Chapter 1: A Highway Robbery (And a Scandalous Misunderstanding)
Lady Honoria Culpepper had only once before experienced the particular sensation of wanting to throttle a man with her own hairpins. The first time had been when Lord Barnaby Turnipwhistle had gazed at her across a tea table and declared her lips “the succulent hue of freshly boiled beetroot preserves.” The second time was now, as she sat alone in a hired carriage barreling through the moonlit countryside with the distinct and alarming knowledge that she was fleeing London like a criminal rather than face another of the Viscount’s vegetable-themed declarations of affection.
“This is perfectly rational,” she assured herself, smoothing invisible wrinkles from her traveling gown as the carriage lurched over yet another pothole. “One cannot reasonably be expected to marry a man who composes sonnets comparing one’s eyebrows to parsnips.”
Her internal defense was interrupted by a violent jolt that sent her gloves flying into the dark corners of the carriage. Honoria braced herself against the seat, her spine ramrod straight despite the chaos. The conveyance lurched to a halt with a screech of protest that sounded remarkably like her Aunt Dorothea’s reaction to décolletage at morning calls.
“What is happening?” she called, her voice carrying the note of authority that had once silenced an entire ballroom when a duke’s son had attempted to serve punch with his fingers. “I demand an explanation for this delay.”
The explanation arrived in the form of a pistol, which appeared in the window of her carriage with all the subtlety of a peacock at a funeral. Attached to the pistol was a gloved hand. Attached to the hand was an arm clad in black, which presumably connected to a body that Honoria could not see but already found deeply irritating.
“Stand and deliver,” announced a voice that poured through the darkness like expensive brandy spilled on silk—rich, forbidden, and certain to leave a stain on one’s reputation.
Honoria’s heart galloped directly into her throat, performed three panicked somersaults, and then plummeted to her stomach. Her lungs, conspiring traitors, forgot the rudimentary mechanics of breathing. The blood in her veins abruptly transformed into champagne—fizzing, inappropriate, and likely to lead to poor decision-making.
None of this showed on her face, which remained as composed as a marble bust of Temperance.
“I shall do no such thing,” she replied, managing to sound merely inconvenienced rather than terrified. “Remove your weapon from my window immediately. The upholstery is rented.”
The pistol withdrew, only to be replaced by a face that caused her internal organs to execute a complicated country dance formation. He was masked, naturally—black silk across eyes that gleamed like sapphires dipped in sin and polished with wickedness. His jaw appeared to have been carved by a sculptor with an unhealthy fixation on dangerous beauty. His mouth curved into a smile that suggested he had invented scandal and was considering new innovations in the field.
“A thousand apologies for the inconvenience, my lady,” he said, his voice hitting notes that made her corset strings vibrate in response. “But this is a robbery, not a social call. Your jewels, if you please.”
Honoria’s hand flew to her neck, where her grandmother’s pearls rested against her skin. “Absolutely not. These pearls have been in my family since before your ancestors learned to walk upright, sir.”
He laughed, a sound that caused nearby nightingales to fall silent in professional respect.
“Then perhaps your coin purse? Or those rather fetching earrings?”
“I would sooner surrender my spleen,” Honoria responded, drawing herself up to her full seated height. “Your costume, by the way, is excessive. No respectable highwayman requires quite so many dramatic flourishes. Your tailor should be ashamed.”
The man’s eyebrows performed an elaborate dance above his mask. “My tailor is actually quite proud. And this is not a costume, madam, but a uniform.”
“A uniform requires standardization. Unless you are suggesting that all highwaymen dress like they’re attending a funeral for the concept of subtlety?”
Behind him, a horse the color of midnight’s darkest thoughts snorted with what Honoria could only interpret as judgment. The beast’s eyes caught the moonlight and reflected it back with an intelligence that suggested it was silently critiquing her traveling ensemble.
“Step out of the carriage, my lady,” the highwayman commanded, his voice dropping to a dangerous register that made her earlobes tingle with alarming enthusiasm.
“I shall not,” Honoria replied, though her body betrayed her by inching forward on the seat. “My destination is urgent, my patience is depleted, and your entire demeanor is unnecessarily theatrical.”
“Says the woman fleeing London at midnight in a hired carriage.” His smile widened, revealing teeth that gleamed with the audacity of perfect dental hygiene. “What scandal drives you to such desperate measures, I wonder?”
Honoria’s dignity solidified into a frozen lake of outrage. “How dare you imply—” she began, but was interrupted by her treacherous coachman.
“Take what you want!” the man squealed from his perch, his voice pitched higher than a soprano with a mouse in her petticoats. “I’m just hired help! She has jewels! Lots of jewels! And she’s a lady—probably worth a ransom!”
The highwayman never took his eyes from Honoria’s face. “How interesting. A lady of quality, alone, rushing away from town.”
“You have the intellectual capabilities of a particularly slow turnip,” Honoria snapped, unlatching the carriage door herself and stepping down with the controlled fury of an empress descending to inspect disappointing subjects. Her boots met the dirt road with twin thumps of indignation.
Standing, she discovered that the highwayman was tall—the sort of tall that made normal men look like architectural afterthoughts. He loomed above her like the concept of sin given human form and excellent posture. His cloak billowed despite the complete absence of wind, as though it operated according to its own private atmosphere.
“Much better,” he said approvingly. “Now, about those valuables—”
“Your stance is atrocious,” Honoria interrupted, her panic manifesting as a critique of his posture. “If you intend to threaten people professionally, you might consider shoulders back, spine straight. Currently you resemble a question mark in mourning attire.”
The highwayman blinked. This close, she could see that his eyes weren’t merely blue, but the exact shade one might discover at the bottom of an ocean trench—dark, fathomless, and likely to drown the unwary explorer.
“My posture,” he repeated flatly.
“Is abysmal,” she confirmed, nodding curtly. “As is your general approach to highway robbery. The melodrama, the excessively swirling cloak, the ominous silhouette—it’s all rather…” she waved a hand, searching for the word, “…cliché.”
From somewhere in the gloom beyond the road, Honoria registered a presence. A silhouette, motionless and ominous, perched on a fence post. The shape resolved into what appeared to be a goose, its outline stark against the silvered fields beyond. It did not move. It did not blink. It simply watched, like Judgment incarnate in avian form.
The highwayman took a step closer, and Honoria’s senses exploded into chaotic rebellion. His proximity sent sparks racing across her skin as though she’d been struck by drawing-room lightning. Her lungs forgot how to perform their singular function. Her knees threatened to transform from solid bone into warmed honey.
“My apologies for failing to meet your expectations,” he murmured, now close enough that she could detect his scent—leather and night air and something dangerous that made her want to either run very far away or move significantly closer. “Perhaps I should revise my approach.”
“Perhaps you should find another profession entirely,” she suggested, her voice emerging with remarkable steadiness considering that her internal organs were currently rearranging themselves into new and interesting configurations. “One that doesn’t involve accosting ladies on deserted roads and making ridiculous demands while dressed like the physical manifestation of poor life choices.”
His mouth twitched. “You’re not afraid of me.”
“I am too busy being inconvenienced to be afraid,” Honoria corrected. “And would you kindly lower that pistol? Your arm must be tired, and the situation is quite clear without it.”
To her surprise, he tucked the weapon into his belt. His eyes never left her face, studying her with an intensity that made her feel simultaneously flayed open and wrapped in velvet.
“What is your name?” he asked.
“That,” she replied crisply, “is none of your concern.”
“I disagree. I find it is very much my concern what name belongs to the only woman who has ever criticized my posture during a robbery.”
“I imagine the list of your concerns is quite short and primarily includes ‘avoiding the gallows’ and ‘finding better tailoring.'”
He laughed again, and Honoria’s stomach executed a series of movements that would have earned a standing ovation at the Royal Ballet. Behind him, the midnight horse snorted again, pawing at the ground with a hoof that could have crushed a man’s skull with minimal effort.
“You are running away,” he said, not a question but a statement. “The question is: from what? Or perhaps… from whom?”
“My motivations are as far beyond your comprehension as proper etiquette appears to be.”
His gaze intensified. “A broken heart?”
“An intact brain,” she corrected sharply. “Now, if you intend to rob me, I suggest you proceed with greater efficiency. If not, I shall require assistance locating another carriage, as my driver appears to be contemplating abandonment.”
The coachman, who had indeed been inching away toward the hedgerow, froze like a hare spotted by a fox.
“I have never met anyone like you,” the highwayman said, his voice dropping to a register that seemed to bypass her ears entirely and vibrate directly against her bones.
“That,” Honoria replied, “is because I am singular, whereas you are a walking collection of predictable criminal clichés.”
She wasn’t entirely certain how it happened. One moment they were standing on a moonlit road, exchanging barbs like duelists, and the next his hand was at her waist, his face inches from hers, and the night air between them had transformed into something electric and unstable.
“Unhand me immediately,” she commanded, though her voice emerged with significantly less authority than intended.
“Is that truly what you wish?” he asked, his eyes burning into hers with an intensity that threatened to incinerate her carefully maintained composure.
“What I wish,” Honoria said with tight diction, “is to continue my journey without further delay, theatrical posturing, or unnecessary physical contact.”
“Liar,” he whispered.
And then, with the shocking suddenness of a thunderclap in clear skies, his mouth was on hers.
Honoria’s universe imploded. Her blood turned to liquid fire, racing through her veins with such velocity that she feared she might spontaneously combust. Her bones dissolved into stardust. Her skin became a constellation of nerve endings, each one shrieking in desperate, undignified approval. Inside her chest, her heart attempted to punch its way free of her ribcage, possibly to throw itself at his feet in abject surrender.
The kiss lasted approximately seven eternities or perhaps three seconds—Honoria’s normally perfect internal clock had apparently eloped with her sense of propriety. When they broke apart, she discovered that her hands had somehow become entangled in the front of his shirt, which suggested a participation she was not prepared to acknowledge.
Honoria jerked backward, outrage flooding back into the vacuum left by momentary insanity. She opened her mouth to deliver a scathing condemnation of his behavior, his character, and his entire ancestral line, but found herself suddenly occupied with remembering how to breathe.
The highwayman appeared equally stunned, though it was difficult to assess his expression beneath the mask. His chest rose and fell rapidly, suggesting that perhaps he too was experiencing some respiratory distress.
From the road came a strangled sound of horror. The coachman, still frozen in his half-escape, was staring at them with eyes so wide they threatened to eclipse the rest of his features.
“Dear God in heaven,” the man squeaked. “She’s been ravished! Lady Culpepper has been ravished in the hedgerows by a man with criminal cheekbones!”
Honoria’s heart, which had only just resumed normal operations, stopped completely. “You absolute buffoon!” she hissed. “I have not been—”
But it was too late. With a wail of terror, the coachman scrambled onto his seat, whipped the horses into motion, and sent the carriage thundering away down the road, leaving Honoria standing in the dust beside a notorious highwayman whose lips had just committed an outrage upon her person that her body had, humiliatingly, endorsed with enthusiasm.
Silence descended, broken only by the fading sounds of carriage wheels and the distant call of an owl that seemed to be laughing at her specifically.
“Lady Culpepper, is it?” the highwayman said finally, his voice rough at the edges.
Honoria closed her eyes briefly, contemplating the spectacular ruins of her reputation, her dignity, and her evening plans. When she opened them again, her gaze was sharp enough to cut diamonds.
“This,” she said with deadly precision, “is exactly how one ends up in a pamphlet.”
The goose, still watching from its fence post, honked once—a sound that contained volumes of judgment despite its avian origins. Honoria couldn’t help but feel it was an entirely accurate summary of her situation.