Free The Highwayman's Bride by Jane Beckenham Page B

acquaintance. Have you not learned from your nuptials to the bewitching Lillian?”
    “I have no choice. I cannot in good conscience leave a woman who has asked for my help. What if it were Mary?” Would someone have helped his sister if she had asked, or would they have ignored her pleas? Aiden could not simply walk away.
    “Stanhope? Stanhope? Isn’t she Gibbs’s niece?”
    “Exactly.”
    Beswick slapped a hand to his head and then shot up out of his seat. “Are you mad? Marrying—you’re marrying her to get closer to Gibbs. You didn’t know the woman yesterday, and now she asks for your help. And you tell me Gibbs is in league with Nash.” He fell back to his seat. “Aiden, don’t be a fool. This surely can’t be a coincidence.”
    Aiden had his suspicions. They swirled constantly in his brain. But then there was their kiss.
    Kissing Tess had been a mistake, a moment that had lured him in, weakening his defenses. He would not allow that to happen again. He was so close to getting Nash and couldn’t afford any hint of vulnerability, or allow a woman, even one as tempting as Tess, to divert his attention.
    “Word on the ground is that Nash has taken up another interest.”
    Beswick’s brows rose. “Other than robbing travelers at gunpoint? A man of many talents.”
    “Ruthless,” Aiden added. “The bastard is stealing champagne from the French.”
    “Do you have proof of his involvement?”
    “Only the word of an informant. Apparently he’s moving large shipments from France,” he said with a degree of frustration.
    “You can’t go out night after night prowling the roads trying to catch him in the act, Aiden.”
    “What choice do I have?”
    “You need a plan.”
    He had thought he had a plan, but with increasing frequency Nash had proved elusive. Then Tess had stepped into his path and everything changed. “I have a plan.” Simply uttering the words, the tension rolled off him as a wave on an outgoing tide. He was a military man, a planner, structured.
    He hooked his gaze with Beswick and nodded with grim determination. “You’re right. I don’t need to chase him on the byways waiting for him to hold up the next group of unsuspecting travelers. I need to catch him as he’s unloading and to do that I need to get closer to him.”
    Swallowing back his drink, Beswick shot him a confused glance. “Pretty damned impossible, I’d say.”
    Aiden’s mouth curved into a tight smile. “Not now that I’m marrying Miss Stanhope. Getting close to her will get me close to Gibbs and hopefully Nash.”
    “You’re going to use her.”
    Aiden shrugged off the sudden disquiet worming through him. “Why not? She’s using me.”
    “Marry her, and then what?”
    Yes. What exactly?
    Resting his fingertips together he stared balefully at the flames licking at the logs in the fireplace. “Criminals are greedy, my friend—and impatient. Once Nash hears I’ve married Miss Stanhope, he’ll get nervous. And nervous people make mistakes. I just need to bide my time.”
    “Really? I did not have you pegged as a patient man,” his friend quipped with a crooked smile. “And certainly it would not be classed as one of your virtues.”
    “I have virtues?”
    “Not likely,” Beswick agreed with a chuckle.
    “I’ll be patient. If it means I get Nash, then wait I must. Though, God help me, it has taken its time. Besides, if Miss Stanhope’s uncle is in cahoots with Nash, she has to have seen something, or heard something. Gibbs postulates to anyone who’ll listen and I would bet my last guinea the man has said something to his wife and niece. He is a braggart and likes to play the big man in front of people.”
    “And in the meantime you get to enjoy the delights of Miss Stanhope.”
    Aiden choked on his whiskey. “Delights! Miss Stanhope, I agree, is rather beautiful, but she will keep me on my toes,” he answered, remembering her courage to take to the roads on her own. He drained his glass and