The Highwayman by Kerrigan Byrne Page A

looked so out of place in the Parisian-style kitchen stocked with the latest and most expensive of instruments, like he’d be better suited to a blacksmith’s stable or—well—a prison hulk. Regardless of that, he was a very talented chef.
    â€œWhat is your name?” Farah couldn’t stop herself from asking.
    â€œWalters.”
    â€œWalters.” She took another tart, and then another. “Is that your first name, or your last?”
    He took longer to answer than the question warranted. “Can’t say as I remember. Just Walters, though I’d like to have a first name, I expect.”
    Farah thought about it for the space of another tart before deciding. “What about ‘Frank’?” she suggested, switching her third tartlet to her other hand before reaching for a fourth.
    â€œFrank Walters.” He savored the name like she savored his tarts.
    â€œA right proper name,” she told him. For a right proper Frankenstein. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I apparently have an appointment with a blackhearted criminal mastermind.”
    Farah got lost taking one too many turns through the winding halls before finding the study. She’d dawdled in the library for a few minutes, distracted by the floor-to-ceiling bookcases and the iron spiral staircase leading to the second floor. The study was, as she predicted, located in a resplendent room off the grand entry. Though when she peeked her head in—apparently no one closed doors in this blasted keep—she found the handsome massive room empty.
    No, not empty, per se. Though devoid of anyone else, a strange and dynamic presence lingered in every corner of the masculine study. Farah could smell it in the pungent notes of cigar smoke clinging to the supple dark leather furniture. The aroma mixed with cedar and whatever citrus oil was used to clean the enormous desk flanked by even more dark wood bookcases. No sunlight pierced through heavy drawn wine-red velvet drapes. The only light in the room was provided by two lamps on the neat desk and another fireplace that could house a small family from Cheapside.
    Drawn by unseen hands, Farah took a tentative step into the study, and then another. The rustling of her skirts and rasp of her breath disturbed the halcyon purity of the stillness. The beats of her heart echoed as loud as cannon blasts in her ears as she entered the private lair of Dorian Blackwell.
    Farah tried to imagine a man such as the Blackheart of Ben More in this room, doing something as pedestrian as writing a letter or surveying ledgers. Running the fingers of her free hand along a bronze paperweight of a fleet ship atop his enormous desk, she found the image impossible to produce.
    â€œI see you’ve already attempted escape.”
    Snatching her hand back, Farah held it to her heaving chest as she turned to face her captor now standing in the doorway.
    He was even taller than she remembered. Darker. Larger.
    Colder.
    Even standing in the sunlight let in by the windows of the foyer, Farah knew he belonged to the shadows in this room. As if to illustrate her point, he stepped into the room and shut the door behind him, effectively cutting off all sources of natural light.
    An eye patch covered his damaged eye, only allowing glimpses of the edge of his scar, but the message illuminated by the fire didn’t need both eyes to be conveyed.
    I have you now.
    How true that was. Her life depended on the mercy of this man who was infamous for his lack of mercy.
    The black suit coat that barely contained his wide shoulders stretched with his movements, but what arrested Farah’s attention was the achingly familiar blue, gold, and black pattern of his kilt. The Mackenzie plaid. She hadn’t known that a man’s knees could be so muscular, or that beneath the dusting of fine black hair, powerful legs tucked into large black boots could be so arresting.
    She backed against his desk as he