Free A Highwayman Came Riding by Joan Smith Page A

a moment later in a feeble voice. “It must have been in the brandy. You aren’t feeling sick, Marianne?”
    “No,I’m fine.”
    Macheath glanced at the nearly empty bottle. “How much did you drink?” he asked.
    “Only a few sips,” she lied.
    “About eight ounces, to judge by the bottle. You’re lucky you didn’t poison yourself.”
    He rang for a servant and put the offending wastebasket in the hall. Marianne bathed the duchess’s face and tried to make her comfortable.
    “Shall I call a doctor?” she asked her mistress.
    “I believe I can sleep now. There was something I wanted to say to Macheath.”
    “I wanted to speak to you as well, Duchess.”
    “Tomorrow,” she said with a deep sigh. “Call on me tomorrow, Captain. I am too tired now.”
    “We’ll leave you,” he replied, and taking Marianne’s elbow, he led her through the adjoining door to her room.
    “Thank you again, Captain,” Marianne said. “How did you know what ailed her?”
    “I’ve seen more than a few men in the same state.”
    “I wonder what else you have seen,” she said, gazing at him bemusedly.
    His dark eyes sparkled into hers. His fingers brushed up her arm from her elbow to settle on her shoulder with an engrossing intimacy. “Many sights of wonder—but I never before saw a girl like you, Marianne,” he said softly. Then he closed the door, and she was alone with him.
     

Chapter Nine
     
    Marianne felt a wild fluttering in her breast. She told herself it was fear, perfectly natural fear at being alone with a criminal, but she didn’t fool herself. Those eyes glowing softly into hers held a different sort of danger.
    She schooled her voice to calmness and said, “It would be best to leave the door open in case Her Grace wants me,” and opened the door.
    She peeked across to the duchess’s canopied bed and saw by the flickering light of the lamp that her eyes were closed. The stertorous snorts were already beginning, indicating a peaceful sleep. It would be the effect of the brandy.
    “There goes that excuse,” Macheath said with a devilish grin.
    “I shall get the journal. I might as well read it until bedtime.” She took a step forward. Macheath put his hand on her arm to detain her. His fingers felt like a branding iron.
    “I have a different idea,” he suggested. “It is not yet nine o’clock. Let us go below and have dinner.”
    “I have already had dinner, Captain,” she replied in a prim voice that tried to conceal her interest. But the flush on her cheeks and the gleam in her eyes betrayed it. The fingers on her arm loosened and she drew her arm away.
    “You call a chicken leg and a crust of bread dinner, after your strenuous day? I saw your tray in the other room.”
    “You don’t miss much!”
    “I missed my dinner. I had planned to invite you and the duchess to join me in my parlor, but by the time I arrived, the duchess was already in bed. You could keep me company, have a glass of wine while I eat. Come now, you are all dressed up. Confess you would like to go belowstairs and show off that charming gown.” He spoke of the gown, but it was her face, with its halo of shining curls, that he gazed at—with a long, lingering perusal of her eyes and lips—until she felt warm and unaccountably nervous.
    “I shouldn’t leave Her Grace.”
    “She’s sound asleep!”
    “She might awaken.”
    “Not for several hours yet. There’s a bell cord by her bed. She has only to give it a pull and a servant will come running.”
    Marianne wavered under the force of temptation. Familiar with her Bible, she knew how Eve must have felt in the Garden of Eden. The duchess would sleep until morning. It was not quite nine o’clock. She did not usually retire before eleven. She could sit alone, reading the journal and listening to the duchess snore, or she could go below and spend an hour with an extremely handsome, dashing highwayman who made her feel beautiful and desirable for the first time in her