Moonlight Surrender (Moonlight Book 3) Read Free

father.
    Sylvia’s snores droned on as the horses’ hooves plodded along the muddied road.
    Faster, Beth thought impatiently, staring at the land through a curtain of fine mist. Faster.
    Beth prayed that she would not arrive too late.

Chapter Two
    The coach jolted to a halt a moment before the crack of a pistol being discharged rang out in the stagnant summer air. Beth stiffened, her body tense, rigid with nervous anticipation. She heard a guttural moan, followed by a sickening thud. Something had fallen from the top of the coach and had hit the ground.
    Sylvia’s tiny black eyes snapped wide open, darting from side to side like loose berries as she attempted to comprehend what was happening. Her earbobs swung back and forth like huge silver pendulums in the wind.
    Frightened, Sylvia grasped Beth’s arm tightly. “By all the saints, what was that?”
    Highwaymen. The single word echoed in Beth’s mind like a dark, foreboding chant. Her heart began beating madly in her chest. Yet she gave no outward sign of ag itation as she looked at Sylvia. One of them had to keep her head.
    “It wasn’t any saint, I can guarantee you that much.”
    A deep, raspy voice that sounded as if it was coming from the depths of a whisky barrel sliced through the air and dispersed any further speculation. “You there, in the coach, step down.”
    Sylvia’s eyes were opened so wide, they appeared ready to pop out. “What are we to do?” Fear surrounded each whispered word.
    Beth fervently wished now that she had kept her pistol with her, instead of packing it in her trunk. Her father had taught her how to load and shoot both musket and pistol, but the skill was meant for sport, not protection. Never in his wildest dreams had Philippe imagined that his oldest daughter would need to know how to protect herself. He believed that all his daughters would always be safe, nestled in the midst of a genteel Virginia society. The physician had felt confident that all the hor rors which had been unleashed by the war for indepen dence were over. Nothing ugly would ever touch his family again.
    She glanced about the coach for a weapon, something to throw, to gouge with—anything.
    There was nothing.
    “Step down,” the man ordered again, “or the next bullet will be through the coach, instead of your driver!”
    The driver. He had shot the driver, Beth thought, filled with horror. Her concern immediately shifted away from the money at the bottom of her trunk. Had he mortally wounded the man? She had to see if she could do anything to help him.
    “We’ll step down,” Beth called out.
    Sylvia trembled. Huddling, she looked as if she was vainly attempting to shrink into her seat. Beth opened the coach door and stepped out. The heel of her shoe sank into the mud.
    She was not unaware of the highwayman’s appraisal, singeing her skin like hot coals. His eyes all but ravaged her where she stood. Struggling to ignore him, she looked around for the driver. The man was lying on the ground a few feet away, his face smashed into his tricor-nered hat. Beth swallowed the gasp that rose in her throat. With determination cloaking her, she took a step toward the driver.
    “Don’t bother, he’s dead.” The highwayman’s smug words assaulted her ears. “And so might you be, if you don’t mind what I say.” The man leered. “Be a pity, though, to shoot something as comely as you.” He ran his tongue over his greenish teeth in anticipation. “Right away, at any rate.”
    Beth struggled to keep the cold shiver from sliding down her spine. She couldn’t let this man see that she was afraid. Raising her head, she kept nothing but con tempt in her eyes as she looked up at the man.
    The highwayman was attired in filthy clothes, with a ragged cloak slung over one shoulder. In each of his large hands he held a pistol. Looking down at her from atop a large bay, he brandished the left pistol as he spoke.
    With her trembling hand wrapped about the door for