Free Scoundrel Ever After (Secrets and Scandals) by Darcy Burke

foot. Then she repeated the action on the second leg and quickly stood. By the time he dared look at her, she’d retreated to the other side of the bed and was busily rolling up the blanket.
    After she’d placed the barrier in the middle of the bed, she crawled beneath the coverlet. “Sleep well,” she said as she turned to her side.
    He was about to ask why she was sleeping fully clothed, but decided even he wasn’t that much of a brute. She was a chaste young woman and he would let her be.
    For the hundredth time, he asked himself what the hell he was doing with her. She was a chaste young woman whom everyone probably thought he’d kidnapped. Or at least Bow Street would think that. What did anyone else know of her disappearance? Dread curdled his gut.
    Did his brother think he’d kidnapped her? They’d only just reached some sort of accord. Ethan hoped Jason would give him the benefit of the doubt. Logically, however, Ethan had to ask why he would. Ethan had given Jason very little reason to trust him and had made it clear he couldn’t trust anyone in return.
    Jason’s fiancée, Lydia, was Audrey’s closest friend. She had to be overwrought with worry. He grimaced against the twinge of regret. He wished there was a way he could communicate to them what had happened and that Audrey was safe, but he daren’t send any correspondence. Bow Street was too close.
    Ethan stretched his legs out and slid down the chair until the back of his head rested against the top.
    For the first time in over a decade, he had no firm plan. His father had died when Ethan was ten, leaving him and his mother with nothing save the small house he’d purchased for her when Ethan had been born. The house would’ve been a decent legacy, if his mother hadn’t sold it to settle debts. When she’d joined his father in death four years later, Ethan had been cast into the world alone with only his mother’s former lover, Davis, to guide him. With no money and no prospects, Ethan had consented to train as a thief-taker at Davis’s side. Until Ethan had been forced to choose his own life over Davis’s.
    Ethan had spent the years since living by that creed—survive at any cost. He still lived by it, or he might not have killed that highwayman. An image of Audrey’s terrorized expression stole into his brain. He squeezed his eyes shut to banish it. He’d tried to change, dammit. He wanted to change. He’d established a relationship with Jason, the only family he had left, and he wanted it to continue. It was the whole reason he’d executed the failed plan to take Gin Jimmy down. The permanent removal of Gin Jimmy was the only way Ethan could be truly free of the criminal life he regretted.
    Disgust knifed through him. The future he wanted with Jason was gone. The minute Ethan set foot back in London, he would be arrested for murder, tried, and likely hanged. Or, mayhap Gin Jimmy’s men would get to him first and his fate would be far worse. Since neither option was acceptable, that left leaving the life he wanted behind.
    But for what? Jaunting around the countryside with Audrey?
    He pushed himself up from the chair and went to the bed. She was still on her side with her back to him, the coverlet pulled to her ears. Her dark curls were drawn up, but several of them had escaped their pins. They lay in stark contrast against the ivory pillow beneath her head. He longed to loop his finger through one of them and satisfy his curiosity regarding its softness. Since the days of their secret waltzing lessons, he’d admired the beauty of her hair, which seemed to have a mind of its own with the way it unerringly escaped from any proper style.
    He lay down on the bed and stretched out his aching muscles, save his arm, which wouldn’t put up with such activity.
    She was a proper young lady. Who’d escaped London with him, and had opted to continue along with him for the sake of adventure. Had she really tried to run off to America? He could