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A woman without a husband.
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, as much to stave off a wave of self-pity as to settle her nerves. While there was nothing she could do about the loss of her mother and father, she remained confident that Jameswouldreturn and shewouldfind a man worthy of her love and adoration. Maybe not tonight, but there was always–
WHAM.
The carriage stopped with such suddenness that Annabel was thrown forward and her head bounced off the cushioned seat in front of her. She collapsed onto the floor in a pool of heavy silk, more stunned than hurt, but unable to rise given the weight of her bustle, a padded undergarment comprised of rigid whale boning and stuffed with cotton that shaped the back of her skirt.
“What’s wrong? Why did we stop?” she called out, managing to prop herself up on her elbows. It was an incredibly undignified position–with her head down and her bottom in the air–and she prayed that no one she knew would happen upon them.
She tensed when she heard raised, masculine voices. The driver’s, and then at least two others. They were arguing loudly, but their words were indecipherable. She thought she heard “Field” and “Debt” which did not make any sense, and then her eyes went wide as dinner plates when she made out one word with vivid clarity.
“Robbery.”
Dear heavens.
They were being assaulted by highwaymen!
Annabel had heard of such things happening on the Great North Road, but never in the city of London itself. Highwaymen were…were fables. Ghosts. Villains meant to scare respectable young ladies into staying in their rooms at night.
Without warning, the door was wrenched open and a shadow, large and broad-shouldered, loomed over her. She cringed, instinctively covering her head with her hands and wishing she had a pistol at her disposal, or at least a pointed walking stick. Or maybe Eloise. Her sister would have gone after any threat with her teeth bared and hackles raised. She’d even bitten a viscount once when he had touched her knee without permission. She brokeskin. But Annabel wasn’t a natural fighter, and she hadn’t anything to defend herself with. Charm, beauty, and sophistication were all well and good in a ballroom, but they would hardly help to protect her against a vicious highwayman!
“Go-go away.” Her voice came out as a squeak. A little mouse shaking its whiskers at a feral cat. “Leave me alone.”
Silence.
Then…
“You’re not Lord Hatfield.”
The note of bemusement in his voice–husky and refined, like roasted chestnuts drizzled in chocolate hazelnut sauce–gave her pause. He didn’tsoundlike a criminal. Granted, he was the first she’d ever met. But she had always imagined them to be gruff, surly individuals with a thick cockney accent and–for some odd reason–an eyepatch.
Turning her head as best she could, she dared to peek between her fingers. And what she saw caused a gasp to spill from her lips.
Goodness, but he didn’tlooklike a criminal, either.
Dressed in the elegant clothes of a gentleman, complete with a rich burgundy cloak that emphasized the sheer width of his shoulders, he had a lion’s mane of tawny gold, piercing gray eyes, a straight nose, and full lips that were currently skewed to the side in confusion as his gaze swept across her once, twice, and then a third time where it lingered for a fraction of a second on her propped derrière before returning to her face.
“Who are you?” he demanded, bracing his arm on the doorframe. The hanging lantern on the side of the carriage reflected off a distinguished jawline hard enough to crack granite. Underneath his cloak and an unbuttoned jacket, his white shirt fit his torso like a glove, stretching across the rigid muscles of his chest and abdomen before disappearing into snug ebony trousers that caressed every inch of his powerful thighs until the floor of the carriage cut off her line of sight.
“Who…who areyou?” she said breathlessly.Besides the most absurdly handsome man I have ever laid my eyes upon.
Over the course of her short debut, Annabel had seen men who were prettier than she was and others who were repulsively crude. But this stranger was a perfect blend of the two. A golden-haired Adonis that had leaped from the clouds of Mt Olympus to grace her with his presence. If he really was a highwayman, then she would happily subject herself to a robbery every day of the week and twice on Sundays, if only to shamelessly ogle his marvelous frame.
Around the front of the carriage, by the horses, she could dimly hear the driver in earnest, heated discussion with one of Adonis’s accomplices. But her attention was solely focused on the Greek God in front of her. A myth spun to life, or else she’d struck her head harder than she thought and this was all a cleverly crafted illusion, but did it really matter if it was? This was the most she’d enjoyed herself all evening, and wasn’t that telling. That her pleasure would come not from the glittering ballroom that she’d always adored, but on a dark, forbidding strip of road by way of a smoke-eyed criminal who was probably getting ready to rob her blind.
“My name does not concern you,” he said curtly, and again his gaze strayed where it ought not to before he rubbed his jaw in a considering manner. “Are you stuck, my lady?”
As she was reminded of her precarious arrangement, heat the color of a dusky rose traveled into Annabel’s cheeks and down the front of her throat to pool in her collarbones. Oh, why couldn’t Adonis have met her at the Assembly Room? When she was poised, and polished, and perfect beyond measure. Notnow, with her rump wagging in the air and her hair disheveled and her dress a crumpled mess.
“I do happen to be stuck,” she said, as grandly as she could manage. “When the carriage halted, I lost my balance and fell forward. The composition of my, ah, bustle and crinoline has made it impossible to rise.”
A flicker of chagrin passed across Adonis’s marble-sculpted countenance. “I apologize for that. We…ah…my companions and I, we were under the impression that this vehicle belonged to The Viscount Hatfield, an old schoolmate of ours. It was our intention to play a prank, and it appears that you are the unintended victim.”
“Then you’re not highwaymen?”
“Highwaymen?” His eyes widened a fraction of an inch. “No, my lady. Rogues, rascals, and rapscallions, most assuredly. But highwaymen, we are not.”
Rogues, rascals, and rapscallions.
