She does, but...

Randy saw Lady Marlton squeeze the trigger and the flint snap into the plate. He really didn't think she would, but it was too late now to regret his decision. The bright flash from the pan would be the last thing he ever saw.

It took him almost a second to realize the musket did not fire. A misfire! The flash from the pan failed to ignite the charge, Randy laughed as he realized what had happened, Lady Marlton had taken her best shot, but he was alive and now without a weapon the spirited maiden was as helpless as ever.

"You should have run when you had the chance Lady Marlton." Randy's words were as much a promise as a threat, and he smiled when he saw his captive climb to her feet and lay the heavy musket on the bed between them.

"I should have Mr. Fuller," Charlotte had the satisfaction of seeing her captor stiffen when she used his name instead of Black Brand. "But this feud between you and my family has to end, and it would have too were it not for the damp powder in that musket." She could feel, for the first time since her capture, the tears that threatened to burst through her stoic façade. It was not so much what would happen to her now that her attempt at rebellion had failed, once already this outlaw had climbed between her legs and taken her for his pleasure. Not that she blamed him after how her father had treated young Mary, but she would most certainly be used again by this brigand after she tried to shoot him.

No it was not so much what was to come that had her trembling uncontrollably, rather it was the knowledge that she had almost killed a man, a dangerous outlaw perhaps, but all the same a child of Christ with a troubled-soul much like hers. It was too much, by the time Mr. Fuller made his way around the bed she was sobbing uncontrollably.

Why his strong arms holding her against his chest should be a comfort was a mystery for later, for now Charlotte pressed her teary face against the smoky linen of his shirt and let all the emotion of the day pour out onto his broad shoulder. When the day had begun she had been a virgin maid, all but promised to a gentleman suitor who, although sometimes a bit of an dandy, was the son of a landed house with a bright future in both politics and business dealings. Now, twelve hours later she was the prisoner of a highwayman, no longer a maid and most shockingly of all no longer sure that the outlaw in question was in the wrong. Charlotte clung to Mr. Fuller sure of only one thing in her life, she had never felt so alive as she did when Mr. Fuller had claimed her chaste body and she could no more give herself to another man than she could ever again try to hurt him again.

Randy did not know what to do. Miss Marlton had not only deduced his identity, she had somehow managed to escape from a ring of iron designed to hold hardened criminals; she had scorned the chance to escape, instead had almost succeeded in capturing (or even killing) him. A character of her strength and character was a woman he could only respect, but this young lady sobbing in his arms was a woman he could love as well as admire. It had been wrong to take her as he had; he had hoped that the fire in his loins might be quenched by the act, but instead he wanted her even more than ever.

He hesitated as she clung to him, he had no more right to claim her than he did the to the throne of England. Involving Miss Marlton as he had in his feud with her father had been a mistake from the beginning, deflowering her had been an even worse lapse in judgement, but what he was feeling now was unthinkable. He tried to pull away from Miss Charlotte but she refused to let him go; instead she took his head and pulled her salty lips to his kissing him with all the passion of a true lover.