The Highwayman of Tanglewood (18 page)

But the Highwayman was more perceptive than an average man—else he would not have kept safe so long. This Faris knew. Further, she would not withhold some of the truth from him if he pressed her about Lord Tremeshton—and he did.

“There is somethin’ yar not tellin’ me, Faris,” the Highwayman said. “And ya will tell me it now.”

The Highwayman loosed his embrace, and Faris stepped back from him. Would he be angry? Most certainly he would, but not with her—of this she was certain.

Therefore, inhaling deep, she said, “Lord Tremeshton was let in to Loch Loland these three mornings past,” she began, “to allow Lord Rockrimmon to purchase some tenant lands.”

“And?” he urged. His broad chest rose and fell with the heavy breathing of restrained anger.

“He did cause me alarm—but only for a moment,” Faris quickly explained. “Master Lochlan intervened, and I was only a little frightened—and only for a little moment.” Faris frowned, slightly disturbed in the sudden elation that rose within her at the memory of Lochlan Rockrimmon’s championing her.

“He must not be allowed in Loch Loland!” the Highwayman growled. “He yet means ye harm—of this I have no doubt. Why does Lord Rockrimmon continue to—”

“He is cast out,” Faris interrupted, placing a dainty palm to the Highwayman’s chest in a gesture of calming him. “Master Lochlan disarmed him quickly, and Lord Rockrimmon bade Master Lochlan throw him from the house.”

“Disarmed him?” the Highwayman shouted.

“Ssshh,” Faris gently soothed. “We must not be found out—and all is well after all. I have Lord Rockrimmon’s promise—offered on bended knee—that Lord Tremeshton will never set foot in Loch Loland again.”

“I will best him once more,” the Highwayman said, rubbing his temples with one gloved hand. “I will best and beat him to such a bruisin’ to keep him abed for a month!”

Panic leapt to Faris’s bosom. She would not have the Highwayman put in danger’s path for her sake—not any more than their secret meetings already did.

“No!” she whispered. “He has been bested—for Master Lochlan broke Lord Tremeshton’s nose with his own fist before he sent him tumbling head over heel.”

“He has championed ye when I have not,” the Highwayman said. “Do ya find him handsome? Is he to be me rival where yar heart is concerned?”

He was jealous! Faris smiled with impish delight in the sudden knowledge the Highwayman of Tanglewood was jealous.

Faris giggled and said, “Surely you do not think me insipid or purely dim-witted enough to fancy his lordship’s son! Further, if I were so dim-witted and naive—which I am not—you already own my heart. Do you think me foolish as well as fickle?”

“No,” the Highwayman grumbled. “Of course not.” He paused a moment and then asked, “But do ya find him to be handsome, lass? I will know if ya tell me false.”

“He is handsome, and to deny it would prove me a liar,” Faris said. “Furthermore, I do think his character is intact—that he is honorable. He does seem to have a bit of the rascal about him. Still, greater men have a rogue’s way and are honorable—is that not true?”

“It is,” he said, finally smiling again. “Yet he has championed ye—and a lassie’s heart is easily won by champions.”

“I already have my champion,” Faris said.

At that, the Highwayman took her hand and maneuvered her to sit on the floor with him. Resting his back against the cottage wall, he cradled her in his arms as she nestled against him. Warm and safe and entirely in love, Faris let her head rest against his chest.

“I be farever yar champion, fair Faris,” the Highwayman whispered into her hair. “And ye will farever be me lassie.”

“How came you to be my champion, Highwayman?” Faris asked. The comfort of being nestled against him was intoxicating. She felt nearly drowsy with delight. “How came you to ride as the Highwayman of Tanglewood? Can you tell me this without revealing what you are not ready to reveal? Can you tell me the tale without revealing who you were before you rode as the Highwayman of Tanglewood?”

The Highwayman chuckled. “I think that I can. And I think that I will. Ya deserve far more, I know—but far now I can at least give ya the tale of the Highwayman of Tanglewood’s first ride.”

“’Twas but two years past when I was passin’ through the village when suddenly I came upon a wealthy and titled man speakin’ with unkindness to a young girl sellin’ ribbons. The ribbons had been her mother’s, and she was sellin’ them to earn enough to buy a loaf of bread for her ailing wee brother. The titled man was landlord to the girl and her fatherless family. Of a sudden, he slapped the girl, confiscatin’ her ribbons—far her mother had been remiss in payin’ her tenant taxes. I stood stunned, unable to believe I had seen what I had seen,” the Highwayman said. “I was too stunned to act in that moment, but I did in the next—far sure and far certain, I did in the next.”

“And then I waylaid the filthy landlord in an alley, retrieved the young lass’s ribbons, and returned them to her,” he said. “It was the start of me criminal profession, it was.”

Faris smiled, thinking of the ribbon he’d stolen from her own hair on their last meeting.

“So you began as a thief of ribbons,” she giggled.

“And I am still,” he said, tugging at the new ribbon in her hair until it loosed. Faris felt her hair fall down around her shoulders. The Highwayman removed his gloves and began twisting one long strand of Faris’s hair around his finger.

“Like silk, it is,” he whispered, burying his hands in her dark tresses.

Faris fancied the rate of his breath had increased, and she tilted her head to look up at him. Oh, how she longed to reach up, strip his mask from his head, and at last look into the face of her beloved. But she would not betray his trust in her. She would not. She would simply hope for the day he would reveal himself willingly.

“Ya have begun to distract me, fair Faris,” he whispered, kissing the tip of her nose lightly.

“What do you mean?” she asked, thrilled by his touch.

“A year past I held no fear in me. No fear of injury, even death. I feared nothin’ and thought nothin’ could hurt me. But now…” he said, kissing her forehead. “Now I know fear—far whenever I’m in the midst of a scuffle, I worry I may be hurt—hurt badly enough to keep me from seein’ ye again, lass. And that would take a bad hurt, it would. I worry I may be caught and imprisoned—unable to run me fingers through the silken locks of yar hair—unable to taste of yar sweet kiss.”

Faris trembled with fear at the thought of either. “Please do not speak of such things,” she told him, suddenly very frightened for his safety.

“Still, I am reasonably invincible,” he chuckled. “And there are those in government who have already spoken of grantin’ me pardon if I were captured. And with the hope of seein’ ye again, I am stronger with each battle—always fightin’ far the chance to hold ya in me arms once more.”

Faris smiled and snuggled tighter into his embrace. “Do you not think it odd we two are so drawn together? Especially having met only thrice before this?”

“It is not so much odd as it is rare,” he admitted. “And a man hears tales, he does—tales of findin’ his one true love at first meetin’. Tales of two souls matched in heaven and on earth. It’s as we are, it is. Ye and I—Faris and the Highwayman of Tanglewood—lovers the like which spawn legend.”

Faris smiled, taking his hand in hers and lacing their fingers. His hands were warm, calloused, not cool and soft as she fancied a titled man’s would be, and she smiled. His hands told a tiny tale of his identity: he was a hard-working man, not one pampered and spoiled.

Suddenly, Faris moved from his arms, kneeling just before him. “I’ve grown weary of talk, Highwayman,” she said.

“Have ya now, lass?” he chuckled.

“Yes,” she answered. “The hour is late, the cottage is warm, and so is my heart—the perfect moment for a kiss.” Faris was a bit surprised by her own brazen manner. Still, she wanted to kiss him, sensed he wanted the same, and she felt comfortable enough with her Highwayman to tell him so.

“So kiss me then, fair Faris of Loch Loland Castle,” he said, his brilliant smile piercing the darkness.

“Do you think me too faint-hearted to do so?” she asked. In truth, her body had begun to tremble with nervous anticipation. She wondered if she could truly muster the courage to instigate a kiss between them. Yet he had already kissed her—even that very night he had. Surely he would not refuse her now.

“I think ya as stout-hearted as any lion to walk the green earth, I do,” he whispered. “And I think ya can do anythin’ ya put yar pretty little mind to, lass.”

“You do?” Faris breathed, her heart pounding so madly within her chest she thought it might break free.

“I do,” he said, reaching out and caressing her cheek with the back of his hand. “So seduce me now, little chambermaid,” he said. “I will not disappoint ye.”

Faris smiled, inhaled a deep breath of courage, and reached out, taking the Highwayman’s face between her small hands. She let her thumbs trace the mustache and goatee around his mouth a moment before leaning forward and tentatively pressing her lips to his in the sweetest of kisses. He waited one brief moment before taking her face in his own hands, returning her kiss with delicious and very masculine force.

There was nothing tentative in the manner in which his mouth captured hers then. Nothing withheld or hidden, nothing restrained. He kissed her with a hot, moist passion, sending goose bumps erupting over her body, a sensation of butterflies fluttering about her heart, and an idea of complete surrender echoing through her mind. As his mouth occupied her own, Faris wondered at his skill, his seemingly artful aptitude in kissing. Surely the man had been instructed somehow! Surely he had been told or taught how to completely conquer a woman’s emotions through such an exchange. Surely his way of whisking her into rapturous bliss was not simply instinctive. Yet her ability to return such an amorous trade was purely instinctive—therefore, why should she doubt his was not?

He held her first tightly, then loosely, his arms banding around her with astonishing power. He kissed her mouth, her cheeks, her neck, sending visions of pink sunsets and purple heathered hills through her impassioned mind. He held her to him, whispering words of adoration into the softness of her dark hair.

Finally, as his labored breathing began to calm, he whispered, “Were that I could take ya with me now, lass—keep ye always far me own.”

“I am yours,” she told him, blissful in his arms. “Whether here with you or at Loch Loland all alone—I am yours.”

“But it is selfish, I am,” he said. “To keep ya from the possibility of a man who could be with ya every day and hold ya safe in his arms—instead of leadin’ ya along the edge of danger the way I do.”

“If that’s true, then I’m selfish as well,” Faris said, “for I put you in danger each time we meet, causing you to linger when you should not—causing you to risk discovery.”

“Aye, then we are truly lovers, lass,” he said. “To risk such consequences to be together means truly that we love, it does. I ye and ye me.”

Faris smiled and nestled against him. Although her mind reeled with trying to understand how she could have fallen in love with a man after only meeting with him a few times, she knew she did love him. Furthermore, she believed he loved her—sincerely and singularly.

“But ya must return to Loch Loland now. The hours have passed quickly, and ye must rest,” he told her.

Faris did not want to leave him. She wanted to stay in his arms, held warm against his body, safe with him forever. Still she knew it was impossible. For that, she loathed the greedy lords of the land all the more.

“Yes,” she admitted. “It is time.”

“I will see ya close to the house, I will,” the Highwayman said, rising to his feet and assisting Faris to stand as well. “I would not want another such as I to find ye in the night.”