Highwayman Husband. Helen Dickson

a startled gasp to her lips. As he sheathed his knife his eyes became fastened to the large sapphire and pearl necklace resting just above the creamy swell of her breasts, peeping over the bodice of her blue velvet gown.

      Laura’s heart missed a beat, and instinctively her fingers closed round it protectively. ‘No—you will not take that. Anything but that, I beg of you.’

      ‘Beg all you like, but ’tis a pretty bauble and should fetch a tidy sum.’

      ‘No. It—it was given to me by my husband on our wedding day…before he died. Please, please, don’t take it.’ She thought he hesitated for a moment, but that was all it was, just a moment, before he recollected himself.

      ‘This is not the time for sentimentality. Besides,’ he murmured, his eyes raking over her, drawn to the seductive allure of her gown and the curve of her breasts, ‘you look ravishing. You need no jewels to enhance your beauty, madam. Take it off.’

      ‘Give him the damn thing,’ Edward spat. ‘And then let him go to hell.’

      Stubbornly Laura refused to surrender it. ‘No. I will not.’

      ‘Hand it over, before I take it by force.’

      ‘You would not dare,’ she said scornfully.

      ‘Try me.’

      Swallowing her outrage in deference to his daunting height and the pistol levelled at her heart, Laura took judicious note of his soft, menacing tone and the taut set of his shoulders, and felt the first tendril of fear coil in the pit of her stomach. With trembling fingers she unclasped her treasured necklace and handed it to him. Laura knew he was grinning infuriatingly behind his disguise, and, holding her precious necklace in his palm, he threw it in the air several inches, caught it, and shoved it inside his jacket. He then advanced towards her once more with lounging insolence.

      Laura’s throat dried when he gave a low whistle of appreciation behind the handkerchief, and she felt hot colour flood her cheeks when his gaze wandered over her body in the most indecent manner. Unable to bear his taunting gaze any longer, she bent to scoop up her cloak, but with a soft laugh he quickly placed his booted foot on it, pinning it to the ground. Reaching out, he raised her chin with his finger. Laura felt uneasy.

      ‘Who are you?’ she demanded firmly. She thought that a hint of a smile lurked somewhere about his mouth, but she could not be sure.

      ‘A highwayman,’ he answered amiably.

      ‘Take your hands off her,’ Edward hissed furiously. ‘The lady is my betrothed.’

      Laura saw the highwayman’s tall frame stiffen. For a moment his gaze lingered on the elegant perfection of her face, before he dropped his hand. That was the moment a breeze stirred, and the clouds allowed a shaft of moonlight to sweep across them.

      Looking up at him, Laura saw his eyes properly for the first time from beneath his hat—pale eyes, almost silver, glittering like glass and ice-cold. They fastened on her once more and searched her as they probed her soul. It was as if he knew her innermost thoughts. She felt herself drawn to him, as if by some overwhelming magnetic force, and for an instant something stirred inside her.

      She experienced a strange, slinking unease—of shadowy familiarity. Although the night was reasonably warm, there was a chill in the air, and she shivered with a sense of deep foreboding. She could not have put the feeling into words, but it was as though some spirit had groped its way into her heart and made it beat harder.

      ‘You are to be his wife?’ the stranger asked.

      His eyes compelled her to speak. ‘Yes—not that it is any concern of a common footpad.’

      Suddenly the eyes boring into her own were cold no longer, but burning in his face like living things. She was puzzled as to why, for some curious reason, this declaration should arouse his anger. She blanched, edging away, but like a striking snake his hand shot out and grabbed her by the wrist and yanked her to him. Shooting a look at his accomplice, who had two pistols, primed and loaded, aimed at Edward and Amos, he dragged her stumbling towards the Stygian darkness of the trees.

      ‘Damn your soul!’ Edward shouted after them in outrage. ‘How dare you dishonour my lady? I command you to release her this instant.’

      The highwayman ignored him. Only when they were hidden and out of earshot did he stop and release his hold on Laura. Calmly he removed his hat and placed it with his pistol on a conveniently placed log. Believing she was about to suffer a fate worse than death, with a thundering heart Laura watched him remove the handkerchief, and at that same instant she had her first clear view of his face without the concealing cloth.

      Momentarily paralysed, she stared at that lean, hard face of his.

      And she recognised it.

      She stared at the man whose name she bore with the incredulous horror of someone who had seen a ghost. Her blood seemed to freeze in her veins, and she looked at him in a kind of hysterical disbelief that almost brought her to her knees. She wanted to cry out, to try and overcome the shock of it, but no sound came. She felt as though she were in a dream, or else going mad. It could not be true.

      ‘You!’ The word passed through her lips on a rush of breath.

      Her husband, Lucas Alexander Mawgan, the man she had been told had been killed by pirates when they had captured the vessel carrying him to England from France, smiled cynically.

       Chapter Two

       ‘I am glad to see you are not so enamoured of Edward Carlyle that you have forgotten your husband altogether, Laura.’ His voice was soft, but his eyes were knowingly chiding.

      Without the handkerchief covering his mouth, there was no denying the familiarity of that deep voice, and Laura’s dazed mind finally accepted that her husband was really and truly alive. ‘But—but I thought you were dead,’ she whispered.

      ‘Clearly,’ he bit back with biting sarcasm.

      ‘But—Edward and I are to marry shortly. We are officially betrothed.’

      ‘Not any longer. You are married to me,’ Lucas reminded her harshly, ‘and nothing can change that.’ His jaw hardened and his anger increased as he suddenly realised she might have feelings for Carlyle. The mere notion that this might be so, that his grieving wife had been consorting with a man he despised while he had been in chains, forced to endure two mortal years of frozen limbs, the stink of the grave clinging to him day and night, of crawling vermin and rotten scraps of food his jailers supplied him with, made him livid.

      ‘Are you not happy to see me?’ he asked.

      For what seemed an eternity, Laura stared up at the incredibly handsome, virile man who had imposed himself in her life again. His face was leaner than she remembered, though still proud and arrogant and stamped with ruthlessness, and there was an implacable authority in the strong jawline, and cold determination in the thrust of his chin. There was a time when she had thought his eyes as gentle as a summer breeze, but now she could see they were cold and unyielding, and as uninviting as south Atlantic ice floes, eyes without softness, without kindness or understanding. How did she feel about him? She didn’t know.

      His gaze was narrow and assessing. Laura’s hand crept to her throat. The low cut of her bodice embarrassed her, despite the previous intimacies that had passed between them. ‘For-forgive me,’ she stammered. ‘I am shocked—justifiably so. My feelings are so confused.’

      ‘I can see your sorrow for my alleged demise has not prevented you from enjoying yourself,’ Lucas remarked with scathing sarcasm. ‘You look anything but a grieving widow. Since you can hardly convincingly throw yourself into my arms and weep tears of joy for my resurrection from the dead while wearing another man’s ring—a man I would cheerfully consign to rot in hell—you will have to think of something else to appease my anger towards you and win my forgiveness.’

      Unable to control her mounting anguish and anger, Laura looked at him as if he were the devil.