Page 1 of Scoundrel Take Me Away (Dukes in Disguise #3)

Chapter One

The Bath Road, just after midnight

Lady Lucy Lively’s heart was pounding so hard she almost missed the steady clip-clop of the approaching horse’s hooves.

Dante’s hooves, Lucy thought to herself, giddy, staring up at the star-strewn blanket of the night sky. The fact that she knew the name of the black stallion ridden by the most famous highwayman of the age still had the power to steal her breath.

Though nothing was more likely to leave her breathless than the highwayman himself. The Gentle Rogue.

Her Gentle Rogue. If Lucy had anything to say about it.

Tonight was the night.

Propping herself up on one elbow to quickly ascertain that all was in place, Lucy nodded in satisfaction at the wagon pulled neatly to the side of the road, with its left hind wheel tilted at a precarious angle.

That had taken her eons to achieve and had worked up quite a bit more of a lather than she’d anticipated, but she’d gotten the blasted wheel off and remembered to hide the crowbar under the quilt in the bed of the wagon so she could use it to fix the wheel when she was ready to return home.

Also secreted under that quilt was a wicker hamper packed with a lovely midnight feast for two, including two glasses and a bottle of her favorite cider.

Lucy had plans . She even had a plan for the quilt itself.

If her quarry would only appear.

Anticipation swirled with nerves in her belly, filling her up with a fizzing warmth that made her want to jump to her feet and dash down the road to meet him.

But that wasn’t how their game was played.

Instead, Lucy arranged herself on her side, one arm outstretched beneath her head, and closed her eyes.

A light, lilting tune drifted on the breeze.

Lucy caught her breath and hitched her skirts high enough to show a completely indecorous amount of silk-stockinged leg.

She’d only just fallen still again when the hoofbeats and accompanying baritone voice came near enough for Lucy to make out the tune he was humming.

Molly Brown . So he was in a melancholy mood, then.

Lucy recognized the ballad as one young Flora Pickford liked to sing in the taproom of Five Mile House, the coaching inn Lucy’s family owned and ran.

A terribly sad story, was Molly Brown , all about a young lover who mistook his sweetheart for a swan and shot her, but then her ghost appeared to the magistrate and begged for his life.

Oh, how it used to make Lucy’s throat clench and her eyes burn when Flora would trill the final line about the poor guilt-stricken swain’s misfortune! Not that she’d let any tears fall.

Lucy remembered looking about the room at all the listening faces, intent and appreciative, nodding and smiling or humming along, and she’d wondered what it meant about her that she felt the tragic romance of the song like a dagger through the heart—but couldn’t seem to muster up much interest in the flesh-and-blood boys she knew.

For Lucy, poems and novels and fairy tales had always felt more real, somehow, than real life. She’d felt more when in the throes of a good book than she ever experienced in day-to-day living.

The objects of every infatuation in her young life had been literary heroes. When other girls tittered and swooned at the sight of a dapper young gentleman across the park or in a crowded tearoom, Lucy had giggled along with them…but she’d never truly felt the pull they described.

How could one feel attracted to a man about whom one knew nothing, other than that a talented valet had the arranging of his hair and cravat? Fine looks had never been enough to catch Lucy’s interest.

But that was Before.

Before Papa died. Before their half-brother cast them out to starve in the hedgerows. Before her older sister, Gemma, descended upon the unsuspecting village of Little Kissington like a glamorous whirlwind, taking over the local coaching inn and using it to snare herself the local duke.

Before the inn’s cook, Bess, had become one of Lucy’s dearest friends, and subsequently another sister when she accomplished the Herculean task of transforming their tyrannical half-brother into a halfway decent human by making him fall violently in love with her.

Before Lucy ran away, causing such a fuss.

Before she met… him .

He came nearer now, and nearer. Lucy had to hold her breath or risk giving away the game by the rapid rise and fall of her chest.

When his handsome baritone died away, she slit her eyes open the merest fraction, just in time to see him rein Dante to a sharp halt.

Limned in moonlight, The Gentle Rogue cut a figure straight from an illustrated broadsheet about highwaymen.

He sat his horse as though he’d been born in the saddle, long legs encased in tight leather breeches clasping the stallion’s sides with casually athletic grace.

He wore stark, unrelieved black, from his boots to the leather mask that covered the top half of his face and the piratical scarf that tied behind his head, concealing his hair.

Up close, Lucy knew, the clothing would be frayed and worn, the plain garments of a man who cared nothing for frivolities like fashion and appearances.

Dante stamped one restless hoof, and The Gentle Rogue controlled the movement as easily as breathing.

If Lucy hadn’t been lying down already, she would have swooned.

His hooded gaze scanned the broken-down wagon and came to rest on Lucy, who hurriedly shut her eyes all the way.

The very air against her skin seemed to pulse with tingling currents as he swung down from the horse and came closer. She could track his progress without sight, she fancied, simply by how sensitized her prickling flesh became.

“Damn it, Lively,” he said gruffly. “Not again.”

Lucy bit the inside of her cheek to keep from grinning. She lay ostentatiously still and unresponsive, even when he sighed and went to one knee at her side.

“I’m here, you can ‘wake up’ now.” His voice was wry, but Lucy thought she detected a slender thread of concern.

Nearly vibrating, she forced herself to wait. Time spun out between them, the silence of the deserted road enveloping them in a strange intimacy that made Lucy’s blood race. Anticipation curled hotly through her.

Finally, he broke.

“You had better not be actually injured this time,” he growled, sliding big, strong hands under her shoulders and raising her up with excruciating, thrilling gentleness.

Now came the moment where Lucy almost always faltered. She didn’t want to go so far as to make him truly fear for her well-being. That would seem unkind. But if she could hold out just one moment longer…

He cursed beneath his breath, hotly enough to make Lucy slit her eyes open once more.

And she was terribly glad she did, or she would have missed the sight of him biting the tip of his right middle finger to peel the leather glove from his hand before placing his bare palm against the side of her throat.

Entirely unable to hide the shudder of need that went through her at the brush of his callused fingers, Lucy allowed her eyelashes to flutter open.

“Hmmm? What’s happened?” she asked breathily. “Where am I?”

Tension seemed to flow out of his broad shoulders. His well-shaped lips pressed together in a look of annoyance that was not wholly convincing. “I can tell you where you’re about to be. In serious trouble.”

Lucy blinked up at him as innocently as she could manage. “Oh, hello! What fortuitous luck, you being here to rescue me.”

“Yet again.”

“Yes. What does this make it? Four heroic rescues?”

“Five. If you count the first one. The only time you actually needed rescuing,” he said with heavy emphasis.

He hadn’t let go of her though, Lucy noted smugly.

Nestling herself against his chest, she tilted her head to his shoulder and gazed up at him. “I like being rescued by you.”

“So I have gathered. How the devil do you always seem to know where I’ll be?”

“Simple good fortune, I suppose,” she said vaguely, then changed the subject. If she explained how she did it, it might stop working. “Since you are here, and I’m feeling much better, can I interest you in a little light repast? Being a gentleman highwayman works up a hearty appetite, I’m sure.”

To her disappointment he pulled away, leaving her sitting on the ground by herself. “Not tonight. I have places to be.”

Lucy didn’t let her dismay show in her expression. “No place as enchanting as this, I’ll warrant.”

She gestured at the half-secluded clearing she’d chosen with such care.

Situated at a bend in the road and shielded by a massive granite outcropping on one side and thick, old-growth forest on the other, the little glen she’d stranded herself in was about as private a place as one could manage alongside one of England’s most heavily traveled roadways.

It also happened to be achingly romantic in the moonlight.

Not that he seemed to notice, drat the man. The Rogue was all business as he hooked his hands under Lucy’s arms and hauled her to her feet.

Panic beat through her. She couldn’t let him ride off into the night without so much as a kiss. Not after all the effort she’d put into arranging matters this evening.

So the moment his hands flexed in preparation for letting her go, Lucy stumbled heavily against his chest with a sharp cry.

His grip immediately tightened. Lucy twisted her smile into a brave grimace.

“What is it?” he demanded.

“Nothing! Nothing at all for you to trouble yourself with.” Lucy stepped back, out of his grasp, taking care to wobble and bite her lip as though concealing a wince. “I’m perfectly well!”

Giving her an exasperated glare, the Rogue crouched down and put his hands under her skirts to caress along her ankles. The swift surety of his touch sent shivers up her calves. Her thighs trembled.

Lucy wobbled in earnest.

“Here?” He pressed at a spot above her heel.

Lucy wondered wildly when her ankles had become so sensitive. So erotically charged. “Ouch,” she managed to gasp, though pain was the last thing she was feeling.