His Mask of Retribution Read Free Page B

lucid as he claimed, and when she looked into them she could not prevent the shiver that ran through her. He was still holding her in place against the door, her wrists secured in his grip, his body too close to hers. There was an aura of such danger surrounding them she could scarcely breathe.
    ‘It is you who is the thief. And, for all I know, a murderer too.’
    He stepped closer, his eyes intent on hers, and she saw the flare of fury in them. ‘It is true I have thieved, but as for murder? When your father grovelled in the dirt before me I could have done it, Lady Marianne, so very easily. I confess I was tempted.’ His hushed voice was so harsh and so filled with anger that she caught her breath to hear it. ‘An eye for an eye is what the Bible says. But murder...’ He shook his head. ‘That is your father’s game, not mine. I’ll settle to see him brought to justice in a hangman’s noose.’ The force of his words flayed her. Then, as suddenly as he had captured her, he released her, stepping back to open up a space between them.
    ‘My quarrel is with your father. You need have no fear. I shall not hurt you.’
    She moved away from the coach and rubbed her wrists—not because he had hurt her, but because they still tingled from the feel of his skin against hers. ‘Then what are you going to do to me?’ Her heart was thumping fast and hard. Her lips were stiff with fear but she asked the question even though she was so very afraid to hear the answer. She waited with legs that trembled, but she did not let herself look away from that razing gaze.
    The silence seemed to stretch between them and tension knotted her stomach.
    ‘Keep you until your father gives me what I want. He has something belonging to me. Now I have something belonging to him. It is a fair exchange.’
    ‘And what is it that you want?’ The words were little more than a whisper. She remembered too clearly her father’s reaction when he had read the highwayman’s demand and the shock and worry she had felt to see it.
    ‘Too many questions, my lady. We can delay no longer.’ Not once did his gaze shift from hers and she quivered from the intensity of it. She knew what he was and, despite his reassurance, what he could do to her.
    ‘You shall not get away with this.’
    ‘Indeed?’ And there was such arrogant certainty in that one word.
    ‘You are despicable, sir.’
    ‘I am what your father has made me, Lady Marianne. Pray to God that you never find out the truth of it!’ He opened the door and gestured her into the coach.
    Marianne had no option but to hold her head high and climb inside.
    * * *
    She had her father’s eyes. Black as midnight, wary, and watching him with that same contempt Misbourne used on those around him. Little wonder she was the apple of her father’s eye. Little wonder he guarded her as if his pampered daughter were as precious as the crown jewels. In the rest of her face she favoured her mother. Her shapely lips pressed firm and her small nostrils were flared. His gaze swept over the blonde tendrils that framed her face, so soft and pale beside the strong darkness of her eyes. But the eyes, it was said, were windows to the soul. He wondered whether Marianne Winslow’s soul was as black as her father’s. He pulled the curtains closed and the stiffening of the girl’s body, the sudden fear in her face, spurred a twinge of irritation within him. As if he would ravish her, as if he would even touch her. Misbourne was the blackguard in this, not him.
    ‘I have told you that you have nothing to fear from me,’ he snapped. ‘Given your propensity for escape, you will understand the need for preventative measures.’ He produced a short length of rope.
    ‘And if I refuse?’ She raised her chin a notch.
    ‘You have no choice in the matter, my lady.’
    She stared at him as if he were the devil incarnate. ‘You are a villain.’ Her voice was high, her face pale.
    ‘Yes, I am,’ he said. ‘And you had