Page 64 of Her Wicked Highwayman
“Yes, Miss Fox.” Matthew gave Tyburn one more glance before leaving. Peele, however, stood his ground.
“You should not be left alone with this... gentleman,” her butler said. Tyburn chuckled at that.
“Tyburn and I have an understanding,” said Diana. “He will not do anything untoward, I can assure you.”
Peele stared at Tyburn. “Harm her and you will regret it. I don’t care who you are.”
The highwayman nodded in understanding. “If I harm her, I’ll put myself in my own grave.”
Only then did Peele reluctantly leave them alone. Once he was gone, Tyburn began to lecture her again.
“Have ye gone daft, Diana? Ye canna do this ever again.” He tossed his hat onto a chair, then muttered darkly as he paced the length of the room. “’Tis far too dangerous. Caddington desires to catch me, now more than ever.”
“If you plan to lecture me, you can leave,” Diana said wearily. “You might hunt coaches for sport for all I know, but for me, it is a question of survival.” She rose from the chair, but she wobbled as she stood. Between the brandy and the pain, she was still a little unsteady on her feet.
Tyburn caught her up in his arms and carried her to the bed. In an instant she was struck by the familiarity of being in his arms, the maleness of his scent. She wound her uninjured arm around his neck to hold on, just so she could touch him once more before she told him goodbye. Diana ducked her head beneath his chin, shutting her eyes to block out the tears before he saw them. He laid her down on the bed and removed her boots from her feet.
“Ye need out of these wet clothes,” he said.
“You always say that.” Diana tried for a smile, but it turned into a yawn. She was too tired to move and was perhaps a little drunk with all of the brandy she’d taken on an empty stomach.
With a grunt, Tyburn set about removing her clothing until she was naked as the day she’d been born. If she hadn’t been so damned tired and hurting, she might have cared, but at that moment, she didn’t. All she could think about was he was touching her again and it would be for the last time.
“Where do ye keep yer underpinnings?” he asked, looking around the room.
“Dresser... top drawer.” Diana closed her eyes, burying her face in her pillow.
“Ye can sleep in a minute, lass. Sit up for me now,” Tyburn commanded. Suddenly the soft, dry fabric of a clean chemise slid over her head. He tucked her arms through the sleeves and tugged it down her body.
“There now, ye can get beneath the covers.” He urged her to one side of the bed where he’d pulled back the coverlet, then lifted the blankets up to her chin as though she were a child.
An almost silent sob hiccupped from her lips.
His curse was instant, warm, and it drove another sob from her. “I’ll stay the night with ye, if ye want,” he whispered, easing down onto the bed beside her.
“No!”
The word was ripped from the very insides of her heart. When he heard it, he stilled completely, waiting for her to explain.
“You cannot stay.” The drowsiness threatened to cloud her mind. It urged her to lay her head down and sleep, but the flicker of emotion behind the mask made her determined to do the right thing.
“Why not?” Tyburn asked.
“I...” The brandy blurred her thoughts and stole her words, but the rightness of what she had to do stayed, even as it tore her heart. “I’ve fallen in love with someone. And I think I will marry him if he asks me.”
Silence, and then she felt the strong grip of Tyburn’s fingers around her hand.
“No! I told you, you cannot stay anymore. I couldn’t do that to him.”
The words cut her like shards of glass, but she didn’t dare take them back. She thought of Rafe, the way he’d whispered his dreams to her as they lay beneath a spreading sky, and she knew how vulnerable that beautiful man was, how he feared to say what he wanted from life, because somehow, life had taken so much from him, just as it had from her. She thought of the way he looked at her, as if she was the answer to every question he’d ever had in his heart, as though living one minute without her would destroy him.
“Who is he?” Tyburn rasped, and even as tired as she was, she heard the pain in his voice.
“He’s a gentleman... agoodman. He is so wonderful, and yet he thinks he’s a scoundrel. He believes himself to be a wicked rake, but with me, he’s... just himself. There is only truth between us. Truth and desire. Somehow, I have fallen madly in love with him.”
She opened her eyes, seeing Tyburn’s masked profile as he stared at the rushlight by the bed. She almost took the words back that hurt this man, the man who’d first shown her pleasure and belonging, who’d saved her from a bullet, who’d killed for her. And she had repaid him with rejection. But her soul now belonged to Rafe. Being beside him in that storm, holding Isla safe between them... that had changed the very heart of her being.
Tyburn let out a soft breath. “Does he truly ken who ye are, lass? Does he make ye feel as I do?”
