The Landlord's Black-Eyed Daughter by Mary Ellen Dennis Page B

do you read Latin?”
    â€œDarkstarre doesn’t suffer a bloody death?” he pressed, ignoring her query.
    â€œI just told you. He does not. Conventional wisdom says that Gothic romances must end on a happy note.”
    â€œBut Darkstarre was the villain.”
    â€œNot to Lady Guinevere. I mean, he was a villain, of course he was, a thoroughly reprehensible rebel…” Cheeks aflame, she swallowed the rest of her explanation, and instead gazed down at the purse she held so tightly against her palm, secured by her clenched fingers. “If I accept this, will the law consider me an accessory?”
    John laughed. “You don’t give a hang what the law says. I suspect you’re every bit as rebellious as I am.”
    Elizabeth was flattered by his characterization, but her rebellions were largely in her imagination. “I don’t consider an occasional comment about a woman’s sorry lot the same as holding a man at gunpoint,” she said. “Why don’t you retire, John? Find yourself a more respectable way to thumb your nose at society and—”
    â€œNever,” he interrupted, his expression so fierce she recoiled, momentarily afraid of him. “Besides,” he said, his manner again smooth and unruffled, “if I were a respectable merchant or craftsman, I would not have robbed Lady Avery. And most likely I would not have happened across Castles of Doom. ”
    â€œI should have guessed. You picked up my volume along with your booty, and when you had some free time between robbing people, you read it.” She saw John’s knee-high black boots glimmer in the moonlight. His stallion pawed the cobblestones. “And you were so impressed, you simply had to meet me,” she added sarcastically.
    â€œI can’t decide whether I’m pleased we met, or terrified.”
    â€œTerrified? Whatever do you mean?” She dropped the purse on the floor and pressed her hands against her heart.
    Standing in his stirrups, he entwined his fingers through her unbound hair, drawing her to him, brushing her lips with his own. Elizabeth’s breath caught in her throat. “John,” she whispered. She nearly added: I do love thee, but that was absurd. He had stolen from her. He was a rogue, a good-for-naught, a scoundrel. Still, it seemed right to tell him she loved him.
    Rather than speak, she kissed him, softly at first, then harder, more urgently. As her mouth opened under the onslaught of his tongue, she felt her limbs grow weak. As if they had kissed like this a thousand times before, as if they had lain together and he had stroked every inch of her body, as if she had already felt his hands caress her breasts and thighs, as if she already knew what it was like to feel him inside her, to own him as her beloved. And all the while her mind whispered: I do love thee. And all the while she knew it was true, that she did love him, that she had always loved him.
    â€œEnough,” he said, pulling away. Elizabeth stumbled backwards, bent over double, her hands beating at the air for balance. Then, standing upright, she extended her arms in a gesture of supplication.
    Rand had seen that identical gesture before!
    Of course he had. Many of his ladies had offered up just such a gesture, begging him to return to their beds. But none had stood above a window’s casement, ebony hair shrouding a white nightshift. He contemplated climbing through Bess’s window, but suddenly she was gone. Feeling hollow and cold at the loss of her warmth, he watched the room flicker and glow. She had lit a candle.
    Darkness was much more tempting than light, even though he would love to see her body enshrined by candlelight, her womanly curves visible, nay, defined by the taper’s illumination. But he couldn’t treat Elizabeth Wyndham like one of his London bunters. She would require a covenant of promises, a commitment he was unwilling to give. At the very