Despite her imminent debut, Miss Winifred Langston has no interest in trying on expensive ball gowns, learning intricate dance steps, or perfecting the one piece she can play on the pianoforte. Freddie would rather don a pair of breeches and go target shooting, fishing, or horseback riding—astride—than be anywhere near a ballroom or high tea. Rather than waste the last few days of her freedom on such pursuits, she invites her two closest friends to join her in one final caper.

When Conrad Pearce learns of Freddie’s plans, he decides it’s past time to teach his younger brother’s partner-in-crime a well-deserved lesson. But when he intercepts her, disguised as a highwayman, to demonstrate how dangerous and ill-advised her stunts are, he can’t resist the sensual beauty hidden beneath the maddening tomboy’s exterior. What began as one sort of lesson becomes quite another, as Conrad embarks on a comprehensive erotic tutorial of his surprisingly enthusiastic and adept student.

Now, he only has to convince the irrepressible Freddie to trade her breeches and madcap ways for the gowns and domesticity she despises.

Reader Comments

I loved this book. This was my first taste of Jackie Barbosa and I loved it. This book led me to quite a few more reads by this author and I was not disappointed, far from it. Freddie is a precocious tom-boy who likes her independence and Con is the older gentleman who wants to take it away. Into the story comes a sexy highwayman who doesn’t disguise himself very well, and a steamy night in an abandoned shack. This book puts out, but leaves you wanting more. In this case that’s a good thing.

– D. Castro, Amazon Reviewer, 5 Stars

A young heroine who is daring, irrepressible and beautiful. A British lord who is staid and responsible. They have secretly been eyeing each other for years. And now these perfect opposites are about to mate and set off fireworks. Perfect pacing for a novella, fun naughty sexual encounters…what more could one want to pass an hour or two? Highly recommended.

– Amazon Reviewer, 5 Stars

And here, for your reading pleasure, is our free excerpt:

Chapter One

Lancashire, September 1794

The Honorable Miss Winifred Langston had achieved, through a combination of blind luck and careful contrivance, the prodigious age of twenty-one without ever having suffered the indignity of a London Season. Her luck came in the form of a doting, distractible father who seemed not to notice that his only daughter had long since reached an age past which gallivanting about the countryside dressed as a boy could be considered an excusable, childish prank. The contrivance came in convincing her brothers that, should she have her debut, it would be their duty to chaperon her to endless Society events at which they would be every bit as much “on the market” as she. As every one of them still possessed a good many wild oats yet to be sown, they were more than happy to help persuade her father that Freddie’s debut could surely wait until next Season.

And the next. And the next.

But now, neither providence nor machination could forestall the inevitable. In a mere two weeks’ time, the Langstons would complete their prescribed year of mourning for that doting, distractible father, and the new viscount, Freddie’s brother Nash, had come to the stark realization that if he did not marry off his little sister, he would be stuck with her for the rest of his born days.

There was nothing to be done for it, of course. Nash had always been the most imperious of her three brothers, no doubt the result of being the heir, and Freddie knew he would not yield now that his decision was made. That did not mean, however, that she had any intention of being happy about it.

Dressed as usual in her twin brother’s outgrown breeches, shirt, and waistcoat, Freddie sat cross-legged beside the river that separated the Langston estate from the neighboring, much larger property belonging to the Earl of Ormondy, dangling her fishing line in the icy water as she bemoaned her predicament.

“I shall have to wear gowns all the time and dance and take tea. And be ladylike.” The last word came out on a groan.

Thomas Pearce, who happened to be not only Ormondy’s spare but Freddie’s friend since both were in leading strings, sat on her left. He cleared his throat uncomfortably. “If it would help, I’d marry you, Fred old girl. We could just carry on like always, then.”

Freddie’s twin and perpetual partner-in-crime, Walter, emitted a peal of laughter from her right. “Are you mad, Tommy? You’re not even three-and-twenty. You can’t get married yet. Puts too much pressure on the rest of us chaps. Besides, you and Freddie as man and wife…?” He shuddered indelicately. “I’d rather contemplate the vicar and Miss Stanley engaging in intimacies than that.”

Thomas’s cheeks turned a hot shade of red, though whether at the thought of the elderly vicar and the stern headmistress of the girls’ school in a torrid embrace or of himself and Freddie as a married couple, she couldn’t be sure. Either one was rather alarming to contemplate.

“Well,” he said staunchly, “if that’s what it takes to keep your brother from forcing Freddie to marry some withered-up husk, I’m willing to make the sacrifice. Least you could do is support me.”

So, marrying her would be a sacrifice for him, would it? That was certainly flattering. Although strictly speaking, she felt much the same. If she were to imagine marrying a Pearce, it would most certainly not be Thomas.

No, it was Conrad Pearce, seven years Thomas’s senior and heir to their father’s earldom, who moved Freddie’s otherwise romantically disinclined heart, not to mention other considerably more unmentionable parts of her anatomy. Other young ladies might have waxed eloquent upon any number of his attributes. handsomeness—exceptional; his height—prodigious; the breadth of his shoulders—impressive; or the remarkable color of his thick-lashed eyes—silver and just as opaque as the real thing. But, though Freddie appreciated these qualities as much as any other female, these attributes were not the primary source of his appeal.

Quite simply, Conrad fascinated her by virtue of being everything she wasn’t—levelheaded, self-contained, urbane, reserved—and that air of perfect, impenetrable composure seemed both a careful façade and a deliberate challenge. Unsettle me, it dared her. Muss my never-out-of-place hair, put my impeccably knotted cravat askew, overset me with passion and recklessness. She found it impossible to believe he was as imperturbable, as detached, as he appeared. Beneath that cool, polished exterior, she believed there lurked a kindred soul, and she ached to set him free from his prison of decorous self-restraint.

Unfortunately, despite years of trying, she had absolutely no hard evidence to support her suspicion. Conrad was about as likely to part with his good sense and marry her as he was to fly to the moon and back. He knew her far too well for that.

In point of fact, everyone in Winmarleigh knew Winifred Langston was not marriage material, which was undoubtedly the reason Nash wanted to remove her to London. There he could foist her off upon unsuspecting gentlemen who might be kept from knowing, until too late, that the object of their affections could shoot the cherry off a cheroot at thirty paces whilst merrily puffing on one herself.

But certainly not if Freddie could prevent it.

She returned her attention to Thomas. “That’s quite all right,” she assured him, giving his arm a sympathetic pat. “No-one needs to make any sacrifices on my behalf. Nash can make me go to London, but he can’t make me marry anyone, and he certainly can’t make anyone want to marry me.”

Far from appearing relieved, however, Thomas looked even more morose. “If the men in London have eyes, you’ll have suitors by the dozen. Once you go, you won’t be back. You’ll see.”

Freddie stared at him. Was he suggesting she was…pretty? Because, truly, nothing could be more ludicrous. Not that she was ugly, of course; she didn’t think that. But she was boyish, sturdy, solid. Certainly nothing so frilly or feminine as pretty.

But now she couldn’t help seeing Thomas through slightly different eyes. Did he see something about her that she herself did not? Did he perhaps actually want to marry her? That was a considerably more unthinkable possibility than that he would consider doing so a sacrifice.

“Oh, don’t be maudlin,” Walter interjected. “She’ll be back come the end of the Season, right as rain, and we’ll all just pick up where we left off.”

Ah, that was more like it. Leave it to her sunny, never-malcontent brother to keep things in perspective. Of course, he would think that nothing would change, because as far as Walter was concerned, the world and everyone in it existed entirely to suit him, because, quite simply, most of the time, they did. He’d gone away to Eton and then Oxford and returned to find everyone and everything at Barrowcreek Park utterly unchanged, including himself. No doubt, he expected the same outcome from Freddie’s impending excursion to London.

But what if, against all odds, London did change her? What if, inconceivable as it sounded, she discovered she actually liked wearing gowns and dancing and taking tea? What if she wanted to marry and behave like a lady?

Most of all, what if this was her last chance to be the outrageous and irrepressible Freddie Langston? What if, a tiny, traitorous voice whispered, this was her last opportunity to get Conrad to notice her—really notice her—before she lost him for good?

She pulled her line abruptly from the water and got to her feet. “Well, if we’re going to pick up where we left off when I return, we ought to be doing something more interesting with these last few weeks than fishing.”

Walter gave her a sly glance. “What did you have in mind?”

Freddie grinned back at him. “A plan only a brother could love…”

Thomas was twitchy all throughout dinner. Oblivious as always, neither the earl nor countess seemed to notice their younger son’s disturbance, but Conrad found it impossible not to notice.

Thomas had dropped his fork. Twice. He spilt wine on his cravat and choked on a bite of pheasant. Most of all, he looked miserable, his eye sunken, his color ashen. And as always, it fell to Conrad to sort out whatever scrape his brother had got—or was about to get—himself into. No one else would do it, least of all Thomas himself.

So, after the earl excused himself from the men’s after-dinner port to sneak off to visit the mistress he kept in a tidy cottage in the village he thought no one knew of, least of all his wife and sons, Conrad seized the opportunity to ferret out the cause of his brother’s distress. “So, what are Walter and Winifred up to now?”

“Freddie,” Thomas correct reflexively, but not before a guilty expression crossed his face. “You know she hates to be called Winifred.”

“So they are up to something, then.”

But really, when were they not? The residents of Winmarleigh referred to the Langston twins not as Walter and Winifred, but as Salt and Pepper, for they seemed to have taken it upon themselves to provide all the spice to village life. Thomas, alas, was usually relegated to the role of butter, there to smooth things over after they’d gone badly wrong.

“I didn’t say that,” Thomas ground out irritably.

“You didn’t have to. So, what is it this time? Dressing up in sheets to haunt the girls’ school? Putting frogs in the baptismal font? Releasing a plague of locusts?” He was only half-kidding about the latter two.

Although if he were honest, Conrad would be forced to admit that Winifred Langston didn’t have to release either frogs or locusts to plague him. All she had to do was saunter by in a close-fitting pair of breeches, her heavy raven tresses escaping from beneath the cap she jammed on her head in a completely useless effort to camouflage her gender. As if any male with operational vision could mistake the owner of that slender waist and gloriously rounded arse for a boy. He certainly hadn’t been able to since the summer he’d returned from Cambridge to discover that the tomboyish urchin who’d played with his younger brother was no longer a leggy, boisterous child, but a leggy, boisterous young woman with a figure that would have been right at home in Miss May’s Pleasure Parlor.

Conrad shifted uncomfortably. If he was going to gather wool, he would prefer not to have it binding him in anatomically delicate locations.

His brother only proceeded to look more vexed. “This isn’t funny at all, Con.” He let out a slow, anguished sigh. “He’s taking her away. To London.”

Conrad raised an eyebrow. “Not much of a prank, that. I’d have thought Walter more cunning.”

“Not Walter, Nash—er, the viscount. He insists it’s time for Freddie to have her debut and…you know, get married.”

“About time,” Conrad muttered, ignoring the corkscrew of pain burrowing into his chest. It was only surprise that Nash was finally taking the girl in hand. “The sooner she’s married off, the sooner Winmarleigh will be safe from her antics.” Albeit considerably less entertaining.

Thomas’s mouth hardened into a frown. “I knew you wouldn’t understand.”

Conrad stared at his brother with a growing sense of disorientation. “Wait. You’re not saying you are…sweet on her?” Thomas looked away, but not before Conrad read the truth. “Bloody hell…you are.”

“Damn it, Con, you wouldn’t understand. She’s just…she’s Freddie, blast it all, and I don’t want to lose her.”

So Thomas wasn’t in love with her? Well, that made the gnawing discomfort of his own inexplicable attraction to the chit seem less lecherous, if only barely. What would his brother—not to mention her brothers—think if he knew how many times Conrad had stripped her bare in his mind and proceeded to have his lascivious way with her?

“What makes you think you will lose her? It’s only a Season. Plenty of ladies don’t find husbands in their first Seasons.” Or second or third. Especially not those who preferred to wear breeches, ride astride, bait their own hooks, and shoot targets from horseback. Likely, it was only Conrad who had a carnal fascination with that sort of female.

Thomas rolled his eyes. “You must be blind if you can’t see she’ll be the toast of London. I may not be sweet on her, as you put it, but I know a beautiful woman when I see one. Just because we grew up together does not mean I can’t see her clearly. Apparently, I’m the only one around here who can.”

This was hardly the time for Conrad to admit that his eyesight was perfectly functional when it came to Miss Langston.

“We all have to grow up some day, you know. Even you and Miss Langston. Although, I suppose, hoping that Walter Langston will join the two of you in achieving adulthood would be too much to hope for.”

“You’re making light. The three of us have been friends for our entire lives, but now that we’re grown up, one of us will be forced to move away, simply because she happens to be female. I hardly call that just or fair.”

Fair or not, it was the way of the world. What did Thomas think Conrad could do about it?

“Marry her yourself, then.”

No sooner had the words passed Conrad’s lips than he wished them back. God, the only thing that would be worse than living in the same town with Freddie Langston while not being able to touch her would be living in the same household with her. Just the thought of his brother in bed with her sent an icy shard of rage through his gut.

“I suggested that. She turned me down flat. Doesn’t think any of the London gents will want her, but I know better.”

“Maybe she’ll turn them all down flat, too.”

“I’m sure that’s what she thinks she’ll do. But you know Freddie. She’s too passionate by half, and she doesn’t do anything by mere doubles, or even triples. When she gets to London, she’ll throw herself into the balls and routs the way she throws herself into everything, and then she’ll fall headlong in love.” Thomas sighed. “And then she won’t be back.”

The icy shard that had penetrated Conrad’s gut when he thought of his brother with Freddie twisted sharply as he envisioned the scene Thomas painted so vividly for him. Because Thomas was undoubtedly right. That was exactly how it would be when Freddie Langston arrived in London. She would take it by storm, and it would never be the same again.

“So, she is going to let Nash take her to London without a fuss, then?”

Thomas chuckled. “Oh, hardly. In fact, I think she rather hopes to do something so outrageous, the news will make it all the way to London and Nash won’t be able to take her at all.”

And that was how, a few seconds later, Conrad discovered that the Honorable Miss Winifred Langston intended to visit Miss May’s Pleasure Palace just two nights hence. The reason in order to learn “what all the fuss is about.”

Conrad had a mind to show her. In the interest of not being called out for pistols at dawn by Nash Langston, however, he went upstairs and showed his hand instead.

Chapter Two

“You want me to kidnap your sister?” Conrad sputtered. He thumped his chest twice with his fist in an effort to coax the sherry he’d made the mistake of sipping at precisely the wrong moment down the proper pipe. He didn’t wish to expire before he ascertained whether Nash Langston still retained full possession of his wits or had instead been sent round the proverbial bend by the pressures of becoming the head of his notoriously wild family.

The aforementioned gentleman leaned forward eagerly in his chair and nodded, giving Conrad even greater reason to doubt his friend’s sanity. “Just so. She needs an object lesson in the dangers of her antics, and a good kidnapping by a highwayman is just the thing to do the trick.”

“But…why not simply forbid her from going to Miss May’s or, indeed, from going anywhere with Walter and Thomas until you leave for London?”

The young viscount rolled his eyes heavenward. “If you think forbidding my sister from doing anything is an effective means to prevent her from doing it, you don’t know her nearly as well as I would expect after almost twenty years of acquaintance. Obedience has never been Freddie’s forte.”

Whether obedience would be Freddie’s forte or not was somewhat difficult to say, since to Conrad’s knowledge, she had rarely in her life been ordered to do or not do anything. He’d often thought what she needed more than anything else was a solid spanking and a clear injunction to behave herself. Her father and brothers had been too indulgent by half, and Freddie, more than anyone else, was paying the price.

Notwithstanding, he didn’t think it wise to disagree with his friend’s assessment of the young lady’s character, particularly in light of the fact that he’d fancied himself delivering that spanking—and a bit more—one too many times for comfort. “Point taken, but don’t you think this…remedy…is rather extreme?”

“Extreme circumstances call for extreme measures. And you must admit, Freddie is never anything but extreme.”

Indeed she was, Conrad thought with a grim smile. Extremely lush. Extremely vibrant. Extremely beddable. Although Conrad doubted that was what her brother had in mind when he used the word.

“Surely you can find someone else to play the part of the highwayman,” he suggested hopefully. “One of the servants or tenants, perhaps?”

“Don’t be ridiculous. Even if one of them could carry off the masquerade without shooting himself in the foot or falling off his horse, she would browbeat him to the truth inside of five minutes. They’re all more terrified of her than they are of me.” The young viscount shook his head ruefully. “Besides, there are few men I’d trust with my sister’s virtue. You probably haven’t noticed, being as you’ve rarely seen her in a proper dress, but when she allows herself to look like a lady, she’s really rather fetching.”

Conrad suppressed a groan. If Nash knew exactly how fetching Conrad already found his sister, he’d find himself called out for pistols at dawn.

Fortunately, his friend failed to notice his discomfort and continued blithely, “All you need do is keep her in an out-of-the-way place for the night. Blindfold her and tie her up, give her reason to worry what may become of her, until I ransom her back. After such an ordeal, I warrant she should be chastened into behaving in a more appropriate fashion.”

Blindfold her and tie her up? An image so frank and carnal that it shocked even Conrad flashed through his mind—Freddie Langston, naked and blindfolded, her wrists bound and secured above her head, her legs spread wide and tied to the bed frame, her glorious black hair fanned out around her like a thundercloud.

Heat suffused him, and he drained his sherry in one swift gulp.

Nash raised an eyebrow and gestured toward Conrad’s empty glass. “Would you care for another?”

And another and another. At least if this conversation continued on its present course.

While Nash poured them both more sherry at the sideboard, Conrad tried to regain his composure. He’d come to the Langston estate this afternoon intending only to inform his friend of his sister’s planned escapade so he could put a stop to it before the girl managed to ruin herself and her family so thoroughly neither could recover. The last thing he had anticipated was to be enlisted into a counter-escapade that was even dafter than the original.

No good deed goes unpunished.

Worse yet, he could see no means by which to escape his conscription. He could hardly admit that he was absolutely not to be trusted with Miss Winifred Langston’s virtue; that he had, in point of fact, been lusting after her for years. And not in the polite, proper way a gentleman desires a lady he hopes to marry, either, but in the coarse, vulgar way he wants a woman of loose morals.

“So, what do you say, Con?” Nash asked as he handed Conrad his refilled glass. “I’ll see to it they have to take the coach instead of going by horseback and warn the driver that there’ve been reports of a ruthless highwayman preying on the road between Winmarleigh and Garstang. He’ll pull over for you in a trice, and from there, you’ll be in and out with Freddie in no time.”

Wincing internally at the phrase in and out with Freddie, Conrad considered his options, conceded he had none, and accepted his fate. He nodded. “I’ll do it.”

Nash beamed. “Excellent.” He raised his goblet in salute. “To putting my troublesome little sister in her place.”

“Indeed,” Conrad murmured, meeting his friend’s toast despite the certainty that he and Nash had entirely different visions of where, exactly, that troublesome young lady’s place was.

Freddie grimaced as the carriage hit yet another rut in the road and her backside was once again separated from, and then forcibly reacquainted with, the thinly padded seat. Here, at least, was one good argument for skirts and petticoats; they offered one considerably more protection from the brutal beating of travel by coach than breeches. Even then, she was bound to be bloodied and bruised by the time she reached London, since it was highly unlikely that Nash would permit her to ride into Town on horseback.

“You haven’t changed your mind about this, have you, Fred?” Walter asked, apparently noting her sour expression. “We can always turn back, you know.”

In truth, she had begun to think better of this excursion within minutes of proposing it, but she wasn’t about to admit that to her twin, who thought it a marvelous lark to sneak his sister into a house of ill repute. The problem was, as tantalizing as the idea was in theory, it had quickly dawned on her that it was likely to be rather boring in practice. What, after all, was she going to do in a house of ill repute? Certainly not what men did when they went to one.

In for a penny, in for a pound, that was Freddie’s motto. She wasn’t going to back out now despite her misgivings.

“That’s not it. I’d just much rather be going on horseback than by coach.” She wrinkled her nose as they hit yet another bump, dislodging a cloud of dust from the faded curtains that covered the windows. “Don’t you think it’s odd that Hermes should have thrown a shoe on the very same day that Mercury got the colic?”

Like Freddie and Walter, Hermes and Mercury were twins, a pair of Arabian bays their father had purchased several years before his death with his son and daughter in mind. They were also, aside from Nash’s gray stallion—the grandiosely named Thor—the only riding mounts in the stable, which was why Walter, Thomas, and Freddie had been forced to take the coach this evening rather than traveling, as they normally did, on horseback.

Walter shrugged. “Just a coincidence, I’m sure. Hermes is forever throwing shoes and Mercury has a penchant for eating things that don’t agree with him.”

Both were true, but Freddie couldn’t shake the intuition that their mode of conveyance had been determined by contrivance rather than coincidence, although she could not fathom what anyone would gain by such machinations other than her annoyance. Perhaps that was enough for her older brother, however, who seemed of late to be wholly focused on being as irritating to her as possible, no doubt because he hoped she would decide to behave herself in London and get down to the business of selecting a husband if only as a means of escaping his needling.

She was forced to admit that he might be onto something. The idea of spending the rest of her days under his roof had become a less-than-attractive proposition over the past several months.

The carriage jolted to an abrupt halt, almost pitching her from the narrow seat and knocking her knees painfully into Thomas’s.

“What the devil?” Walter muttered. He rapped his knuckles against the roof. “I say, Potts,” he hollered to the driver, “what’s the trouble?”

No answer was forthcoming, but the reason for the sudden halt in their progress became clear when the door to the carriage jerked open just a few seconds later. The person doing the jerking was not the driver, Potts, but a masked man clothed entirely in black and holding a pistol of impressive size.

A highwayman.

Freddie’s brow furrowed. When had highwayman begun to prey on the stretch of road between Winmarleigh and Garstang? It wasn’t exactly Hounslow Heath in terms of either traffic or fat purses.

While she contemplated this anomaly, Thomas raised one hand in surrender and patted the coin pouch in the pocket of his coat with the other, raising a weak clank of metal. “We haven’t much coin with us this eve, but we’ll gladly give you every ha’penny if you will but permit us to be on our way.”

Walter gave Thomas an angry scowl, no doubt irritated by the latter’s hasty capitulation, but there really was no arguing with a pistol, and Walter knew it. He reached up under his coat to untie the strings of his own purse, but the highwayman cleared his throat and shook his head.

“I don’t want yer coin,” he growled in a broad Lancashire dialect. “What I want…” He stretched out a finger and pointed it straight at Freddie’s chest. “…is ’er.”

Chapter Three

Conrad steeled himself to hold both the pistol and his index finger steady. Although everything had gone swimmingly thus far, with the coachman just as intimidated as Nash had promised he would be, it could all go terribly wrong in a heartbeat. If he had to resort to actual violence to accomplish his goal, the masquerade would be over before it had really begun, since he was hardly about to shoot Walter or Freddie Langston, let alone his own brother.

Not that he could, even if he wanted to; as a precaution, he hadn’t loaded the pistol, which meant it would be useless if any of his victims actually resisted.

Naturally, it was his brother who resisted first. “You can’t have he—” Thomas began, then broke off, his eyebrows pulling together in a scowl as he fixed Conrad with a suspicious stare. “I say, how did you know he’s a she?”

Conrad’s blood chilled; he hadn’t intended to reveal that he was aware of Freddie’s gender. The word her had simply slipped out, no doubt because he was always aware of her femininity no matter how she was garbed. But now that he had let it out, he’d no choice but to go with it.

“Sure ye don’t think everyone hereabouts don’t know Viscount Langston ’as a sister what gallivants the countryside dressed like a boy?”

“So you know this is the Honorable Miss Winifred Langston?” Walter asked.

“Course I do,” Conrad responded, settling into his role with a bit more ease as the familiar accents of his tenants began to roll more comfortably off his tongue. “Why d’ye think I’m taking ’er for ransom? Wouldn’t do no good if she wasn’t Quality.”

“Well, you can’t have her,” Thomas declared stoutly, shifting his body so that, within the tight confines of the coach, his torso was positioned between Conrad’s useless pistol and Freddie. He folded his arms across his chest. “I won’t let you.”

“What do you mean, I?” Walter bristled. “She’s my sister. If anyone’s going to protect her virtue, it ought to be me.”

Conrad didn’t know whether to laugh or groan. Leave it to his brother and Walter Langston to argue over who should be shot first in a futile demonstration of heroism. The fact that neither of them could possibly know the pistol was unloaded made their idiocy all the more poignant. God help them if they were ever waylaid by an actual highwayman.

“For heaven’s sake, don’t be a pair of ninnyhammers,” Freddie huffed, clearly as exasperated with her companions’ bravado as Conrad was. “The man’s got a pistol, or did you think that was a cucumber?”

“But, Fred, you’ll be ruined,” Walter protested.

As if he had ever worried about his sister’s reputation before…

Over Thomas’s shoulder, Conrad saw Freddie wave her hand dismissively. “Nonsense. Nash will pay the ransom straightaway and then sweep the entire incident under the rug. No one but us will even know it happened.”

“And how do you know he means only to ransom you?” Thomas fixed a baleful eye on Conrad. “He could just as easily ravish you first and then ransom you, you know.”

“That’s a risk I shall just have to take, because I am certainly not going to allow him to put a bullet in one or both of you and then kidnap me anyway. Now,” she continued, giving Thomas a shove on the back, “do sit down and let me get out of the coach.”

Thomas pitched forward, catching himself just before bumping his head on the opposite side of the carriage.

“You can’t mean to go with him, Fred!” Walter grabbed her arm. “He might not just ravish you. He could kill you.” His tone was no longer blustering, but pleading.

Uneasiness slithered up Conrad’s throat as it dawned on him that Thomas and Walter weren’t just putting on a show; they were genuinely concerned for Freddie’s safety. And why shouldn’t they be? As far as they knew, Conrad really was a highwayman, and while highwaymen might have a certain romantic reputation among the lower classes, aristocrats rightly regarded them with a healthy dose of fear.

Why had neither he nor Nash spared a single thought when planning this escapade to the anguish they would be inflicting on their respective brothers? They had both been so intent on ensuring that Freddie would be suitably chastened by her experience that the potential effect on her companions simply hadn’t crossed their minds.

Come to think of it, the one person who seemed not the least bit troubled by the current turn of events was the one person who was supposed to be. Surely a well-bred young lady on the brink of being kidnapped by a brigand should be a trifle more…alarmed?

Instead, the lady in question was in the process of freeing her arm from her brother’s grasp with a businesslike composure entirely at odds with the gravity of the situation.

“He could kill me, but he won’t,” she said with such complete, calm assurance that Conrad knew at once she had figured out that this was all for show, although he didn’t think she’d yet recognized him. She’d simply concluded, correctly, that Nash had orchestrated the entire thing and that she was therefore in no real danger whatsoever.

For two heartbeats, Conrad considered pulling off his mask and confessing the whole scheme. And he might well have done it had Freddie not stretched out her hand—bare and slender and elegantly pale—toward him and said, “Do pretend to be a gentleman and help me down.”

He couldn’t have said whether it was her impudent suggestion that he feign being a gentleman or the tantalizing provocation of her naked hand so near his own, but some thread of control inside him snapped. Freddie Langston had always had the power to shake his composure, but as of this moment, she had torn his vaunted equanimity to shreds.

She was toying with them—him, Walter, Thomas, even the poor coachman. She knew what was afoot, and yet she kept it to herself, preferring to watch them all make fools of themselves. Conrad imagined she must be quite enjoying the show as they all danced to her merry little tune.

Which, in point of fact, was what she had done all her life. Every male in Winifred Langston’s life—from her father to her brothers to Conrad’s own brother—did as she wished, when she wished, for she had long ago mastered the art of making them believe that what she wanted was what they wanted. Well, no more. What he wanted was certainly not what she wanted, and it was well past time she learned that men were not playthings to be manipulated like marionettes on the strings of her whims.

Especially not this man.

He wrapped his black-gloved fingers around her slim wrist and pulled. Her chestnut-brown eyes widened as she tumbled out of the carriage and onto his waiting chest. She gasped at the same moment he released the air from his lungs on an involuntary oomph and their breath mingled, sweet and humid. Her parted pink lips hovered scant inches above his, and a flare of lust singed his veins as he registered how close he was to kissing her. All he would need to do was to slide his fingers around the base of her skull and draw her head down to his until their mouths met.

Except, of course, that this would require him to drop his pistol to free his hand, and that would not exactly lend itself to the completion of his task. Not to mention that he’d be kissing her in full view their brothers, both of whom stared balefully at him out the open door of the coach. Hardly the setting he had in mind.

Not that he had any sort of setting in mind for kissing her. He wasn’t supposed to be kissing her at all. Anywhere. At any time.

With a muttered oath and a renewed focus on his mission, Conrad tightened his grip on his captive’s wrist while continuing to point the pistol menacingly in Walter and Thomas’s direction. “The sooner ye ’urry back to Barrowcreek and deliver my ransom demand, the sooner this little lady’ll be free,” he told them, careful to continue disguising his voice behind accent. “If ye dally, I might forget to pretend to be a gentleman.”

Freddie stiffened at his mocking repetition of her words. Perhaps she sensed she had pushed her kidnapper rather further than was wise, even if she did believe it was all just a sham.

Walter crossed his arms over his chest. “How much do you want?”

Conrad quoted the sum he and Nash had agreed upon. “Two ’undred pounds. Not an ’a’penny less. I’ll meet ’im ’ere for the exchange at dawn. Tell ’him to come alone.”

Walter blanched. “Alone? You could kill him, take the money, and keep m’sister.”

“And even if you don’t, how are we to know you’ll return Freddie safe and, er…” Thomas cleared his throat, blushing furiously as he completed his thought, “…intact after an entire night with her?”

For the first time since he’d donned the scratchy black highwayman’s mask, Conrad was glad he was wearing it because he could feel his face go as hot and red as his brother’s. Freddie’s lithe yet lush frame so close to his was more than enough temptation. He could already imagine all too easily what he could accomplish in one night with her; he didn’t need any help, least of all from Thomas.

Forcing himself to remain in character despite the riot of lascivious images tumbling through his head, Conrad shrugged. “Ye’ll just have to trust me.”

“Trust a highwayman? How stupid do you think we are?”

Freddie twisted in Conrad’s grasp in order to glare at her brother. “Oh, for pity’s sake, if he meant me any harm, he’d have shot the both of you by now and got on with it. Just do as he asks. Please.”

For several long seconds, Walter stared at his twin, and Conrad had the eerie sensation that the two of them were speaking without saying a word.

At last, Walter set his mouth in a grim line and nodded. “Very well, we’ll go.” He gestured to the driver, who had watched the entire ordeal in silence, to resume his seat and the man, obviously eager to escape the scene, hastened to do so.

When the coach finally rolled away in search of a wider stretch of road to execute a turnaround, Conrad closed his eyes with relief. The hard part was over. Now all he had to do was convince Freddie that he really was a dangerous highwayman and she wasn’t at all safe with him. Given his current state of frustrated arousal, that shouldn’t be much of a challenge. He bloody well felt dangerous.

With the golden-orange tinge of sunset fading into the blue glow of dusk, however, his first order of business was not to frighten her, but to get them both to the shelter of the abandoned woodcutter’s cottage they’d be occupying for the night. Conrad was debating the relative merits of dragging her there on foot or hoisting her over his shoulder and carrying her when she sighed gustily. He opened his eyes to find her smiling up at him, a thoroughly disconcerting and unexpected reaction given the circumstances.

“Good heavens, I thought they’d never leave,” she said.

Then, to his horrified delight, she snaked her free arm around his neck, pulled his head down to hers, and kissed him. Soundly. Ardently. And to be quite honest, very, very badly. And he had never been more thoroughly aroused by a mere kiss in his life.

Bloody well dangerous was right.

Continued….

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