Moonlight Surrender (Moonlight Book 3) Read Free Page A

support, Sylvia slowly descended from the coach. Her eyes never left the man on the horse. Horror was imprinted on her broad, open features.
    “My Lord, it’s the devil himself.” Sylvia pressed a hand to her large bosom as her very breath felt as though it was backing up within her lungs.
    Oh Mother, why did you force me to bring this woman with me ? “Don’t you dare faint,” Beth hissed between her teeth, hoping a sharp warning would jolt the other woman into gathering her senses together.
    The highwayman used the tip of his pistol to push his hat further back on his head. He wanted a better look at the young prisoner. His eyes all but glowed as he mentally tore the woman’s clothes away from her shapely form. He licked his lips, completely ignoring the quaking cow behind her.
    “It’s a fair treasure I see I’ve found today.” His lascivious look grew as the grayish stubbled cheeks spread in anticipation. He leaned forward, his elbow on the pommel of his saddle, his gaze burning into Beth. “What is it that you have for me, wench?”
    “Nothing but the utmost contempt.” Her cold demeanor belied Beth’s growing fear. She spat on the ground before the highwayman’s horse.
    His laugh, dark and evil, tainted the air. “Oh, a spirited one. Those are the best for bedding. Usually.” There was a warning in his words. He motioned to her with his pistol. “Come closer.”
    Beth raised her chin, her sapphire eyes darkening. “No.”
    Duncan Fitzhugh looked over his shoulder at the snow-white horse calmly following in his wake. “Fine time to throw a shoe, you miserable nag. We must be five miles from the manor. Couldn’t you at least have done it when we were closer?”
    The horse snorted.
    Duncan had the distinct impression that the animal was laughing at him. He had to admit that despite these last few years, which he had spent landlocked, he had never gotten used to horses. A ship was the only thing he felt comfortable traveling on, not a four-legged nuisance that ate hay and did what it wanted to, when it wanted to. A ship knew who was master.
    Duncan sighed as he fondly remembered his privateering days.
    But all that was behind him now. He was the acting agent for the absent Earl of Shalott. In exchange for his duties, he had the run of the manor, food and shelter for the extended family he had come to care for during his years on the London streets and on the high seas, and more comfort than he had ever dreamed of.
    A little too much comfort, actually. It was all a bit too tranquil for him, too easeful. Duncan couldn’t help yearning for his old life. Trapped within a respectable position, he felt a longing burrowing through his innards, a longing for the excitement he had once known. There was no danger to pit himself against, no test of courage to endure.
    It could easily turn a man soft, he thought disparagingly.
    He pulled his shoulders closer. His wet shirt stuck to him like a leech beneath the vest he wore. It was too hot, too wet. Duncan’s humor was fouler than the weather.
    His trip into the small township just beyond the manor had been far from satisfying. These last few months he had been keeping company with a pretty slip of a thing. Elaine. Elaine, of the ripe hips and the ruby lips. She had informed him this morning that they were either going to come to an agreement about their future together, or he could just take himself and his smooth tongue away.
    Duncan smiled unconsciously, remembering how she had looked, her hands fisted at her waist, her dark hair thrown back as she waited for his answer. Elaine, he knew, had been confidently counting on his capitulation. She had warmed his sheets more than once and proved to be a very satisfying bed partner.
    But it would take more than a warming of the blood for him to give up his freedom. She must have been a little daft to think that he would willingly place his head in a noose to be led around like some lamb by a woman with shapely hips and