His Mask of Retribution by Margaret McPhee

looked down at her and she looked up at him, and he was seized by the sensation that had things been different, had she not been Misbourne’s daughter, had she not been the woman he had abducted, had she not been promised to another man...
    But she was all of those things, and what lay between him and Misbourne was only just beginning. When it finished there would be a noose around Misbourne’s neck. And he could not afford to let himself think of what that would do to the woman before him; he did not need that complication.
    She was Misbourne’s daughter, he told himself, and nothing more.
    ‘We are very close to the square in which you live. All you need do is walk straight along this street until you come to your father’s house. Go home to where you are safe.’ His half-whispered words sounded harsh in the soft quietness of the night.
    Go home to where you are safe. She shuddered at the memory his words elicited.
    He saw it, but misunderstood the reason. ‘You need not fear to walk alone through the darkness. You will be safe. I will be watching you until you enter through the front door.’
    ‘I am not afraid,’ she replied. Not with you. It was absurd and ironic, and true. ‘Not of the darkness here, outside, in the open...only indoors, in chambers, when all the candles have been extinguished.’ She had never spoken even this small part of it to anyone before. Indeed, she did not know why she was telling him.
    ‘Sometimes the worst monsters are those whom we allow to play in our imagination.’ He glanced away into the distance, a hard look upon his face, as if he were remembering monsters of his own.
    ‘Not always. Sometimes the worst monsters really are those that wait in the darkness.’ She bit her lip, suddenly afraid that she had revealed too much.
    His eyes came back to rest on her and the look in them was one of guilt.
    ‘I should go.’ But she did not move.
    ‘You should. I...’ he hesitated as if he did not want to speak the rest of the words ‘...wish you happy in your marriage to Pickering.’
    She felt only dread at the prospect of the marriage. She did not want to think of Mr Pickering or anything else, not at this moment, not while she was standing here with the highwayman.
    ‘I hope that your arm heals quickly.’ She looked up at him through the moonlight and the moment seemed to stretch between them. These were the last moments they would be together. The last time she would see him.
    They stared at one another and the tension that was between them, that had always been between them, seemed to tighten and strain. She could hear the sound of her breath in the quietness of the alleyway and the pound of her heart against her chest. There seemed so much unsaid. She knew she should walk away, but she couldn’t.
    ‘I...’ She bit at her lip, not understanding why she did not want to go.
    ‘Marianne.’ He leaned his face ever so slightly towards her, his gaze holding hers with such intensity, as if he might kiss her. She wanted him to do it. She wanted to feel his mouth against hers, wanted him to take her in his arms. But he did neither. Instead, he touched a hand gently to her face, stroking away some strands of hair that fallen against her cheek. ‘You really should go home now.’
    ‘Yes,’ she whispered. Home. And this moment and this man would be gone for ever and everything would go back to the way it had been before. To holding candles to ward off the darkness, and being guarded so carefully by her father, and being afraid of every man that looked at her. If only she could capture this moment, capture this man who was taller and darker and more dangerous than any other and who used his strength not against her, but to protect her. This man who had saved her when all those who loved her had failed. In his very danger and strength was the safety she sought.
    She had forgotten what it felt like to be without fear. Just as she had forgotten what it felt like to be attracted to a