“You!” she whispered.
“Aye,” Miller grinned without amusement. “It’s me. And you’re useful to me. But not if you don’t shut up. Then I’ll have to kill you.”
Bonnie felt sick. As far as she knew, the only use Miller could see in her was to have her killed for witchcraft. She couldn’t let him take her wherever she was going. She couldn’t! A wild terror possessed her. She had to get away from him. She had to!
Fear made her cry, tears running down her face in noisy sobs. She wanted to plead with him, swear at him…anything, to make him let her go. Her head hurt, the pain searing down and making her close her eyes again. He must have knocked me out cold. That must be how he got me here in the first place.
“Please,” she whispered. “Don’t hurt me.”
He laughed. “Of course I’m not going to hurt you,” he said with an unpleasant tone. “I need you alive. But not so badly that if you don’t shut up, or if you try to escape, I won’t kill you anyway. Just makes it harder.” He grunted as he pushed the cart over a stony patch.
She turned away, searching the surroundings for some means of escape. She could jump out of the cart. She could grab onto a branch and refuse to let go. She could scream…
“If you run, I’ll stab you.” Miller jerked his head downward, indicating a long dagger which he wore buckled to his waist. “You won’t run so fast with a dagger in your side.”
Bonnie knew he meant what he said. She thought hard. One thing she could do was to jump from the handcart the moment they were going along a hillside. If she could roll downhill, he wouldn’t have the time to stab her. She sat still and watched as the surroundings changed.
Miller grunted and wheezed as he pushed the cart over some stones. Bonnie clenched her teeth as she rattled and jostled, the motion sending pain stabbing through her head in waves. When he had hit her and knocked her unconscious, he must have done some damage to her skull.
She reached up and touched it gingerly, feeling blood dampening her hair. Her fingers came back sticky and coated with brownish blood. She wiped them off on her skirt.
“Aye, you can hold your whist now, can’t you?” Miller asked mockingly. “Just as well. We have a good hour or so to go before I can let you down. Not going to risk you escaping.”
Bonnie said nothing. She had learned that the best way to encourage people to talk was usually to remain quiet and let them tire of feeling uncomfortably silent. It seemed to work as well on Miller as it did on anybody else, for after a few moments, he cleared his throat.
“You think I didn’t know it was him? A big fellow like that? Hard to disguise. Stand out like a sore thumb.”
Bonnie frowned. Arthur? He was the only fellow who could reasonably be described as “big” that she knew of. Hogan was tall but not broad like Arthur was. However, why would Bonnie not have thought he would recognize him? It made no sense.
She waited for Miller to elaborate further.
“I saw him right away! From then it was easy. All I had to do was come back here, and I knew I’d find him. Catch the lot. That’s the way to do it, eh?”
“Mm,” Bonnie murmured. If he was going to be talkative, the least she could do was to encourage his confidences. The more she could find out about his reason for capturing her, the more likely it seemed that she would be able to escape him.
“Aye, that’s it, eh?” Miller chuckled, amused. “You’re not so shy of me, are you lass?” He leered down at her and Bonnie felt bile rise in her throat. She had to get away from him! Anything else – his bizarre talk, his knocking her out – she could bear. However not his lust. She tried to stand.
“Don’t think of it!” he warned. “I’ll stab you if I have to.”
She leaned back in the cart. At least for the moment, he had switched his attention from her physical presence to her escape. She had to get away from him soon. She looked about. The path they followed would ascend slightly in a few moments, winding up a low hillock. If he slowed on the slope she would have a chance…
“I followed him here,” Miller said. He sounded almost proud. “Not an easy thing, tracking a man over ground when it’s just rained. But I followed him. Guessed he would come back here. Then, I thought, all I needed to do was take you.”
“Me?” Bonnie spoke without thinking about it.
“Aye,” Miller said grimly. “Stands to reason, eh? Lad’s mashed on you. Anyone can see it. Take you, and I’d trap him. Stands to reason,” he repeated.
Bonnie frowned. “But, why?” she had to ask.
“Why?” he chuckled, amused. “Why’s my secret, lass. I’m no’ telling you. I’ll be rich, though, when this is done. That, I’ll promise you. Rich and far above my station. And what’s that to be sneezed at, eh?” his voice lifted with a laugh.
“Rich?” Bonnie repeated. The man was mad, she concluded unhappily. Mad, and talking nonsense. Why else would he have abducted her, after all? She was nobody! If he thought handing her over to the priests for heresy would make him rich, he was likely mistaken. Yet that wasn’t what he’d said. His words about Arthur returned sharply to her mind.
He’s mashed about you.
She felt a glow of warmth spread through her chest, despite the direness of the situation. Arthur was attracted to her? Even then, when they had traveled to the farm on Miller’s wagon?
She hadn’t noticed.
“Whoa!” Miller shouted, alarmed, as the cart rolled back a little on the hill. Bonnie tensed and seized her moment. At the moment the wheels sank into the mud, she jumped out and started to run. There was a slope beneath her feet, and she ran rightward, then downward, trying to get as far, as fast, as she could. She heard Miller shouting insults behind her.
“You doxy! You…” she blocked out the horrible, angry words. “I’ll get you! See if I don’t…”
He slipped and she screamed as his hand grabbed at her skirts, and then, as he fell, she raced ahead, running down the hill. She was getting away! If she could just carry on for a moment or two longer, just a moment…
She screamed in raw terror as somebody grabbed her skirt.
“I got you!” he shouted. “No more running. I swear, I’ll kill you. You’re useful to me alive, but almost as much use dead. No running.”
He was pressing a dagger to her throat. She could feel the sharp edge of it, pressed to her skin, sinking in a little. She wanted to scream but she didn’t have words.
She nodded.
The dagger lifted from her throat. She felt a stinging pain and reached up her hand to touch it. Miller sneered.
“On your feet, lass. And don’t ever think you can better me again. I swear, I’ll cut your throat next time.” He grabbed the back of her gown and held on as she walked ahead of him. She couldn’t see whether he still held the dagger or whether he had already sheathed it.
Her feet sinking into the mud, his hand gripping the back of her skirt, Bonnie walked on ahead. They went back down the hill and into the denser growth of woodland. She felt the cold and clinging air envelop her and she fought the urge to scream, or cry, or be sick.
One chance. I had one chance to escape.
She bit her lip as she felt herself start to cry. She wasn’t going to cry in front of Miller. Not if she could help it. She was at a stage of terror that meant she was beyond thought and beyond words or actions. She had seen squirrels go like this – still and staring, as if mesmerized by whatever it was that had threatened them. That was how she felt now.
As she walked, she thought of Arthur. It was the one thing that would keep her sane.
What did he mean, that he had recognized Arthur? Where had he seen him? At the farm? She frowned. She hadn’t seen Miller come to deliver anything. They hadn’t sold anything that needed carting, and nobody had brought them anything from the village. Had he been hiding in the woods, all this time?
“Never leave witnesses,” Miller said, chuckling broadly as if it was a fine jest. “That’s where he went wrong. Never leave witnesses.
It’s a daft thing to do.”
Bonnie frowned at him, thoroughly mystified now. Witnesses to what? The more he said, the further from reason she felt she was going. She felt something inside her snap.
“Please, just let me go!” she heard her own voice screaming. “Please! I’m worth nothing to you. I don’t know what you think I’m worth. Nobody will pay to burn me. Nobody!”
He laughed. “Burn you? Is that what you think? Why would anybody burn you?”
Bonnie went stiff. “You said yourself,” she stammered. “That night. In the woods. When you brought us here.”
“I said you were like as not to put a spell on me. Or a curse,” Miller chuckled. “But I’ve got a charm now, to keep away curses. Paid a pretty penny for it, I did. She didn’t want to sell it to me. Probably thinks I deserve all the curses I can get.” He laughed and slapped his pocket, where Bonnie guessed the charm was hidden. “No, I’m not going to burn you.”
“Then what?” Bonnie demanded, all patience gone. “If you’re not going to burn me, what are you going to do?”
He chuckled. “You think I’d tell you? Now why the devil would I do that? Keep on walking,” he added, giving her a shove. “It’s getting dark in here and we don’t want to be caught out in the woods at nightfall.”
Bonnie bit her lip and walked ahead. She had lost all hope of escape now. She was tired, frightened, and speechless. She had nothing she could do, save put one foot in front of the other and pray for assistance.
She needed to get out of here.
Confronting The Enemy
The sound of breathing filled his ears as he ran. It was his own breath, panting and desperate. Arthur listened to the slap of his feet on the hard ground below him and the hiss of his breath in his lungs and he ran, trying to get as much speed as he could from his aching legs.
He had found a trail.
The track was quite straightforward to follow, a single wheel and two boots, the weight pressing heavily into the mud. Whoever this was, they were a big man.
But then, Arthur thought grimly, I’m big myself, and more than able to look after myself.
He ran onward. He imagined Bonnie, how terrified she would be, how angry and alone and afraid. The more he thought of that, the more his anger coiled up inside him, a thing of cold metal and no limitations. If this man hurt Bonnie, he would kill him.
“Run, Arthur. You can do better than that!”
He goaded himself on, finding his strength, pushing and grunting and feeling pain shoot through his chest where his own wound had only recently healed. He struggled for breath and ran on. The track curved left, up an incline. He followed it.
“They stopped here.”
He frowned. At this point, the tracks became confusing, the one set of boot prints turned into two sets of boot prints, the wheels stopping abruptly on the top of the hill. He slowed down and stopped, reading the legacy of the tracks in the mud. It was clear. Somebody had leaped from the cart and made an escape attempt down the hill.
Bonnie.
“Please, be safe,” Arthur whispered. He ran down the slope, following the prints. Whoever had captured her would doubtless be furious at her attempt to escape him. They had clearly followed, as the heavy tracks went down the hill just behind the faint prints that showed Bonnie’s path. Arthur followed them, heart pounding with fear for Bonnie.
Her prints led over a patch of dry ground between some close trees, and he frowned, losing the trail a moment. He picked it up fairly quickly and alongside it the pair of booted feet that ran down from the top of the hill. The captor was in hot pursuit at this point.
He imagined Bonne’s fear, almost as if he could hear her strained breath. He felt as if he ran alongside her, the terror she felt coiling inside him, the sweat that dripped down her back running down his. Her confusion and pain were his own in that moment, and he was shocked by the magnitude of both.
“Curse him,” he swore. If he had hurt her, he would hunt that set of boot prints through the woods for as long as it took. When he found the owner, he would kill him in the most painful way he could.
“Come on,” he chided himself, feeling his steps lag. What was the matter with him? Why couldn’t he run faster? They couldn’t be far ahead now. At the fork in the path, the two prints met up. The shallow boot prints met the deep ones and the track backed up on itself, then continued, together with the deep boot prints, up the hill. Arthur swore.
“He caught her.”
He wanted to weep, imagining her horror at having been so close. She would have wept, knowing that she had almost escaped. He imagined her terror and his heart almost froze with the cold anger that settled on his soul. When he caught whoever this was, death would be the least of what he wanted to do.
Forcing himself to stop shaking, his rage overwhelming him, he walked on.
At the top of the hill again, he stopped.
“Which way did they go?”
He sat down, a moment of despair rushing through him. He felt the damp earth soaking the bottom of his trousers and crouched, his boots keeping him dry. He tried to focus on the prints, but his eyes misted with tears of absolute desperation. He didn’t know if he could follow her.
“I can’t let her down.”
He shut his eyes. Suddenly, it felt as if all the sorrow and betrayal he had felt as a child was crowding him. He had run away to sea, but only because he felt he had no place in his home. He hadn’t been good enough.
Now I’m failing Bonnie. She’s gone because I couldn’t keep her safe. I wasn’t strong enough. I wasn’t brave enough. She left because I’m a failure, not good enough for her to want to stay.
He sniffed. He was being ridiculous, he thought. Yet he was crying tears that he had never known he wanted to cry. His adult-self had never realized how much his child-self had ached for a place, to be good enough to be noticed, to be cared for.
Bonnie cared for him and noticed him. She loved him seemingly without reason, for it wasn’t as if he’d always been kind and thoughtful, or as if she had any reason to trust anybody who was a man. Yet, she did. She had feared him at first, but she had learned to trust him and that meant so much to him. He had to help her find her way back.
“Not much good to sit here crying about it, eh?” he chided himself, dragging himself to his feet. At that moment, he noticed something in the path. A scrap of white.
He walked over, surprised he’d noticed it. If he hadn’t seen it from that particular angle, he might have missed it, he realized. He bent down and lifted it. It was a square of white cloth, loosely sewn around the edges, probably a handkerchief. He crumpled it into his hand, muddy from the wet leaves. It lay near a set of prints. He thought they were hers.
He felt his heart lift, all depression gone, and followed the track into the woods.
The big booted feet evidenced themselves further along, and he followed both sets eagerly. As he reached a path below the trees, he started to run. They couldn’t be far ahead! They had only had perhaps ten minutes of a head start on him. He ran along the track, heart lifting with hope.
He heard a voice ring out, the sound of a shout.
“Bonnie!” he whispered, his joy at hearing her voice again mixed with urgency, to reach her before something happened. The path curved around a corner and he followed it, and strained his ears for all sound.
A scene met his eyes. Bonnie was in the pathway, her pale linen dress muddied at the hem, her hair in disarray. She was fighting with her assailant. The man himself was big and bulky, with strong shoulders, his head set low as he fought, trying to land a blow on his assailant, who was too small and swift for him to readily do so.
“You! No!” He bellowed. The assailant looked up. He froze.
“You,” he gasped.
Miller smiled at him. He had small eyes and his smile did not reach them. He laughed, too, again with no humor. Arthur stared, horrified.
“You were dead,” he said. They had seen Miller fall! He had been among th
e first to encounter the enemy. There was no way he was alive. Horror chilled Arthur’s spine. Was this a ghost?
“Arthur! He was hiding…in the woods. You should go,” Bonnie whispered, urgency tightening in her throat.
“I thought I’d use her, to get you,” Miller grinned. “And it worked. Didn’t think I’d leave you alive, did you?”
“What are you talking about?” Arthur stared at him, horror making his legs root to the spot. He should hit him, grab Bonnie, and run away from here fast. He knew he should, that it was their only chance of survival. However, the whole situation was too confusing, too shocking, for him to do anything but stare in horror as Miller unclasped Bonnie’s arm, taking out his dagger from where he wore it, strapped to his belt.
“I knew some things about the resistance. Alec’s so trusting!” He shook his head, lips twisted bitterly. “But he wasn’t fool enough to tell me names of anyone. Who’s leading the resistance? Where are they now? Where do they buy supplies?”
He swung his dagger between finger and thumb as he spoke, and Arthur gaped at him, disbelief making him almost laugh in shock.
“You aren’t serious,” he said. As he said it, he gripped Bonnie’s wrist and took a step back.
“I can throw it…it’s not as easy as stabbing you, but I’ll hit you somewhere that’ll hurt. Or her,” Miller added with a nasty sneer. “If you try and run, I’ll try.”
Arthur stared at him. He knew he wasn’t playing. He would throw the dagger – it had a blade as long as his forearm – and it would do deadly damage. If it hit Bonnie, it would surely kill her.
“Miller, you were never with us?” he shook his head, trying to make sense of all he’d heard.
“Not a chance. With you?” Miller laughed nastily. “A resistance? Against the might of England? No, thank you. I’d rather pick my side and live in a nice cottage, doing easy labor for the rest of my life. No more trudging about in the freezing rain for me! A cottage by a toll gate and all the comfortable wages I could earn. Sounds nice,” he added with a chuckle.
“You let them buy you.” Arthur stared at him in horror. “What made you trust them?” If Miller could show such disloyalty to his own group, what made him think anybody was more loyal than he was?
The Highlander's Honorable Savior (Iron 0f The Highlands Series Book 4) Page 18
