“Now, your ladyship, I want you to listen and listen well, because I’m not going to say this again—”
“I-I don’t care what you have to say.”
“Well, that’s too damned bad. Because you and I are stuck with one another.” He grimaced. “You don’t like it and I don’t like it, but we’re stuck. So until I find some way to break this blasted chain, you’re going to go where I say and do what I say and you’re going to—”
“I don’t follow anyone’s orders but my own.” Her indignant retort surprised her as much as it apparently did him. But she couldn’t help herself. Despite the fact that her voice trembled as badly as her body was trembling, she meant every word.
“You do now. Because if you try any more tricks like the one you just pulled, one of us is going to end up with a broken leg or a broken neck—”
“I go where I want and I do what I want and I’m not going to let you order me around.” She immediately felt foolish for blurting that out. She sounded childish. They were chained together. How could she exert her independence when they couldn’t even get far enough apart to argue at a respectable distance? Her anger bubbled over. “I didn’t ask to be dragged along on your mad escape! I had a perfectly good plan of my own.”
“Seducing that freckle-faced, craven-hearted boy? You call that a plan?”
She gasped. “I had no intention of…is that what you thought?”
“Any man with eyes could see that you were offering your favors in exchange for whatever he might care to do for you.”
She gaped at him in shock. “That’s not true! I was merely going to…to encourage him to take pity on me and help me.”
“Oh, aye, now there’s a plan.” He laughed. “You’d make him feel such sympathy that he would set you free? And the other guards would do what? Sit idly by and let you walk away? Brilliant.” He couldn’t stop chuckling. “If it weren’t for me, lady, you’d have been swinging from a rope in London by week’s end.”
His biting laughter made her cheeks burn all over again. Made her feel foolish. She hated the way he kept mocking her, as if she were some weak, witless, helpless female. “I didn’t ask for your opinion, you black-hearted brigand! I can take care of myself. I don’t need anyone’s help. Not yours and not anyone’s!”
“Fine. Because I have no intention of offering you any.” He closed his eyes for a second, still breathing hard. Despite all his strength and stamina, he was obviously in pain. “We aren’t going to get anywhere if you try to go your way and I try to go my way. So we’ll both go my way. As long as you follow orders, we’ll get along just fine.”
“Then I’m afraid we’re not going to get along at all.”
He opened his eyes and she saw a spark of something dangerous there. “It’s not up for discussion, angel. There’s only room for one of us to be in charge here—and you’re looking at him.”
Not giving her any chance for further argument, he stood up, pulling her to her feet with the same effortless strength he had used to keep her pinned. She was struck by the way he towered over her. In gaol, he had been forced to stoop down by the low ceiling. Standing at his full height, he loomed above her.
She barely came up to his chin, her eyes level with the second button on his shirt—which gave her a rather daunting view of his chest and shoulders. He was all hard planes, bronzed skin and rugged muscles.
Her heart kept pounding a fast, uneven beat.
“This time, your ladyship,” he said in a commanding tone, “I suggest you keep those pretty little slippers of yours moving.”
With one last stern look of warning, he turned and led her into the forest once more.
An hour later, they had ventured deep into the heart of the Chase. After some awkward stumbles and a lot of practice, they had gradually learned to coordinate their strides despite the chain, avoiding any further painful falls.
But he never stopped. Never rested. They alternately ran and walked, until Sam felt she had reached the limit of her endurance. The knotted muscles of her legs ached and the soles of her feet felt as if they’d been flattened. Her throat burned with thirst.
This deep in the woods, the trees loomed thicker on every side. Branches caught at her hair. Brambles and underbrush ripped at her skirts. Roots jutted out of nowhere to trip her. The interlacing leaves far overhead blocked the sun almost completely, but the shade no longer felt like a cooling balm, but a cold shroud.
She couldn’t help but think that Cannock Chase more than lived up to its sinister reputation, its shadows a darker black, even the sharp scent of evergreens and damp earth somehow menacing, overpowering her senses. As if the very air here were different. Ancient and wild and not meant for man.
The unsettling impression lingered, though she told herself it was merely fatigue making her imagine it all. Fatigue caused by her ruthless companion.
The words he had spoken earlier kept running through her head. It was them or me. Faced with that choice, I generally choose me.
That was painfully obvious. He didn’t care about anyone but himself. Every time she tripped, every time she asked to rest, he would tug her back to her feet and order her to keep moving. Pushing her relentlessly onward. He was pitiless, cold-hearted…
A new emotion crowded in on the fear and resentment she felt toward him. A simmering dislike.
Even as she had that thought, her slipper hit a patch of damp leaves and she slid. He grabbed her with both hands, but they both lost their balance and fell.
He muttered a curse. She lay in the sticky, wet leaves, gasping for air, her limbs shaking with exhaustion.
“I…c…can’t,” she panted, shaking her head, tears stinging her eyes. “C-can’t…go…any f-further.”
This time, instead of arguing or coercing, he relented, making no move to get up. She closed her eyes in relief. The noise of their labored breathing filled the silence around them, the only sound for a long time.
When she could finally catch her breath, she slowly sat up, biting her lower lip to stop a groan. She leaned against the closest tree trunk. The rough bark dug into her suntanned arm but she didn’t care. Eyes closed, she mopped at the perspiration that trickled down her face, her neck, using a corner of her ruined silk skirt. She raked her hopelessly tangled hair back from her face, tried to comb her fingers through it, gave up.
Opening her eyes, she looked warily at her companion. He still lay on his side in the leaves, eyes closed, features pale and strained. His shoulder was bleeding. Badly. The makeshift bandage he had fashioned from his sleeve was woefully inadequate. Blood stained the back of his shirt red.
As if he felt her regard, he opened his eyes and looked up at her. When their gazes met, her heart thudded harder against her ribs.
Stretched out on the forest floor, with his disheveled black hair and glittering green eyes and bloodied shoulder, he looked like he belonged here in this wild place. Fit in with the other untamed things. A wounded predator. Dark and fierce…and capable of all sorts of unpredictable behavior.
Please, God, help me.
His gaze skimmed downward, coming to rest on her legs. He was still breathing harshly. “Come here.”
Sam stiffened. His voice sounded weaker than before, but she wasn’t taking any chances. Shifting her eyes quickly left and right, she sought some weapon she might use to protect herself. A rock. A branch. Anything.
“I said come here,” he repeated impatiently.
When she didn’t comply, he reached out and grabbed her foot.
“What are you doing?” She tried to wriggle out of his grasp. “Unhand me!”
“Gladly,” he said tiredly—yet he hung on to her, pushing himself up on one elbow. Snagging her ruined slipper with his other hand, he flipped it off her foot. “I’d like nothing better than to unhand you, unchain you, and be done with you.”
Instead of attacking her, he attacked the shackle around her leg.
Sam gave up her struggle, even though she knew she could kick her
way free. One blow to his wounded shoulder and he would let her loose. But he was already in a foul mood and she didn’t want to make it worse.
Besides, she realized what he was trying to do. He pulled at the shackle, trying to slide it off over her foot.
Which just might work.
“Maybe if we had some kind of…” Glancing around, she took a handful of slimy mud from beneath the leaves and smeared it over her skin.
“Come on,” he muttered under his breath, pushing the cuff, turning it, swearing at it. “Come on.”
Sam tried to help but he clearly didn’t want her help. Holding her bare foot with one hand and the iron cuff with the other, he turned both at different angles, trying to coax the cuff past her ankle bone.
“It’s too tight and it’s bolted on,” she said finally, exasperated at being manhandled. “It’s not going to come off.”
With a short, expressive oath, he released her. Lowering himself back down into the leaves, he tossed the muddy slipper into her lap. “Perfect,” he growled. “Of all the lady thieves on the run in England, I have to get myself shackled to the one with big feet.”
Sam scuttled backward, as far away from him as the chain would allow. Which wasn’t nearly far enough. “I’ll thank you to keep your opinions to yourself.”
Her tone was frosty, but she feared that even her haughtiest drawing-room airs couldn’t conceal the fact that her cheeks felt hot. Scalding. She rubbed at her ankle, wiping away the mud and the unexpected warmth that lingered from the touch of his callused fingers on her bare skin.
Grabbing her slipper, she put it back on. Her foot and her ankle ached with soreness, felt cool from the gooey muck. She couldn’t understand why they also…tingled.
She decided that the unfamiliar sensation must come from the hours of unaccustomed physical exertion.
“It’s not my fault that the shackles are so tight.” She glared at the man stretched out on the ground, adding in a mutinous whisper, “And I do not have big feet.”
“Doesn’t bloody well matter now,” he grumbled. “Short of a convenient bolt of lightning from above or a blacksmith, it looks like there’s no way for me to get free of you.” Opening his eyes, he peered at the lengthening shadows, almost as if he were measuring the sun in some way. “Two hours of daylight left. You ready to press on, Lady Bigfeet?”
She ignored the sarcasm, every muscle in her body aching at the words press on. “No.” She groaned. “No, I’m not. Can’t we stop? Can’t we rest just for a—”
“Not unless you’re eager to wind up back in gaol.” He pushed himself to a seated position. “As soon as word spreads about a pair of dangerous fugitives on the loose, two marshalmen killed, and rewards offered, every lawman and bounty hunter in the north of England will be on our trail. By morning, if not sooner. And if they use dogs…”
He let the sentence trail off, running a weary hand over his face.
Sam felt a surge of fear. Dogs. Dozens of men hunting her down. Skilled, experienced men.
And they would know right where to start looking. The young guard Tucker would show them.
Her throat tightened. The rogue was right. They had to keep going. Put as much distance as possible between themselves and the point where they’d disappeared into the forest.
Yet her fear mingled with anger at his apparent nonchalance. “Didn’t you consider any of that before you decided to take a flying leap out of the cart? Didn’t you think that far ahead? Didn’t you think at all?”
“Aye, I did,” he retorted, “but I wasn’t counting on your charming company, Lady Bigfeet. I planned to be long gone by now. You are slowing me down.” He reached up to unfasten the bandage knotted around his shoulder. “But before we go any further, you’d better take a look at this damned wound.”
She felt like spitting in his face. One minute he was insulting her, and the next he expected her to see to his comfort? “If you think I’m going to lift one finger to help you,” she said in a low, even voice, crossing her arms over her chest, “think again.”
He clenched his jaw, wincing as he unwrapped the blood-soaked cloth. “Listen, angel,” he said tightly, beads of sweat sliding down his face, into his beard, “if you think you’re in trouble now, just try to imagine what would happen to you if I pass out from loss of blood. Or if I die.”
She had barely started to contemplate the pleasant possibilities when he demolished every single one.
“You’d be stuck here with one hundred and eighty pounds of dead weight chained to your ankle.” His eyes pierced hers. “Helpless as a trussed-up Christmas pigeon when the authorities come looking for you. If their dogs don’t get you first, their guns will make mincemeat out of you. When dealing with fugitives who’ve killed two of their fellow lawmen, they tend to let their bullets do their talking for them.”
The violent image stole the air from her lungs. “But I didn’t kill those marshalmen!”
“I doubt you’ll have time to explain that.”
They stared into each other’s eyes for a long moment, the truth swirling between them like one of the hot beams of light from the dying sun.
Then he said it aloud.
“If I die, you die,” he put it plainly, his stark words all the more powerful for their lack of embellishment. “If I live…”
For some reason, it took him an extra moment to finish that sentence.
“You live.”
Mute, shaking, she tried to control the fear and resentment careening through her. He was insufferable. Cold-hearted, uncivilized, utterly self-interested.
But he also had a point. As unavoidable as it was true. If they wanted to survive…
They were going to have to work together.
She returned his glare, wrestling with her temper and her pride and the thought of trying to rein in the independent streak honed by years of fending for herself. “It’s bad enough that I already look like your accomplice,” she hissed. “If I help you, that will make me your accomplice.”
Not saying a word, his eyes still on hers, he withdrew Swinton’s knife from his boot.
Her heart thudded in her chest. Dangerous, she thought. She had forgotten to add dangerous. That word described him better than any other.
But he couldn’t kill her. To save his own neck, he couldn’t kill her.
Though that didn’t mean he wouldn’t hurt her.
Even as she thought that, he flipped the knife with a nimble flick of his wrist, catching it by the blade.
And then he held it out to her, the hilt extended like some kind of bizarre olive branch. “But you’re smart enough to know that what I’m saying is true, aren’t you, angel?”
His voice was deep, quiet, and for once, devoid of any mockery.
She hesitated, her gaze flicking from his jewel-green eyes to the silver gleam of the blade in his fingertips.
Then she reached out, slowly, hesitantly, and took it.
As her fingers closed around the hilt, another thought flitted through her head. She had wanted a weapon…and now she had one.
As if reading her mind, he stopped her with only two words. “I wouldn’t.”
The mildness of his tone made his meaning all the more clear. It was a quiet reminder—as if she needed one—that she didn’t dare attack him, and couldn’t hope to defend herself against him. Not even with a blade.
Swallowing hard, she tried to tell herself that everything would be all right. As long as the chain bound them together, they had to keep each other alive and well. Once they found some way to get the shackles off, they would go their separate ways.
For now, she just had to endure his presence and make the best of this deplorable situation. Because her very life depended on it.
Holding up the knife, she lifted an eyebrow. “So what am I supposed to do with this?”
“Get the bullet out,” he said curtly, as if it should be obvious.
Her jaw dropped. “Are you joking?”
“You don’t see me laugh
ing, do you?” Turning his back, he started unbuttoning his shirt and waistcoat.
“B-but I can’t…I don’t know how. I’ve never—”
“Well, there don’t appear to be any physicians on hand at the moment. I don’t have any choice and I don’t have any time. I have to keep moving.”
She noted with exasperation that he kept using the word I, as if she didn’t exist. As if she were nothing but an annoying appendage at the other end of the chain.
As for performing surgery on him, the very idea made her stomach lurch with nausea. She had no medical experience whatsoever. The closest she’d ever come was fixing a broken arm on one of Jess’s porcelain dolls when she was twelve.
However, she was quickly learning that it was useless to argue with him once he’d made up his mind about something.
Uneasily, her hand shaking, she edged closer to him, whispering a prayer.
“Never mind asking for God’s help,” he muttered under his breath as he finished unbuttoning his red-stained garments. “I think it’s safe to say He’s not interested in the least.”
He slid the waistcoat off and then removed the shirt, unsticking it from the wound with a quick yank and a stifled curse.
Sam looked away, covering her mouth to hold back a cry. There was so much blood! A wave of dizziness made the forest tilt crazily for a second. Squeezing her eyes shut, she took several quick, shallow gasps of air.
“You’re not going to faint on me, are you?” he asked over his shoulder.
“No,” she insisted.
“Then hurry up and get on with it.” He stretched out on his stomach, bunching up his shirt and using it as a pillow on his crossed arms. Almost as an afterthought, he grabbed a stick from the forest floor and placed it between his teeth.
Sam’s mouth felt dry as she looked down at her stoic patient. But when she tried to move into position, the chain jerked taut. “I can’t reach it from here. The chain isn’t long enough.”
He bent his right leg, allowing enough slack for her to get closer.
Taking a deep, steadying breath, she inched nearer and sat at his side. Determined to prove that she wasn’t the weak, witless female he seemed to believe, she screwed up her courage and lifted the knife.
Escape with a Scoundrel (Escape with a Scoundrel Series Book 1) Page 7
