The Highwayman (Victorian Rebels, #1)

by Kerrigan Byrne

“Of course I’ll love you, Dougan Mackenzie,” she said easily. “Who else is going to?” “Nobody,” he said earnestly. “Will you try to love me, too?” she asked in a small voice. He considered it. “I’ll try, Fairy, but I havena done it before.” “I’ll teach you that, as well,”

“I’d never leave you, Fairy,” he vowed fiercely. “Truly?” She’d pulled back, staring up at him with storm-cloud eyes that threatened rain. “Not even to be a pirate?” “I promise.”

I will walk alongside ye, and stand where ye stand. I will sleep alongside ye, my heart in yer hand. This vow to my love, may no one dare sever. Even death will not part us, ye are mine forever.

“You’re the best husband, Dougan Mackenzie,” she announced. “I don’t know of any other husbands who can make a frog jump so high, or come up with such clever names for the foxes that live under the wall, or skip three stones at a time.”

“I love ye, Fairy mine,” he whispered as she silently padded back down the aisle, clutching her plaid and crowned with the vibrant flowers. “I love you, too.”

“Will you kindly tell me just who is the reason for all of this hullabaloo?” she asked for what felt like the hundredth time. Mr. Beauchamp gave a self-important sniff, pleased to be the one to give her news she hadn’t already gleaned. “Only the man whose capture could make Sir Morley’s entire career. The most infamous criminal mastermind in recent history.” “No, you can’t mean—” “Indeed I do, Mrs. Mackenzie. I can only mean Dorian Blackwell, the Blackheart of Ben More.”

Blinking rapidly, McTavish nodded as he watched Dorian Blackwell melt into the mist and shadows of the London evening, certain that he’d not only escaped death, but the devil, himself.

He remained facing the window, a swarthy shadow bathed in pastoral sunlight. For someone who sounded so English, he certainly seemed a part of this wild, sharp, treacherous landscape.

She tore her curious gaze from him and fixed it on the table. Oh, well, at least there would be confections and chocolate sauce, and thereby hope for a sweeter outcome.

The light from the candles kissed her silvery hair and her creamy ivory skin with gold as though King Midas had given in to temptation and touched her with his cursed fingers.

Here they were again. A cold storm. A stone wall. A wounded boy. A lonely girl. “Tell me why you’re crying?” She whispered the first words she’d ever spoken to him.

They had a few things in common, her husband and the moon. They dominated the night. Created shadows and, yet, illuminated the darkness.

“If I’ve learned anything in my life, it’s that there is no darkness so absolute that it cannot be dispelled by the faintest of light,”

“Dougan Mackenzie Blackwell,” she informed him gently but firmly. “I named him after a boy who deserves a second chance at childhood. And maybe, through this one and our little Faye creature here, Dougan and Fairy will be able to experience all the happiness and magic of a childhood that we lost.”