fine clothes, his name was Geoffrey Thornhill, and he was a handsome young devil.”

  Elizabeth numbly listened to her carefully-woven disguise being unraveled strand by strand.

  “What was he, some lord up from London who visited your father’s inn and got you in the family way? Whisked you off to the Continent and kept the fact that he was Lord Barnes-Finchley quiet to avoid scandal? I’ll bet Thornhill wasn’t even his real name, was it?”

  Elizabeth felt a tiny measure of relief, which she managed to keep hidden. At least part of her story was intact. Darkridge still believed she was Lady Barnes-Finchley.

  He lowered his voice, leaning closer. “When I brought you here, when I undressed you,” he said roughly, “I saw marks on your skin, on your belly. I would say you’ve had a child, Elizabeth. Does that have something to do with this?”

  She clenched her jaw and glared at him. “Go to hell.”

  He straightened, abruptly releasing his grip on her chair. “What is it then, Mr. Swift? Why are you so obsessed with pursuing Montaigne despite the insane risk to your life? Is it revenge? Did he have something to do with the fire that killed your father?”

  “I don’t owe you any explanations!” She stood and pushed past him, reeling with another rush of dizziness, desperate to get out of here before she crumpled at his feet.

  He caught her elbow, steadying her.

  And then he drew her toward him, pulling her close.

  She knew he could feel her trembling. And see the tears shining in her eyes.

  His other hand came up to her cheek, and his voice softened a notch. “You’re not as tough as you like to think, my lady highwayman.”

  She started to deny it, then said something else entirely.

  “And you’re not as heartless as you like to pretend, my lord scoundrel.”

  He muttered something profane in reply, but he was already tilting her chin up, threading his fingers into her short hair, lowering his head. He paused with only a breath of space separating them, as if waiting to see if she would resist him.

  She should. She wanted to.

  She didn’t.

  In the next instant, his mouth covered hers. The roughness of his unshaven jaw sent shivers and sparks whirling through her. He tasted of the dark ale and he made a sound of hunger, deep in his throat. His arm circled her shoulders, pulling her closer—making her vividly aware of the power in his body, the muscular breadth of his chest.

  Yet even as he held her tight, he seemed to be taking care not to hurt her wounded side.

  Elizabeth gripped the hard muscles of his arms, but somehow lost her fierce hold on her anger. It burned to cinders, consumed by the scorching feelings that raced through her.

  And all at once, she was kissing him back.

  Her breasts felt sensitive and full against the flat planes of his chest, the silk and cotton she wore creating a tantalizing friction, her nipples tightening to hard pearls. Her every rapid breath was filled with the scent of him—leather and spice and the night wind. His hand slid down the curve of her spine and his touch set her afire, her nakedness separated from his fingers only by the skimpy robe and thin cotton shirt.

  Never in her life had a man kissed her this way. Her husband Geoffrey had rarely kissed her at all. Her entire experience of kissing encompassed only the briefest touch of male lips to hers. Never had she imagined anything as searing… as consuming as…

  This. Yes. This.

  Darkridge angled his head, his mouth moving over hers with a different sort of pressure, urging her toward some end she didn’t understand.

  And then she knew.

  ~ ~ ~

  Marcus groaned as Elizabeth’s lips parted beneath his and she hesitantly allowed the touch of his tongue. He thrust into her velvet heat and she moaned softly, a sensual sound of discovery and feminine desire. Then she surprised him yet again—as her tongue met and dueled with his. The tension in his lower body became almost unbearable. His every muscle was tight, his every nerve ending fire-hot.

  He realized too late that he had made a dangerous mistake by giving in to t
he impulse to kiss her. Instead of satisfying his hunger, it only intensified the feeling into something different. Something more. A sharper longing. Need. One that wouldn’t be satisfied until he had tasted every inch of her, experienced the full pleasure of her deepest response.

  She began to go limp, actually swooning in his arms, and Marcus abruptly realized just how weak she still was. Chastising himself for behaving like an unthinking barbarian, he suddenly broke the kiss and picked her up.

  The silk of his own robe, wrapped around her lush curves, felt more exquisite than he had ever known it to be. He carried her from the room with fast, determined steps.

  “Wait,” she whispered, her eyes dusky with exactly the expression he had captured on paper, then suddenly widening in alarm. “No, I can’t.”

  Marcus didn’t respond, didn’t trust himself to speak. When he reached his bedchamber on the floor below, he shouldered the door open, stalked toward the bed and laid her down gently.

  Then he turned on his heel and walked out. It took more will than he had ever needed to summon in his life, but he left her there, untouched.

  Because he knew that if he lingered a moment more, he would be in the bed beside her… and he wouldn’t leave until morning.

  And that was a mistake he had no intention of making.

  Chapter 6

  Marcus heard the clock downstairs chime eight… nine… ten times. The pleasant sound grated on his nerves as he sat at the desk in his library, a quill pen poised in his fingertips. Everything seemed to annoy him tonight, even the gentle crackling of the fire on the hearth. He told himself that the tension he felt was merely physical desire, aroused by that reckless kiss… but there was another element mingled in, unfamiliar and elusive.

  The feeling was similar to the restlessness he experienced after a night of raiding. But that usually faded after an hour or so. And writing always helped.

  This tension seemed to be getting worse.

  He scowled at the poem he had been working on all night. None of the images satisfied him. No language he knew could capture this particular lady’s spirit and daring… or the softness and vulnerability she tried so hard to keep hidden. Elizabeth had more fire than any woman he’d ever met. Yet there had been a sweetness, almost an innocence, in her first response to his kiss.

  Even when he merely tried to describe her appearance… words simply failed him.

  His pen scratched across the page as he settled for calling her eyes “twin amethysts royally dusted with gold”—then he crossed the words out with a black stroke of ink. Shoving his chair back, he tossed his pen on the desk and paced to the window.

  He yanked the wine-colored curtains to one side and stared out across London’s moonlit rooftops and church spires. Maybe he should have stayed longer in Northampton. Tried to learn more about her husband, the mysterious Lord Barnes-Finchley. But as soon as he’d heard the man described as a handsome young devil, Marcus had stopped asking questions.

  Filled with something that felt annoyingly like jealousy, he had wanted only to get back to London.

  Back to her.

  Marcus lowered his forehead to the cool glass, shutting his eyes. She was in his room right now, sleeping in his bed… wearing bloody little of his clothes. He pictured her there, her bare legs tangled in the navy bedcovers, her eyes closed and lips slightly parted, his shirt perhaps rumpled just so, revealing a glimpse of lush, feminine softness.

  He could feel his body responding to the image, swiftly and urgently. Cursing under his breath, he let the curtain fall and stalked back to his desk. Never had any woman claimed his thoughts this way, or made him ache like this. And he had known his share of beautiful women.

  London’s highborn ladies refused to have anything to do with him, but the city’s less-refined haunts held enough charming lovelies to keep him from living a celibate life. He gave and accepted pleasure and expected nothing more. Always he had maintained a certain detachment. Always he had been able to walk away if and when he chose.

  But this… attraction had struck him as unexpectedly as lightning out of a cloudless sky.

  An attraction to a lady who was also a rival outlaw—a stubborn, beautiful complication to his plans for revenge against Montaigne.

  Not to mention that she was also married. Married to a selfish idiot who had run off to Italy, abandoned her, and utterly failed to take care of her… but married nonetheless.

  Despite his sinful reputation, Marcus did not carry on affairs with married women.

  He slouched into his chair and stared up at the painting of Worthington Manor.

  He had spent too long hating and planning to toss it all aside because of a woman. Any woman. By year’s end, Montaigne would be finished—and the truth about what had happened to Marcus’s father finally revealed to all. Things would be restored to the way they once were. His home. His place among his peers. His family name and honor. He would put away his outlaw’s mask and pistols for good. And then…

  Then he would live as an earl was meant to live. Marry a blue-blooded miss and set up his nursery. Have a houseful of heirs to carry on the proud Worthington legacy. That had always been his plan.

  His gaze fell to the book on his desk, the half-finished poem.

  What was he going to do about Elizabeth?

  She would never willingly leave Montaigne’s coaches alone. Logic and threats had failed to persuade her. Marcus suspected that she knew as well as he did that he wasn’t going to turn her in to the authorities.

  Though he doubted she understood why. It wasn’t because of any fear that she might reveal his identity.

  It was because he couldn’t stand the thought of her ending up with a noose around her neck. Or being harmed in any way.

  He raked both hands through his hair. Exasperating… beguiling… impossible woman. It seemed the only way to stop her raids was to keep her here as his houseguest, indefinitely. Which meant an endless battle of wills.

  He sighed, running his thumb over the old scar on the side of his jaw. If only the two of them could find some way to stop working at cross-purposes and…

  An idea suddenly occurred to him. He couldn’t believe he hadn’t thought of it before.

  He turned it over in his mind, already working out the details. It was entirely logical and pragmatic, he assured himself. Nothing to do with any desire to spend more time in her company.

  A slow grin curved his mouth. It was a perfect solution. A plan that even headstrong Elizabeth wouldn’t refuse.

  He would propose it to her first thing in the morning.

  ~ ~ ~

  Elizabeth stood at the window in Lord Darkridge’s bedchamber, concealed behind the drapes, working quickly and stealthily in the moonlight. She heard a clock somewhere in the house strike eleven as she tied together two more sheets, which she’d found stored in a chest near his wardrobe.

  Quinn had opened the window this afternoon while she slept, kindly allowing her a bit of fresh air. He’d no doubt meant to close and secure it when he returned with her supper tray… but that wasn’t how the evening had turned out.

  She made thick knots along the length of the fabric, spacing them about two feet apart. She had already fastened the far end securely around one of the bedposts.

  Darkridge obviously believed her too weakened to attempt any sort of escape tonight. And he wasn’t entirely wrong, she thought, biting her lip against the steady ache in her side. He had called her a reckless fool earlier—and she hoped she wasn’t about to prove him right.

  But she might not get another opportunity like this. And she was not going to spend one more night in his house or one more moment in his company. Things had gone entirely too far this evening. One moment, he was declaring them enemies and interrogating her—and the next, she was allowing him to kiss her.

  No, not allowing it, she amended. Enjoying it.

  The potent heat of his mouth… the caress of his fingers in her hair… the startling, velvety glide of his tongue aga
inst hers…

  Oh Lawks, even the memory of it left her trembling. She shook her head to clear it. And wished her heartbeat would slow down.

  What in the world was happening to her? Despite all rumors to the contrary, Marcus Worthington seemed completely sane and rational. She was the one who had taken leave of her senses.

  And what if he tried to kiss her again… or tried something more? Men were like that: she had given in once, and now he would think himself entitled to all kinds of liberties.

  Elizabeth finished knotting the sheets, shuddering at the images that brought to mind—the memories of Geoffrey. The marriage bed. She would never allow any man to use her that way again.

  And she was not going to allow Lord Darkridge to end her plans for Charles Montaigne’s money, either. In just a few days, Montaigne’s solicitor would be hosting his costume ball, and she intended to be there. It would be her best chance to find out about the huge transaction Montaigne was planning for this summer.

  Her best chance to help so many more desperate women—and their little ones—who had nowhere else to turn.

  Strengthened with fresh resolve, Elizabeth crossed to the wardrobe and donned a pair of Darkridge’s breeches and a coat. Both were much too large on her, but they would have to do. She fastened a belt low around her hips to hold the pants up. Then she went back to the window and slowly unfurled her makeshift rope until it dangled just above the street below. It wasn’t so very far, she reasoned, peering down into the darkness. Only two stories.

  Swallowing hard, she wished she had her boots. It would be impossible to climb down or even walk wearing a pair of his. She also hated to leave her pistol behind, but she had no idea where he had hidden her things.

  Better to face the streets of London barefoot and unarmed, she decided, than to face Marcus Worthington in the morning.

  She climbed out the window, gripping the sheets tightly, holding her breath against the pain in her side. Then she cautiously began her descent. Nothing would make her happier than to be reunited with Georgiana and Nell tonight. And to sleep in her own bed.