Hiding Rose

by Rebecca King

  “Wait here,” Barnaby murmured.

  “You can’t leave me here,” Rose protested. Her horrified gaze flicked nervously around the trees. “Where are you going? Why can’t I come?”

  “I need to make contact with my colleagues. It is best if you are not with me. As soon as I have them as back-up we can get you to the safe house.”

  Rose stared at him in dismay. “I am not going to stay here alone.”

  “You must,” Barnaby persisted. “I need to take a look around for Chadwick and his men before you wander in there.” Barnaby recognised that mulish look on her face and sighed. “Look, Chadwick is aware that there are two of us. He isn’t going to be looking for me riding alone.” He nodded to the main thoroughfare up ahead. “Look at those people, Rose. There are at least five lone riders. Nobody will pay the slightest bit of attention to me. I can blend in with everyone else, and be in and out of town without them even realising I have been there.”

  Rose knew he was right but refused to accept his plan as being anything but ridiculously foolish.

  “I won’t be long. Stay here and keep out of sight of the main road. I will be back as soon as I can, but will keep my cloak hood off so you know it is me. Don’t be surprised if I have someone else with me. It will be one of my colleagues.”

  “But-” Rose began only to close her mouth with a snap when Barnaby abruptly left the trees and headed toward the road. She watched him go, a tight knot of nervous tension growing increasingly harder in her stomach the further he went. She had no idea what had gotten over her because the last time Barnaby had left her she had been almost glad to see him go. Well, not really, but she didn’t have this stark, unnerved feeling she had now. It was as though some invisible hand was warning her she wasn’t as safe as she thought she was. Glancing warily around the trees she neither saw nor heard anything but she knew deep down inside that something was amiss.

  It was still a shock when she suddenly had a hard hand clamp firmly over her mouth and she was yanked unceremoniously off her feet. Her eyes widened. Her gaze flew to Barnaby’s broad back visible in the far distance. Unable to scream for his help she watched him move through the gate and out onto the main street, completely unaware that something had gone wrong. Rose kept her gaze locked on him and knew that she wasn’t likely to see him again.

  Lifted effortlessly off her feet, she kicked out into the air before her and clawed desperately at the unrelenting hands holding her in a desperate attempt to break free. Panic began to build at the unfamiliar scent of the hand covering her mouth and nose. Even breathing became an impossible fete, but the strength to live and see Barnaby again was strong and she fought for her life with everything she had. However, her will was no match for the strength of the burly man behind her. In spite of her protests, he continued unabated and dragged her into the depths of the woods without hesitation. The scent of damp permeated the meagre air she did manage to breathe in through the man’s grimy fingers. While she tugged as hard as she could, she couldn’t get those fingers to ease their pressure enough for her to take a deep breath of much needed air. The world began to swirl alarmingly but, desperate to gain some freedom, Rose continued to fight. Kicking backward she realised then that her height could prove an advantage. Balling her fist tightly she swung her hand backward and thumped the man behind her in the crotch with as much force as she could muster. His soulful groan of pain was like nectar to her ears, and his hold immediately released rendering her able to breathe again. Sucking in deep breaths of much needed air, Rose paused for a moment, eyeing the open field mere feet before her.

  Before she could take a step toward freedom, pain exploded in the back of her head and the world went black.

  “Thank God you are here,” Barnaby growled as he stalked into the study of the safe house. The sight of Ben, Reg and Ryan seated in various positions around the room was immensely reassuring.

  Ryan stood and moved around the desk he had been sitting at. Striding forward he pumped Barnaby’s hand enthusiastically, a broad smile of welcome on his face. Reg grinned at him and poured him a stiff brandy.

  “I can’t,” Barnaby murmured reluctantly waving it away. “I need your help.”

  “Oh-ho,” Ryan sighed as he pushed to his feet. He eyed Barnaby up and down and lifted his brows. “Trouble brewing?”

  “It’s brewed,” Barnaby replied, aware of the expectant silence that fell. “Chadwick and his gang are here.”

  “Where?” Reg demanded. He glanced out of the window to the harbour the house overlooked and slid the shutters closed a little further. “How many are there?”

  “About six, but there may be more. We have run into trouble several times over the last day or so. Chadwick has a lot of men in the area and they mean business,” Barnaby reported. Rather than take a seat he began to pace backward and forward beside the door eager to get going.

  “We?” Ryan’s brows lifted.

  “Chadwick murdered Jones and Bray the night before last. I have a witness stashed in the woods. I need to get back to her,” Barnaby reported briskly.

  The men looked at each other. They knew that the situation must be dire to get a man like Barnaby in such a state of nervous anxiety. Barnaby was the most calmly unflappable man there was. To see him so agitated warned them all that the situation was about as bad as it could get.

  “Let’s go then,” Ryan said as he threw his cloak over his shoulders. He checked his gun for shot as he stalked toward the door. “I’ll get the horses ready.”

  “Where are you?” Reg asked.

  “About a mile out of town,” Barnaby said to Ben. “Who else is here?”

  Ryan snorted. “We had word that Mainton had been spotted around these parts, which is why Sir Hugo sent us reinforcements. There are all of us plus Eddie, Caleb, Luke and Simeon. They are all out looking for Mainton, but should be back soon.”

  “We need safe passage out of Portsmouth,” Barnaby warned as he followed them out of the kitchen.

  The men nodded but fell silent as they all went to fetch their horses from the stabling at the back of the property. Minutes later they all left town using different routes and converged upon the exact spot Barnaby had last seen Rose.

  “Rose?” Barnaby called as he crept quietly into the woods. He murmured soothing noises to her horse, which stood nervously watching him several feet away from where he knew Rose had once stood. Studying the trees, he remembered what his good friend Archie had once told him about anybody searching for someone never thought to look up. Rose wasn’t hiding higher in the trees either.

  With a blistering curse teasing his lips, Barnaby and his colleagues widened their search.

  “There are scuff marks back here,” Reg reported a few moments later.

  “Look,” Ben said. “Look at that group over there. They are in a hurry, aren’t they?”

  Reg looked at Barnaby who was mounting his horse. “Is your woman wearing breeches?”

  “Yes,” Barnaby bit out. He knew instinctively what had happened.

  “They have her. Come on,” Ben snapped. He didn’t wait for his colleagues to catch up. He dug his heels into his horse, leaned low over the saddle, and allowed the animal to charge across the open field. Within seconds, Barnaby overtook him with the rest of his colleagues close behind.

  They all knew that from the look of the gang they chased that retrieving Barnaby’s woman wasn’t going to be easy.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  “I should have kept her with me,” Barnaby growled as he remembered her reluctance to be left behind. He knew now that she had been right to protest. He should have listened to her. The thought of the fear she must have faced when they accosted her fanned the flames of the anger that burned through him and made him all the more determined to get her back as quickly as humanly possible.

  “Jesus, they are going to kill her,” Reg swore as they watched the gang of thugs all jump over a low stone wall at the edge of a field.

  They all watched the
rider carrying the lifeless body draped casually over the front of his saddle grapple with her weight to stop her sliding off. Although he managed to prevent her certain slide toward death, he didn’t have the time to brace himself for the second wall that appeared.

  “He is going to lose her,” Barnaby warned darkly. He hated to think what a fall from height and at such speed would do to someone as delicate as Rose but he couldn’t stop what was about to happen.

  “We will see about that,” Reg snarled.

  “You can’t shoot,” Ben snapped. “You will hit her.”

  Barnaby urged his horse to go faster but none of them were able to gain any ground.

  “We have to do something,” Barnaby shouted when the group flew over the higher wall, and Rose slid unceremoniously off the saddle and disappeared from view.

  Barnaby knew that hitting the ground would have been bone-jarring, if not bone-breaking. She would be covered with bruises if they carried on the way they were, assuming that she hadn’t landed on her neck and broken in it. Everything within him remained frozen as he raced toward her. He refused to consider that she might be dead. He just couldn’t comprehend what that would mean to him or to his life. It brought about such an agony of the soul that he knew he couldn’t withstand the emotions her death would bring him. He would go quietly out of his mind if he lost her. Not Rose. She was too feisty, too opinionated, too wayward, to have her life stolen in such a way.

  “Stay alive, Rose,” he whispered, silently praying that she would survive.

  Barnaby was too focused on Rose to give any thought to dealing with her captors, but his colleagues had no such issue. They focused on the men who had actually had the audacity to kidnap her.

  “They have to stop to get pick her up,” Reg declared with relish. He looked at Barnaby. “Boss?”

  Barnaby nodded.

  Reg withdrew his gun, hunkered low over his saddle, and took aim. Without breaking stride, he fired. His merciless smile turned hard when he watched his first victim fall off his horse and slide lifelessly to the ground.

  Careful to avoid the rider who was now carrying Rose again, Barnaby picked off another target. He watched dispassionately as a spray of blood exploded into the air around his victim who hung lifelessly off the saddle of his terrified horse as it raced into the distance.

  One by one the men from the Star Elite worked together to pick off each rider in turn until Chadwick’s one remaining man, the man carrying Rose, was all alone.

  “I’ll do it,” Ryan shouted with relish. Slamming his horse to a stop, he lifted his hand and stood high in the stirrups. Taking aim, he carefully squeezed off one single shot. The loud retort of the gun startled a flock of birds out of the trees but nobody paid them the slightest bit of attention. Everyone was focused on the woman who, released by her now deceased captor, slid slowly and painfully to the ground.

  “Damn it, Rose,” Barnaby growled as he raced to her. Throwing himself off his horse, he fell to his knees beside her prone body. “Rose? Rose? Wake up for me.”

  His concern grew when she didn’t move. Easing her cloak away from her face, he cursed when he saw the tight binding cutting into her mouth. Using his knife to cut it away, he peered down into her pale features, willing her to open her eyes and say something sarcastic.

  “Come on, Rose, you can’t go to sleep now,” he drawled trying for a lighter tone. His worry deepened when he received no response. Forcing himself to remain calm, he called upon every second of his training and began to assess her for injuries.

  “Is she hurt?” Reg demanded as he dismounted and kicked the lifeless body of her captor out of the way.

  “I don’t know. I can’t see any injuries but that was one hell of a fall,” Barnaby murmured absently as he began to pat her down.

  “She has had a knock to the head.” Ben pointed to the matted blood tangling her hair. “It must have been a hard knock as well.”

  “It will be a bloody miracle if she hasn’t broken anything after that fall,” Reg snorted. “Sorry boss,” he added when Barnaby threw him a dire look.

  Being more familiar with her than the rest of the men, Barnaby continued to run his hands over her to check for injuries.

  Rose felt sick. Her stomach, her ribs, her sides, and her back all ached fiercely, but nowhere near as badly as her head. Someone was pounding mercilessly on it. At least, that is what it felt like. She tried to open her eyes but it was incredibly difficult. Her head was going to explode she was sure of it. The discomfort did little to ease the dull throbbing behind her eyes. She was only faintly aware of someone having a conversation far above her but couldn’t quite make out what was said. What she did know, and understand, was that Barnaby was there. She didn’t know how or why it affected her so, but it was wonderful to hear his voice.

  Suddenly, she remembered what had happened. Someone had hit her at the back of the head but it hadn’t been Barnaby. He had gone – somewhere. She couldn’t quite remember where. At one point she had been riding somewhere but something was wrong. She just couldn’t quite make out what, but then nothing could be wrong because Barnaby was there. Nothing made sense, and she knew it wouldn’t until she could ask Barnaby about it.

  “That had better be your horse patting me down, Barnaby,” she whispered, aware of hands sliding slowly and gently along the length of her thigh.

  “Thank God you are alright,” Barnaby muttered, resting a hand on her back. “Can you roll over?”

  “I am bruised, not dead,” she muttered.

  Barnaby shook his head in disbelief but grinned. Even after nearly being killed - again - she was cheeking him, but he didn’t care one bit. In fact, he was immensely relieved by it because it meant that she didn’t have any injuries she couldn’t recover from.

  “If you can bring yourself to break your rest, we need to get you out of here,” he murmured teasingly.

  Rose slowly turned her head to glare at him. “Oh, like I would take a nap right here in the middle of-” She frowned and glanced around them and only then realised that they weren’t alone. Her stomach dipped at the sight of the tall men standing around her.

  “It’s alright. These are the friends of mine I was telling you about earlier,” Barnaby assured her.

  Rose didn’t quite know what to say. It was highly unusual to greet anyone while lying flat on her back in the middle of a field. Unfortunately, when she tried to turn her head to look at them pain exploded in the back of her head again.

  “Barnaby,” she whispered, rolling over while clutching her head. “It hurts.”

  “I know, sweetheart,” Barnaby murmured, using the tender endearment instinctively without even realising it. “You have a lump on the back of the head.”

  “They tried to get me to go deeper into the woods but I wouldn’t go with them so I think they knocked me out,” she replied dully.

  “Do you think you can stand up? We need to get out of here, Rose. While I think we have managed to take down several of Chadwick’s men, I don’t think they are the only ones in the area. There are more of them,” a strange man said.

  Rose looked at him blankly for a moment.

  “My name is Reg, ma’am. It is a pleasure to meet you. I am sorry, let’s give you a hand up,” he murmured, stepping forward with Barnaby to haul her upright.

  Before Rose could even draw breath, the stranger picked her up as though she weighed nothing and nodded to Barnaby, who swiftly climbed onto his horse. Once there, the stranger lifted her into Barnaby’s waiting arms with such gentle care that Rose immediately wanted to cry.

  Barnaby settled her against him and placed a tender kiss against her temple as he wheeled his horse around. While manfully acknowledging that he shouldn’t feel anything for this woman, he knew he did, and there wasn’t a damned thing he could do about it. This incident had been the biggest lesson of his life. He knew now that for all of his blustering protests he could never walk away from Rose. He wasn’t entirely sure what had changed between the
m, or when, but that didn’t matter right now. She was his, it was as simple as that and there was nothing he wouldn’t do for her, to keep her safe, make her happy, and ensure she remained where she belonged – by his side. She just didn’t know that yet.

  “We need to get you out of Portsmouth,” Reg warned.

  “She can’t travel like this. She isn’t going to be well enough for at least a couple of days,” Barnaby protested. Just the thought of asking her to ride on a horse, even sharing a horse with him, was something he couldn’t agree to.

  Reg lapsed into thoughtful silence for a moment or two as he studied the horizon.

  “What would you do if I said that I know the perfect place you can hide out, and make sure she gets medical help, and have the opportunity to rest as much as she needs to while you both leave the area relatively unchallenged?” Reg asked thoughtfully.

  “I would ask you if you have had a smack to the head as well,” Barnaby replied ruefully. He was aware of Rose’s huffing laugh and smiled down at her. “I think he has lost his faculties,” he said, pleased to hear her try to laugh.

  “Brace yourself then because all I need is an hour and then we can get you on your way again,” Reg retorted.

  Before Barnaby could reply, he moved to ride closer to Ryan and murmured softly to his friend before he turned around and raced out of sight.

  “Now what is he up to?” Barnaby murmured as he watched him go.

  “You don’t trust him?” Rose asked peering up at him.

  “I would trust him with my life, and yours, but he has a tendency not to tell anybody what he is planning until it is all arranged. Everyone then has to play catch-up.” He looked deeply into her eyes and saw cloudiness and confusion there. “I have to confess that his plans usually work though.”