He sat up first, pushing himself to his knees with an oath... turning to look at her with a thunderous expression on his face.
The instinct to scramble away flashed through her head but he was too quick. He lunged toward her, pushed her down into the leaves.
She screamed, trying to throw him off, but he pinned her with his weight. An icy blast of unreasoning terror swept through her.
Memories of her Uncle Prescott.
“No!” She struck at the rogue with her fists, struggled with all her strength. She would never let herself be hurt that way again. Never. “Get off of me! Get—”
“Shut up.” He grabbed her wrists, fastened them to the ground on either side of her head, breathing hard, his eyes piercing hers. “Shut up and stop making trouble for two seconds, damn it—”
“Let me go!” God help her, she hadn’t realized until now that he might intend to... to...
They were utterly alone together. The chain made escape impossible. And the way he had her pinned, she couldn’t even defend herself with a knee or a kick as she had against Swinton last night.
“Don’t touch me!” she snapped. “Take your hands off of me! If y-you so much as l-lay one hand on me, I’ll kill you. I swear it!”
He stared down at her, surprise mixing with the anger in his hard features.
Then, slowly, understanding glimmered in his eyes, and he levered his weight off of her a bit. “Don’t worry, angel.” A mocking grin curved his mouth. “That’s not what I had in mind. You forget, I saw what happened to the last man who tried to get friendly with you.”
She blinked up at him, confused. Was he making light of her threat? Or making a joke?
She kept fighting against his hold.
“I’ll let you go,” he continued, some of the storminess returning to his expression, “just as soon as you calm down and listen to reason.”
Despite his wounded shoulder, he subdued her and held her still, easily. Too easily. She hadn’t realized until now how strong he actually was. How much power lay in that lean, muscled frame. And she could tell he was only using a fraction of that strength at the moment. If he chose to take her...
Her heart hammering, she froze, paralyzed by the knowledge that she couldn’t hope to fend him off.
But oddly enough, as soon as she stopped fighting, he relaxed his hold. In fact, though he had rendered her immobile, though he was obviously furious, he hadn’t hurt her.
At least, not yet.
Taking shallow gulps of air, she did her best to quell her terror. She had seen lust glowing in a man’s eyes enough times to recognize it... and she didn’t see it now, in his.
“That’s better,” he said in a low rumble when she let her muscles go limp.
She tried to ignore the fact that she could feel as well as hear his deep voice.
“Now, your ladyship, I want you to listen and listen well, because I’m not going to say this again—”
“I-I don’t care what you have to say.”
“Well, that’s too damned bad. Because you and I are stuck with one another.” He grimaced. “You don’t like it and I don’t like it, but we’re stuck. So until I find some way to break this blasted chain, you’re going to go where I say and do what I say and you’re going to—”
“I don’t follow anyone’s orders but my own.” Her indignant retort surprised her as much as it apparently did him. But she couldn’t help herself. Despite the fact that her voice trembled as badly as her body was trembling, she meant every word.
“You do now. Because if you try any more tricks like the one you just pulled, one of us is going to end up with a broken leg or a broken neck—”
“I go where I want and I do what I want and I’m not going to let you order me around.” She immediately felt foolish for blurting that out. She sounded childish. They were chained together. How could she exert her independence when they couldn’t even get far enough apart to argue at a respectable distance? Her anger bubbled over. “I didn’t ask to be dragged along on your mad escape! I had a perfectly good plan of my own.”
“Seducing that freckle-faced, craven-hearted boy? You call that a plan?”
She gasped. “I had no intention of... is that what you thought?”
“Any man with eyes could see that you were offering your favors in exchange for whatever he might care to do for you.”
She gaped at him in shock. “That’s not true! I was merely going to... to encourage him to take pity on me and help me.”
“Oh, aye, now there’s a plan.” He laughed. “You’d make him feel such sympathy that he would set you free? And the other guards would do what? Sit idly by and let you walk away? Brilliant.” He couldn’t stop chuckling. “If it weren’t for me, lady, you’d have been swinging from a rope in London by week’s end.”
His biting laughter made her cheeks burn all over again. Made her feel foolish. She hated the way he kept mocking her, as if she were some weak, witless, helpless female. “I didn’t ask for your opinion, you black-hearted brigand! I can take care of myself. I don’t need anyone’s help. Not yours and not anyone’s!”
“Fine. Because I have no intention of offering you any.” He closed his eyes for a second, still breathing hard. Despite all his strength and stamina, he was obviously in pain. “We aren’t going to get anywhere if you try to go your way and I try to go my way. So we’ll both go my way. As long as you follow orders, we’ll get along just fine.”
“Then I’m afraid we’re not going to get along at all.”
He opened his eyes and she saw a spark of something dangerous there. “It’s not up for discussion, angel. There’s only room for one of us to be in charge here—and you’re looking at him.”
Not giving her any chance for further argument, he stood up, pulling her to her feet with the same effortless strength he had used to keep her pinned. She was struck by the way he towered over her. In gaol, he had been forced to stoop down by the low ceiling. Standing at his full height, he loomed above her.
She barely came up to his chin, her eyes level with the second button on his shirt—which gave her a rather daunting view of his chest and shoulders. He was all hard planes, bronzed skin and rugged muscles.
Her heart kept pounding a fast, uneven beat.
“This time, your ladyship,” he said in a commanding tone, “I suggest you keep those pretty little slippers of yours moving.”
With one last stern look of warning, he turned and led her into the forest once more.
An hour later, they had ventured deep into the heart of the Chase. After some awkward stumbles and a lot of practice, they had gradually learned to coordinate their strides despite the chain, avoiding any further painful falls.
But he never stopped. Never rested. They alternately ran and walked, until Sam felt she had reached the limit of her endurance. The knotted muscles of her legs ached and the soles of her feet felt as if they’d been flattened. Her throat burned with thirst.
This deep in the woods, the trees loomed thicker on every side. Branches caught at her hair. Brambles and underbrush ripped at her skirts. Roots jutted out of nowhere to trip her. The interlacing leaves far overhead blocked the sun almost completely, but the shade no longer felt like a cooling balm, but a cold, clammy shroud.
She couldn’t help but think that Cannock Chase more than lived up to its sinister reputation, its shadows a darker black, even the sharp scent of evergreens and damp earth somehow menacing, overpowering her senses. As if the very air here were different. Ancient and wild and not meant for man.
The unsettling impression lingered, though she told herself it was merely fatigue making her imagine it all. Fatigue caused by her ruthless companion.
The words he had spoken earlier kept running through her head. It was them or me. Faced with that choice, I generally choose me.
That was painfully obvious. He didn’t care about anyone but himself. Every time she tripped, every time she asked to rest, he would tug her back to her feet and order
her to keep moving. Pushing her relentlessly onward. He was pitiless, cold-hearted...
A new emotion crowded in on the fear and resentment she felt toward him. A simmering dislike.
Even as she had that thought, her slipper hit a patch of damp leaves and she slid. He grabbed her with both hands, but they both lost their balance and fell.
He muttered a curse. She lay in the sticky, wet leaves, gasping for air, her limbs shaking with exhaustion.
“I... c... can’t,” she panted, shaking her head, tears stinging her eyes. “C-can’t... go... any f-further.”
This time, instead of arguing or coercing as she had expected, he relented, making no move to get up. She closed her eyes in relief. The noise of their labored breathing filled the silence around them, the only sound for a long time.
When she could finally catch her breath, she slowly sat up, biting her lower lip to stop a groan. She leaned against the closest tree trunk. The rough bark dug into her suntanned arm but she didn’t care. Eyes closed, she mopped at the perspiration that trickled down her face, her neck, using a corner of her ruined silk skirt. She raked her hopelessly tangled hair back from her face, tried to comb her fingers through it, gave up.
Opening her eyes, she looked warily at her companion. He still lay on his side in the leaves, eyes closed, features pale and strained. His shoulder was bleeding. Badly. The makeshift bandage he had fashioned from his sleeve was woefully inadequate. Blood stained the back of his shirt red.
As if he felt her regard, he opened his eyes and looked up at her. When their gazes met, her heart thudded harder against her ribs.
Stretched out on the forest floor, with his disheveled black hair and glittering green eyes and bloodied shoulder, he looked like he belonged here in this wild place. Fit in with the other untamed things. A wounded predator. Dark and fierce... and capable of all sorts of unpredictable behavior.
Please, God, help me.
His gaze skimmed downward, coming to rest on her legs. He was still breathing harshly. “Come here.”
Sam stiffened. His voice sounded weaker than before, but she wasn’t taking any chances. Shifting her eyes quickly left and right, she sought some weapon she might use to protect herself. A rock. A branch. Anything.
“I said come here,” he repeated impatiently.
When she didn’t comply, he reached out and grabbed her foot.
“What are you doing?” She tried to wriggle out of his grasp. “Unhand me!”
“Gladly,” he said tiredly—yet he hung on to her, pushing himself up on one elbow. Snagging her ruined slipper with his other hand, he flipped it off her foot. “I’d like nothing better than to unhand you, unchain you, and be done with you.”
Instead of attacking her, he attacked the shackle around her leg.
Sam gave up her struggle, even though she knew she could kick her way free. One blow to his wounded shoulder and he would let her loose. But he was already in a foul mood and she didn’t want to make it worse.
Besides, she realized what he was trying to do. He pulled at the shackle, trying to slide it off over her foot.
Which just might work.
“Maybe if we had some kind of...” Glancing around, she took a handful of slimy mud from beneath the leaves and smeared it over her skin.
“Come on,” he muttered under his breath, pushing the cuff, turning it, swearing at it. “Come on.”
Sam tried to help but he clearly didn’t want her help. Holding her bare foot with one hand and the iron cuff with the other, he turned both at different angles, trying to coax the cuff past her ankle bone.
“It’s too tight and it’s bolted on,” she said finally, exasperated at being manhandled. “It’s not going to come off.”
With a short, expressive oath, he released her. Lowering himself back down into the leaves, he tossed the muddy slipper into her lap. “Perfect,” he growled. “Of all the lady thieves on the run in England, I have to get myself shackled to the one with big feet.”
Sam scuttled backward, as far away from him as the chain would allow. Which wasn’t nearly far enough. “I’ll thank you to keep your opinions to yourself.”
Her tone was frosty, but she feared that even her haughtiest drawing-room airs couldn’t conceal the fact that her cheeks felt hot. Scalding. She rubbed at her ankle, wiping away the mud and the unexpected warmth that lingered from the touch of his callused fingers on her bare skin.
Grabbing her slipper, she put it back on. Her foot and her ankle ached with soreness, felt cool from the gooey muck. She couldn’t understand why they also... tingled.
She decided that the unfamiliar sensation must come from the hours of unaccustomed physical exertion.
“It’s not my fault that the shackles are so tight.” She glared at the man stretched out on the ground, adding in a mutinous whisper, “And I do not have big feet.”
“Doesn’t bloody well matter now,” he grumbled. “Short of a convenient bolt of lightning from above or a blacksmith, it looks like there’s no way for me to get free of you.” Opening his eyes, he peered at the lengthening shadows, almost as if he were measuring the sun in some way. “Two hours of daylight left. You ready to press on, Lady Bigfeet?”
She ignored the sarcasm, every muscle in her body aching at the words press on. “No.” She groaned. “No, I’m not. Can’t we stop? Can’t we rest just for a—”
“Not unless you’re eager to wind up back in gaol.” He pushed himself to a seated position. “As soon as word spreads about a pair of dangerous fugitives on the loose, two marshalmen killed, and rewards offered, every lawman and bounty hunter in the north of England will be on our trail. By morning, if not sooner. And if they use dogs...”
He let the sentence trail off, running a weary hand over his face.
Sam felt a surge of fear. Dogs. Dozens of men hunting her down. Skilled, experienced men.
And they would know right where to start looking. The young guard Tucker would show them.
Her throat tightened. The rogue was right. They had to keep going. Put as much distance as possible between themselves and the point where they’d disappeared into the forest.
Yet her fear mingled with anger at his apparent nonchalance. “Didn’t you consider any of that before you decided to take a flying leap out of the cart? Didn’t you think that far ahead? Didn’t you think at all?”
“Aye, I did,” he retorted, “but I wasn’t counting on your charming company, Lady Bigfeet. I planned to be long gone by now. You are slowing me down.” He reached up to unfasten the bandage knotted around his shoulder. “But before we go any further, you’d better take a look at this damned wound.”
She felt like spitting in his face. One minute he was insulting her, and the next he expected her to see to his comfort? “If you think I’m going to lift one finger to help you,” she said in a low, even voice, crossing her arms over her chest, “think again.”
He clenched his jaw, wincing as he unwrapped the blood-soaked cloth. “Listen, angel,” he said tightly, beads of sweat sliding down his face, into his beard, “if you think you’re in trouble now, just try to imagine what would happen to you if I pass out from loss of blood. Or if I die.”
She had barely started to contemplate the pleasant possibilities when he demolished every single one.
“You’d be stuck here with one hundred and eighty pounds of dead weight chained to your ankle.” His eyes pierced hers. “Helpless as a trussed-up Christmas pigeon when the authorities come looking for you. If their dogs don’t get you first, their guns will make mincemeat out of you. When dealing with fugitives who’ve killed two of their fellow lawmen, they tend to let their bullets do their talking for them.”
The violent image stole the air from her lungs. “But I didn’t kill those marshalmen!”
“I doubt you’ll have time to explain that.”
They stared into each other’s eyes for a long moment, the truth swirling between them like one of the hot beams of light from the dying sun.
<
br /> Then he said it aloud.
“If I die, you die,” he put it plainly, his stark words all the more powerful for their lack of embellishment. “If I live...”
For some reason, it took him an extra moment to finish that sentence.
“You live.”
Mute, shaking, she tried to control the fear and resentment careening through her. He was insufferable. Cold-hearted, uncivilized, utterly self-interested.
But he also had a point. As unavoidable as it was true. If they wanted to survive...
They were going to have to work together.
She returned his glare, wrestling with her temper and her pride and the thought of trying to rein in the independent streak honed by years of fending for herself. “It’s bad enough that I already look like your accomplice,” she hissed. “If I help you, that will make me your accomplice.”
Not saying a word, his eyes still on hers, he withdrew Swinton’s knife from his boot.
Her heart thudded in her chest. Dangerous, she thought. She had forgotten to add dangerous. That word described him better than any other.
But he couldn’t kill her. To save his own neck, he couldn’t kill her.
Though that didn’t mean he wouldn’t hurt her.
Even as she thought that, he flipped the knife with a nimble flick of his wrist, catching it by the blade.
And then he held it out to her, the hilt extended like some kind of bizarre olive branch. “But you’re smart enough to know that what I’m saying is true, aren’t you, angel?”
His voice was deep, quiet, and for once, devoid of any mockery.
She hesitated, her gaze flicking from his jewel-green eyes to the silver gleam of the blade in his fingertips.
Then she reached out, slowly, hesitantly, and took it.
As her fingers closed around the hilt, another thought flitted through her head. She had wanted a weapon... and now she had one.
As if reading her mind, he stopped her with only two words. “I wouldn’t.”
The mildness of his tone made his meaning all the more clear. It was a quiet reminder—as if she needed one—that she didn’t dare attack him, and couldn’t hope to defend herself against him. Not even with a blade.
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