Captured by Him ~ The fourth novelette from "Different Desire", a Gay Victorian Romance and Erotic novelette collection

and family was quite another.
    But third , and most of all, he would marry to make everyone happy : h is father, his stepmother, his entire family, the Bradwardines, even the nice young Miss Constance Bradwardine. Everyone was, in different ways and on different levels, so proud, so pleased, and so happy.
    Everyone except him, of course ; however , that mattered very little in the end.
    Because the truth, the very simple and straightforward truth , which he so desperately tried to both hide and deny, was that Milton Huntington did not want to marry at all. And therefore , silent tears fell freely down his cheeks now when he was alone at last inside the elegant Brougham horse carriage, which was taking him home to Huntington Hall through the beautiful sunny countryside of the Midlands, while he rather unsuccessfully tried to convince himself that what he had done was for the best.
    It was the decent, the moral, and above all , i t was the right thing to do. At two-and-twenty he would get married , and he would never look back. He knew he had his own selfish and very private reason for this wedding to take place , and he really would try to make his future wife as happy as possible. She seemed to be a sweet and delicate little being, so small and fragile, and he would do his best to become the devoted husband she deserved , and with time , he would forget his foolish dalliance and indecent yearnings of his youth. Or so he hoped.
    So then why, if he knew that he had made the right decision, why could he not stop himself from crying? It was quite pathetic, really! Milton thought miserably ; however , the more he tried to stop the tears from coming, the more ragged did his sobbing become.
    But sometimes Fate can be more than a little whimsical and mischievously intervenes in our lives at the most unlikely times imaginable.
    Because surely no one could have foreseen the turn of events, when suddenly the carriage came to a halt unexpectedly. Milton only had time to hastily wipe away his tears with an embroidered handkerchief and start to wonder why the driver, old Mr Baker, had stopped when he heard the dreaded words which every nobleman and reasonable rich merchant in Derbyshire seemed to fear these days:
    “Stand and deliver, if you ch oos e to live!”
     
    *
     
    Oh, hell and damnation! Milton thought. I really do not need this right now!
    He took a couple of deep breaths to steady himself before he pushed down the brass handle and opened the dark lacquered carriage door.
    “It will be all right, Mr Baker,” he told his driver, who was nervously eyeing the five masked horsemen , who were positioned around the carriage. Apparently , the highwaymen had slyly ambushed them from behind a copse of trees , which surrounded both sides of the road. “We have nothing to fear, I am sure.”
    “Hand over your money and valuables and no one will get hurt,” one of the villains said in a somewhat hoarse voice. The man, who must be the leader of the gang, or so Milton assumed, spoke with a broad and uncultivated accent , which Milton almost could not understand. He was riding a black-and-white mottled farm horse and was pointing a flintlock handgun with a rounded handle towards old Mr Baker who had raised his arms above his head and was starting to tremble slightly.
    It made Milton uncommonly upset. He never got angry with anyone, but Mr Baker was a fine driver and was always good with the horses. There was absolutely no reason to frighten the old man!
    “Here, you filthy thief. Take your money , then , and let us pass!” Milton demanded and threw his kid-skin wallet casually on the dusty road.
    The leader seemed to pause for a moment before he smoothly jumped down from the saddle. He was aiming the flintlock gun directly at Milton now , and his other hand rested on the hilt of a rapier. He took a couple of steps slowly forward, watching Milton carefully.
    The highwayman was tall, much taller than Milton was, and was probably more muscular as well, but it was hard to tell, because he was wearing a large, tatty greatcoat. It looked awfully hot to wear during a summer day. To cover his face the highwayman was wearing an out-of-fashion tricorn hat in black leather and a worn red scarf pulled up over his nose, which left only the villain’s eyes visible.
    The highwayman had the most unusual eyes , Milton noticed as the man came closer. Milton’s own eyes were some kind of dull grey and as colourless like his ash blond hair;