With an unnerving suddenness, the coach ground to a halt. Stopped in mid-sentence, Cait’s mouth gaped, and Kendra’s stomach clenched in fear.
Ford leaned forward and pushed open the door. A man on horseback—a highwayman!—poked his head inside.
The most gorgeous head Kendra had ever seen.
“You?” Jason and Ford said together.
They knew this villain?
Since Kendra hadn’t heard that either of her brothers had been hurt—or even robbed, come to think of it—most of her fear dissipated, and her heart lifted with excitement instead.
Nothing like this had ever happened to her!
Looking slightly disconcerted, the highwayman dismounted. “Aye, it’s me,” he said slowly. Beneath the mask that concealed the upper half of his face, a grin emerged, a slash of perfect white.
Well, not precisely perfect. One of his front teeth had a small chip, but she found that tiny imperfection charming. And he was dashing, not to mention dangerous. Why, if any of her hopeful suitors had been like this highwayman, she’d have married him in a trice!
She wanted to say something to make him notice her. But for the first time in her memory, her mouth refused to work.
His gaze swept the coach’s dim interior as though she weren’t even there. “You,” he said succinctly, motioning to the ashen-faced stranger seated beside Ford. “Get out.”
“There be five of us in here, three of them men, likely with pistols,” the man said stiffly. From his haircut, plain clothes, and the short, boxy jacket beneath his cloak, Kendra knew he was a Puritan. “Perhaps thee had better think again.”
“Oh, it’s violence you threaten, aye?” The highwayman’s voice was deep and a little husky, with, curiously, the barest hint of an accent. “Perhaps you had better think again. My friends,” he drawled, gesturing toward the hill behind him, “would make certain you cease to exist within the minute. Get out. Now.”
Kendra looked out the door and up. Sure enough, there were a dozen or so men at the top of the hill, their guns trained on the coach.
The Puritan must have recognized the threat, for he reluctantly climbed down. Kendra shifted within the coach, the better to see out.
The victim was a good foot shorter than the robber, who looked impossibly tall and elegant in a jet-black velvet surcoat. Close-faced and resigned, the Puritan emptied his pockets and handed over his money, then turned to reenter the coach.
The highwayman reached to grab the victim’s sleeve. “Not so fast.”
Visibly shaken, the smaller, older man stilled but said nothing.
The highwayman hesitated. “Surely a…man of business, such as yourself, will be carrying more gold on his person than this. Where is it? Sewn into your cloak? Hidden in your luggage?”
Though Kendra could see the rise and fall of his agitated breathing, the Puritan turned back boldly. “Surely thee has no need of gold,” he spat out, tugging his sleeve from the bigger man’s grasp while eyeing his groomed appearance and expensive, tailored suit. “A…gentleman such as thyself.”
The highwayman’s eyes were amber, edged in a deeper hue—bronze, Kendra decided—that now spread in toward the center as his expression hardened. “Your luggage and your cloak, then—seeing as you won’t cooperate.”
He swung his pistol in the coachman’s direction. The driver scrambled down and fumbled with the ropes securing the passengers’ belongings. A shove sent the Puritan’s trunk to the rutted road with a decisive thunk.
“Your cloak.” The highwayman held out his free hand, almost as though he were bored, while his victim struggled out of his plain mantle.
“What about them?” he sputtered, handing it over. His gaze swung toward the Chases.
The highwayman glanced inside and flashed Kendra’s brothers a conspiratorial smile before answering. “They’re friends. Good day.”
“Good day? Good day?” The poor man looked as red as a squalling newborn, and Kendra almost felt sorry for him—until she reminded herself that it was his ilk who had killed her parents during the Civil War.
Her brothers indeed carried pistols—and swords and knives and heaven knew what else—and had the man not been a Roundhead, she was sure one or both of them would have jumped to his defense. But because of men like this one, Jason had been left to raise his orphaned siblings, all of them forced to spend the Commonwealth years in poverty and exile.
She turned to watch the amber man remount and make his way down the road and up the hill toward his cohorts. He’d been superb. Magnificent.
Romantic, she thought on a sigh.
Amber. His clean-shaven, suntanned complexion. His eyes, a deep gold the color of the finest liquor. The black plume on his cavalier’s hat fluttered as he rode, and beneath it he wore a crimped brown periwig that rather reminded her of Ford’s hair. But she was certain the highwayman’s real hair wasn’t brown. Though many men had shaven heads under their periwigs, he wouldn’t. His own hair would be cut short, but not off, certainly—she shuddered at the thought—and it would be golden. Amber.
“Are thee going to let him get away with this?” the Puritan demanded, clambering up and glaring at her brothers with their rapiers at their sides.
One of Jason’s black brows rose, and he spoke for them both. “I expect so.”
The coach lurched and they continued on, but the atmosphere was decidedly strained, and the Roundhead got off at the next stop.
Kendra moved to sit in the now-vacant spot beside Ford. “A highwayman,” she breathed as soon as the carriage resumed moving.
“Why didn’t he rob us?” Caithren asked. “How is it you know him? He called you a friend.”
“He uses the term lightly.” Jason’s smile was enigmatic. “We’ve run into him before. But he’s never robbed us.”
“He didn’t look like he needed to rob anybody,” Kendra pointed out. “His suit was nicer than yours.”
He’d looked nicer than Jason all around, she mused. Not that Jason was hideous, but he had the general look of her family, a look she was inured to, to say the least. The highwayman, on the other hand, had looked…exotic. All golden and dressed in black—black suit, black shirt, black
