Page 1 of Her Wicked Highwayman
PROLOGUE
OCTOBER 13, 1803
“Malcolm please! Don’t go, I beg you!”
Rafe shut his eyes against the sounds of his parents quarreling. He held his breath as he prayed he would go unnoticed in his hiding place at the top of the stairs. But he was no longer a tiny child, able to tuck himself away in a wardrobe or a cupboard. At ten, he was too tall, too lean, and too large to hide himself behind the railings of the stairs. Rafe forced his eyes open, reminding himself that he was old enough to face the truth—that the deep love his parents had once shared was withering away like flowers after too much sun and too little rain.
The Lennox townhouse was nearly dark, the candles and lamps extinguished for the night. The servants were already abed, and they knew it was not their place to interfere in such quarrels. Only the grandfather clock dared to chime in the midst of such an argument.
His father stood in the marble entryway, the light from the open parlor door showcasing his aristocratic nose and the ice of his blue eyes. Rafe’s mother stepped toward Malcom, one hand clasping his coat sleeve to halt him.
“Let me go, Reggie, damn you. I have debts to settle, and I must handle them tonight!” Malcolm hissed. Regina paled, drawing back from her husband as though he’d struck her. He had never hit her, but ofttimes words could be just as brutal. As could a callous disregard for those one was supposed to love.
“More debts? How much more? Malcolm, we cannot afford—” Regina’s soft voice quavered. His mother had always been a commanding force, and now she was afraid. Rafe wanted to go downstairs, to stop this, to put an arm around his mother’s shoulders and tell her all would be well. But he couldn’t. He couldn’t get between them and defy his father, a man he loved just as much as his mother.
“Don’t you understand? I lost it all. We can affordnothing,” Malcom said, his voice rough with emotion. “I’ve been a bloody fool, and now... it’s too late.”
What did he mean? Rafe’s stomach dropped and his mind blanked with dread. Whatever it was, it couldn’t be good.
Regina covered her mouth with her hands for a moment. Then she tried to calm herself. “But my bride price... My father put it in a trust for me to use if we had need of it. We still have that?—”
Malcolm gave a harsh and broken laugh, and the sound dragged invisible claws over Rafe’s spine. He had never heard his father sound like that before.
“I wagered that too. I was sure I could win this time, Reggie. But Lord Caddington cheated. The bastard won every shilling. I’ve already withdrawn the money from your trust.”
Regina’s lips parted and her face drained of color. The silence between them, albeit brief, could have frozen the entire world.
“How could you? It requires my approval,” she said.
“I forged your signature, and your solicitor and trustee believed it to be genuine.”
“You . . . you stole my future, ourchildren’sfuture! Malcom . . .”
“Reggie,” he said and reached for her this time.
His mother slapped his father across the face and then, clutching her hand, fled the entryway, leaving his father to stand there alone, his shoulders hunched.
Malcolm stared in the direction that Regina had fled. Then, with a sigh so weary that it seemed to carry the weight of his every sin, Malcolm walked out the front door.
As the door closed, Rafe’s stomach clenched. He was going to be sick. He bent double, his belly cramping, and he struggled to breathe until he calmed. Was it true? Were they withoutanymoney? Surely his father hadn’t spent everything in the gambling hells. Surely he couldn’t have...
Suddenly, Ashton exited their father’s study and rushed down the stairs, looking the way their mother had gone and then toward the front door. Then he looked up toward the stairs, seeing Rafe as if he’d known as he always did where Rafe liked to hide.
“What happened? Where’s Father? I heard shouting.” Ashton was only fifteen, but he already held an air of command. Rafe knew his brother could fix the break between their parents—Ashton could do anything.
“He left—he and Mother quarreled about money again.”
Ashton cursed softly. “Stay here, you understand? I’ll bring him back.” Then Ashton grabbed his cloak and rushed out into the night.
Gripped by a need to help his elder brother, Rafe raced down the stairs and out into the night. Ashton walked ahead of him, and their father was just beyond them, barely visible in the gloom, his pace brisk, his head bowed.
Rafe followed his brother and father along Half Moon Street as they wandered deeper and deeper into a part of the city heknew they should not go. The streets grew narrower, the muck on the road thickened, and the mingled smells of fear and despair emanated off the walls of the hovel-like structures they passed. Where was his father going? Surely the people living here were not anyone he would orshouldknow. Yet without a backward glance, his father strode toward a tavern, unbothered by being in such a place as this.
His father disappeared into the building, whose faded sign read, “Devil’s Spear.” A minute later, Ashton carefully crossed the road and entered the building as well. Rafe kept a watchful eye on the men around him who passed through these cramped streets. The men who lived in this part of London had hard and dangerous faces. Rafe had always been able to read a person by their expressions, even the most minute ones, and he could usually read a person’s intentions. These men would slit his throat without a second thought.
Rafe stepped deeper into the shadows of the mews across the street until he could decide what he should do. He cursed the light hue of his hair, fearing the shine of it might reveal him in the dark just as his bright-blue eyes so often did. If his father or Ashton saw that he was here, he would never hear the end of it.
Rafe squared his shoulders as he crossed the street and took hold of the door handle to the Devil’s Spear. When he opened it, he found a boisterous taproom filled with gambling tables and drunk men. The building was a ramshackle maze of rooms and corridors so crowded that it was hard to see where his elder brother had gone.
