The Highwayman Read Online Free Page A

terrified, but she knew instinctively that, like his enemy Essex, this towering rebel would respect a show of courage.
    “I don’t have to tell you anything,” she replied defiantly, her voice sounding a lot stronger than she felt.
    Burke set her down abruptly. “Right enough,” he said, circling her as a wolf would a felled deer. “But I don’t have to let you live, either.”
    “You kidnapped me, didn’t you?” Alex said. “If you want to use me as a hostage, I’m not much good to you dead.”
    “You’re not much good to me alive if I don’t know who the hell you are!”
    “Then perhaps you should have determined that before your minion here trussed me up like a prize goose and carried me off !”
    The large man’s expression darkened, and Alex wished instantly that she had held her tongue. When he bent from the waist to put his eyes on a level with hers, it was plain that he was furious. Alex shrank from him, conscious that he could snap her neck in two with a twist of his hands.
    “Now you listen to me, Miss Fine English Lady,” he said. His accent was strangely like hers, that of the upper classes, but with a lilt that made it sound almost musical.
    Alex stared back at him, willing her knees to stop shaking.
    “I’ll not believe that the first female to arrive at the castle in two years is a charwoman, dressed up like the Spanish infanta and moving about the grounds with a guard. You have one second to answer my question!”
    Alex hesitated an instant too long, and Burke turned from her sharply, barking an order in Gaelic to her kidnapper. The younger man advanced on her with his rope at the ready, and she realized she had to take her chances with the giant.
    “Wait! I’ll tell you.”
    The leader looked back at her expectantly.
    “I’m Lady Alexandra Cummings, niece of Sir Philip Cummings, scion of Stockton House and my lord Essex’s man, special envoy from the queen to Lord Carberry,” she recited proudly.
    The Irishmen exchanged glances.
    “A pretty speech,” Burke said after a moment, “but what does it mean? Is your uncle kinsman to the queen?”
    Alex nodded.
    Rory looked at Burke hopefully. “Her hair is the same color as the English queen’s,” Rory said in English.
    “Her hair is the same color as the queen’s wigs,” Burke said. “The old hag is as bald as an egg.”
    Under other circumstances, Alex might have found this comment amusing. It was widely known that Elizabeth’s luxuriant red mane was a thing of the past.
    “How are you kin to the queen?” Burke demanded.
    “By marriage. My aunt, sister to my uncle and my late father, is wed to Henry Howard, the queen’s cousin.”
    Burke considered this. It was close enough. He was well versed in English politics, and the queen was known to be solicitous of her Howard relations. In any event, this Cummings would certainly want his niece back.
    “What are you doing in Eire?” Burke demanded.
    Alex sighed. “My uncle is my guardian and did not wish to leave me behind in England.”
    Burke looked skeptical but didn’t pursue it. “What are the English plans here?”
    “I have no idea,” Alex said.
    “Did you hear anything of a prisoner at the castle?”
    “I myself was a prisoner at the castle,” she replied. “They didn’t talk to me. I stayed in my room and ate alone. The only person I saw regularly was my guard, and he didn’t talk to me either.”
    Burke studied her, and Alex wondered where he had learned to speak such good English. With the exception of the one called Rory, it was clear that the rest of the men didn’t understand her.
    “What befell your hair?” Burke asked suddenly.
    “It was burned in a fire.”
    “Why were you outside the castle walls dressed like this?”
    “My uncle didn’t want me to leave the grounds, and I felt like going for a walk.”
    “And you just happened to have a set of boy’s clothes at hand?” Burke said sarcastically. “Something is not right about you, English