A curse snapped from his lips, and ignoring the threat of the pistol still pointed at him, he crossed the room and stopped directly in front of her. She wouldn’t shoot him, he knew that; she would have pulled the trigger the moment he slipped through the door if she’d truly wanted him dead, and as the highwayman, she’d never before fired a shot. He was willing to bet his life she wouldn’t start tonight.
She raised her chin as he approached but didn’t step back or cower. He had to give her credit for that, although he wasn’t certain if she was brave for standing up to him or just plain mad.
“You followed me,” she accused, her voice slightly unsteady. “Why?”
“There was a robbery tonight.” He slowly bent down to set his pistol on the floor at his feet, then removed the second one from beneath his coat and did the same with it. One raised gun was more than enough, in his opinion. “A coach leaving Blackwood Hall.”
Then he stood to his full height and stared down at her, forcing her to look up at him as he towered over her. His heart raced at the sight of her, although he didn’t know how much of that was because of the pistol still pointed at his chest and how much because of the untamed way she looked, with her wild eyes flaring and her face flushing, standing so close he could stroke her cheek if he only raised his hand.
And if he did that, then the blasted chit would pull the trigger.
So he folded his arms across his chest in irritation and tried not to do anything that would get him shot. “But you know about that, don’t you? Because you were there.”
“Yes.”
“Then you know why I’m here.”
Her head tilted slightly as she studied him. “You mean to arrest me?”
“Yes.” He’d meant to arrest the highwayman. But Josephine Carlisle, of all people— Christ!
“You can’t, you know.”
She said that so matter-of-factly that he blinked. “Actually, I can.”
“No one would believe you.” With a shake of her head, she lowered the pistol and slowly released the hammer. “You can hardly believe it yourself, and you saw the robbery with your own eyes.”
His jaw tightened. The surprise he’d experienced at entering the cottage and finding her instead of the man he thought he’d been chasing turned into anger for being played a fool. Her admission in the phaeton of being an orphan, that comparison of him to the other men who’d pursued her—all of it had been done only to throw him off her scent. And it had worked. Because he never would have guessed she hid a secret this big behind those stormy green eyes.
“I’m placing you under arrest,” he told her as she crossed to the stone fireplace and set the gun on the mantel.
“You can’t,” she repeated, confident in her assertion. “The well-respected daughter of a baron, one who can’t ride well and doesn’t know how to use a pistol, arrested as a highwayman? You’d be laughed out of England to even suggest such a thing.”
“You’re an expert rider,” he scoffed.
“I fell off my mare just last week on High Street in front of several witnesses.”
He clenched his teeth. She was right, damn her. No one would believe him. Even at that moment, he didn’t know for certain himself what he’d seen tonight in the woods—or was still seeing in front of him.
His chest tightened as the full realization of the situation washed over him. Of all the people to stand between him and solving this investigation for Royston…the pretty woman with the proclivity for spilling punch, the one who led everyone to believe she was clumsy, unassuming to a fault, and so fragile that her simply declaring a headache had her brothers stumbling over themselves to care for her. The same one who successfully distracted him from the darkness that had surrounded him since the bullet ripped into his side a year ago. And whose skills of subterfuge and deception matched his own.
The irony was almost laughable. He would have admired her machinations, if his life didn’t depend on arresting her.
“In fact,” she added softly, “you have no proof of anything.”
At that he arched a brow and deliberately swept his gaze over her from head to toe in silent accusation at the way she was dressed. She wore breeches…breeches, for God’s sake, and as his mouth went dry, he suddenly understood why women weren’t allowed to wear them in public. Because breeches made men aware that they had legs, which made them think about that warm, tight space between their legs, which made them think about how much they wanted to sink themselves inside—
Good God. He really had lost his mind.
“My clothing?” She shrugged with feigned innocence. “I wanted to try riding astride because I thought it might be easier than sidesaddle, but riding astride in skirts is impossible.”
“At night?” he drawled mockingly.
She clucked her tongue like a disapproving governess. “Far too scandalous during the day. I do have my reputation to uphold.” She retreated toward a doorway at the side of the room and into what he assumed was a bedroom. “Start a fire, will you?”
Cursing beneath his breath at her flippant request, he crossed back to the door and slid the bolt home. The last thing he needed right now was for her gang of men to come charging through the door to her rescue. Or worse, for the constable to arrive and arrest her before he could sort through this mess himself.
If this mess could be straightened out at all.
Gritting his teeth in aggravation, he grabbed the tinderbox from the hearth and knelt to start a fire. He had to arrest her, he had no choice. As the daughter of a baron, she’d most likely face prison or deportation rather than the gallows, but he found little consolation in the difference. And yet, however repulsive the thought of her rotting behind bars, she’d broken the law, and he wasn’t going to surrender his future so a criminal could go free. Even such a beautiful and admirably daring one.
When the flames finally licked at the tinder, he tossed in a couple of logs and sat back on his heels, then glanced around the cottage and grimaced. The place was dry, secure, and perfect for hiding in comfort after a busy night of separating noblemen from their blunt.
He turned away from the fire and muttered wryly, “Quite a little hideout you’ve got here.”
“It’s an old hunting cottage,” she called out from the bedroom. “Been in the Carlisle family for years.”
He circled the room, his eyes taking in the comfortable pieces of furniture. There was even a basket of food on the table, for Christ’s sake. “Seems like you’ve planned for everything.”
“Not everything,” she corrected. “I certainly didn’t plan on you.”
As he approached the bedroom door, he noticed that she’d accidentally left it cracked open, and he could hear the rustling of fabric and movement beyond. He stopped, his attention irresistibly drawn inside.
Peering through the gap, he saw her in the dim shadows cast by the flickering candlelight. She was changing, facing away from the door, and he watched shamelessly as she pulled the shirt off over her head and tossed it aside, baring her back.
Sweet Lucifer. His gaze swept over her, from her bare shoulders down the smooth stretch of back disappearing under the waistband of the breeches, which were the only things that kept her from being completely naked. His cock hardened instantly, and he somehow restrained the nearly overwhelming urge to step inside the room and join her, to place his mouth between her shoulder blades and lick his way down her spine.
“Christ,” he mumbled as he blew out a breath and turned away before she could see him staring at her like some lecherous old fop. Or worse, before he peeled off her breeches himself.
“Did you say something?”
“No.” He ran a frustrated hand through his hair. He was shaking again, but this time it wasn’t because of the darkness.
“Is the fire lit?”
He rolled his eyes at the throbbing erection beneath his breeches. “Bloody well blazing,” he muttered.
The bedroom door opened, and she stepped into the firelight, tug
ging the sleeves of a pink muslin dress into their proper places. “Pardon?”
“Nothing.” He grimaced, thankful that his long coat hid the bulge between his legs.
He watched her pull up her hair and secure it quickly into a twisted knot with two long pins as she crossed to a cabinet in the corner, although a part of him—a very interested and now aching part—wished she had left it down. He liked her hair better that way, falling free across her shoulders, all wanton and wild. He’d spent far more time than he should have during the past few days imagining himself digging his hands through those dark-chestnut waves, sifting the softness between his fingers, and letting her hair spill across his chest as she collapsed with moaning release on top of him.
He’d been a damned fool.
“Please, have a seat.” Gesturing at the sofa, she pulled open the cabinet doors. “Would you like a drink?”
“Josephine—”
“Whiskey or brandy?” She ignored the warning in his voice.
He bit back his irritation. “I don’t want a drink.”
“No, you want to arrest me. But since that’s not going to happen,” she called over her shoulder as she selected a bottle and two tumblers, “you might as well settle in and enjoy the benefits of being in a hunting cottage while we answer each other’s questions.” She tucked the bottle beneath her arm and returned to him, then gave him the two glasses to hold so she could pour brandy into the first glass. “Why I’m the highwayman.” She poured the second. “And why you want to arrest me.” She capped the bottle and looked boldly into his eyes. “If you leave now, we’ll never learn the truth.”
He glared down at her, his frustration mixing with the growing distrust of her now pulsing through him. He had no proof that she’d just robbed a coach, and as she stood there in that pink dress that brought out the color in her cheeks and the rich darkness of her hair, she appeared for all the world like an innocent young lady. She was right. If he tried to arrest her, no one would believe him, and he could forget ever being reinstated to the War Office.
“And you’ll be honest with me?” he challenged.
For a moment she said nothing and simply held his gaze as she considered the question, then she slid him a sly smile, one that coiled heat low in his gut. “Of course.”
Not believing her for a second, he grudgingly handed her one of the glasses and watched as she set the bottle on the end table beside the sofa, then sat delicately, tucking her legs beneath her. He thought he saw her tremble. But surely he was mistaken. This infuriatingly bold, reckless woman didn’t appear to have an uncertain bone in that delectable little body of hers.
Maddeningly, with no piece of furniture to sit on but the sofa, and right next to her, he scowled as he sank down and forced himself to keep his hands off her, not so he wouldn’t kiss her but so he wouldn’t shake her. Hard. The most infuriating, challenging, stubborn woman he’d ever met—with no idea how dangerous a game she was playing, how deadly the consequences if she misstepped. Or what it meant that she, of all people, now stood between him and his old life. The irony was biting.
He steadied his cold gaze on her, no longer seeing her as the innocent woman who put him at ease but as the opponent she was. “Tell me, Josephine, do you even like brandy, or is this just another ploy to confuse the truth about you?”
* * *
Tightening her fingers around her glass so he couldn’t see them trembling, Josie did her best to hide the nervousness boiling inside her, the same worry and fear that had been there since the moment he’d walked through the door tonight and surprised her. No—since long before that. Since the moment she’d glanced up at the dance and found those sapphire eyes watching her. From that first glimpse of him, she’d feared this moment, somehow knowing that he would eventually discover her deepest secrets.
She struggled with how to answer that simple question, her mind so befuddled by his presence here that she couldn’t think straight, let alone figure a way out of this mess. So she’d delayed the questioning—and most likely her arrest—first by changing her clothes and then by pouring drinks that neither of them wanted. Now, with no way left to put off the inevitable, she offered a silent prayer that she could appear bold and confident, when in reality she wanted to melt into a puddle on the floor and beg for mercy.
But she couldn’t risk a glimpse of uncertainty or weakness in front of him. So she raised the glass to her lips to drink a large swallow. The liquid burned down into her chest, and a choke tickled her throat. With tears gathering in her eyes, she fought back a cough.
“I like brandy,” she lied hoarsely, having never taken a sip of the stuff in her life and, now that she had, finding it utterly disgusting.
The amused flicker in his eyes told her that he knew she was lying. And more—it also sent a wave of silky warmth through her, curling her bare toes beneath her. Lifting an eyebrow in challenge, he downed his own drink in two gulps, and she watched as his throat pulsated tantalizingly with each swallow, stirring within her the inexplicable urge to place her lips right there at his neck and experience the soft motion for herself.
Lord help her, she was in trouble.
“You said you hadn’t planned for me.” He reached past her to set down his empty glass, and his arm brushed against hers.
She shuddered. As if jolted with electricity, her skin tingled where he’d touched her. She took a deep breath to steady herself. “I hadn’t,” she admitted honestly. “You were definitely a surprise.”
With a curse he shoved himself off the sofa and stalked away from her. “Because you found me so easy to play for a fool?”
“Because you were so easily learning all my secrets.” Ones she’d kept for years, that no one else had ever come close to discovering. Not even her own family.
He faced her, his expression stormy and furious. The anger seething inside him was palpable even from several feet away, so strong he pulsed with it and made her shiver with fear. And with something else equally as unsettling.
“When I left the orphanage,” she explained, trying to calm her skittering heart, “I promised the children that I would never forget them, and I kept that promise. That’s what I was doing tonight.”
“By committing highway robbery?” he drawled with disbelief.
“By making the families pay for what they’d done, for casting away their unwanted babies into that place and washing their hands of them. They gave their children no chance at a decent life, not caring if they were starved or beaten or…” The emotions swelled inside her, and to keep from becoming overwrought, she took another sip of the brandy, this time welcoming the burn in her throat. A cough sputtered at her lips, and she swiped at them with the back of her hand in a gesture of grim determination. “I decided to even the odds, that’s all.”
“Robin Hood,” he scoffed. “Is that who you think you are?”
She raised her eyes unflinchingly to meet his. “I think that I’m the only one who cares about those children.”
She set the brandy aside. The stuff was making her sick! This whole situation made her nauseous, in fact. The only relief came from finally being able to share the full truth of her life with someone other than the men in her little gang. She’d never dared to tell her parents, knowing she already lived tenuously within the Carlisle family because she wasn’t their own flesh and blood and fearing this secret would be the impetus for them to cast her out the way a dark part of her heart had always expected them to do. And her father—how would she bear the look of disappointment on Papa’s face if he ever discovered the truth about her? So she’d hidden it, until tonight, when she took some solace in finally admitting what she’d done rather than keeping it bottled up inside. Even if the man she told was the same one set on arresting her.
“You’re a criminal.”
She flinched at his accusation. His stinging words dredged up all the guilt and self-loathing that had eaten at her for the past two years. The moment she’d decided to make the families pay for thei
r unwanted children, she’d known what she was turning herself into, just as she’d known the consequences she might someday face. She’d been able to justify her actions only by taking no more than the exact amount each child needed for care and a proper education. Not one penny more. But there was no other way. They would never pay for their illegitimate children unless forced.
Even then, when she allowed herself to contemplate what she was doing, how she was no better than a thief—
She looked away from the harsh indictment on his face and whispered, “I know what I am, and sometimes—” The words choked in her tightening throat. “Sometimes I hate myself for committing the robberies.”
“Then stop.”
“And who will take care of the children then? Where will the food come from, the clothing and bedding, the medicines?” And all the other day-to-day expenses that seemed so large sometimes as to overwhelm her. Dear Lord! Even now she trembled from the enormity of all the responsibility that rested on her slender shoulders. Whenever she considered stopping this madness, she was compelled to continue in order to provide all the basic necessities that the orphans needed, the same ones she took for granted in her own life.
“The coal,” he put in knowingly. “That’s what you meant in the phaeton. You wanted coal for the children.”
“Yes,” she admitted. “And tonight’s robbery will pay for it.”
He shook his head. “You don’t need to do this to take care of them.” His voice was quiet now, strangely sympathetic, and when she glanced at him, compassion for her situation touched his face. But the steely determination to arrest her was still there as well, flashing deep in his eyes. “I’m certain Royston would gladly become a benefactor and donate—”
“Royston is the reason that place exists!” She shot to her feet, her hands clenched into fists at her sides. “That home is a dumping ground for the unwanted children of English society, a place where they can rid themselves of their accidents without any chance of scandal, far from the attention of anyone in London who might be watching. They leave them there in poverty and filth, to be beaten and abused, and Royston makes certain no one knows.”
How I Married a Marquess Page 10