She was gasping, too, and he moved off her a little.
“Rape me and I will kill myself and haunt you forever.” She started coughing and he saw the desperation in her eyes.
He stood up as fast as he could. She tried to stand but fell to her knees, her head down as a coughing fit ended her tantrum. Michael thought she would hack her insides out, but he waited it out, hoping that it did not make her sick. When she could finally draw a breath without consequence she sat back on her heels, scrabbled for the brandy flask and took a sip, only a sip. When it went down smoothly, she took another. Finally she found the strength to stand up.
“Listen to me.” As he spoke Michael backed away from her. “Listen to me, Lollie. No one has ever accused me of rape. No one ever will. Do you hear me?”
She gathered his coat around her and pulled it up in front so that she could walk without tripping over it.
“I am leaving, Mr. Garrett.”
“We are both leaving. Later,” he corrected.
Without comment, Lollie headed for the path. She had gone about three yards when Michael realized that she might actually walk off. He could tell by her careful pace that her feet were paining her and he knew that in less than an hour she would be shivering again.
“Miss Lollie, come back!”
“Why?” She looked over her shoulder as she spoke.
“Because you will not survive by yourself.”
She shrugged as though that did not matter anymore, and kept on walking.
“Please, wait a minute,” he called, letting the distance between them lengthen.
She stopped but kept her back to him.
“Tell me, why in the world do you think I mean you harm?” he asked.
“Finding me was not an accident.”
He waited. Finally she turned around. “No one comes this way so early in the spring.” She sipped some more of the brandy and slid the bottle into the pocket. “Unless they are running away or determined to hide somewhere.”
His throat hurt just listening to the rasp but he let her talk. He would not force her to do anything until he had to.
“Higher up there are drifts you could die in.” She began collecting stones and sliding them into the other pocket. When she looked at him her expression was so challenging that Michael wondered if she understood that she was the one in grave danger. Not him.
“I didn’t know about that. I’m from Sussex.” He kicked a branch lying in the path. “This looks dry enough here.”
“If you are not one of them, why is there no one else searching?”
“I wonder the same. Since you know more about the men who did this, why don’t you tell me?” He took a few steps toward her.
She turned and began walking again.
“Can you tell me, how far away is the place where you were held?” He ran up beside her.
“I have no idea. The drug would not leave me.” She stopped and turned, put her hand on her throat and shook her head at her body’s weakness. Obviously she was not done speaking even if her voice protested the abuse. “You could be their leader. Angry because I escaped.”
“Do you read the novels of Mrs. Radcliffe?” He wanted to laugh, but reminded himself that she had good reason to be suspicious of strangers.
“You were a soldier, were you not?”
He was going to deny it when he recalled his vow of honesty. “What makes you say that?”
“I can tell. You are disillusioned because you cannot find work. You have kidnapped me as a kind of revenge and to make money.”
She began to cough and pulled out the brandy. She opened the cap and took the smallest sip.
“The brandy seems to have made you fantastical. That is absurd.” Michael came a few steps closer and sat on a fallen log, pretending to relax. “You are not completely wrong about me. I am a retired soldier, but I was disillusioned long before I came home, in fact before I even went to France. I have learned to live with it. It is not something for which I seek revenge. Not at all. I have skills. I have prospects. I do not need to rely on kidnapping to support myself.”
Lollie began to collect bigger stones.
“If you truly thought I was one of the fiends that took you, why would you confront me with it? It would be far wiser to keep it to yourself.”
“What does it matter, if you intend to kill me?” She did not look up from the stones she was gathering and he wondered how she could seem so calm discussing her own death.
“Why do you think I would do such a thing?” He was appalled all over again.
“I’ve seen your face.” She raised her eyes to his and stared at him as though once again committing his features to memory so she could accuse him when he faced God.
“I have the look of a murderer, do I? Now there is an insult.” He waited. Soldiers killed. It could well be etched in the lines in his face.
“Not your looks,” she said as though the idea was something an idiot would think. “Once you have the money, you will not allow me to live, because I can identify you. Mind you, they will not pay a ransom. Someone will rescue me and Big Sam will kill you by breaking every bone in your body. It will be a slow horrible death.” The whisper gave out with the last of her diatribe and she raised a hand to wipe her eyes.
She looked and sounded all of fourteen and he made a note to try to recover his flask and keep it away from her. “I assure you, Miss Lollie, I am not a kidnapper and am not courting death.” She continued to collect stones, ignoring him and weighing each one in her hand before adding it to her collection. “Do you understand me, madame? I am your rescuer.”
He stood up and was about to say it again, louder, in case she was going deaf, when something else she had said struck him. “You did not see your abductors?”
“I was blindfolded the entire time.” Her confidence faded away as she spoke.
“Lollie of Derbyshire.” He took a step toward her, one step, and stopped when she held up her hand. He stayed where he was and held out his hands instead. “Please believe that it is my only goal to see you safe and home with your family. I swear this on my mother’s grave. If I meant you ill, why would I rescue you, give you my coat, build you a fire and share my brandy? If I was trying to show my confederates how to deal with you, where are they?” He looked around. “I am doing my best to treat you with the care and respect a woman deserves.”
The ground fascinated her. She stared at it for a long time, until he thought she must see something more than dirt and dead leaves. Without looking at him, she finally whispered, “All right.” Her chin quivered. “All right,” she said again. “It’s that stupid brandy,” she muttered. She wiped her eyes. “My feet are so cold.”
Not waiting for any more of a concession, Michael walked back to the fire. “Come back to your little nest. I will leave the fire between you and me. I can even give you my pistol if it will make you feel safer. Have you ever shot one?”
“I have brothers.” Despite the tear-swollen eyes she walked gingerly back toward the fire. “Of course I’ve used a pistol.” She sniffed and shifted her eyes from his just before she spoke.
He could tell she was lying. She had never held a pistol in her life. She might have brothers though. Lollie was part pampered princess and part tomboy.
“With brothers, I imagine you are adept at defending yourself.” He came closer to give his pistol to her, then stepped back. “It is not loaded, but I will hand it over to you so you know that it cannot be used against you.”
She took it with both hands, lowered herself to the ground and, without a thought for modesty, stuck her feet out toward the fire. How much of the discoloring was dirt and how much was bruising?
He watched as she began to pull out the stones she’d collected and pile them up within easy reach. They wouldn’t kill anyone, but they would hurt.
“Do you think that the men who took me have not even tried to find me?” She looked up, her eyes confused and disbelieving. “Do you think that they have left m
e for dead?”
His heart ached at the question. “No, I do not. I think any moment they could come upon us. And you are an odd one if that comforts you.”
“It is only that before today my biggest worry was when the strawberries would be ripe.” She smiled a little.
It was such a sad smile that Michael wondered if all her innocence had been destroyed.
“Lollie, I will hear them before they are within sight and my horse will know before that.”
She nodded slowly.
“Good. That is one less thing you have to worry about.” He put more wood on the fire and broke some of the branches into more manageable pieces. Just when he thought that she might have drifted off to sleep again, she spoke.
“No one will recognize me with my hair so short.”
Michael was not sure this was a worry he had an answer for. “Your new curls are very charming.”
She did no more than nod.
“I thought it was some new style.”
“New style?” She gave an unladylike sniff which he was sure was meant as an insult to his understanding of the latest fashion.
Maybe he could provoke her out of her misery. “I beg your pardon, Miss Lollie-the-condescending, I may not be Beau Brummell, but I do have eyes. The way women look is one thing a man will always notice.”
“Men only look at the dress to gauge the body it covers.” Lollie did not blush, though she did pull the brandy out again.
“I think you should give me that.” He gestured to the flask. “It would seem that spirits make you irritable.”
The huff of temper she let out made her cough. “I have been taken by force, near strangled and had my hair cut off. I have no idea what is happening in the kitchen or if Cook has one of her headaches.” She kept on, even though her voice was wearing out. “I don’t know how I am going to escape ruin. I assure you, Mr. Garrett, watered brandy has only a little to do with why I am irritable.” Leaning back, Lollie closed her eyes. He waited while she did her best to control a spate of coughing. When she had finished she added, “And I don’t know if I will ever be able to speak normally again.”
“I stand chastened. Clearly brandy is the least of it.” He bowed a little and sat down with the blanket he had found in his pack. “Please do not test your voice anymore. Rest is in order. We will wait until late afternoon to travel. There will be fewer people about and more shadow to hide in. For now I will stay on this side of the fire and keep watch.”
He added two more pieces of wood to the blaze and sat cross-legged. “I will find a way to save you from ruin and preserve your reputation as well. I promise that I will not abandon you. Soldiers keep their word.”
“I already have a plan.” She raised her hand to cover a yawn. It must have hurt her throat because he watched her stop and do her best to swallow the yawn instead. She closed her eyes and was asleep.
Watching her breathing deepen and her body relax he sorted through the parts that made up Miss Lollie-the-secretive. The cultured accent he could hear even though she whispered, her worry for her reputation told him she was more wellborn than he originally thought. He could only guess at her age. At least seventeen. Her concern for the kitchen suggested lady of the house. She wore no ring. Of course that could have been stolen but still there was no mark where a ring would have been. She was too young to be a housekeeper.
Being taken for ransom seemed the most likely explanation for her abduction. If there was enough wealth in her family to make the risk worthwhile.
Her hands were used to work but felt well cared for, which did not argue for great wealth. Were her brothers all bachelors and she no more than a glorified servant? Most of all he wanted to know how Big Sam fit into her life. He could be the villain or the hero of the piece.
Lollie of Derbyshire was a puzzle. He would defend her, but he would need more of the puzzle before he could guarantee her reputation could be salvaged.
He kept his promises. His years of spying had challenged his honor and compromised his self-respect, but he had kept his promises, obeyed orders passed from both of his commands.
When the colonel told him what ships were coming into the port at Le Havre and what the cargo was, he would pass the information on to his contact. That task complete he would turn around and do everything in his power to see that the ship and what it carried was protected.
For five years he had lived the tangled lie that was Raoul Desseau, but beneath it all Michael Garrett had stayed sane by demanding Raoul share his sense of right and wrong, of honor and honesty.
Now he had no one to please but himself. He swore Lollie would not suffer for it.
5
LOLLIE, LOLLIE, WAKE UP. We have to move, find shelter.”
She came awake with a start and pulled the gun from her pocket in the same instant, her dark green eyes wide with panic. “Do not come near me or I will shoot.”
“You have no bullets.” He could take the gun from her, but that would only confirm her worst fears.
“I will brain you with it. Move away.” She blinked twice. The panic ebbed, replaced by resolve. Lollie did not have to use her wounded voice; he knew what she felt by reading her oh-so-expressive eyes.
“I will not make you surrender it, Lollie, but there is wind and I suspect weather coming with it. Look.” He gestured to the sky. As they watched, a gust whipped the empty branches into a devil-driven dance.
“The wind makes the fire ineffective, if not dangerous. We should find a place that is more protected. If it settles into a gale it can freeze us as quickly as rain or snow.”
“What time is it?” She lowered the gun, her eyes confused and a little worried.
“I don’t have a timepiece but it is not as late as it looks. You have been asleep for perhaps an hour.” As he spoke another gust of wind came and went.
“We have an hour or so until dark comes on. Let me help you up on Troy and we will find a cave or a cabin—there must be something around here for the shepherds.”
The sound of a tree falling somewhere in the distance seemed to convince her as thoroughly as anything he had to say. Lollie grabbed a handful of her stones and dumped them into her pocket as she scrambled to her feet.
“You had best ride astride. It will not be very comfortable but it will be safer on this uneven ground.”
She nodded and hurried towards Troy, his greatcoat trailing behind her like an unwieldy train.
With a glance at Troy’s ears, Lollie stood on her tiptoes and spoke to Michael in a whisper, this time a deliberate one. “This is a very ugly horse.”
Michael smiled at her. It was not news to him. Actually he was relieved that she could notice something beyond her own misery.
“Troy is beautiful in every way except for coloring, which we think is simply a style that is not yet appreciated. She is the finest horse you will ever ride.” He drew Troy closer to introduce them to each other. “She was a gift from a friend who died at Waterloo.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Her regret was so sincere that he felt his eyes sting. “I hope you tell people that when they first meet Troy. It will keep your friend alive in many more hearts than yours. What was his name? Your friend.”
“Jackson. Major Thomas Needham Jackson.” Michael raised his hand to his forehead, covering one eye, his thumb resting on his cheek.
“My—” She coughed and started again. “Matilda Elderton. Tildy. She is the reason I know brandy better than I should. Even for that she was the finest person I have ever known. Ever.”
“Please stop taxing your voice.”
“It sounds worse than it feels,” she said as though that meant using it would cause no further damage. Maybe she was right.
Lollie approached the horse, giving Troy her palm. The horse nuzzled her fingers and bowed her head, as if in a polite greeting. Lollie curtseyed back and started a laugh which turned into a cough. Even while she coughed her eyes were alight with pleased surprise. When she recovered Lollie asked, “Did you
train her to do that?”
“No. She is a genius, as I said.”
“The same way people can appear one way and be something else entirely.”
Oh, the truth of that, Michael thought. She had the lush and inviting curves of a farm girl or a dairymaid and he was almost sure she was neither. Any more than he was the knight rescuer he wanted her to believe he was. A gust of wind so strong it whistled reminded them that this was not the time for conversation.
“There is no mounting block. I will have to help you with a leg-up.”
Lollie did not answer, but came up to Troy and laid her head on the horse’s neck. Troy whinnied encouragement.
“I wish people were as honest as horses.” Sad eyes now. Defeated.
“Yes,” he had to agree. “Even with the mean horses you know where you stand.”
Lollie abruptly abandoned the comfort of Troy’s neck. Michael linked his hands together and stooped so that she could step into the lift. Her foot was small and as cold as a piece of marble. That was all he would allow himself to notice.
Lollie grabbed the saddle and pulled herself up and over with surprising strength. It took her a few moments to settle into the saddle with his coat under her. It was so long that it covered her feet. He hoped that would keep her warm enough.
She straightened and ignored the way the wind was ruffling her hair. “If she is a mare why do you call her Troy?”
“It is short for Helen of Troy. I will explain later.” He could already feel the cold in his feet. Time was the enemy. “I came up through the woods, Miss Lollie. I have not seen a road since I left Pennsford.”
“South.” She shook her head. “Only I do not know which way that is.”
South made sense. North or east would take them into the Dark Peak. “The weather always comes from the west so we will let the wind be our compass point.”
“Oh, very good, Mr. Garrett.”
“Old soldiers are good for something.”
She did not answer him. Or perhaps she had not heard him. The gusts were strong enough to whip the words from his mouth. Michael kept the wind to his right. His right ear grew numb within the first minutes.
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