Page 2 of The Wrong Bride
Riona flung herself sideways, startling him enough that he let go. She stepped on the edge of her skirt trying to straighten up and run for the door, only to have the man grab her around the waist and lift her off the ground, her back to his chest. She kicked backward with her legs, even as his other hand covered her mouth again.
“That’s enough,” he said sternly into her ear.
He carried her to the glass door. All she could do was swing her legs at him, buthislegs felt as unaffected as the trunk of a tree kicked by a bird. She reached behind to grab at his hair with her free hand. Though he swore, he didn’t stop his inexorable stride out into the cool summer air on the balcony. She was used to the sounds of London, carriages at all hours of the night, the calls of street vendors and their customers even before dawn. But away from the town center, York was as silent as the moors, as if they were the only people left in the world. She felt an ache of desperate loneliness.
When her captor went right to the edge and leaned over it, she gasped as the half moon illuminated a steep drop into the shadows of the garden.Her head reeled with dizziness. He couldn’t possibly have forced her to dress only to push her to her death.
And then she saw the flash of a lantern signaling them from below before being quickly shuttered, followed by the dark, boxy outline of a coach. Two black horses pulled it forward into the moonlight, away from the building, and then the well-trained animals went utterly still.
“I’m going to lower ye to the coachman,” the man said in her ear. “If ye fight, ye might fall, and we don’t want that. Do ye understand?”
She nodded, but when he removed his hand from her mouth, she spoke hoarsely, quickly. “Why are you doing this? I’m not worth anything to you. A ransom—”
“I want no ransom. Quiet.”
The first tears spilled down her cheeks as he pulled up a rope affixed to the stone balustrade. Had he climbed up that way? She couldn’t possibly do the same!
“There’s a loop at the bottom. Ye’ll stand in it and I’ll lower ye. Now up on the balustrade.”
She gasped when he put both large hands about her waist, then lifted her until she was forced to stand on the narrow stone or risk tumbling and breaking her neck. With a groan, she closed her eyes, swayed, and was actually grateful the man kept a firm hold of her hips.
“None of that,” he ordered sternly. Then he sighed. “This won’t work, I see that now.”
“Then let me go and I won’t tell anyone what happened here!”
She opened her eyes, then reeled as the shadowy walled garden seemed to expand into darkness, and the wind picked up. She felt dazed with shock and disbelief.
“I’m not letting ye go. Ye’re my future, lass.”
His future? But she didn’t have time to even guess what he meant when he suddenly vaulted onto the balustrade beside her, his movements catlike for a big man.
“I’ll just have to carry ye then. Now don’t move, or ye’ll kill us both.”
Horrified, she began, “Carry me—”
Then he tossed her over his shoulder like a sack of grain, and she landed with an “oomph” that surely bruised her stomach. She was hanging upside-down, the world spinning around her, the rough wool of his coat against her mouth, his arm across the back of her thighs as he bent to grip the rope.
“Hold on, lass, or it’ll end badly for ye.”
For the first time, he sounded truly menacing, as if he didn’t want her antics to send him hurtling down with her to an ugly death. She could feel the muscles of his chest and back tense with strain as he began to lower himself down the side of the balcony, using his feet to brace himself, and then only his arms as the rope swayed in mid-air.
She closed her eyes and clutched his coat with both hands, too terrified to do anything other than pray. And then it was over, and she thanked God for solid ground. Not that she felt it with her own feet, because she was suddenly tossed into the interior of the coach, where she landed hard on a leather-covered bench. As she scrambled to sit upright, her captor looked through the doorway, his shoulders blocking the meager moonlight.
“Be a good lass and keep quiet if ye don’t want company tonight,” he warned in a hard voice.
Then he slammed the door shut. There was no lantern lit, and both windows had a curtain drawn down over them. She was in absolute blackness. Hands fumbling, she found the door handle, but somehow it was jammed from the outside. She shook it in frustration, then sank back and just hugged herself. The coach lurched into motion, the wheels clattering repetitively on the cobblestone street outside her uncle’s town house.
She was too numb and disbelieving for tears now. She was the prisoner of two men, and didn’t have any idea what they might do to her. Unless someone had seen what had happened—and there was no sound of pursuit—she was alone against these strangers. She could sit here and wallow in fear—or she could find a way to free herself.
The first thing she did was try the door again, but even the leather curtain had somehow been fastened shut. She explored by touch, finding blankets, cushions, and candles in the storage compartments beneath the benches, even a selection of garments, but no weapons or tinderbox. They must not want her setting the coach afire, she thought grimly.
She found a corked bottle of cider, some cheese, and something like bread that she nibbled on. Did it have the taste of . . . oats? She suddenly remembered her father talking about the food that had comprised much of a clansman’s diet: oatcakes.
Why had a Scotsman kidnapped her? She wanted to fling the food aside in her anger, but knew she needed nourishment to stay strong, because there weretwoof them, and only one of her. Her eyes stung again with alternating fury and helplessness. Just for good measure, she slammed herself against the door, as she’d seen a servant do when a door was stuck, but all she got for that was a sore shoulder. And she could have gone headfirst out into the road . . .
For a while, she kept herself fully alert, ready to leap outside the moment the door opened. She stamped her feet, rubbed her arms, shook her head when her eyelids felt heavy. But the coach journeyed on and on, the roads getting bumpier. At last, her head drooped and bounced with the motion, and her eyes closed in a fitful doze.
She came awake with a start when the coach lurched to a stop, then perched near the door, ready to jump out and run. The faint light of dawn was a gray line around the leather window curtain. The fertile Yorkshire valley would be full of farms; surely she could reach one. She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to concentrate on the present and not the terrifying fear that made her heart pound and her breath come fast.
