The Highwayman Read Online Free

the morrow. Chafing at the bonds of her uncle’s orders, which restricted her to the keep, Alex changed into Luke’s clothes again and waited for her chance. When some local horsemen left the castle to return to the neighboring village of Carberry’s retainers, Alex quietly fell in with them and walked across the drawbridge. She was assumed to be one of the grooms and passed out of the gates unmolested.
    Delighted with her success, she broke into a run, flinging her arms wide to embrace the soft mist and the falling night.
    Her happiness was extremely short-lived. She had not come a quarter mile from the castle when she was seized roughly from behind and dragged into a thicket. She was bound and gagged as she struggled wildly, unable to make a sound loud enough to attract attention. A rough woven blindfold was tied round her eyes as she kicked helplessly. Her assailant then lifted her and tossed her across a horse as if she were a sack of meal. He climbed up behind her, taking off at a breakneck speed that set the animal’s hooves pounding beneath her.
    The ride was short but wild and desperately fast. Alex barely had time to realize she’d been kidnapped before the rider stopped abruptly and hauled her off the horse. She stumbled and fell to her knees. She was trying to get her bearings when strong hands lifted her as if she were a straw puppet and set her on her feet.
    The blindfold was removed, and she was staring up at a shaggy-haired giant dressed in a homespun tunic with a dagger thrust into his belt. He looked about thirty years in age, with wide shoulders and long, slim legs clad to the knee in hand-sewn boots. The top of her head barely reached his chest.
    Alex almost fainted with fear. Why hadn’t she obeyed her uncle?
    He might not be very kind to her, but at least he was of normal size and didn’t look as though he skinned his enemies with his bare hands. She had heard that the Irish painted themselves blue and went into battle naked; this one was dressed but otherwise looked capable of almost anything.
    Burke examined Rory’s prize and then turned to his lieutenant.
    “What the devil ails you, Rory?” he said in Gaelic, not bothering to conceal his disgust. “This is a boy !”

 
    Chapter 2
     
    Almost all (Celts) are of tall stature, fair and ruddy, terrible for the fierceness of their eyes, fond of quarreling and of overbearing insolence...
    —Ammianus Marcellinus,  
     
    Historae
     
    The rebel band gathered around to view the spectacle, and Alex stared at the ground, afraid to meet their eyes. They weren’t as big as the one who had spoken, but they were all rough hewn and similarly clad. The younger man, who was evidently her kidnapper, replied in the same coarse language, which Alex decided must be what her uncle called Erse. It sounded to her like fits of coughing.
    “It’s the woman I told you about,” Rory said. “I’ve been watching her for five days straight, I ought to know. She’s just dressed like a boy, Burke.”
    Rory reached for the neckline of Alex’s tunic to prove it, but a harsh command from the leader stopped him in his tracks. Rory’s hand fell away, and he looked chagrined.
    Burke moved closer to Alex and stared down at her, his muscular arms crossed upon his massive chest. His eyes moved over her face, then her figure, and Alex felt her face grow hot as he determined her sex for himself. He didn’t touch her, but he didn’t have to; she felt his gaze burning through her clothes.
    “Who are you?” he finally said in English.
    Alex was startled at the sound of her native language, but she didn’t know how to reply.
    Burke seized her roughly under her arms and lifted her off the ground, holding her up to his eye level. “I’ll ask you once more,” he said in his slightly accented English. “Who are you?”
    His blue eyes blazed into hers. She noticed that his lashes were long and thick, an absurdly feminine touch in a man who fairly exuded masculinity. She was