Page 93 of The Iron Earl

Her eyes closed, her stomach convulsing as bile ran up her throat.

She tripped, not seeing a thick root half stuck out of the mud in front of her. It sent her sprawling and unable to catch herself with her bound hands and she landed on her side in the mud.

“For fuck’s sake, Evalyn.” Molson dropped the reins of his horse and grabbed her arm, yanking her to her feet. “I swear if you trip over your damn feet one more time I’m going to tie you to the rump of the horse and it can drag you.”

Evalyn kept her eyes downcast but lifted her bound wrists. Mud dripped off the side of her hand. “It’s the rope. I cannot keep my balance when my feet are pulling from the mud.”

Molson let loose an exaggerated sigh. “The horse to drag you would be a better option, but as I want your limbs working under me, that’s not to happen.”

“Working under you?”

A sneer carved his face. “When we reach the border and the divorce is delivered, we’ll marry before we head back into England.” He paused, pulling his dagger from under his coat. He lifted the blade to the side of her face and dragged it down along her cheek until the tip pressed into the flesh below her jaw. He pushed the blade upward, forcing her eyes to lift to him. “And I want you fighting me, bucking me when I stick you. I’ve been planning it out for a long while.”

Her head went light, the blood leaving her face.

He dropped the knife from her jaw, grabbing her hand and sawing through the rough rope that had bound her wrists for three days. “We’re far enough removed now that you can run, but we’ll find you before anyone else does.” The blade snapped the last of the rope and his eyes lifted, his look half threatening, half goading. “And I don’t think you’ll run, for you know what will happen if you do.” He paused, a sickening sneer on his thin lips. “Then again, that may be more fun for both of us. Did I tell you I have a new whip? I think in the instance of you running, due punishment would be a lash for every step.”

She held his look, not reacting. Not a recoil, not a frown, not a smile. He would have her body to do with what he wanted. But he would never have her. Not one emotion from her.

That, she’d decided. Quiet resistance. She knew well how to do it and that was how she wouldn’t break.

A sneer pursed his lips and he turned, picking up his reins and starting forth again.

Evalyn rubbed her wrists, wincing at the raw bloody skin from the rub of the rope. At least she could move her arms freely again. As hard as it was to pick up her feet, she lifted her right leg, her thigh straining at the effort it took to suck her boot out of the mud. Her free arms almost gave her a sliver of hope, but with one of Molson’s men in the lead with his horse, the other two trailing behind her, and the ground a mess of mud, she wouldn’t get far. Probably not even to the side of the road.

A hundred more paces, and they started down the center of a wide planked bridge over the river.

Her eyes downcast, she was halfway across the bridge when Molson skidded to a stop in front of her. She bumped into his backside.

Garbled sounds behind her. Feet scuffling, boots pounding on the bridge. Grunts.

Evalyn spun around. One of Molson’s men was flat on the ground just before the bridge, prone, his neck contorted unnaturally. Behind his body, two of the horses were free, hopping from one spot to the next, spooked by the scuffle. They bolted toward the nearby tree line.

A tortured wail pierced the air as Molson’s other man struggled against a man in a black cloak with the hood pulled over his head, obscuring his face. He didn’t see the second hooded man come behind him, a dagger flashing. The blade lifted, efficiently slitting his throat. Molson’s man slumped to the ground, blood gurgling from his neck.

Highwaymen.

Panic filled Evalyn’s chest, her breath gasping.

But then it struck her. Highwaymen were her way out.

If they killed Molson and his men, they might just leave her alive. Either way, those tenant families would be safe.

No matter what happened to her, it wouldn’t be worse than dying a long, painful death under Molson’s blade. His whip. A death that would be years in the making.

She had to get rid of their horse before Molson could escape on it.

She turned, her hand flinging out and slapping the rump of Molson’s horse. The creature reared, yanking the reins from Molson, and ran forward, straight at the last of Molson’s men at the far end of the bridge.

The brute jumped out of the way of the stampeding horse, losing his own reins as his mare joined the fracas.

The moment the horses thundered off the bridge, she saw two more cloaked figures with hooded heads approaching them from the opposite side of the river.

Molson’s brute drew his pistol, but was too slow. One of the men rushed him, gutting him before he could even lift the barrel. Molson’s last man fell, his body thunking to the wide planks of the bridge, then slumping off the side, dropping into the river below.

Her heart thundering in her chest, her initial hope sizzled out. These men were brutal. Callous with their kills.

And now they flanked her and Molson on both sides of the bridge by only twenty feet.

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