His Mask of Retribution. Margaret McPhee

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       The highwayman’s eyes were not cruel and pale and blue but a warm honeyed brown, and his gaze was steady and strong and compelling, holding hers so that she could not look away. She felt her heart miss a beat and a shiver shimmy all the way down her spine. She did not know whether it was from shock or relief or fear, or a combination of all three.

      ‘What the hell do you want?’ her father snarled at him.

      The highwayman glanced away, releasing her gaze, and only then did she realise that he had a pistol in each hand and both were aimed at her father’s heart.

      ‘Stand and deliver.’ The man’s voice was quiet and harsh, as if half whispered.

      ‘You’ll rue the day you picked me to thieve from, you scoundrel.’

      ‘I think not.’ He cocked his pistols. ‘I will kill you if you do not give me what I have come for. And once you are dead I will be free to take that which you seek to protect…without reprisal.’

      ‘Papa, please, if you have any knowledge of what this villain wants, I beg you to deliver it to him. Do not risk your life.’

      Both men looked at her. Her father’s face was strained and haunted; he seemed to have aged a hundred years in those few moments. And the highwayman’s eyes held the strangest expression.

      ‘Run, Marianne,’ her father said, agony in his voice. ‘Run and do not look back.’

      And she understood in that moment what it was that the highwayman wanted even before he said the words.

      ‘For what does a father love best in all the world but his only daughter?’

       AUTHOR NOTE

      You first met Lady Marianne Winslow and her rather sinister family in UNMASKING THE DUKE’S MISTRESS. Marianne was always going to have her own story, and you, the reader, an explanation for her father and brother’s behaviour in that earlier book. But I needed a very special hero for her. I found him in the tall, dark and handsome highwayman Rafe Knight. If ever two people deserved love and a happy-ever-after…

      So here is Marianne and Rafe’s story. I really do hope that you enjoy it.

      With very best wishes

       Margaret

      www.margaretmcphee.co.uk

      About the Author

      MARGARET MCPHEE loves to use her imagination—an essential requirement for a trained scientist. However, when she realised that her imagination was inspired more by the historical romances she loves to read rather than by her experiments, she decided to put the ideas down on paper. She has since left her scientific life behind, retaining only the romance—her husband, whom she met in a laboratory. In summer, Margaret enjoys cycling along the coastline overlooking the Firth of Clyde in Scotland, where she lives. In winter, tea, cakes and a good book suffice.

       Previous novels by the same author:

      THE CAPTAIN’S LADY

      MISTAKEN MISTRESS THE

      WICKED EARL

      UNTOUCHED MISTRESS

      A SMUGGLER’S TALE

      (part of Regency Christmas Weddings)

      THE CAPTAIN’S FOBIDDEN MISS

      UNLACING THE INNOCENT MISS

      (part of Regency Silk & Scandal mini-series)

      *UNMASKING THE DUKE’S MISTRESS

      *A DARK AND BROODING GENTLEMAN

      *Gentlemen of Disrepute

       Did you know that some of these novels

       are also available as eBooks?

       Visit www.millsandboon.co.uk

      And in Mills & Boon Historical Undone! eBooks:

      HOW TO TEMPT A VISCOUNT

      His Mask of

      Retribution

      Margaret McPhee