Lady Sherry and the Highwayman by Maggie MacKeever Page B

one, at any rate, yet no true gentleman would make reference to a lady’s age.”
    “I never claimed to be a gentleman,” retorted Micah, his words much clearer now that he’d washed down the remainder of the green-goose pie with a gulp of tea. As if determined to prove his lack of social graces, he then inquired how it had come about that Lady Sherry had reached so very advanced an age without being wed.
    The man was incorrigible. Sherry could not help but smile. “Are you always so very outspoken?” she inquired. He merely shrugged and helped himself to another seedcake.
    Oddly enough, Sherry did not resent his question, perhaps because her sister-in-law had so frequently given it voice. Stranger still, she considered the question worthy of reply. Micah was a good listener, interjecting comments that indicated his interest, and Sherry found herself telling him much more of her earlier life than she had intended.
    Belatedly she realized that she must be boring the poor man. He was simply not so unkind as to tell her so. She fell silent.
    Micah promptly disillusioned his benefactress regarding his capacity for kindness. “So you left behind your country pleasures and came to London to catch yourself a husband,” he commented, curiously disappointed to find her so ordinary a member of her sex.
    “I came to London because I had no choice!” retorted Sherry, stung by the man’s censorious tone. The highwayman, she reminded herself. How dare he judge her? But then ,why should he be the exception? Sherry felt as if everyone were judging her these days. She thought of Lord Viccars and her impossibly muddled romance, and sighed. “To tell the truth, I liked country life very well. If I could, I would trade all these teas and balls and soirées that my sister-in-law so dotes on for a country fair with a traveling fiddler to play for the dances, and puppet shows, and gingerbread stalls. As for Almack’s, I think I would find more honest entertainment in a hasty-pudding contest or chasing a greased
    pig!”
    Micah quirked a brow. His benefactress had redeemed herself by denigrating the temple of the ton. “Did you participate?” he inquired.
    “Did I— Don’t be absurd!” Perhaps she should have participated, Sherry thought. Even Lavinia would quail at introducing to polite society a sister-in-law who’d gone about chasing greased pigs. “Life used to be so simple. Perhaps it didn’t seem so at the time, but it certainly does in retrospect! But I don’t need to tell you that, do I? Life must have been a great deal simpler for you also before you were caught and sent to jail.”
    “Simpler? You might say so!” Micah’s laughter was humorless. However, this subject was not one that he cared to discuss. He reached for another seedcake, only to discover that the remaining seedcakes, as well as the rest of the green-goose pie, had vanished from the tray. Prinny, stretched out on the floor beside the sofa, looking for all the world like a large, shaggy rug, emitted a gentle burp.
    Micah regarded the beast with disfavor. Prinny was accustomed to seeing that expression on the faces of his nearest and dearest. Apologetically, he wagged his tail.
    Lady Sherry was oblivious to this byplay. She was thinking very hard, remembering what Lord Viccars had said about the highwayman and how great a shame it was she’d had no interview. Here was her opportunity, and she must go about it tactfully. As shy as Sherry was about talking of her books, she’d discovered people were even shyer of her, afraid that she would translate them somehow into a character in one of her novels, with all their foibles and follies in plain view. Micah, she had already put between the pages of a book, for she had based a character on his exploits. Instinct warned her that he would not take kindly to that intelligence, or aid her struggling efforts by laying bare his soul for her to dissect.
    Therefore she would not tell him. She would be subtle in