Free The Highwayman of Tanglewood by Marcia Lynn McClure Page A

Do you know of it?”
    The Highwayman nodded. “I do. ’Tis well I know it.”
    Faris smiled, pleased he was familiar with the place of her birth.
    “I was born at Heathmoor and lived there until the death of my parents when I was twelve,” she explained. “Soon after they died, I was placed in service at the home of a grand lord and lady there, Lord and Lady Middleton.”
    The Highwayman nodded, seeming to recognize the names.
    “They also were lost,” he said.
    Faris smiled again, further amazed at his range of acquaintance. “Some years later, yes. It was after Lord and Lady Middleton’s passing that I found myself at Tremeshton Manor,” she explained.
    “Near in the evil clutches of Kade Tremeshton,” the Highwayman offered.
    “Thanks to the heavens and Milady Rockrimmon—for I never found myself fully in his clutches,” Faris explained. “Though I knew…I knew…”
    “ He planned to find ya there?” he said.
    Faris felt humiliation wash over her like a heated rain as she nodded and said, “Yes. Had it not been for Lady Rockrimmon…I-I shrink to think what might have become of me.”
    “Ya would’ve found the courage to evade him—at any cost,” the Highwayman stated.
    “Yes,” Faris said. “Though I fear the cost would’ve been destitution had Lady Rockrimmon not taken pity on me.”
    “And so ya quit yar station at Tremeshton, for the greener grasses of Loch Loland Castle?” he asked.
    “Yes,” Faris said, smiling at him. “And…and that’s when I first met you.”
    “Aye. From the clutches of Kade Tremeshton to the clutches of the Highwayman of Tanglewood,” he chuckled. “Was it a wise trade do ya think?”
    “The very wisest,” Faris said. His voice, though masked low and rasping, was of such a comfort as Faris had never known. She smiled, wondering at the odd paradox—for she felt more safe in the presence of a thieving rogue than ever she had in the presence of any other man.
    “I bested that blackguard Tremeshton, ya know,” the Highwayman said.
    “Yes! Twice, and I was glad to hear of it,” Faris admitted.
    “Not a fortnight ago, I bested him at sabers and then fists and sent him home beaten and bloodied and without the gold he’d stolen from his tenants,” the Highwayman said. Faris noted the somewhat of a growl that had entered the intonation of his voice as he spoke of Kade Tremeshton. “And I thought of ya too, lass, in the doin’ of it. I beat him worse because of ye.” He rose to his feet and began angrily pacing back and forth. “Of the many men who do wrong by the people in this country, Kade Tremeshton is bound to breed into one of the worst, he is. And to think of his coward’s manner day before here—demanding two wee stablemen draw swords against me.”
    “And he surrendered his purse as a coward too,” Faris said.
    “Aye,” the Highwayman said. “I hope to heaven to rein in me temper when next I cross him—for I’ve never yet murdered a man, even any deserving of it.”
    “It was the last you saw him? Yesterday—when you bested him in the broad sunshine?” Faris asked.
    The Highwayman paused. He seemed to study her for a moment, and she noticed the way his left hand rested for a moment on his left thigh.
    “Yes,” the Highwayman said. “Yes…yesterday when I bested him and his poor stable hands. I wish it were the last I ever saw of him.”
    Faris felt the hair on the back of her neck prickle as the Highwayman took his seat on the ground before her once more. She did not imagine the way he seemed to favor his left leg as he did so—the way his hand lingered on his thigh as if he were rubbing at an uncomfortable wound.
    “I can well envision it—your besting him,” Faris said. She did not wish for him to know of her suspicions. If he had not met Kade Tremeshton the night before, then why did he favor his left leg? Yet if he had met Kade Tremeshton, why did he keep the truth from her?
    She did not want to know. Faris did not care.