Your Thief

Five

Edward watched her lovely face, and couldn’t help but smile at the warring emotions he saw. There were dozens, if not hundreds of thieves in Exeter, and he was certain any of them could have gotten him what he sought. Alice Darby was the only one with which he had leverage, so Alice Darby was the only one he was going to trust.

He smoothed his hands over her fair skin, as he cupped her face and kissed her once more. Now unrestrained, she raised her hands to his chest as though to push her away. Alice tensed as Edward’s lips moulded to her own, but after a moment, she arched her back and began to kiss him back in earnest.

“Ah, you’ll do fine,” he whispered against her mouth, “Now, come, we must away before your presence here is discovered.” Edward took her hand and led her from behind the wall hangings. “Leave the candlesticks.”

Though he pushed her roughly through the window, she landed as gracefully as possible in the dust and bushes. Edward followed in an instant, his travelling cloak billowing around him.

“You couldn’t have warned me? That you were going to throw me from a window?”

Edward snorted, “You don’t look much like you were hurt.”

“As if you’d care enough to tell,” she grumbled.

“Vexatious wench.”

He led her to the front of the house; it was a view she’d never experienced in daylight, and Alice found herself looking about for the constables that were surely on their way to arrest her once more. A single horse was tied to the hitching post. Edward drew her near and made to lift her onto the mare, but she shied away.

“Come now, night is nigh and we’d best be off.”

“I’ve never been on a horse.”

Edward sighed impatiently, “I won’t let you fall.”

She arched her eyebrows, “You threw me from a window, and I am to trust you now?”

He smiled, eliciting a haughty look from Alice. “Is there somewhere better you should be? Perhaps burgling another of these fine houses?” Edward took her by the waist, frowning at the feel of her hip bones beneath his hands, and lifted her onto the mare. Alice grabbed the pommel and held fast, shakily gazing about from the new vantage point.

Edward vaulted lightly onto the horse, deftly took the reins in his hands, and spurred them onwards.

 ***

“What of the letter?” called Alice, gazing nervously at the brawny arms now encircling her.

“Letter?”

“The letter you were leaving for the master of the house? Will they not notice its absence?”

Edward tucked her in closer, and she could feel his thighs against her own. “Gambling debts. ‘Twas a note to remind him.”

Alice rocked in the saddle as the horse picked up pace, and she could feel one of Edward’s hands move to her belly. He is keeping me in the saddle, she told herself sternly, but she could not help but shiver at the erotic sensation of being embraced by him.

Edward turned the horse from Longbrook and onto the main causeway. Alice couldn’t banish the unease settling over her at her situation. Where were they headed? The letter opener rattled comfortingly in her boot and she tried to calm herself with the knowledge that at the very least, she had a weapon to use against this rogue highwayman, or whoever he might be.

They had been on the road for less than thirty minutes, by her estimate, when Edward reared the horse in and brought them about in the yard of an inn. He swung himself down in one smooth motion. His wide hands reached for her waist, and she clumsily slithered against him to the ground. Her tunic had ridden up her thighs, and she pushed it down hurriedly.