Page 24 of Captured By the Werewolf Highwaymen

Of course, she did. Living in fear like this was no way to exist. And yet…she hadn’t spoken to anyone for this length of time. And, other than Cyrus’s bullying, talking with these highwaymen had been tolerable. Pleasant, even.

Perhaps more than pleasant.

She glanced behind to see Desmond and Gideon walking with her through the house, modifying their long-legged gaits so that they didn’t outpace or overwhelm her. They were all of them a puzzle. Highwaymen who didn’t fire their weapons first. Other than Cyrus, the men had also been surprisingly gentle with her. Sympathetic. And, in a few cases, flares of desire seemed to smolder beneath their dealings.

She was merely a lonely widow, searching for signs of attraction that weren’t truly there. She did read a considerable amount, and now she embroidered interactions to suit her taste for tales of princesses and enchantments and amorous bonds created in an instant.

There were those other books, as well. The ones full of wicked acts and unashamed desires. She’d always been drawn to such books, but perhaps Arthur was right. Perhaps they’d corrupted her. Filled her with thoughts of scandalous deeds that no decent woman should ever consider, let alone wish for herself.

And there was that moon, which would be full tonight. It played havoc with her wits.

“My thanks,” Desmond said gruffly.

She stopped walking and faced him. “What reason have you to thank me?”

“You were gentle with Hugh as you treated him,” Desmond explained, “when you have no cause to be.”

“I’d be a poor sort of doctor if I let my feelings color how I deal with a patient.”

“You laughed at his appalling jests and tended him with kindness,” Gideon said. “No doctor ever performed their duties with such graciousness.”

“It wouldn’t be so difficult for you to find some way of worsening his injury,” Desmond added. “Speeding his decline.”

She stared at them. “My God, what sort of people have you been dealing with that you could even consider I might do such a thing?”

Both men wore equally grim expressions. Desmond said, “Kindness isn’t something that either of us have much experience with.”

“I…” She looked back and forth between them. “I am sorry for it. Everyone deserves kindness. Well,” she amended, “not everyone. But many do.”

Gideon tilted his head as he regarded her. The deep liquid gentleness of his gaze stroked all the way through her. “You’re sincere.”

“I’ve no reason not to be.”

“Many aren’t,” Desmond said simply. “Not to men like us.”

“Highwaymen,” she mused.

“Yes, right,” Desmond answered after a moment. “Highwaymen.”

Gideon added a belated nod, and she frowned at the two men. It was as though…they meant something else, something that wasn’t the fact that they were thieves.

There was so much more to these men, every moment revealing depths to them she hadn’t considered. And secrets, as well.

But what those secrets were, and what truths they concealed, she’d no notion. Just as she had no notion of where she fit in within those enigmas.

7

Clara reached the back door of the house and stepped outside. Morning mist hung heavy across the terrace, and formed ghostly shapes in the forest beyond the rolling slope behind the manor. Cool air freshened her lungs as she drew in a breath.

“Those are fine old woods,” Gideon said, standing beside her. “Oak and beech and sweet chestnut.”

“You know more of them than I do,” she confessed. “Ever since I came to this house, I’ve stuck close to the manor’s grounds.”

“That’s unexpected.” Desmond stood on her other side, so that she was flanked by the two men. “You like fairy stories, so I would’ve thought you spent every waking hour in the forest, hoping to cross paths with a wizard.”

“Perhaps that is why I steer clear of them.” She shrugged. “I’ve read so much of folklore, but I never knew if I had the wiles and courage of the girls that wander the woods. What if I did meet a sorcerer⁠—”

“Or an enchanted wolf,” Desmond threw in.