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V IVIENNE P OPPY HAD ALWAYS TAKEN pride in the fact that she had never fainted—not when her papa died, leaving her alone in the world, nor when her stepbrother promised her hand to the vilest so-called gentleman of her acquaintance.

Of course she would faint during the most exciting moment in her life and miss all the potential story fodder that came along with being carted away on horseback by a masked highwayman.

But now, with her back pressed against the highwayman’s solid chest and her head bent forward at an unnatural tilt and bobbing with each clop of the horse’s hooves, she knew she had indeed fainted, and the moment he discovered she was awake, a battle would lay before her.

She kept herself limp, despite the pain at the base of her neck, as the whispered warnings from ton mothers of what happened to unprotected maidens on the road flooded her pounding heart.

She had already weighed that risk when she’d fled London before dawn, but she’d thought they were just stories.

What was the risk of a supposed highwayman compared with certain imprisonment in a union of convenience that was anything but convenient for her?

This is salvageable. I can still have my new life.

She had managed to escape her overbearing stepbrother and his waspish wife.

She could outwit this brute of a man and emerge unscathed, with inspiration for her next novel.

The only question was how to accomplish the feat.

She dared to lift her lashes a hairbreadth, seeking anything that could help her plight in the rapidly fading light.

The horse’s long, strong strides along the dirt road hinted at the highest quality of horseflesh.

The earth was too far from her perch to risk a leap.

She might incur a broken ankle, and she didn’t have funds to spare for the doctor.

Maybe feign an onslaught of violent illness brought on by hysterics?

No man would take well to a woman casting up her accounts onto his leather saddle and shirtfront and would immediately dismount …

but she hadn’t eaten anything in a day of travel, as she hadn’t dared to spend any coin on bread.

A lot of good that did her when her precious coins were lining the bandit’s pockets.

Indignation surged through her. Who was this man to pilfer her hard-earned money from her reticule?

It had taken her ages to decorate her pretty bead purse and years to save her meager pin money, which she had foolishly carried with her in case she needed it on her journey.

She would have to write another novel to replace the funds, for the reticule was no doubt emptied and in a puddle on the road between London and Bath.

She could only pray that the horrid letter from her stepbrother, Lucius, was tucked in the highwayman’s pocket and not on the road for him or—heaven forbid—her so-called fiancé to uncover and be given an inkling of where she had vanished.

Vivienne risked another peek. The man’s strapping legs were clad in well-tailored black breeches tucked into polished black Hessian boots that glinted in the setting sun. A carved ebony knife handle poked out of his left boot just below her. Perfection.

If she was ever to get out of this mess, she needed to act now before he joined any associates and she could be overtaken.

Judging from the solid mass of man supporting her, an escape would be problematic.

But she had always been gifted in performing tableaux.

Surely this was no different, even if the stakes were staggering. Violent illness it is.

She moaned, allowing her head to wobble from side to side as she clutched her stomach, her groaning frantic as she kept her lips parted in a show of rising hysteria. She allowed a bit of spit to dribble at the corner of her mouth to lend credence to the charade. “S-stop. I’m going to be ill!”

The man stiffened at once, drawing his horse to a halt.

She barely kept her grin from appearing and betraying her.

She moaned again and lurched forward, leaning over his left boot as if to cast up her accounts away from them.

She wrenched the knife from his boot and whipped around, lifting the steel to his neck.

“How dare you accost a lady. Who are you, and why did you take me?”

Clad entirely in black, her abductor wore a matching cloth mask over his eyes, tied above his striking golden queue that gamboled in the wind.

His piercing blue eyes widened in shock behind his mask, and the corner of his mouth raised.

The scamp was grinning at her, and dash it all if his breathing was even too.

Well, she supposed if one robbed stagecoaches for a living, daring was required. “What have you got to say for yourself? Are you to have no final words?”

“Not many can boast of tricking me,” he said in a deep Scottish brogue. He rolled back his impossibly broad shoulders, which were emphasized by his layered cape, revealing a New Land Pattern pistol strapped to his chest … the reason for the sore spot on her back that would no doubt bruise.

From her book research, she knew it to be a firearm with a short range, but if his aim was as good as his horsemanship, she was in grave danger.

He cut a handsome figure for a highwayman, with his sharp jawline and trim waist—mayhap he was not as smart as he dressed.

“The Prince Regent will have your head for manhandling a lady of the court.”

His brows rose. “The Prince Regent, eh? Seems I have absconded with the wrong damsel. A lady of the court even … one who travels by stage .”

“Indeed you have.” She lifted the blade to hide the lie that was surely reaching her eyes.

She had never been good at misdirection, but proclaiming that one was a gentleman’s daughter hardly held a threat, especially when she had no relation left who cared for her.

She ripped the reins from his hand and tossed them over the horse’s head.

“Now, you will dismount and let me ride away, or I’ll see you rot in prison. ”

He heaved a sigh. “While that is quite the tempting proposition, I’m afraid I cannot allow you to take my horse. I am rather fond of him.” Using his legs, he guided his ebony steed in a supreme show of horsemanship, as the reins still dangled over the horse’s head.

“And I was rather fond of my reticule. It is hardly compensation, but it is well within my right to have your horse, as you claimed my coin.” She frowned at the horse’s progress. “Stop directing him! I am in earnest. I will—”

His gloved hand flashed out and seized her wrist, twisting the blade away in a single motion as he appropriated it with the other hand, tucking it in his right boot this time, away from her grasp.

“Let us put that valiant attempt behind us, shall we?” He chuckled and retrieved the reins with ease.

She lifted her chin and flipped her long blond braid over her shoulder—hoping it hit him in the face—and pushed back the hair plastered to her perspiring temple, allowing the gentle breeze to cool her cheeks.

She would not cry in her frustration and let this man think her any weaker than he already did.

She was used to being underestimated. It was partly how she’d managed her flight, but she had not created this elaborate plan for freedom to perish before she took hold of her life.

Perhaps if she hinted at there being anticipation of her arrival in Bath, she might be saved—at the very least, she could promise a ransom for her safe passage, paid for by her friends.

While she traveled alone, she had Muriel and Tess.

If Vivienne did not write to them by the end of the week, her friends would come looking—she had no doubt.

“Did I hurt you, my lady?” He grunted. “I am not used to dealing with the weaker sex. Forgive me if I bruised your wrist, but I did not wish to lose my head at your lovely hand.”

“I hardly think you would care even if you did cause me pain.”

“I may be a highwayman, but I am no brute.”

“A nice sentiment, but it has yet to be proven.”

He directed the horse from the main road toward a grove of trees, sending her heart racing wildly.

“What are you about? Don’t you wish to evade the local constables and watchmen? I have no doubt they are following, after you were so bold as to rob a stagecoach bearing Sir Thomas Pomphrey and a lady.”

“An unescorted lady, which begs the question as to why a member of the peerage would take a public coach instead of her own carriage.” He slowed his mount as they slipped between the trees, the canopy of leaves shielding them from the road, the animal breathing heavily.

“And my horse needs a rest. We will not be bothered here.”

The rogue halted the horse, leapt from its back, and lifted his hands to her.

She ignored his offer and kicked her feet free from her skirts.

She gripped the leather saddle and skidded to the ground.

Her limbs tingled from the cramped travel, and it was all she could do to hold on to the saddle to keep from collapsing.

The highwayman paid her no notice as he tossed the saddlebags over his shoulder and strode a few yards away.

He dumped the contents of the bags, sorting through them, setting coins and pound notes on one side and the trinkets—most likely from Sir Thomas’s and the driver’s pockets—on the other. Her reticule fell out.

He has it! She released her breath. Her stepbrother would not find her on that score.

The man grinned at her intake of breath. “Ah, this must be Sir Thomas’s purse. Lovely beadwork, I must say.”

She crossed her arms. “There is little of value in there.”