Page 8 of Scoundrel Take Me Away (Dukes in Disguise #3)

“Why else, indeed. Well even there, you likely owe some part of your success to the newspapers. I happen to know that once those stories began being widely circulated, the number of travelers we saw at Five Mile House, my sister’s coaching inn, tripled.

More travelers, more purses to take. Although, I suppose, increased scrutiny also means a higher danger of being unmasked. ”

He narrowed his gaze at her light, deliberately nonchalant tone. “There is no possibility that I will be unmasked. No matter how many purses I take.”

“Or how many kisses?”

The night really was unseasonably warm. Beneath his thighs, Dante shifted restlessly, reacting to Thorne’s sudden tension. “Why should that matter?”

She cocked her head. “Don’t you think it seems inevitable that eventually you’ll kiss someone as The Gentle Rogue whom you’ve also kissed in your normal life? And don’t you think she would recognize you by your kiss?”

Pricked by her smugly confident attitude, Thorne narrowed his eyes. “You’re so certain I’m a rake in my normal life, kissing women by the dozen. Perhaps I’m a stolidly married man, devoted to my wife.”

“A husband who kisses ladies upon the Bath Road while masked is not my idea of devoted. No, I don’t believe you’re married.

I think you’ve kissed a great many women, both masked and unmasked.

And, as one of them, I must inform you that this habit could get you caught.

I would certainly recognize you in the light of day, at the first touch of your lips, if you were to kiss me with no mask between us. ”

She should’ve sounded brazen, an aggressive flirt bent on seduction. But what staggered Thorne was how utterly matter-of-fact she was. As though they were discussing nothing more scandalous than the weather.

“If your memory of a couple of inconsequential kisses is still this sharp, you must not have done as much growing up on the Continent as you implied.”

“Have you ever noticed that some memories fade quickly, while others remain sharp and clear no matter how much time passes?” She smiled faintly. “I remember every moment we’ve ever spent together, Rogue.”

So did he. God help him.

He remembered every moment he’d spent in her company, both as The Gentle Rogue and as himself.

And now he had the answer to the question that had been plaguing him for days: the only one she wanted was The Gentle Rogue.

His hands tightened on the reins, making Dante dance impatiently beneath him. “Well, as delightful as it’s been to reminisce with you, Lively, I fear I must be going.”

“Wait! Don’t you want to know why I sought you out tonight?”

“No,” he lied through clenched teeth.

A subtle tension strung her willowy frame taut, though her voice stayed airy and bright. “It’s been five years since we last saw each other.”

“Has it? I haven’t kept track of the time.” Another lie.

She went on as if he hadn’t spoken. “I’m twenty-four now.”

“Good for you. So what?”

“So I’m no longer a child,” she said, her gaze watchful on his face. “I went away and grew up. As you requested.”

By God, she had. Always tall and slender, she’d filled out in all the right places. She’d always been a bold one as well, but Thorne couldn’t help but notice a new confidence in her bearing. A steadiness and surety she hadn’t had before.

No, she wasn’t a child. Though the years clearly hadn’t cured her of her girlhood obsession with The Gentle Rogue.

A strange sort of fury gripped him. This slip of a girl had been infatuated with The Gentle Rogue for half a decade now. She’d gone from throwing herself into his path to a years-long Grand Tour, apparently only because he’d asked her to stay away.

Meanwhile, she wouldn’t give the Duke of Thornecliff the time of day.

Yes, they were the same person, but in that moment, Thorne found no comfort in that. He was still infuriated by her preference for his alter ego—and infuriated with himself for caring.

What was it about Lucy Lively? Since the first moment he saw her, across the crowded public taproom of a barely adequate coaching inn in the arse end of Wiltshire, she had been under his skin.

Unfortunately, five years evidently hadn’t cured him of his obsession either.

If he had an ounce of self-control, he’d leave her on this bridge without another word.

But Thorne had long ago given up on denying himself the things he wanted. And by God, he wanted her.

Not for a few stolen kisses in the moonlight, either—he wanted a proper seduction. He wanted her complete and total surrender…to the Duke of Thornecliff.

In this game they played, the only way to triumph would be to seduce her as himself.

She already wanted The Gentle Rogue. It was too easy. Taking what she offered so freely now might satisfy a momentary hunger, but it could never sate the primal need that burned in him when he looked at her.

Not that he needed her to want him the way she wanted The Gentle Rogue. He craved the challenge of it, that was all.

He would have her as the duke. Or not at all.

The challenge of it sparked through him like a lit match to a fuse, a bright, searing rush that banished the boredom he’d felt creeping about the edges of his life.

He would conquer her as Thornecliff. Perhaps she would see it as a betrayal, if she ever found out the truth. But he wouldn’t humiliate her deliberately. He would be magnanimous in victory. A gentleman.

Not that he was above using the Rogue to get what he wanted.

Flashing her the smile that had loosened the stays of many a straitlaced lady, he said, “If you’re no longer a child, then you should be old enough to know better than to chase around after highwaymen.”

For the first time, a hint of frustration tightened Lucy’s voice. “I’m old enough to know what I want.”

Despite himself, perhaps to punish himself, Thorne wanted to hear her say it. “And what do you want, Lucy?”

Say it. Say you want to give yourself to a man whose face you’ve never seen, when you won’t even give a smile to ? —

“I want to know you,” she said softly, “the way you know me.”

Thorne couldn’t help his reflexive, instinctual recoil at the very idea.

Know him? That was the last thing she should want. The last thing anyone should want. Most days, if Thorne could disavow all knowledge of himself, he would.

Misinterpreting his expression, which must surely be one of outright revulsion, Lucy hurried to add, “I’m not talking about trying to unmask you. I would rather it to be your choice to trust me with…well, everything.”

He couldn’t help it. He laughed, the sound harsh enough to scour the inside of his throat. “We’ve been over this before. That will never happen.”

“What if we spent more time together? Trust takes time to grow,” she insisted.

The cheek of her. The brazen, unmitigated— “You don’t need to be spending time with a common criminal.”

“You’re not a criminal!” Red suffused her cheeks. She looked ready to do battle on his behalf. On The Gentle Rogue’s behalf.

Thorne felt like kicking something. “Only because I haven’t been caught yet,” he pointed out harshly. “You’re a lady. The sister of a duke. You should be spending time with?—”

“With dukes?” she scoffed, her chest rising and falling quickly with the force of her breaths. “No, thank you.”

“Yes, with dukes,” Thorne said recklessly. “Why not?”

“Because apart from my brother, every duke I’ve ever met is either old and dull or young and…”

“Ugly?” he suggested.

Her lips twisted. “Not exactly. Not on the outside, at least. But inside, he is an out-and-out villain, I’m afraid.”

Thorne couldn’t very well disagree. But he suddenly saw a glimmer of a chance, a way to shuffle the cards and stack the deck to get the hand he wanted to play.

“Many would call me a villain,” he pointed out.

She shook her head at once. “They don’t understand you. They don’t know you.”

And she thought she did. For some reason, her foolishness made his chest ache. “How well do you know this villainous duke?” he asked.

“Not terribly well,” she admitted grudgingly. “He seems to have changed, or to be trying to change. Or something. No, I cannot say I know him well. But I know him as well as I care to!”

Something sharp and exciting flared in Thorne’s gut—the sensation of a victory so close as to be almost within his grasp.

He turned his head to stare into the distance, aware that the angle of his profile would be illuminated by the silvery moonlight. His looks were a weapon he’d learned to wield with ruthless precision, a source of power when he’d felt particularly powerless and alone.

Beautiful people could shape the world around them as they wished. Thorne would never be that helpless, hapless boy again. He’d made damned sure of it, honing multiple skills his uncle deplored as weaknesses and turning them into strengths.

For instance, Thorne had been raised to be honest and straightforward. But he’d found lying and dissembling to be much more effective in getting what he wanted.

Accordingly, Thorne adopted a low, solemn tone of selfless martyrdom. “I cannot help but think even the worst duke in England is more fit company for you than I am.”

He didn’t need to look at her face to know how it landed.

“You’re wrong,” she said. “There is no one I would rather be with.”

Carefully controlling his breathing, Thorne looked down at his black-gloved hands holding Dante’s reins. Don’t overplay it. “Perhaps there is a way we might be together…if…”

“What?” she asked eagerly, breathlessly, so ripe and ready for the plucking, Thorne had only to reach up and catch her as she fell.

“Indulge me,” he begged, raising his gaze to hers at last. “I could continue meeting with you like this, from time to time—if you promise me that by day, you will spend time with someone of your own station. Someone who can give you what I can’t.

Someone like this not-exactly-ugly duke who is trying to change his villainous ways. ”

“The Duke of Thornecliff?” Her tone was all shock and disbelief—but she wasn’t saying no.

Time to seal the deal. Drawing Dante close enough to the carriage that the well-trained horse’s flanks brushed the side of the driver’s box, Thorne stood up in the stirrups to reach Lucy’s rapt face.

One hand on the reins, the other busy at buckles and straps, Thorne brought their faces together and brushed his mouth across hers once. Twice.

On the third brush, her pink lips parted on a gasp and he forgot everything he was meant to be doing except kissing her.

The taste of her, fresh and clean like water from a mountain spring, exploded over his tongue. One of her palms came up to cradle his jaw, and he felt his whole body shudder at the gentle touch.

What the fuck was happening to him?

Pulling back, breathing harsh and uncontrolled, Thorne stared into Lucy’s wide blue eyes. “Will you do what I ask?”

“For more kisses like that?” She was just as breathless as he. “I would dance with the devil himself.”

He had her. Triumph swelled his chest and throbbed through him with every beat of his pulse. “No devil, Lively. Only a duke. Shouldn’t pose any problems for a woman of the world.”

She wrinkled her nose at him and he laughed and kissed her again. Not because she was adorable. But because he’d already won, and she didn’t even realize it.

“How will I know when to meet you?” she asked quickly.

“Two weeks from tonight,” he told her, stealing one more kiss and finishing his work. “I’ll find you this time.”

When he pulled away, she let him go only reluctantly. The knowledge that it would be a hundred times more satisfying to seduce her as Thornecliff than it would be to take the easy tumble she offered The Gentle Rogue was all that enabled him to sit back in his saddle.

That, and the look on her face when he wheeled Dante about and urged him to a canter—with her pair of matched grays pulled free of the traces he’d loosened and following behind, their bridles securely connected to the leather lead he held in his hand.

“You—you thief! Those are my brother’s horses,” she yelled after him. “Come back here at once!”

“I told you I wouldn’t leave with nothing,” he shouted back, heart bucking in his chest, cock thumping in his trousers, fully fucking alive for the first time in what felt like forever. “See you in two weeks, Lively!”