Between a Rake and a Hard Place by Connie Mason

all else is gone.” Serena sighed. She’d never experience the love of a sister.
    â€œCheer up, milady,” Jonah said. “The Duke of Kent has a large and semi-gregarious family. Once you wed the royal duke, you’ll have plenty of sisters-in-law in your life. Though I doubt you’ll enjoy that adventure quite as much as you think.”
    She wasn’t enjoying riding astride as much as she’d hoped either. All that confounded having to squeeze the horse to make it go. The insides of her thighs were on fire, and trudging up a hill that was steep enough to slow down the coach wasn’t improving the situation. She wondered if the mare would stop dead if she stopped squeezing…
    But before Serena could try it, a gunshot rent the air and she heard a man’s voice bellow from somewhere ahead of the coach.
    â€œStand and deliver!”

Eight
    Lady S. has been conspicuous by her absence about Town of late. Rumors of a grand fete at the Wyndleton country estate to benefit the Orphans of Veterans of Foreign Wars tease our ears, but we’ve yet to hear definitive proof of such a coming attraction for the upper crust. One wonders if the fact that another emissary from the royal duke was seen taking ship at Wapping Dock bound for the Continent might have something to do with the lady’s swift exit from Society’s eyes.
    From Le Dernier Mot ,
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    Jonah loosed a full-throated “Yah!” and gave Serena’s mare a swat across the rump with his hat. Serena was only just able to keep her seat when the horse leaped into a headlong canter. They shot past the coach and past the pair of disreputable-looking fellows with long curling mustaches and spiky pointed beards on their equally disreputable horses. The brigands were ordering the occupants of the conveyance out and the driver to lay down his smoking blunderbuss.
    Evidently the weapon was as unreliable as Jonah had said, for the two highwaymen seemed to have taken no hurt. They shouted for her and Jonah to stop.
    â€œKeep going,” he ordered and gave the mare another swat when she showed signs of flagging.
    Leaning desperately over her horse’s neck, Serena flattened herself across the mare’s back and stretched out into the gallop with her. She’d cantered along Rotten Row in her sidesaddle, a jaunty gait that earned her a reputation for being a fine equestrienne.
    But she’d never engaged in a careening, hell-for-leather gallop over uneven and unknown terrain before and certainly not astride in an unfamiliar saddle on an unfamiliar horse.
    â€œThat’s it, sweetheart,” Jonah crooned. Serena wasn’t sure if the endearment was meant for her or the mare. Either way, they flew faster, the mare’s hooves lobbing dirt clods behind them with each stride.
    Serena buried her fingers in the thick mane and fell into a rhythm with the beast. They moved as one, her breathing measured in time with each rise and fall.
    It was primal. Exhilarating.
    Selfish!
    Amelia and Eleanor were being accosted by those ruffians, and here she was enjoying her reckless flight. Her chest ached. She was the most wretched, the most horrible…
    She raised herself up and pulled back on the reins. “We have to go back.”
    Jonah snatched her reins away and led her, still at a brisk canter. “No, we don’t.”
    â€œBut what if they harm or abduct Amelia and Eleanor—”
    â€œThey won’t. Your friend and servant may lose a bauble or two, but that’s all. Highwaymen want easily portable wealth. A screaming, kicking woman is not portable,” he said as he led her along at a somewhat slower pace. “Your friends are in no physical danger so long as they are willing to part with a few small things.”
    â€œYou sound very certain.”
    ***
    He was. The two highwaymen were his friends, Rhys and Nathaniel, in such clever