Page 7 of Scoundrel Take Me Away (Dukes in Disguise #3)

Gabriel de Vere, Duke of Thornecliff, watched the curricle’s approach and wondered if he would ever again feel the surge of exultation that he used to derive from his midnight rides.

It had been the better part of a decade, and it had lasted longer than many of the other things he’d tried.

All-night parties, gambling, orgies, drunken routs, illicit boxing rings—he’d do anything that kept him awake long enough that when he finally tipped into bed as the sun was coming up, he’d sleep without dreams.

He’d thought being The Gentle Rogue was the perfect solution, and of course it had also carried the benefit of an infusion of ready cash when he needed it most. But his finances looked very different now than they had when he began, and it turned out even highway robbery became a chore if one kept at it for long enough.

He wasn’t entirely certain what had pushed him to take up the mask tonight.

Perhaps it was sheer, cursed stubbornness.

A recent crackdown had sent another highwayman to the gallows this past week—rest in peace, Swift Nick—and Thorne’s sources indicated that whoever was behind this most recent arrest would not be satisfied until every last highwayman had been apprehended.

So of course Thorne saddled Dante and tied on his mask and rode out, thumbing his nose at the law and daring Fate to do her worst. He’d almost hoped for a hair-raising chase, a close call that might set his blood pumping and clear his head.

Instead, he’d stood here brooding on this bridge for a solid hour without a single traveler happening along to break up his boredom, and his head had remained full the entire time, as it had every minute of every day since that irritating dinner at Ashbourn House.

Full of Lucy Lively, the most aggravating chit in all of London.

This was not the moment to contemplate what he had thought when he saw her again after so long. Oh, he had to admit that her tall, willowy form had grown into all the grace hinted at by her earlier adolescent gawkiness.

The porcelain radiance of her skin was burnished gold by the Tuscan sun. The mahogany sheen of her hair had gleamed in the candlelight while the red of her lips made him wonder if her nipples would be the same tart berry color.

And those fine eyes of hers, blue as the heart of the hottest flame, had flashed with the same animosity that had always simmered between them.

At least, in the light of day. Their night-time rendezvous, on the other hand…

Thorne enjoyed knowing things about people. He collected information—what some people called gossip—the way a magpie collected shiny trinkets. It had served him well in the past, that natural instinct honed by years of study and practice.

And what he wanted most to know about Lady Lucy Lively was this: Was she still infatuated with The Gentle Rogue?

Her feelings for the Duke of Thornecliff—namely, hatred—certainly hadn’t been dimmed by the passage of years.

He took a certain amount of pride in that, but he couldn’t dwell on it now.

The Gentle Rogue had a task to perform, and with any luck it would be enough to distract Thorne from his contemplation of the exact shade of Lucy Lively’s nipples.

Spurred on by the thought, he urged his horse forward.

“Stand and deliver!”

The little curricle halted at once, the driver exercising admirable control of the horses. Thorne peered through the fog but could only make out a shadowy shape, and the exceptionally fine quality of the pair of matched Thoroughbreds.

Thorne kneed his mount past the grays to draw alongside the driver’s box. Closer now, he saw with a shock that the driver appeared to be female.

A woman, all on her own, in the middle of the night. And handling the nervously dancing grays as though she’d been born with a whip in her hand.

For some reason, a frisson of something traced down the nape of his neck like a single soft fingertip. Foreboding, perhaps.

It can’t be.

But it was. A breeze swept up, dispersing the mists, and the woman calmly transferred the reins to one hand so she could take down her hood with the other.

Lady Lucy Lively smiled at him.

“You,” he growled, the word scraped out of him without thought.

Her smile never faltered. “Did you miss me?”

How the devil was she here? And how in the name of God had she known to find him here?

All the prickly, incensed aggravation he’d felt while sparring with her over the dinner table threatened to swamp him, raising Thorne’s blood and making his heart beat faster. Was he never to be free of this damned woman?

He fell back on the part he played. Pitching his voice deliberately rougher, in the tones he used whenever he robbed someone who knew the Duke of Thornecliff, he said, “Why? Did you go somewhere?”

She narrowed her eyes. “To the Continent. I went on a Grand Tour of France and Italy. I thought of continuing on to Athens or perhaps Constantinople, but in the end I decided I’d been away long enough.”

Long enough for what?

The question hung in the air between them, unspoken. Thorne had a feeling he didn’t want to hear the answer.

“I don’t suppose you have anything worth stealing, have you?” he asked tersely. “Only I’ve been at this bridge all evening without a nibble and I’d prefer the entire night wasn’t wasted.”

Lucy blinked. “You’ve never taken anything from me before.”

Not true. He’d taken a kiss, and very nearly quite a bit more than that. He still didn’t know why he’d done it—or why his long-dormant conscience decided to rouse itself on her behalf all those years ago when she’d attempted to throw herself away on him.

“Times have changed, Lively. No one gets a free pass these days.”

“Highwaymanning not going well?” she inquired solicitously.

“I do fine,” he muttered, annoyed all over again. He needed to keep this moving. “But I have expenses, like everyone. Where’s your purse?”

“Didn’t bring one. Sorry to disappoint.”

“No need to apologize. I never leave a robbery with nothing.”

The pink of her flush looked darker in the moonlight. She was thinking about being kissed. “It would’ve been sheer folly to travel with a heavy purse. After all, I heard there was a famous highwayman along this stretch of road.”

“Famous.” He brushed a speck of dirt from the sleeve of his black velvet coat. “The papers make such a fuss of my exploits.”

“Oh yes,” she agreed readily. “Though I fear you’re in danger of being eclipsed by The Midnight Rider. Isn’t he the most popular highwayman in the papers these days?”

“The Midnight Rider is the product of some so-called writer’s fevered fantasies. And he’s no more than a thinly veiled caricature of me,” Thorne snapped, needled. “But I suppose these papers will publish anything at all to boost circulation, even the most errant nonsense.”

“The Midnight Rider has quite a devoted following,” Lucy pointed out, a trifle sharply, before pasting on a smile. “But of course, nothing compared to the readership for your own exploits.”

Thorne snorted. “Those are even worse, because they purport to be factual. But one of those ridiculous authors decided I’m a ginger, and that’s why I wear the scarf to hide my distinctive hair.

Another claimed that I must be French, based on the seductiveness of my manner with the ladies I rob! French!”

Lucy nodded gravely, though her eyes were sparkling with mirth. “I wonder that you bother to read these articles and stories at all, since you find them so offensive.”

“I prefer to know what’s being said about me, even if it’s wrong. All information is useful information,” he said, the familiar words dredged up from the depths of his childhood.

Uncle Roman would hate that Thorne used one of his axioms to justify stroking his own vanity by reading the stories about The Gentle Rogue.

Lord Roman de Vere would rather die than allow his name to be bandied about in the tabloid press, but if it were, he certainly wouldn’t lower himself to read it.

Thorne, on the other hand, had found the tabloid press a useful, if occasionally distasteful, ally. One only needed to understand how to manipulate the flow of gossip to one’s own advantage.

It was a skill Thorne had been forced to learn by himself, with a metaphorical gun to his head, and he’d be damned if he’d apologize for it now.

“I have some experience of reading slander and falsehood about my family in the papers,” Lucy said, a shadow passing over her face. “I know how awful it feels and I don’t mean to make light of it.”

Forcing an easy shrug, Thorne said, “Oh, let them have their fun and over embroider their florid tales as they wish. No doubt they’re paid by the word.”

“They’re not—or at least,” she mumbled, “so I’ve heard. At any rate, it could be argued that you owe the authors of those newspaper articles and serialized novels a debt of gratitude.”

“Gratitude! For profiting off my deeds and propagating dreadful slanders about my nationality?”

“For spreading your fame far and wide!” Lucy gestured out over the sleeping village of Maidenhead as though to encompass the throngs of The Gentle Rogue’s adoring public.

Thorne snorted. “It may surprise you to hear that I didn’t become a highwayman in order to be famous. I thought the mask might have been a clue.”

She leaned closer, her eyes avid in her small, delicate face. “Why did you become a highwayman?”

Thorne was shocked to discover that he almost wished he could tell her. Not the bit about avoiding dreams, but about what he’d done with the money he’d taken from well-heeled travelers on the Bath Road.

If anyone would appreciate what he was trying to do, it would be this unconventional young lady who’d scorned a duke’s invitation in favor of sitting at home with an ailing relative.

Not that he would tell her—the very idea was absurd.

But for an instant, he wanted to.

Instead, he shrugged negligently and looked away, down the empty road. “For riches, of course. Why else?”