Lachlan was absent from the ring of warmth around the blazes. She’d seen him leave on his horse once they settled into the clearing along a grove of trees near the stream. A full day on the roads and he didn’t look the slightest bit weary. His hand running through his devilishly rumpled brown hair, he’d ridden off high on his horse, his back straight, his irked eyes fixed solely ahead. She heard him say something about visiting the local landowner and then he disappeared out of the camp.
Rupe shoved the last bowl into her free hand. “Deliver these two and ye can eat and rest, lass.”
She turned back toward the men, her steps heavy as she moved toward them to find the two with empty hands she’d missed. Her mind muddled thick with exhaustion, she couldn’t even keep track of the murmured conversations of the men around her as she searched for homes for the bowls in her hands. The low burrs of their voices only lulled her more into weariness. Just as her eyes slipped shut against her will, her toe nudged a lump and her look slipped downward, finding a black boot blending into the ground. Her eyes snapped open.
Two more bowls to deliver and Rupe would let her sleep. Two more.
The boot at her toe didn’t move and she stepped carefully over it while trying to swing her skirts away from the blazes of the fire. It wouldn’t do to have her only dress—her mother’s dress—set aflame.
“Hurry, lass, I’m ripe hungry here.” A Scotsman at the far end of the fire grumbled her way.
Her head snapped up at the sharp words and she jumped, moving forward quickly. She knew what would happen if she didn’t move fast enough—she’d lived a life of not moving fast enough and being punished for it.
The next black boot in the shadows of the fire she didn’t see. Her toe caught on the edge of a heel and she flew forward, sprawling, a gasp escaping her lips.
Two bowls of soup flew through the air, spinning, tumbling, crashing into the Scotsman nearest to her.
Two hot, steaming bowls of soup.
She landed with a hard thud on her side, the impact taking the wind from her lungs.
“Bloody hell, ye stupid little wench.” The Scotsman shot to his feet, sloughing off the scorching liquid from the front of his shirt and wool waistcoat. “It’s fucking burnin’ me, ye wee bitch.”
Evalyn scrambled to grab the upside-down bowl closest to her, then clambered to her feet. “I’m so sorry, sir. So very sorry.” Her fingers lifted out to try and help brush the scalding stew from his chest.
Mortified, her head bowed, she didn’t see the slap coming. Didn’t brace herself.
The back of his hand hit her. Hard. The force of it wicked across her cheek, it sent her sprawling onto the ground—sent her body into a panic that seized her nerves, her blood pumping fast.
She curled up into herself, her limbs dragging through the dirt. Her head hidden under her arms. Small. She had to get small.
If she was small, there was less to hit. Less to kick.
Her body rigid, holding tight against the oncoming pain, she held her breath.
But no additional blows came.
No hits. No kicks.
Just silence.
Silence around her. Silence echoing, pounding in her skull.
Silence was what she waited for. Silence meant she could escape. If there was no raging voice, there was no fist on the way to her head.
She moved her upper arm covering her eyes and saw the man that had smacked her walking away from the clearing in the direction of the brook.
Terror still fully gripping her body, Evalyn struggled to her feet, her slippers loose on the dirt, haphazardly catching ground as she ran past the men still sitting, watching the incident with indifferent looks on their faces.
Escape. She had to escape.
Her body moved on instinct, begging for it.
Escape.
Her eyes frantic, she spun, searching.
The woods. The woods opposite of the stream. Opposite of the man that had just hit her.
Escape. She needed to escape.
~~~
He’d wanted to make it farther.
Farther from Wolfbridge. Farther from the possibility of Lord Falsted sneaking up upon them in the middle of the night and capturing back what he just took.
He’d had to acknowledge the possibility, however slight. The ongoing festivities at Wolfbridge were his salvation. With the hunting parties during the days, the majority of the men would be separated from the females during the daylight hours. With any luck, the blackguard was just realizing now that his stepdaughter was missing. Maybe he wouldn’t realize it for another day or two. Evalyn’s disappearance wouldn’t be tied to him.
Not until he wanted it to be.
Yet he still would have been happier to be another twenty miles up the roads.
He didn’t have another twenty miles in him. Neither did his men. Exhausted, he wanted nothing more than Rupe’s stew and his eyes closed.
Leaving Wolfbridge in the middle of the night hadn’t been the best plan, not that he would have slept another wink the previous night in the duke’s castle. So it was just as well that he was traveling away as fast as he could from those blasted lands. At least they could pick up goods on the journey home, so the trip wasn’t a total loss.
Lachlan tied his horse off next to the stream and walked through the swathe of trees toward the camp. Baron Rogerton hadn’t been in residence, so he’d alerted the steward of their presence on the lands, arranged to have a barrel of spirits delivered to the wagon in the morning, and then had hurried back to his men.
The second his feet crunched onto the fallen leaves at the edge of camp, he knew something was amiss. The way his men suddenly sat straighter, their eyes flickering to him and veering off.
He looked around at the faces around the low fire just starting to die off. He’d thought they’d all be asleep by now, for they were as exhausted as he.
His head swiveled. Rupe was busy poking into his black pot over the cooking fire, his head down.
He stepped into the circle of his men. “Where’s the lass?”
Silence.
Every man in the group stilled at the one question, their eyes either sheepish as they glanced at Lachlan or looking off into nothingness.
Lachlan’s look morphed into a glare, pinning them, until he saw Rory break and glance at Colin.
Lachlan moved to his left, stopping in front of Colin’s outstretched legs. He waited until Colin ceased averting his gaze and looked up at him. Lachlan leaned forward, his voice turned to iron. “What happened, Colin?”
For a moment, mumbled rationalization came to his lips, but then Colin shook his head, the words spitting from his mouth. “I hit her.”
“You what?” Lachlan seethed. The blasted man never could control himself. Not since they were five—Colin had never learned how to curb his anger.
Colin scrambled to his feet. “She scalded me with the hot stew. Dropped it all over me.”
Lachlan’s look dropped. Stains of Rupe’s stew streaked down the front of Colin’s white shirt. His hands balled into fists at his sides. “Tell me she did it on purpose.”
Colin exhaled, his look flashing up to the night sky. “Not exactly, she tri—”
Lachlan’s fist into Colin’s jaw stole the word from his mouth and sent him reeling backward.
Lachlan glared at Colin bending over, his hand rubbing his jaw. Colin had the good sense not to look up at him.
His voice lethal, his stare didn’t leave Colin. “Where is she now, Rory?”
“Don’t know, Lach. She took off into the woods.”
“And no one followed her?”
Silence.
He tore his glare off of Colin and he looked around at the faces of his men. “Which direction? How long?”
“Half the hour,” Rory said. His head swiveled and his eyes landed on the trees across from Lachlan. He inclined his head toward the forest. “Into the woods there.”
“So Colin strikes her and you all sat around here
this entire time and ate and drank and not one of you thought to check on her?” The words fumed through his teeth as he sent a sweeping glare across the lot of them.
“Yes, that be the way of it,” Rory said, his always unhurried voice not speeding in the slightest. “We figured she would come back soon enough. There isn’t anywhere for her to go. Not for miles.”
“Blasted imbeciles.” His head shaking, Lachlan stomped away from the fire, going to the brook to retrieve his horse.
{ Chapter 4 }
This was a mistake.
No, not just a mistake—a sweeping error of judgement sure to sink her into the blazes of hell.
“Well, now, Kitty, what be it that ye be running from again?” Mr. Fitzgibbon shifted on the wagon’s bench seat, the bones of his hip jutting into her side.
Evalyn bowed her head, refusing to utter a word as she watched the grey rump of the mule pulling the wagon in front of her.
“Well, never ye mind. A fine lady like ye needs to be taken care of. All will be well once we reach our house. A nice warm fire will open yer mouth.” Mr. Fitzgibbon patted her knee through her skirts, his hand landing on her leg and not moving off.
Evalyn jerked her knee away, not that it did much good. His fingers had clamped onto her leg and weren’t budging.
She knew it the minute she let this tall skinny man—Mr. Fitzgibbon—grab her wrist and haul her up onto the bench at the front of the wagon. The bones in his fingers, the way they slithered around her wrist—it was as though the cold clasp of death had cracked through the frigid ground and come for her.
She should have jumped and run then.
But she’d been too consumed with terror from the camp—consumed with the fear in her bones that demanded she find a way to escape. And they had appeared out of the darkness—Mr. Fitzgibbon and his cousin—and offered her help. Why had she not been immediately suspicious?
So there she found herself, running from Lachlan’s camp and the behemoth that smacked her with all the thought of swatting a pesky fly, only to land herself sitting captive between two strangers. Both Mr. Fitzgibbon and his cousin were tall and thin with pasty skin stretched tight over their cheekbones that glowed in the moonlight. Lewd grins danced about their lips as they ogled the haphazard stitching on the bodice of her dress where she had sliced the fabric open the night before.
Heaven only knew what Mr. Fitzgibbon and his cousin thought to do with her.
The giants that Lachlan traveled with were beginning to look much more attractive, even if they intimidated her at every turn. Even if one of them had struck her.
She closed her eyes, trying to not let the swaying of the wagon bump her into Mr. Fitzgibbon every other second.
She had to be smart about this, this plan for her escape. She still wasn’t far enough from Wolfbridge—far enough away to get lost and never be found.
And she’d probably just foolishly run away from the one man that could get her that far away. No matter the knuckles on her cheek, she’d survived worse. She could again. Again and again and again until she was free.
Whatever it took.
But she had to rein in her instincts. She couldn’t react with fear as she had done at the fire. Fear fed malevolence. Fear excited. Fear made weak men feel like gods. She knew that. Knew that too well.
And she had sworn to never feel fear again. Not once she escaped.
Not that the vow did her any good by the fire.
Instinct had won out. Fear had won out.
Her hands clasped together in her lap, she tried to move her arms inward as much as possible to avoid rubbing shoulders with the lanky men on either side of her. Every modicum of space she achieved was quickly stolen away, the both of them squeezing closer and closer to her on the bench.
She stared at her entwined hands in the moonlight, in disbelief that her escape from her stepfather had fallen apart so quickly. She hadn’t thought it through—none of it—but what choice did she have?
The fear that the behemoth, Colin, had struck into her was nothing compared to the blood freezing in her veins in imagining what Mr. Fitzgibbon had planned for her.
How could she have been so stupid—why had she run?
Her head bowed further, her chin touching her chest as she tried not to smell the rank odor of the men flanking her.
She needed to request to be let off. The sooner the better.
Or jump. Her look veered to the dark shadows along the passing trees. She could always jump and hope for the best. The mule kept up a quick trot, so she would most likely roll, but hopefully not injure herself. But she first had to make it over Mr. Fitzgibbon’s lap.
The thundering of horse hooves striking the ground behind the wagon reached her ears.
A full breath of air finally reached her lungs—thank the heavens, a passerby she could beg assistance from.
Evalyn spun to look behind her.
The figure approached from deep in the shadows of the forest and it took a moment to see it was a lone rider on a horse. It took several more seconds before the rider was close enough that a shaft of moonlight hit his body.
Lachlan.
Hell.
Evalyn whipped forward, her shoulders hunching, trying to make herself invisible. She wasn’t sure if she should be distraught or elated.
Her choices were very few at this point.
Moving onward with Lachlan’s giants that would beat her.
Or stay with Mr. Fitzgibbon and his cousin who would probably rape her—and much worse if she judged by the look of their leers.
What was she willing to do for her freedom?
The thundering hooves on the roadway went past the wagon and Lachlan moved his horse in front of the mule pulling the wagon, blocking their path.
“Good eve, gentlemen.” Lachlan nodded to the two lanky men sidling Evalyn.
Mr. Fitzgibbon’s cousin pulled back on the reins of the mule and his head inclined to Lachlan. “Good eve, sir, might I ask why ye be blocking our path?”
Her face angled downward, Evalyn watched Lachlan with upturned eyes. His gaze locked onto her. “It would seem, good sirs, as though you have kindly found and assisted with something I have lost.” His voice was soft, almost congenial, his Scottish burr rolling over the words with placid nonchalance. Nothing as she had ever heard from him. Even with his men, his voice was direct with a constant edge to it. And with her, it had been nothing but stony, anger palpitating in every word he spoke to her.
To the left of her, Mr. Fitzgibbon lifted his thin left leg and propped it on the front of the wagon, leaning forward on his thigh. “Now what would that be, sir?”
“The lass.”
“The lass?” Mr. Fitzgibbon drew out the word, his look turning to Evalyn. “Well, now, she didn’t look the least bit lost when we happened upon her. She looked happy to see two such fine gentlemen such as ourselves happen to come by her and offer a cozy spot to sit.”
Lachlan nodded, a cordial smile on his face. “Nonetheless, she was mine to lose and now she is mine to retrieve.” His look pierced her. “Evalyn, you must have gotten lost from the camp in the woods, but I am so relieved these helpful gentlemen found you and offered assistance. I thank both of you.” His gaze moved to Mr. Fitzgibbon, then his cousin. “But it is now time for us to take our leave of them.”
“Well, no, sir, how do we know the pretty kitty be wanting to go with ye? She got into our wagon on her own accord, seeing as how we’re two fine sirs offering her right helpful aid.”
Lachlan’s head cocked to the side. “Evalyn, I imagine you got lost in the woods?”
Her chin lifted slightly and she met Lachlan’s eyes. The glint in them, the inherent command lacing his soft words was unmistakable. Listen to him now or this was going to get ugly. Brutally ugly.
She nodded. “I had lost my way, Lachlan, and these two were very kind to offer assistance.” Her breath held, she looked at Mr. Fitzgibbon. “Thank you again for your assistance. I do appreciate it.”
Out of the corner of her eye, she noted his cousin lifting his leg just the same as Mr. Fitzgibbon had, effectively locking her into the middle of the bench.
“Again, thank you for your time and generosity.” She conjured the widest smile she could manage and took a deep breath, moving to her feet. She’d jump onto the back of the mule—or climb over Mr. Fitzgibbon’s lap—if she had to.
Any way she could, she was getting off this wagon.
“Not so fast, kitty.” The cousin’s nasally voice sneered into the night and the tip of something sharp jabbed into her side just above her hip.
Her look whipped to him. Even though she stood and he sat, she was eye level with him. He sneered at her, the tip of the dagger clutched in his hand twisting harder into her side, close to breaking through the silk of her dress.
“Why ye be wanting to leave us so soon, kitty?” Mr. Fitzgibbon drew her attention to his side of the wagon. “Ye think yer man be willin’ to fight fer ye?”
Panic sent her veins aflame. She should have known. She should have run into the woods the moment she saw this wagon crest the hill in the moonlight. Instead she had stood there like an idiot, waiting for the wagon to approach.
She looked to Lachlan.
He stared at the three of them in the wagon, his eyes slightly squinted, bored by the tiresome scene. His chest lifted in a heavy sigh and his look met hers.
She couldn’t be any more beholden to him than she already was. And she couldn’t have him hurt on her account. She would just have to conjure up another way to escape these two.
One that didn’t involve Lachlan.
“He’s not my man,” she said, looking down at Mr. Fitzgibbon. “I am to be part of his household, that is all.”
Mr. Fitzgibbon nodded and a bright smile strained the tight skin across his face. He looked to Lachlan. “Well then, that settles it. Ye won’t be mindin’ if we take her for a spell? We can bring her to yer camp come morn.”
The Iron Earl Page 3
