Page 19 of Her Wicked Highwayman
Rafe wasn’t accustomed to guilt or shame. Over the years, he’d developed a distant relationship with those less amusing emotions, but at that moment he was plunging beneath the surface of both and it felt like he was drowning. He had made a terrible mistake in bringing that woman here, and he didn’t even know her name or where she lived.
But the memory of her lips on his, her little gasp as he had sunk into her body that first time, her look of fear turning into one of trust as he had made love to her... that was imprinted on his soul. Of all the women he had seduced over the years, this one, an untried virgin with the fire of a lovely dragon in her soul, she alone had tempted him to be reckless with his life and the lives of his friends. He couldn’t regret what he’d done, but he did regret the consequences and his own lack of foresight. All three of them had needed the money they’d been saving to pull their lives out of the spiral they were in.
“Yes, she was worth it,” Rafe admitted. “You two shall split what is left. I think it best that we abandon this lodge for a few months. We can move to the cottage in the south.”
“I agree,” Amberley said. “She had to have ridden off before dawn, because I was in the stables at daybreak and that’s when I realized we were missing a horse. One of yours, Rafe.” He checked his pocket watch. “She has at least an hour head start. She could already have a search party headed this way. It isn’t safe to stay here.”
But Rafe wondered if the pretty little thief would go to the authorities. Surely she wouldn’t be so foolish, given that she’d just stolen already stolen money, but he couldn’t take the chance of guessing what she would do. Clearly, the little fire drake he’dseduced was not predictable in the slightest. He wouldn’t make the mistake of thinking he could control her or guess her plans a second time.
Caspian agreed with Will. “We should take a few weeks off and see what the local authorities do.”
Will would ride to the north and return to his crumbling estate, Amberley Hall, and Caspian would return to his bachelor’s residence in London. Rafe would remain in this region and send them a summons once he believed it was safe to begin their activities again. They had a coded language they used in correspondence whenever the law was homing in on them, as it was now.
The three of them packed their travel bags and made sure nothing of a personal nature was left in the abandoned lodge. Will and Caspian rode off, along with their spare horses, in different directions. Rafe had only his white mare, Nimbus. He took a road that edged around several farms and a small village before he let Nimbus step back out onto a proper road. For several hours, he did his best to try to track the woman and the horse she’d stolen from him, but he couldn’t find any trace of where she’d gone. Finally, as the afternoon gave way to dusk, he knew he needed to let his horse rest. So he headed for his brother’s estate.
It was probably time for him to rest too, Rafe reflected. He had been gone for three weeks already and was missing Isla terribly. The little girl had unlocked the rusty door to his heart and pushed her way in. The child was absolutely beautiful, with russet hair and big blue eyes. He could hardly believe she would be seven soon. What he loved most about her was the strength and depth of her ability to love. Her mother and father had perished from illness in Edinburgh. Rafe’s brother-in-law Brodie Kincade and his wife, Lydia, had rescued the girl from grave robbers, who were notorious for killing easily forgottenpeople when no fresh cadavers could be found and sold for autopsies.
From the instant Isla had come into Rafe’s life, the child had gravitated toward him, the unmarried scoundrel who had no idea how to care for himself properly, let alone a small girl. But when she’d first held out her tiny arms, he’d lifted her up and something in him that had been out of place for as long as he could remember slid back into place.
This new state of accidental fatherhood had put restraints on him that hadn’t been easy to adjust to. For the first time in his life, he didn’t want financial assistance from his elder brother, Ashton, yet he needed money now more than ever. Not for himself, but for Isla. He’d hired a nanny last month now that Sabrina Talleyrand, the young woman who had been Isla’s temporary governess, had gotten married. The child was in constant need of new clothes, books, toys, and all manner of things that children required. It was not the best time for Rafe to grow a conscience... of sorts. He would rather take money from strangers than his elder brother. He’d spent too many years begging Ashton for funds, but damned if he’d do that now. He had to support Isla on his own. He owed that to her as her father.
He adjusted his hold on the reins as memories of the past crept up on him. It was one of the reasons he despised being alone. When he had naught but his own thoughts to keep him company, that was when the past began to whisper dark things in his ear. The memories that surfaced burned his chest like the very devil himself had thrust a fiery spear into him.
The day his father had died in his arms, Rafe had gone from a boy who’d had a golden future at his fingertips to a life without sunlight. His mother had never been the same, losing the man she’d loved since she’d been a young woman. His eldest sibling, Thomasina, just seventeen at the time, had turned into a second mother to Rafe and Joanna. Little Joanna had cried for monthsand had been so frail for nearly a year because she had refused to eat. She’d only been three, and while she understood death by its definition, she had not understood what it meant in truth. She’d kept expecting their father to come home.
Everything had changed between Rafe and Ashton after the accident, as he’d blamed Rafe for their father’s death. Rafe’s wonderful elder brother, the young man he’d looked up to all of his life, had only been fifteen at the time. It was Ashton who had been forced to shoulder their father’s debts. He’d had to cut costs, reduce their staff, and close their country estate for two full years, all the while working to earn enough to reopen it. Being burdened by their father’s debts had made Ashton coldhearted, but he’d saved the family. They’d even been able to afford a decent debut for Thomasina the following year. But Rafe had lost his brother and his own soul in the process.
In time, the family had climbed out of the looming threat of debtors’ prison and back into society’s good graces. Thomasina had made a brilliant match, Joanna was happily married now to a wild Scottish lord, and Ashton had married that man’s sister. His siblings clearly had a love for Scots.
Even I fell in love with a Scot. Rafe chuckled as he realized he had the same fascination, given that little Isla was Scottish.
But despite his siblings’ happy marriages, there was still tension in the family, and Rafe was the cause of it. Though Ashton had become more cordial over the last year, he hadn’t completely escaped his brother’s judgments or censure. And Joanna, who had always loved Rafe, still did not trust him the way she did Ash, despite the fact that he’d taught her how to fight and had supported her when she’d run off to Gretna Green with her future husband.
And then there was their mother. She could not look at him without the past shadowing her eyes. She was the hardest one of his family to face, so he avoided her whenever possible.
“Rafe, what have you done?”Those words had held pain, fear, and fury as she’d collapsed in his arms that night so long ago.
He could only reply,“I killed Father...”Because he had. Had he not left the coach that his father had put him in to go home, he wouldn’t have been injured and his father wouldn’t have crossed the street to rescue him and been trampled to death. Whenever his mother looked at him, she saw her husband’s death, not the son she’d once loved.
A painful lump formed in his throat, and he tried to swallow. Rafe pulled his horse to a stop and glanced back down the long, winding road he had come from. A shiver flitted beneath his skin as that grim question he so often faced rose once again in his mind.
What if I turned back? Simply rode away and never came home? Would anyone care?
Isla’s face flashed across his vision, and he could hear the echo of her giggles.
“Papa! Come play with me!”she would cry as she sprinted about the lush lawns of their family home. Rafe would give chase until they were both laughing as they fell into the grass and lay there side by side just staring up at the clouds.
His daughter needed him. He could never leave his darling girl, not even when this bleak despair threatened to drown him. Rafe urged his horse forward once more and he pushed the shadowy thoughts away, focusing instead on how happy he would feel when he got home, lifted Isla into the air, and spun her around.
It was close to twilight as he rode into view of the Lennox estate. The large Palladian-style home gleamed in the glow of the setting sun. The emerald of the trees was richly illuminated, and the pale golden stones looked warm and inviting on an evening like this.
Home. Of course, it really belonged to Ashton now. As the eldest brother,everythingbelonged to Ashton. As the second son, Rafe was entitled to nothing.
He came down the long path to the grand house, where merry lights winked in several of the windows. Everyone would be ready to have dinner soon, including his little mite. He met one of the Lennox grooms at the stables and handed Nimbus off to him. He collected his saddlebags and handed them to Sam, a footman who’d spotted him as he’d arrived and followed him to the stables.
“Thank you, Sam. Is everyone preparing for dinner?”
“Yes, sir, it will be served in about an hour.” The young man shouldered the two bags without effort.
