“Oh, Dev!” Suddenly she was hurling herself against him, suddenly she was crying, she didn’t know why. It had been so long since his arms had held her, it had been a long bruising journey from Claxton House, and she had thought never to see him again, and now to discover that he was a highwayman, keeping company with rough dangerous men, with the law hot on his heels.... “Oh, Dev...”
He recognized in her voice that wild appeal, that surge of emotion that spoke of loneliness and love—and, beating toward them from the distance, desire.
“It’s all right.” His hand stayed on her knee as he nibbled gently at her ear. “I won’t rush you.”
She laughed a little, through her tears. “I feel like a fool,” she said shakily.
“You don’t look like one.” His voice was rapt as he worked deftly with her hooks and eased off her bodice. “You look beautiful.” He pushed down her chemise and cupped one of her breasts with his hand and smiled down at her, his teeth a white flash in the darkness.
More relaxed now, she let him undress her, felt herself go tense again as her chemise departed and she was naked beside him, lying on her spread-out kirtle and chemise. Dev’s exploring fingers were wandering over her body, caressing her shoulders, her firm young breasts, tingling the nipples to hardness, sliding his hands down around her slender waist and easing them down to her ripe young hips. He made a soft sound in his throat as his hands dropped lower and caressed her thighs. She squirmed and caught her breath as his fingers twined in the silky dark triangle of hair between her thighs and made as if, playfully, he would pull her toward him by that.
“Dev,” she murmured chidingly.
He laughed and drew her toward him, scooped her up in one great playful hug. It was so wonderful to hold her in his arms again! He wanted to kiss her, to fondle her—he wanted the dream never to end!
But she held him off—there was something that must be said first. “Dev.” Her voice was soft and grave. “I lied to you that night at Fountains. I knew my ankle would hold you back.” And she told him how she’d sat by Hugh with a rock after he’d left, meaning to strike him down if he set out in pursuit, how she’d lied for him, given him time to escape. Dev looked away from her as she told him those things for there were tears in his eyes. And he had thought her a mercenary little chit who’d left him because she might get a better offer! Hot shame washed over him.
“I just—wanted you to know,” she said haltingly. “Before...”
“I don’t deserve you,” he whispered huskily, and drew her to him tenderly.
And then, suddenly, he was caught up by the maelstrom of his own. emotions, driven too far by the tormenting touch of her sweet flesh, inundated by love of her. Overcome by desire, he caught her round buttocks one in each hand and drew her to him irresistibly so that his masculine hardness came up against her femaleness and, with a sudden lancing thrust, he entered her.
To Constance, shivering raptly in his arms, the whole thing had a strange headlong quality as she was suddenly held fast in his hard grasp. But she met him unflinching and, even though her own emotions had not peaked, she felt him go over the brink and clung to him, trembling.
“I’m—sorry,” he gasped. “I know better. It’s just that— oh, Constance, how I’ve missed you!” He pushed her away a little and began to kiss her hungrily. His yearning lips moved over her face, ruffling her eyebrows, her lashes, sliding down over her cheeks and chin, moving softly along her neck. “I want you to enjoy this,” he murmured and bent his head, letting his lips slide fierily along her white pulsing bosom.
He lingered over her breasts, treating them with delicacy, with tenderness. His hands moved expertly between her legs, causing her to give a little moan of expectation. He seemed to be everywhere, nuzzling, caressing, tweaking where she least expected, rousing her to tingling desire and expectancy, and then carrying her upward to farther and farther reaches of desire until she felt she could not bear it. Her whole being seemed focused upon him in a terrible burning concentration that was lifting her to the heights but never quite over the precipice.
She felt rather than heard the soft laugh deep in his throat, felt on a spasmodic thrilling tremor his male hardness slide into her again. And this time there was no rhythm too fast for her, this time she could match him ardor for ardor, sigh for sigh, touch for tingling touch. This time, fueled by bursts of passion, they spun together toward the farther stars, whirled as one toward infinity. Locked together, panting in soul-shattering ecstasy, they went over the brink together.
And drifted down, down, down from rosy undreamt of heights, back to their windmill.
Constance had never felt so alive, so wanted, so thrillingly fulfilled. It was Fountains all over again, only better. And that, she knew suddenly, was because Dev was a better lover.
And how had he learned?
Surfeited now, sleepy but still awake enough to feel a stab of jealousy, she murmured, “You didn’t know how to unhook my bodice at Fountains but now you’re very good at it!”
“Aren’t you glad?” he countered mischievously, and she gave him a playful cuff. If other women there’d been, he’d forget them now that she was back!
On that happy thought, forgetful of their precarious circumstances, forgetful of the fact that she was now consorting with highwaymen and could well hang alongside them if caught, forgetful of the fact that by her side forgotten lay a purse of highwayman’s gold for a dowry, Constance fell into a deep and dreamless sleep.
From which she roused to Dev muttering, “Get dressed—quick. Gibb is coming down. I think he’s seen something.” Confused for a moment as to where she was, Constance rolled over and got her chemise down around her. In the filtering pinkish light of dawn she saw Dev bolt into his clothes. By the time she had fastened her kirtle around her waist and was struggling with the hooks of her bodice, he was pulling on his boots.
“Horse and rider,” said Gibb laconically, vaulting down from the last rungs of the ladder.
Constance felt her alarm mount as Dev stood up booted and picked up his pistol. “Only one?” he asked.
“All I could see,” answered Gibb. “He’s coming close. Could be he’s a scout with others following.”
“We may be leaving fast,” Dev said over his shoulder as he strode off with Gibb toward the horses. “Stuff everything into the saddlebags—food and all.”
Constance made haste to do it. She had the saddlebags packed and was standing there holding them when she realized in panic that she had left something behind. The gold—she had forgotten the gold! She snatched up a leather thong she found on the floor and tied the leather pouch of gold around her waist, up under her skirts.
Now, she thought, Nell, the highwayman's doxy, was ready to travel!
A moment later Dev was back. “You can unpack,” he told her briefly. “He rode on by, apparently headed for one of the farms east of here.”
So keyed up that she was trembling, Constance felt almost a sense of regret that they were not leaving.
“Calm down,” said Dev.
“Where—where would we have gone?” she asked, troubled.
“Oh, several places,” he shrugged. “There’s an inn not too far from here that caters to such as we. Well, shall we have breakfast?”
Constance tried to treat their near miss with danger with the same aplomb Dev did, but found she could not. This was a new, bewildering way of life to her and she still jumped at every slight creak of the windmill’s sail as she spread out their “canopy” again for a tablecloth.
During that long day, a day during which the highwaymen lounged about, she learned much. Dev had not come by his nickname of “Gentleman Johnny” for nothing, Gibb told her. The rough lot who made their living from the road had christened him that because he was too selective about those he robbed. No women, no children, no elderly, no one feeble. Tax collectors, government officials and the like—those were his meat. And there weren’t enough of them, sighed Gibb.
“How do
you decide where to strike?” she wondered.
“We can’t stay long in one place,” Dev told her. “Mostly we work the outskirts of the larger towns where there’s considerable traffic.”
“You learn the schedules and lie in wait for the stagecoaches?”
The best jobs, they told her, were the result of planning. Gibb had found out about the tax collector through a man in Lincoln, who specialized in such information—and required a cut of the take for it. In their case, since they were new to him, he had required a fee in advance—but it had been worth it.
“ ’Twas me who slowed down the coach,” Gibb bragged.
“I had a devil of a time fixing that wheel so it would give trouble and yet not quite come off—for that would o’ wrecked the coach and maybe killed us all!”
“But it broke down more than once!”
“I bribed them as fixed it.” Gibb winked at her.
When they were alone, Dev told her, “Gibb took up this life out of desperation, as I did. He was a soldier and when his company was disbanded they didn’t pay him. He came home to Norwich, to his little farm, half-starved, and found it had been sold for debt, his wife dead, his daughter gone to London. He followed her there but he never found her.”
“But couldn’t he have got his army pay eventually?”
Dev shrugged. “We have a king in the pay of the French. He does as he likes—it’s nothing new.”
“We should get rid of him,” she cried, “and put the Duke of Monmouth on the throne!”
“Monmouth’s illegitimate.” He gave her a jaded look. “Maybe not. Cook at Claxton House swears he married Lucy Walter.”
“That’s as may be.” Dev’s shrug consigned the wayward duke to oblivion. “Most people prefer a king conceived after a celebrated marriage to some other monarch’s daughter.”
“You’ve become cynical! England deserves a better king—and people like us should see she gets one!”
He looked into her earnest flushed face. “Don’t let people hear you talk like that,” he laughed. “The world out there is an easy place to find a gibbet.”
And especially for highwaymen,thought Constance with a pang.
“Gibb and I must go out again tomorrow,” he told her, ruffling her hair affectionately.
“Another tip from the man from Lincoln?”
He nodded.
“Oh, Dev, don’t go! We don’t need the money.”
“Yes, we do.” He gave her a rueful look. “Life is hellish expensive on the road. ‘Safe’ inns charge double, triple. Money melts away—you’ll see.”
“Who—who is it this time?”
He gave a short laugh. “ ’Tis a lofty churchman whose purse we’ll be lightening—we hope.”
“Church money?” She was scandalized.
“Tithe money,” he corrected her. “Seized like any other tax from the unwilling. Money extorted by a church that has the force of government. D’ye wish to marry? ’Tis a fee you’ll pay. D’ye wish to—what is it, Constance? You’re laughing!”
For the moment his dangerous mission was forgotten. “Oh, Dev, you agreed with me all the time!” she cried, looking with delight at her cheerful young rebel.
He swept her up in his arms. “Not quite but near enough. I’m in sympathy with setting a better king on the throne. I just lack your confidence that we’ll be able to do it.”
Constance chose not to argue. She was content just to nestle in those strong arms.
Later though, when they were lying naked and warm beneath their makeshift canopy, with their bodies touching during an interval in their lovemaking, she broached what she had been thinking all day.
“Dev,” she murmured. “Couldn’t you—stop all this? It’s a dreadful way to live, always being pursued!”
His hands roved gently through the pale valley between her breasts, wandered up to the pink crested peaks beyond, lingered there. His fingers felt light on her flesh and enticing. She felt her breath catch.
“I mean it, Dev,” she said steadily.
The fingers left her abruptly.
“What do you suggest I do?” he asked dryly. “My main talent is that I’m a good man with a pistol.”
“I don’t know—but there must be something you could do.”
He kissed her. “We’ll think about it in the morning.” And eased his body once again against her naked softness and slipped his long leg between hers, sliding his loins against her thighs in a way that excited her senses and sent little ripples of feeling racing through her in scattered bursts. He stilled her lips with kisses and won her body again as he transported her through the Gates of Desire into a beautiful unreal world where time was meaningless and only passion ruled.
Chapter 13
A sense of foreboding hung over Constance all the next day. From the moment she woke, she felt it. She pleaded with Dev not to go—or at least to let her go with him, but he was adamant. “You’ll wait here for us, Constance,” he told her as he mounted up. “We’ll be back by dawn.”
And left, riding away through the dusk beside gingerhaired Gibb.
Constance stared after their departing figures. She felt as if her life were ending.
Briefly she considered following them, for Gibb had gone out and bought her a horse that morning.
“A sorry-looking nag she is,” he told her apologetically as he handed her the dappled mare’s bridle. “But she runs like the wind.”
“I only hope I can stay aboard her,” said Constance uneasily.
Dev had spent the better part of the afternoon trying to teach her horsemanship—and discovered that she had little aptitude. For all that she was graceful as a gazelle on her own feet, on a horse she was awkward.
“And you can’t expect me to ride astride!” she wailed. “ ’Tis unladylike!”
Dev and Gibb exchanged glances.
“Constance,” said Dev. “Gibb has brought you something else—men’s clothing.”
She recoiled at that.
“Put the things on,” he directed her sternly, “and we’ll see how you look. They won’t fit you very well, but we must hope you can pass for a boy with this wig.” He handed her a comb. “I’ve hacked off the curls to the right length for a countryman and you can comb it out straight.”
Constance looked at the nondescript wig in dismay. Awkwardly cut as it was, it looked limp and infinitely dejected. “I won’t wear that!” she cried.
Dev sighed. “It’s either that or cut your hair. Boys don’t wear long tresses.”
Angrily she snatched the wig from his hand.
“If you ride with us, you may be riding for your life,” Dev warned her wearily. “In ‘safe’ inns you may dress as you please, but on the road you’re safer as a lad.”
Glumly she tried on the trousers and shirt and boots and light cloak Gibb had brought her. Not a single item was a very good fit and she was sure she did indeed look like a country bumpkin when Dev adjusted the hacked-off wig, clapped a battered wide-brimmed hat upon her head, and stepped back critically to view her.
“Keep your hat pulled well down over your eyes,” he counseled. “Your eyes are too memorable. And try not to smile—your smile is memorable too.”
Constance gave him an irritable look. “Am I permitted to breathe?” she demanded.
He grinned but his gaze was steely. “That’s what I’m trying to ensure—that you keep breathing.”
Somewhat mollified, she turned to Gibb. “What do you think, Gibb? Don’t I make an excellent boy?”
Gibb shrugged. “I’d know ye for a wench by the way ye walk. Lad’s hips don’t move like that.”
“Gibb’s right,” muttered Dev. “Don’t—”
“Walk,” supplied Constance crisply. “How am I to get into inns and taverns? I presume we will eat and sleep in such places sometimes?”
Dev considered that, his green eyes thoughtful. He went out and when he came back he was carrying a stout staff. “Ye’ll swing in on that, holding up your right le
g as if it pains you.”
“Oh, you won’t make me carry a cane?” She was dismayed.
“Why not? It may come in handy in case we’re attacked at close quarters.”
That last remark silenced her. She eyed the staff doubtfully, wondering if she’d be able to swing it to advantage.
Gibb laughed and clapped her on the shoulder. “He doesn’t mean it, lass,” he declared cheerfully. “Johnny here may be loath to shoot a man down on the road so’s he can take his purse from him—but he’d blow the head off any man who threatened you!”
She flashed a sudden look at Dev and his grim expression told her Gibb had spoken the unvarnished truth.
To her dismay, she was told to wear the men’s clothing Gibb had brought until they got back—and to keep the saddlebags packed and ready. Constance understood. She was to be ready to run.
“Not that there’s apt to be any need,” Dev told her, dropping a light kiss upon her forehead before he mounted up. “But it’s as well to be ready for anything.”
Oh, Dev, she thought, clenching her fingers—and her teeth too to keep from blurting out what she thought. How can you live like this?
That night was for Constance one of the worst nights of her life. Clouds scudded fitfully over the moon, turning the surrounding countryside pitch black. The wind had come up and the great sweeps of the windmill creaked aimlessly around and around, the slip-slapping of the tattered canvas of those sails making an appalling noise that would cloak any arriving hoofbeats.
Uncomfortable in her unfamiliar men’s clothing and alarmed by the unfamiliar noises, Constance could not sit still. She kept pacing about, constantly running to peer out. Watching for Dev.
At last he came, streaking through the night. Fear struck her when she saw he was alone.
She was outside before he had leaped from his horse. “Dev, what’s wrong? Where’s Gibb?”
“Drawing them off,” he said tersely. “ ’Twas an ambush but we fought our way out of it. Gibb knew I had to come back for you, so he led them in the other direction. We’re to meet at Starbuck’s.”
“Will—will he be all right?” she whispered fearfully. For the first time she realized that Gibb, whom she had secretly disdained, might be giving his life for her this night. She felt ashamed.
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