She held her breath. Dare she risk asking for a ride? How far were they going? Were they loyal to the Homme du Sang? To her uncle?
There was only one way to find out.
Pressing her hand to her chest, she made a run for it, dashing toward the cart, her feet finding purchase in the grass and rocky expanse. As she drew closer, she called out, “Sir! Sir!”
The driver tensed then turned, his eyes wide, his back straight. Catching sight of her, his eyes narrowed.
“Wot ye doin’ out here in the dark? Don’t ye know it’s dangerous?” the man chided her as he drew his cart to a halt.
Her heart racing, she skidded to a stop just beside the cart, looking up into the man’s weathered but kindly face.
“Please, sir.” What could she say that would make him willing to help her? “I have received word that my mother has become ill. I must get to her before it is too late.” She fought the urge to cross herself for lying to him, but the fabrication couldn’t be helped. She doubted he would help her if she knew she was fleeing the Homme du Sang, Cardinal Calleaux, and an arranged marriage.
The man leaned forward, probably looking closer at her, scouring her expression for any signs of falsehood.
She wanted to fall to her knees, to beg him if she had to, but she waited. Prayed.
Finally, “Where are ye headed? I am goin’ ta the market in Lancaster. If yer mother is anywhere near there, ye can at least get that far.”
Her breath left her chest in a rush, and her heart began to race.
She clapped, joy filling her. “Oh, merci! Merci!” Minnette didn’t catch her slip until the man’s eyes flew wide again.
“French, eh?” he asked, his tone wary.
Unable to hide the truth, she nodded. “Yes. My maman and I moved to Chatteris four years ago, but I came to Bridgerdon for work.”
The man stared at her and Minnette could see his thoughts circling in his eyes. Finally, he commanded, “Well, let’s get ye ta Lancaster. Ye can find another ride from there.”
Without hesitation, Minnette moved to the back of the cart and climbed in, her skirts a hindrance. Once inside, she snuggled down between two crates of onions. As the cart began moving, Minnette peered into the darkness behind them, watching as the distance between her and her captivity grew.
By now, they had discovered her missing and were, no doubt, mounting a search.
Let them search. They will not find me.
Gathering her meager belongings to her chest, she settled down, allowing her heart to slow down. Since leaving the castle, she’d felt chased, pursued, even though she didn’t know if that were the case. Perhaps it was the fear, the knowing that Sir Elric would take her escape as a personal affront. The arrogant cur wouldn’t spare a thought for her obvious desire to remain unmarried. He would make it his mission to find her, drag her to Glidden, and toss her at the man’s cloven feet.
She shuddered, the chill of the night air blocked somewhat by the barrier of crates, but not enough that it didn’t sink through her thin gown. Without a cloak, the thick, rich fabrics of her usual gowns, and the layers of undergarments, she might as well be naked.
Cold but free. Hungry but free. Riding headlong into the unknown and terrifying…but free.
As the cart rolled over the bumpy road, Minnette discovered how truly exhausted she was. Her eyes fell closed.
Awoken with a thud, Minnette cried out. Her backside ached from her sitting on the boards of the cart, her back ached from being too awkwardly positioned, and her mouth was so dry she wondered when she’d ingested dirt.
“Oy, so ye’re awake, then,” the man said over his shoulder. Minnette could feel the cart slowing so she sat up, her eyes taking in her new surroundings. It was still dark, but she could make out the silhouette of a squat building a few yards away, and a stretch of cleared land beside it.
“Where are we?” she asked, her voice husky from sleep. “How far have we come?”
The man stopped the cart and Minnette pushed herself out from between the crates, trying to slide along the back of the cart to the edge.
Easing himself down from the cart, the man slowly made his way to the back of the cart until he was standing before her, the lantern hanging from his hand.
From atop the cart, he looked larger, but now Minnette could see he was short, stocky, made for hard labor.
“Have we reached Lancaster already?” she asked, her gaze landing on a single building. It was a house. “Where have you brought me?” Suddenly, the panic returned. She shouldn’t have trusted this man. What a fool she was.
The man, sensing her upheaval, raised both hands.
“Now, hold on, don’t get upset,” he said, his voice both angry and reassuring, as if he were offended by her presumptions but still trying to defuse her fears. “I may not be smart, but I know what fear looks like. Ye aren’t runnin’ home, lass, ye’re runnin’ from Bridgerdon.”
She opened her mouth to protest, though it was true, but he held his hand up, stopping her.
“I don’t care what is in yer head, lass. I only care that ye needed to be away from there, and I was willin’ ta take ye.”
She swallowed, stark reality biting at her. The man before her had guessed the truth of it and hadn’t denied her. Suddenly, the tears she should have cried days ago, after her uncle’s marriage announcement, began falling from her eyes. She bit back a sob, unwilling to allow a moment of weakness to dissolve into blubbering in front of a stranger.
The man looked stricken, his face reddening. He rubbed the back of his neck nervously.
“Wot did ye do ta that poor girl?” someone called out to them, making Minnette turn to look over the side of the cart toward the house. There was a woman standing there, her hands planted on her ample hips. She was staring at them with a gleam in her eye that made Minnette’s tears dry up on the spot.
The woman stomped over, stopping just beside the man to peer at her with dark brown eyes, eyes that seemed to examine her as a bear would examine a trout.
“Wot ’ave ye brought ’ome, ’arold?” the woman asked, turning to pin her glare on who Minnette assumed was her husband.
Harold huffed, crossing his arms. “She ran at me from the woods, like a specter, white as a doe’s arse-end. Wot was I ’spose ta do?”
It was his wife’s turn to huff. She eyed Minnette again, her gaze taking in the whole of her, stopping on her face.
“Who are ye? And wot are ye doin’ scarin’ the life out o’ me ’arold?”
Still flustered from her emotional flux, Minnette didn’t know what to say. How much more truth should these people know? Harold had already guessed some of it, but that wasn’t enough to get him into trouble if the Homme du Sang somehow tracked her this far.
Non…the less these people knew the better off they were.
“I am Rosette DeMorney,” she offered, using her mother’s maiden name. “I am on my way to Chatteris to see my dying maman. She is sick, you see, and I cannot imagine not having the chance to say goodbye.”
Harold narrowed his eyes at her but said nothing to the contrary. His wife, on the other hand, found her voice once again.
“Chatteris is more’en two ’undred miles southwest of ’ere.” She arched an eyebrow. “Were ye plannin’ ta walk the whole way?”
“If I have to,” Minnette replied, pulling her shoulders back. “I would walk until my feet bled.” And she would. Bloody feet meant nothing if it meant she were free.
Her gaze moving over her, delving into her, the woman before her stood silently. Minnette could feel the woman’s uncertainty, her wariness, and she couldn’t blame her. She was a complete stranger who had arrived at her home with her husband. The woman’s caution was understandable.
Holding herself stiffly, her chin high, Minnette waited, seated in the back of a cart, the moonlight casting an ethereal glow over them.
Finally, the woman dropped her hands from her waist and reached for Minnette, helping her out of the cart and
onto the ground. Numb from the ride and the cold, Minnette could barely stand, her legs felt as if they were made of needles.
The woman huffed, grabbing hold of Minnette’s elbow, her grip surprisingly gentle despite her tone. “Come along then. We ought ta let ye rest and get ye fed before ye set out ta maim yer feet.”
Chapter Fifteen
Elric narrowed his eyes at the pile of human waste before him, sneering as the man told a tale Elric could only half-believe.
“Aye, she came through ’ere, a lovely little mouthful…” At Elric’s low growl, the man snapped upright, the hand that had been cradling his bollocks flying up in a defensive gesture. “She was a little French vixen, all teeth and spittin’. She nearly unmanned me and all ’cos I asked her if she needed ’elp.”
Elric could easily believe that the Frenchwoman to whom the man was referring could become a fiery ball of fury when cornered, but that meant she’d been cornered first. The man, Ol’ Long John, was corpulent, smelly, and greasy. The near constant leer on his face was an indication that he took what he wanted by force.
I will kill him if he hurt her.
The skin around his mouth tightened as he swallowed down the bile that rose into his throat.
“And this vixen,” Elric began, his voice as sharp as the blade at his hip. “Where did she go?”
Ol’ Long John shrugged, his face turning a mottled red and purple. “I didn’t pay no mind ta where she went. She kicked me in me long john,” he practically squealed. “That innant right.”
A deadly calm took over him and he stepped forward, peering down his nose at the man who hadn’t even bothered rising to his feet to speak to him as a man would.
“When I find her, and I will, if I discover that you have so much as dirtied a hair on her head, I will come for you. And the least of your worries will be your long john…” He let his voice die off, his gaze never leaving the man’s face as Elric’s intent became clear.
Ol’ Long John’s face lost all color and his lips fell open on a gust of fetid breath.
Disgusted, Elric leaned back. His sneer in place once more.
“Where did she go?” Elric asked again. This time his tone could cleave a man in two.
His beady eyes wide, Ol’ Long John stuttered, “She ran into the trees on the other side of that booth there.” He pointed, his stubby finger shaking.
She ran into the woods on foot? What the Hell was she thinking? She couldn’t have more than what she could carry, and that probably didn’t include a weapon of any kind. The reckless woman was asking for pain and suffering.
A chill filled him, snatching his breath. No, he’d find her before she had a chance to get herself killed. Or he would kill her himself.
Without a second glance, Elric turned and strode back toward the castle wall just as the light of the rising sun cast his shadow at his feet.
Damn! It had taken him far too long to find even that little bit of information about his runaway charge. There were a few vendors who murmured about a pretty wench moving through the crowd. She’d caught their attention because she seemed out of place among them. One of the vendors had spoken of a young woman who hurried by her tent looking as terrified as a hare in a wolf’s den.
She should be terrified. The wolf is on her trail. And when he caught her, he would devour her.
Exhaustion weighing on him, he shook off the desire to lay down and close his eyes for a respite. He didn’t have the luxury of time. Minnette had been gone all night, alone in the woods. She could be wounded, caught in a hunter’s trap, or even lying unconscious, a victim of the merciless elements.
She could be dead. He refused to allow his mind to conjure such thoughts. She couldn’t be dead. He refused to believe it. He wasn’t done with her yet.
Back in the great hall, Elric noticed the banquet seemed to have died down hours ago. There were some guests sleeping on the benches. There were some maids cleaning up the remains of the meal, but his men and their hosts were absent.
He knew Tristin would have put the men up in a barracks separate from the castle, and he would find them soon. But first, there was something else he needed to do.
For the second time in ten hours, Elric took the stairs to the third floor two at a time. He strode down the corridor toward the room Minnette had abandoned, ignoring the pointed looks from passing maids and guards. Once at her chamber, Elric swung the door open and walked to the trunk still sitting open at the foot of the large bed.
Crouching beside the trunk, he began looking through it. Clothing, slippers, a small cache of hair pins and the like—nothing that gave him any idea of where the woman was going.
And why was she going? Grunting, Elric sat back on his heels, his thoughts churning. From the moment he’d met her, before he even knew who she really was, she’d been a poison in his blood, an enticement that cut away at his will. Never in his life had he struggled with his control as much as he did when she was near. But damn, he would have her all the nearer.
Biting back a curse, he remembered how aloof she seemed during the journey to Bridgerdon, how cold and quiet. He’d assumed she was showing her contempt toward him. But now, he wasn’t so sure that was all. He’d known several families who’d married off their daughters for their own gain, and he knew Cardinal Calleaux never did anything that didn’t benefit himself. Elric doubted that Calleaux was marrying off his niece as a favor to Glidden or out of concern for Minnette’s future.
There is something there I am not seeing.
He hated being used, a tool for Calleaux’s machinations, but he had no choice. Calleaux was waiting for Elric to slip up, to show even the slightest signs of betrayal to him or to his duty so he could rip the command from his grasp and fill the position with another. Someone as gutless and driven by power as he was.
His men were his family, the only thing left in the world that meant a damn to him. He couldn’t let them down. A sense of dread nipped at the urgency in his veins, pushing him to his feet and out the door of Minnette’s bedchamber.
Once out in the courtyard, Elric started toward the forward barracks where the men would have bedded down after the banquet, a banquet he had hoped to enjoy with his friends…and a certain Kitten. But she had left without a word, fleeing into the night. If Ol’ Long John was to be believed, she had run into the woods. But what was her destination? He knew very little about her, but if Calleaux was left with her care, she couldn’t have any other family in England. Which meant she had no place to go.
She is just blindly running. God, she must be desperate. And that knowledge kicked him hard enough to make him stop in his tracks, eliciting curious glances from people as they hurried by on their business.
Why was she so desperate to get away? Was the idea of marriage to Glidden so repugnant? Weren’t most noble daughters happy enough to marry into higher rank? Most women knew their futures were set in marriage and begetting heirs, so why hadn’t Minnette fallen in line?
She is not most women. No, she was not. An image of Minnette dressed as a maid, her body draped over his like a blanket made of the hottest desires turned up the heat in his belly. She was fire and air, colliding to create an inferno within him that engulfed his every sense. He groaned, the memories far too real. Minnette was unlike any woman he had ever known…and he needed to know why.
Continuing on to the barracks, Elric was greeted with moans and grunts as he opened the door to let in the morning sunlight.
“Och! Canna ye not blow out that light?” Glenn grumbled from where he was reclining on the floor by the dead hearth.
“I doubt any man could,” Elric replied, walking over to crouch beside Glenn who threw his arm over his eyes to shield them. “I am shocked to see you thus, my friend. Cannot hold your wine?” Elric knew he was poking the well-armed wild dog, but he couldn’t help himself. He was in need of something to take the edge off his tension.
Glenn tensed, slowly lowering his arm from his face. His blue eyes gleamed with suppresse
d malice. “Ta a Scotsman, that is akin ta blasphemy,” he murmured lowly.
From behind him, Bear chuckled.
Ignoring Glenn’s glower, Elric stood and turned to face Bear. He was sitting on the edge of a narrow cot. At his size, Elric had little doubt Bear slept little the night before, as the cot wouldn’t have offered much comfort.
“What do you have to report?” Elric asked the group at large as Pierre appeared followed by Leon. They were both sweaty and panting, some small cuts and smudges marred the exposed skin on their arms.
Leon collapsed onto an empty cot, taking the bladder of water Bear offered him. Once he’d swallowed enough water, he handed the bladder to Pierre who finished it off.
“Glenn told us that the Lady Minnette escaped during the distraction caused by the banquet,” Bear answered.
“Aye. And I spent most o’ the start o’ the banquet questionin’ less than comely lasses about who was meant ta keep an eye on the lady. One, Derry, said that the Lady Minnette had demanded she dress fer the banquet on her own. That was an hour before Leon was supposed ta fetch her. I ken that because the lass said the lady asked about the time. She seemed…what did the lass say?—oh, anxious. In my experience, anxious ladies are dangerous. They are hidin’ somethin’ or schemin’ or lookin’ ta plant a dagger in yer back.” Glenn’s voice was tight, his gaze taking on a faraway look, as if he were gazing into another place and time. Snapping out of his haze, he rose from where he’d been laying to sit with one leg bent on which to rest his arm.
“So, she was planning to escape, but for how long, I wonder?” Leon pondered out loud.
Leon’s question stirred something within Elric’s memories: Minnette, a sly smile playing at her lush, kissable lips. She’d been riding beside him, then, her expression one of contemplation. He’d assumed she was keeping to herself to avoid conversation with him but, now, he wondered if she’d been devising her method of escape.
The Fire and the Sword (Men of Blood Book 2) Page 16