Pale Moon Rider Read Online Free

quite some time,” he added dryly.
    Although he could not see her entire face beneath the shadow of her hood, he sensed a burning resentment toward his sarcasm.
    “I am not afraid of doing without, m’sieur. I have done without a great many things for the past seven years, since the night the good citizens of Paris marched on the Bastille. More recently, I have done without my parents, my grandparents, my aunts and uncles and cousins—all of whom died on the guillotine. I have hidden in barns and ridden in dung carts while soldiers hunted and searched the countryside for escaping aristos” —she spat out the derogatory term with icy disdain—“and I have lain cold and hungry for days on end praying that just once more before I die, I would feel warm again.” She stopped and had to visibly gather herself before adding, “But I am not here to solicit either your pity or your help if you do not wish to give it. I have come fully expecting you to demand payment for your services.”
    Now, that was a nice touch, he mused. It added the right amount of sincerity to an all-around commendable performance. A shimmering waif comes to him in the moonlight, appealing first to his sen se of chivalry and if that failed , a strike at basic greed.
    “You are right in that much, mam’selle,” he agreed without the slightest hint of modesty. “I would expect to be paid a good deal more than any one of a dozen other road hawks you might have approached with your proposition. Thus I am prompted to ask again: why bring this to me?”
    “You have a reputation for daring, m’sieur, and for success—a thief sans égal , without equal. In six years you have never once been caught, your face has never been seen, your actions never betrayed though the reward for your capture is two thousand pounds —more money than most people will earn in a lifetime.”
    Another nice touch, he thought: flattery. And if that failed …?
    “It is also whispered that you have no love for those who would rob and cheat and steal from the poor. That you have often left gifts of coin for those who might have starved or gone without shelter otherwise—”
    “Mam’selle—” Unable to hold his humor in check any longer, Tyrone laughed. “You have me confused with another legend, I’m afraid. It was Robin Hood who robbed from the rich to give to the poor. If I choose my victims from among tax collectors and fat landowners, it is because they carry more coins in their pockets th an farmers and clerks . As for giving away my ill-gotten gains, I assure you the rumors are just that: rumors. I would consider such generosity to be a rather glaring flaw in the character of a true thief, not to mention the logic of someone who is engaged in my profession strictly for profit— which I am.”
    “Then … you will not help me?”
    There was still a lingering threat of laughter in his voice as he answered, “I am not in the habit of hiring myself out.”
    She seemed genuinely taken aback by the rejection. It struck him as the ingrained reaction of someone born to the nobility who could not fathom a peasant’s reluctance to slash open his own flesh in order for some curious, bewigged aristocrat to debate a point of anatomy. It was not a response someone could fabricate, regardless of how good an actress one might be, which convinced Tyrone that at least part of her story rang true. There were parts that did not, however, and he was mildly curious to know what she was hiding … and what she would do next.
    One of his questions was answered when she raised her skirts as if she were about to depart. “C’est dommage” she whispered. “I am sorry to have wasted your time.”
    She started back to the road, but had taken no more than a few steps when his voice stopped her. “I said I was not in the habit of hiring myself out, mam’selle. I did not say I would not do it.”
    She glanced over her shoulder and for one long suspended moment, the moonlight shone full