The Highwayman's Folly

by Daria Vernon

  Rhys was bandaging her up, hovering around her with both arms as he spun gauze around her like a spider wrapping up his fly in silk. Was that what she was? An idiot fly seduced right into the web? Into trusting the spider himself? And she did trust him, to an extent. It seemed to her benefit to do so. To be alone among the thieves, without any indication of an ally? That would have served her far worse.

  The scent of him—that of pine and damp earth—drifted to her every time he leaned near. She rocked gently under his care, letting him move her as he lifted her arm intermittently to twine his gauze. The movement deepened her introspection. A realization was surfacing, one that must be drowned.

  Because she didn’t just trust him coolly and logically, to a purpose. No. The burgeoning trust was innate.

  She’d always been a swift and accurate judge of character. It was an instinct she took pride in. When the rest of the Ashecote household found Desmarais to be a simpering, but useful employee, her young gut had told her better. She waited decades for him to show his stripes, but she always knew that they were there.

  Now, without his knowing it, Rhys had sat trial in her court. Her gavel had come down as he’d been pleading for her not to fling herself deeper into the wilderness. To her undying surprise, her judgment of him had not been so damning. Perhaps his character benefitted from being contrasted against that of the obvious scoundrel, Lionel. Perhaps—

  Her thoughts bade her to look up and watch him as he worked.

  The dark hair that had loosened from his queue moved against his temples. His lips parted in deep focus. The concentrated expression softened his edges, making him seem much like a schoolboy drawing his letters. Expression aside, nothing else about him was boyish. Unlike the young Harry, Rhys’ shoulders were round with muscle. When he’d first removed his greatcoat, Beth had been astonished to find that his white shirt—if white one could call it—was all he wore beneath.

  He lifted her arm again, so tenderly, and began to tie things off.

  His scent, his nearness, his focus . . .

  The fire was crackling, and Beth’s fingertips were thawing. She was suddenly finding herself quite soothed. What did that make her? Was she so starved for something visceral after all the months cooped up at Dahlia’s bedside?

  Rhys finished his work and Beth, weary to her bones, reclined once more, rolling onto her good side to face the fire.

  “I have some food if you’re interested.”

  “I am very interested.”

  He sat on the floor beside the bed, pulling out bits from a small bundle and dividing up bread and cheese with his knife. “How does the shoulder feel?”

  “Terrible, but shouldn’t it?”

  Rhys grinned shyly. “Truth be told, I hoped you’d faint.”

  “What? Why?”

  “If you couldn’t tell, I took no pleasure in the pain that I caused you.” He gestured to her shoulder with his knife—his face stricken—as if reliving the ordeal.

  “Here. Your petit dejeuner, Mademoiselle.” He spread a small napkin next to her on the bed, with a smattering of hard cheese, bread crumbles, and hazelnuts.

  “A very petit dejeuner,” she said.

  “Is it enough?”

  The concern in his voice prevailed over her little joke. She nodded in earnest reassurance. Soon he produced his own, similar little breakfast. Flicking her eyes between her portion and his, she realized that he was giving her half of his rations.

  “Thank you.”

  She couldn’t stop staring at the food though, at how little there was of it. She recognized the cheese as being that which her own party had carried in the carriage.

  “Tell me,” she said. “Is the profession of highwayman not so lucrative?”

  He paused, a piece of bread halfway to his lips. He dropped it back to the cloth. “It’s feast or famine. You see with your own eyes which one it is now.”

  “And other times you live like kings?”

  “Not kings, quite. But when it’s not the worst weather in a decade, we fare much better. Your carriage was the finest thing we’ve intercepted all winter. We could save more, but some of my men have a knack for squandering the earnings.”

  His words prompted a million new questions, but he spoke again, distracting her.

  “This probably isn’t what you’re used to,” he said, looking around at their shabby lodgings.

  “Being kidnapped? Oh, as of last night I’m a professional. I gathered as much experience for my curriculum vitae in a few hours as most people don’t in a lifetime.”

  He laughed. It was a deep, rolling sound that pushed over her in waves. It was contagious laughter, but a pang of something in her heart left her immune to it. She took a bite of bread.

  He went on. “Perhaps you could write a book on all you’ve learned, to help the next generation of the kidnapped? You could teach at Oxford.”

  She cleared her throat delicately: “How to Survive Two Kidnappings in One Winter’s Night.”

  She let herself laugh with him then, but it expired quickly and artlessly beneath a fallen slab of shame. His died with the same pathetic whimper.

  She waited until he dared to look up at her again. “And then I shall write a second volume,” she said.

  “Oh?”

  “How to Escape.”

  He held her eyes for such an excruciating period that she wondered who might break away first. At last, it was him. He stoked the fire idly with the poker and finished his breakfast with his back to her.

  A chill traveled up Beth’s legs. She found the edge of his greatcoat, still on the bed, and pulled it up. “Is my cape still down there?”

  Rhys lifted it from the floor, shredded and wilting. “I’m afraid it’s seen better days.”

  She took it from him. Dahlia’s beautiful cloak was indeed ruined. The small grief must have read on her face.

  “Did it mean something to you?”

  “It was my aunt’s.”

  Rhys’ expression lifted in a way that did not match their lighter banter. Beth went cold.

  “It must be her will, then, that we found on your first kidnapper?”

  Beth thrust the cape angrily against the bed. Tension tugged her fresh stitches taut, but she didn’t care. “How dare you.”

  No, how dare she. How dare she forget for a second what this man was after. She’d let her guard down, and this was her own terrible fault.

  Rhys looked momentarily stunned by her rage, but then she saw his jaw tighten. “Is that a yes?”

  So many emotions washed over her at once—anger, regret, sorrow, shame—they were there like a line of soldiers ready to lash her, one by one. They seized on the exhaustion of the last twelve sleepless hours, shattering her.

  “I’d like to sleep now.” It was all she could muster. She wanted to roll to her side, to hide from him, but she couldn’t turn away onto the bad shoulder, so she stared stoically at the ceiling instead.

  “All right.”

  She listened as he moved across the floor to another pile of his things. Emotional and physical exhaustion drew her eyes closed. After a few minutes, she felt him working at something on her wrist.

  “What are you at now?” she snapped, pulling her hand away to find it stopped by his. Looking down, she saw that he was tying a little string around her wrist. “What, exactly, is that supposed to do?” She yanked away again, realizing the other end of the string was around his own wrist.

  “Just a little alarm system.”

  “Is this necessary?”

  He shrugged. “You’re going to write the treatise on escaping, so . . . escape.”

  “I’ll just untie myself again.”

  “I’m a very light sleeper. Besides, the door’s locked, and you don’t know where the key is.”

  He was right about the second part—sh
e’d not been paying attention when they’d entered the room because she’d been too wrapped up in trusting this utter saint of the highways.

  “I just want to have fair warning if you get up to anything while we rest.”

  “Like killing you?”

  “Like killing me.” He yawned, and she couldn’t tell if it was real or if he just meant to goad her.

  “Well, why on earth is it on your right hand if you intend to sleep on my good side?”

  “I prefer to sleep on my stomach.”

  “So do I.”

  “You won’t today—not with your shoulder like that. I’m sure you’re tired enough to manage.” That said, he stretched out on his chest alongside her, turning his head toward her arm.

  She tried to pull the greatcoat up higher, but his hand was an anchor that would not cooperate.

  “What do you need?”

  “I’m cold.”

  He didn’t open his eyes but grabbed the greatcoat and slid it up around her. It was tucked neatly around her shoulders before he rested his hand—with hers—on her stomach.

  So perhaps she couldn’t trust all of her instincts.

  This man had patched her up effectively, tenderly even. Yet he was also the reason she needed the patching.

  His breath was steady beside her. She resented that he was the warmest thing in the room besides the fire itself. Resented that she wanted to sneak her own hand beneath his fingers for a taste of that warmth.

  She tested the stupid string more than once, and he stirred each time she did, often mumbling some incoherent admonishment.

  Beth grew acquainted with the frescoed ceiling as she strained to stay awake. It was the most well-preserved part of the room. Above her, a tangle of bodies—some nude, some draped in sensuous fabric—all mingled. Pan observed the sensuous rites from his seat on a throne of grape vines.

  Beth tried to imagine what sort of person had conjured up this gauche place and where they had vanished to. Catching a glint of gilt on the plaster above, she imagined debtor’s prison was a fair guess.

  She closed her eyes.

  Pan offered her a bowl of wine. She reached out to take it—

  Her eyes snapped open as her body jerked. Rhys moaned and resettled himself. She was so tired. She had to stay awake, had to think of a plan, had to wait for her moment of opportunity.

  The maidens placed a laurel wreath upon her head and draped her in a purple cloth before pulling her into their ring of sin . . .

  Chapter 6

  Rhys opened his eyes to a scene that he’d more or less expected. The brave woman stood over him, steadying the tip of the fire iron over his throat. In an ingenious stroke, she’d decided to stick it in the fire first. Hadn’t seen that coming.

  “Where’s the key?” she demanded.

  Beads of sweat formed on his neck beneath the heat.

  “It’s on my person.”

  Her shoulders dropped as she rolled her eyes. “You’re so tiresome.”

  But it was the truth.

  The poker hovered steadily, but he could tell that it was heavy for her to hold outstretched, even in her good arm. “Just how are you going to search me with only one good arm?”

  “Watch me.” She put a knee on the bed to balance herself while her other hand lunged for his breeches, absent any thought of her injury. The iron was rapidly cooling. It posed less and less of a threat, but some deviant part of him wanted to see how this played out. She patted down one of his hip pockets—nothing. Then the other.

  Her touch left him biting the inside of his lip.

  “Perhaps I should steal whatever I find on you, just as you did with me.”

  He smiled ruefully. He’d spent much more of the day awake than she had. He’d risen earlier, had cut himself free of her to give himself a shave. He’d read her little notebook. He’d read the will.

  Her hand brazenly explored the fall of his breeches and Rhys’ heartbeat froze on a high note. He grabbed her wrist, instinctively preventing a sort of nearness that he didn’t feel prepared for. “That is not where men keep their things.”

  “Oh, you mean you haven’t any thing there? Pity for you.”

  The iron faltered and tapped his neck, pinching him with its remaining heat. He hissed.

  “Where’s the key?” She stared down at him, her hand still commandingly near to his member, yet stayed by his own grasp. If her hand lingered any longer, she would be made uncomfortably aware of his thing. With her hot eyes burning like coal above him, it suddenly felt dizzyingly unclear who the hostage was.

  Grabbing the middle of the iron, he found it still hotter than expected but used his leverage to push her away. She staggered back before swinging at him with it. Rolling off the opposite side of the bed, he put some space between them, but she soon closed it with another swing for him to dodge. The momentum of the fire poker carried her too far around, and he grabbed her from behind. Clasping his hand over hers on the iron, he controlled it and held it aloft. The maneuver had no effect on her wrath.

  Her small foot was suddenly hooked behind his leg, and dropping her weight against his knee, she nearly took them both down to the floor. Rhys caught himself before they both went down, but she cried out in anguish and pulled away from him.

  The noise she made stilled him. Had he hurt her?

  She turned, holding her wounded shoulder. Then she regained herself, straightening up into a practiced, dignified posture. The posture of a fine woman. After reading Dahlia Halliwell’s will, he now knew who this fine woman was. It was time to admit as much.

  “You’re Bethany Kathryn Clarke,” he said.

  She took a step back.

  “How—”

  “I wish I could claim premonitory powers, but alas, I’m just a mortal reader of legal documents.” If any look of hers had been designed to make him feel guilty, the one she wore now was working.

  “While I am a very light sleeper, Bethany, it turns out that you are a very heavy one. I woke up hours ago, snipped myself free of you, and read the will. Besides, didn’t you notice my prettiness?” Rhys dragged the back of his hand across a freshly, if unevenly, shaven jaw. “I’d just rested my eyes again when I heard you get up to something.”

  “I could have killed you!”

  He cocked his head, and a pitchy “hmm” escaped him. The sound of skepticism set her eyes ablaze.

  He stepped toward her.

  “You’re the beloved niece of Dahlia and James Halliwell—Dahlia Halliwell, née Clarke. It says that Bethany Kathryn Clarke, an inheritor of the widow, was born in 1753, which would make you thirty. I thought—no, surely she’s not that old, but then you do seem to have been around long enough to possess a certain wisdom. I grant you that.”

  He allowed the fire iron to clang to the floor between them. She swayed on her heels as though in a stupor. He eyed her shoulder. Whatever strain their little struggle had put on her stitches, they thankfully hadn’t started bleeding.

  Her eyes searched around frantically, aimlessly. Her fine posture crumbled, and she curled inward as if struck by an invisible blow—his blow. She always seemed so unbreakable, so brazen. It made it so easy to push her. Yet there always seemed to come a moment where he found he’d twisted the knife too far. Moments like this one. And now he wanted either to reach out for her or to run away. But there was no place to retreat to except the dark cave of his regret.

  He wanted this misery over with. He softened his tone. “Just tell me the rest. Tell me where Mr. Clarke lives—where this Greenthorne is—and we can deliver you and leave you alone, Bethany.”

  Dark, shining eyes lifted. “Beth.”

  “What?” He said it even though he’d heard her.

  “Beth. No one calls me Bethany.”

  Beth. The intimacy of that one little syllable pricked at his heart.


  She lifted her chin higher. “And as the inheritor, I’ll negotiate for myself. Tell me how much you want.”

  Rhys shook off his thoughts and started high. “Ten thousand.”

  She snorted. “Ludicrous. My father doesn’t have it.”

  “But I’m negotiating with you, didn’t you just say? Do you have it? How much is this Ashecote place worth?”

  “I don’t have it yet, you fool. I was disrupted in the business of securing it, remember? First by one greedy man and then another.”

  Cold eyes snapped up and down his body, ensuring that her implication was received.

  The door handle rattled loudly, followed by a polite knock.

  Rhys ignored it and went nearer to her, to Beth, placing a hand on her arm. “You can go home—I want you to go home—but I can’t let you leave without delivering on my promises to them.” He nodded toward the door. “Yes, I’m one of these greedy men, but I must distinguish myself somewhat in the comparison to that Desmarais fellow. Because I would never—”

  The knock at the door came again, more insistently, and Harry’s voice called from beyond. “Everything all right, Captain?”

  Rhys forgot what he’d been saying. Beth’s eyes glittered expectantly. He squeezed her arm and whispered, “Just tell us where your father lives. You can go home. It’s up to you.”

  With one eye kept on her, Rhys went to the door. Her expression tightened as he withdrew the key from his boot. With a displeased huff, she turned her back.

  Rhys opened the door and Harry poked his head inside. “Sorry to bother you, Captain. Heard some ruckus, wasn’t sure if you could use a hand?”

  Before Rhys could respond, Lionel shoved past them both. “O’ course he could use a hand!” He pointed accusingly toward Beth. “Because he keeps lettin’ this cat loose.”

  “Better than leaving a filthy Lion loose to shit all over the place,” she spat.

  He swaggered over to her with an amused expression. “Oh, so you caught my name, did you? I didn’t catch yers.” He grabbed her chin roughly, but before Rhys could move to stop him, Beth took a clawing swipe at Lionel, making a harsh connection with the side of his head.