Page 13 of Captured By the Werewolf Highwaymen

He nodded.

There was no judgment in his expression, and yet she found herself stammering, “I have an…interest in such matters. Folktales, legends, fairy stories.”

She couldn’t tell him about the other books. The ones hidden in the walls of her house. The volumes that gave her so much pleasure, but had also driven her husband away.

“You do live in a house in the middle of the woods, after all.” Desmond’s gaze met hers. “Like one of those girls in the fairy stories my ma used to tell me.”

She reddened even more. “I’m far from a girl. And I read other things, too. History, and, ah…” She couldn’t think of anything else, so her words faded away. “It’s silly, I know.”

“Don’t have to defend what you read. You don’t even have to belittle whatever you like. It’s your own business what pleases you. Everybody else can go hang.”

“I…oh.” No one, not even her father, had ever tolerated what she enjoyed reading. To have a highwayman in her bedchamber be the lone person to accept that she adored yarns and legends and tales—she almost, almost relaxed in his presence.

“What do you take pleasure in reading?” she asked, then regretted her question immediately, already knowing the answer.

“I don’t know my letters,” he said simply.

“I see.” She burned with awkwardness at her misstep.

“Now, Gideon,” he continued amiably, as if she hadn’t just embarrassed herself, “he is a great one for books. Always got his nose in some book whenever we—ah—find some from a carriage we stop.”

“Ah.” How could she forget that these men were criminals?

“I wouldn’t be surprised if he hasn’t already hunted down your library,” Desmond continued, jovially, as though fond of his book-thieving comrade.

“He won’t take any of the books there, will he?” Anxiety edged her voice. “They’re all rather precious to me.” Many were special editions that she’d ordered from the Continent.

“Stealing from a carriage on the Gloucestershire road and stealing from a private home are awful different situations,” Desmond said confidently.

“I will have to take your word for it.”

“Besides,” he added, “whatever books Gideon winds up taking, he always donates them to circulating libraries. It irritates Cyrus to no end. He’d rather we sell them, but Gideon insists. Says it’s better that many people should have access to a book rather than it moldering in one person’s private collection, where it might mildew for years on the shelf, unread.”

“Oh, well, I suppose that’s a positive.” But even if it did result in something good, theft was theft. That wasn’t right—was it?

Silence fell, and, familiar as this room was to her, the bed within it loomed like a portent.

She couldn’t help but look at it, and he did, too. His jaw went taut.

“Please,” she said nervously. “Don’t⁠—”

“Peace, Mrs. Ballantine.” He held up his hands. “I’ve got no designs on your person. But I can’t leave you on your own.”

“I’m not going to run.”

He shook his head, almost as if in regret. “That’s a gamble I can’t take.”

“What do you propose?”

After a quick glance around the room, his attention landed on a wingback chair in the corner. Her reading chair. Some of the damask upholstery had frayed, and the horsehair filling poked out near one of the armrests, yet for all that, it was a cozy place to spend several hours poring over volumes of folklore she’d ordered from London.

He picked up the chair as if it weighed no more than a piece of dollhouse furniture. Then he set it down in front of the door.

“How did you…?”

He flashed her a grin. “I’m used to muscling my very large horse around.”

“Your horses,” she began.