Page 82 of My Hellion, My Heart
“Don’t say it,” she said through clenched teeth, sipping the water and returning it to him. “He came this way, I can feel it.”
“You can feel it,” he said again, staring at her.
“Don’t ask me how I know,” she said, tears stinging the backs of her eyes. Turning away, she leaned against her horse, resting her head against its neck and feeling her tears dampening its velvet hide. “I just do. Please, Max. I have to do something, otherwise I’ll break apart.”
He sighed. “You love him.”
Her shoulders shook with the force of her sobs. “You know I do.”
“And there’s nothing I can say that will deter you from riding blindly toward Dover with only your heart guiding you, as misplaced as that feeling may be?” he asked.
“No.” She raised her head to eye him over her shoulder, her eyes damp.
Max approached to gather her into his arms. “Then we’ll find him, I promise.”
“I’m so afraid.”
“My daring little princess, afraid?” he teased, pushing her a few inches away to smile at her, his hands remaining on the upper part of her shoulders and lightly kneading her stiff arms. She sighed at the soothing ministrations.
“They’re highwayman, Max. And armed. I couldn’t bear it if anything happened to Henry, or to you.”
“Then we shall have to take them by surprise.” Max winked at her, his thumb rising to stroke a tear from her cheek before falling back to rub the length of her upper arms. “Where’s my fearless little partner in crime? Together, I think we can foil four clumsy highwaymen. And one a woman. That alone increases our odds a thousandfold.”
In sticky slow motion, Irina stiffened, her body going still under his hands. Perhaps she had heard wrong, but those four words thrummed to her pulse in a violent staccato:and one a woman.
She exhaled. “Max, I never told you that there was a woman.”
At that moment, there was a shout and muffled laughter in the far corner of the inn’s yard. Irina flicked her eyes in that direction and saw a carriage in the process of changing horses. Four lathered steeds were being led away while four fresh ones were being harnessed. The carriage, however, was what seized her attention. Brown. With green markings.
“Didn’t you?” Max said casually. “Perhaps the boy mentioned it, then.”
Irina’s breath ground to a stop as she looked back to Max, meeting his eyes.
“Joseph wasn’t in the carriage when we spoke,” she said slowly. Something swam in the blue depths of his eyes…something that chilled her to the bone, even as panic made every muscle in her body bunch.
“For Christ’s sake, Max, tell me it wasn’tyou,” she whispered, denial surging through her in vivid bursts.
Without answering, Max’s grip on her arms tightened like a noose, one palm sliding upward to cover her mouth. He moved like lightning to twist her back up against him and then pushed her against the body of the horse, limiting her movement while his other arm slid up to crook around the front of her neck. Slowly, he depressed the air from her throat even as her frantically churning brain strained to catch up.
“Max, what are you doing?” she gasped against his gloved hand, wriggling madly.
Deep-seated terrors rose up to torture her…memories of another man holding her down and forcing her into a carriage. Her demons cackled and crowed with glee as they rose from their cages.Oh God, oh God, oh God…Irina felt a dragging numbness take hold, and she fought against it with everything she could muster. She was no longer a terrified fourteen-year-old, and this wasn’t a stranger. No, this was Max. Her friend.
“Max, please, I can’t breathe.”
“Don’t struggle, love,” he said against her ear. “It’ll only make it worse.”
It was all she wanted to do—rail and scream and fight—but as the air departed her wheezing body, she could only succumb…succumb to the man she had trusted for what seemed like forever.
Chapter Twenty-Two
The sloshing of water and the sick sensation of his stomach rolling side to side jarred Henry awake. He opened his eyes with effort, half afraid the giant called Crow would, once again, rap him on the skull and make him crash back into unconsciousness. It had happened twice before—or was it three times? He’d lost count since he’d been in that darkened carriage, jolting over endless rough roads. The moment he’d start to wake, Crow would hit him, and the blackness would swallow Henry. Each time, he’d hear a muffled scream, but he couldn’t tell if it was real or in his head.
Only now, as he took in the sight of a ship’s deck and felt the cool, salted air blowing into his face, did he begin to hope that he would be allowed to wake fully. It was dark, with guttering torches and oil lamps strung along the railings. Henry’s skull throbbed, and he was thankful for the lack of bright sunlight. Blinking away the pain, Henry took in the details surrounding him. He was on a small boat, and noting the compact sails above, figured it to be a cutter. Some kind of packet ship meant for quick travel. He’d heard the word Dover murmured once when he’d risen to consciousness, and knew they had to be in the Pas-de-Calais, heading toward France.
There were no other passengers save for him on the deck, and his captors were nowhere in sight, but Henry didn’t doubt they wouldn’t be too far away. His hands were bound behind his back, though the ropes were loose enough for him to possibly work his way out of. He tried, rubbing his wrists forward and back, pulling them apart and grimacing at the spikes of pain in his back and head, and now, wrists. The last time he’d been bound and gagged like this… He closed his eyes and breathed evenly. He could not slip back into that memory, not now. He needed his wits about him, and panic would only serve to turn them to mush.
“Git up,” a voice growled from over his shoulder. Henry opened his eyes and felt the familiar coarse tug of Crow’s hand. He gripped Henry’s arm and yanked him to a standing position. “High tide and rough water tonight. Don’t want you rolling overboard—just yet.”
