A Dark and Brooding Gentleman Read Free Page A

havenae yet finished our business.’
    ‘Unhand me, you villain!’
    ‘Villain, am I?’ With rough hands he pulled her into his arms and lowered the stench of his mouth towards hers.
    Phoebe hit out and screamed.
    A horse’s hooves sounded then. Galloping fast, coming closer.
    Her gaze shot round towards the noise, as did the highway man’s.
    There, galloping down the same hill she had not long walked, was a huge black horse and its dark-clad rider—rather incongruous with the rest of the sunlit surroundings. He was moving so fast that the tails of his coat flew out behind him and he looked, for all the world, like some devil rider.
    Black Kerchief’s hand was firm around her wrist as he towed her quickly back to where his accomplice still stood waiting. And she saw that he, too, had pulled down his mask so that it now looked like a loose ill-fitting neckerchief. Jim grabbed her and used one hand to hold her wrists in a vice-like grip behind her back. She felt the jab of something sharp press against her side.
    ‘One sound from you, lady, and the knife goes in. Got it?’
    She gave a nod and watched as Black Kerchief stood between her and the road, so that she would be obscured from the rider’s view as he sped past.
    Please!
Phoebe prayed.
Please,
she hoped with every last ounce of her will.
    And it seemed that someone was listening for the horseman slowed as he approached and drew the huge stallion to a halt by their small group. Not the devil after all, but a rich gentleman clad all in black.
    ‘Step away from the woman and be on your way.’ Hunter spoke quietly enough, but in a tone that the men would not ignore if they had any kind of sense about them.
    ‘She’s my wife. Been givin’ me some trouble, she has,’ the taller of the men said.
    Hunter’s gaze moved from the woman’s bonnet crushed on the grass by the men’s feet, to the neckerchiefs around the men’s collars, and finally to the woman herself. Her hair glowed a deep tawny red in the sunshine and was escaping its pins to spill over her shoulders. She was young and pretty enough with an air about her that proclaimed her gentle breeding, a class apart from the men who were holding her, and she was staring at him, those fine golden-brown eyes frantically trying to convey her need for help. He slipped down from the saddle.
    ‘She is no more your wife than mine. So, as I said, step away from her and be on your way … gentlemen.’ He saw the men glance at each other, communicating what they thought was a silent message.
    ‘If you insist, sir,’ the taller villain said and dragged the girl from behind him and flung her towards Hunter at the same time as reaching for his pistol.
    Hunter thrust the girl behind him and knocked the weapon from the highwayman’s hand. He landed one hard punch to the man’s face, and then another, the force of it sending the man staggering back before the villain slumped to his knees. Hunter saw the glint of the knife as it flew through the air. With the back of his hand he deflected its flight, as if he were swatting a fly, and heard the clatter of the blade on the empty road.
    The accomplice drove at him, fists flying. Hunter stepped forwards to meet the man and barely felt the fist that landed against his cheekbone. The ineffective punch did nothing to interrupt Hunter’s own, which was delivered with such force that, despite the villain’s momentum, the man was lifted clear off his feet and driven backwards to land flat on his back. The shock of the impact was felt not only by the accomplice, who was out cold upon the ground, but seemed to reverberate around them. The taller highwayman, who had been trying to pick himself up following Hunter’s first blow, stopped still and, as Hunter turned to him, all aggression evaporated from the scoundrel.
    ‘Please, sir, we were only having a laugh.’ It was almost a whimper. ‘We wouldnae have hurt the lassie; look, here’s her purse.’ The highwayman fished the