by Rebecca King
“I have come this far. I am not going to allow five feet to thwart me.”
Encouraged by the realisation of just how far she had managed to get without discovery and with relative ease, Mallory carefully unlocked the window. The swift nudge created a scraping noise, but it was over almost the instant it began. Nevertheless, Mallory paused, just to make sure Marcus wasn’t stirring. When she was confident that he hadn’t heard anything, she pushed the window open.
Cold air swept into the room. It was so frigid that Mallory looked at the door in horror. She knew that the chill of the night air would filter beneath the door, into the kitchen, and might be icy enough to wake Marcus, who was lying on the floor.
“Stop making yourself panic,” Mallory breathed. “Just stay calm. You can do this.”
Determined to leave the house before Marcus did stir, Mallory poked her head out of the window. Her gasp was barely smothered when she immediately saw a guard walking toward her. With little choice she nudged the window closed and pressed herself against the wall while she waited for the figure to amble past.
“I have to get out of here. I will get out of here,” Mallory bit out as she mentally counted the seconds it might take someone to walk to the corner of the house and disappear.
When she was sure that the coast was clear, Mallory squared her shoulders and, once she had checked to make sure that the man had gone, forced herself to crawl out of the window. It took far more effort than her aching limbs really had the strength for, but with a lot of wriggling and writhing, Mallory eventually managed to reach the kitchen garden. Unfortunately, she knew that there was no place for her to hide in it except behind the low stone wall where any of the other guards might find her.
I shall just have to make sure that they don’t see me, won’t I?
Forcing herself not to think about the consequences, Mallory hurried over to the wall and threw herself onto her knees. She tucked her knees up to her chin and wrapped her arms around them while she watched the patrol pass. One second. Two more. She counted a full minute before she lunged to her feet, threw herself over the wall, and ran as fast as her feet could carry her toward the barn.
All the while the wind whipped in her ears, Mallory waited for that inevitable shout, the barking of the feral dogs, the whistle that would alert all the guards to her escape. What she heard instead was the pounding of her feet on the ground, and the wild thundering of her heart.
Once at the barn, Mallory pressed her shoulders against the brick wall and watched the guard in the stable yard. She watched him pass the window she had just used and prayed that he wouldn’t notice it was slightly ajar. He motioned to someone beside the barn, just feet from her. Whatever he saw gestured in return must have been reassuring because he then ambled off. What wasn’t reassuring for Mallory was the knowledge that another guard was still so close.
Now what?
Mallory contemplated what to do. She couldn’t go back to the house. It was a miracle she hadn’t been seen already.
Mrs Cummings would love it if I got caught by the guards trying to break back into the house where I was being held a prisoner.
With little choice, Mallory edged toward the farthest corner of the barn. She knew the stable block beyond it housed several of the master’s guards and she was running toward danger, but there was nowhere else she could go.
Eventually, she rounded the corner of the long barn, and stepped into impenetrable blackness only to slam bodily into a solid wall of masculinity that was as unyielding as it was completely terrifying. Mallory opened her mouth to scream as all her hopes and prayers for luck to be on her side vanished. She wanted to wail at the hopelessness of her situation while at the same time she became wildly furious. She wasn’t just angry; she was so wildly livid that she pounded at the man’s chest while she struggled to wriggle free of his tight hold with the ferocity of a spitting tigress. At some point during their skirmish, the man, a guard she suspected, cursed beneath his breath, and did so again when Mallory hit him in the face. Still, she had little remorse, and so tried to hit him again.
“Will you stop?” Callum hissed, trying hard to capture her fists before she thwacked him again.
Mallory heard his grunted order, but he was many, many miles away from the place of terror she had been plunged into. His words didn’t filter through the thick fog that had settled over her thoughts; a fog of denial, confusion, terror even. She continued to fight for her life against this unseen enemy who wanted to stop her flight. Fear compelled her to struggle, to break free from the horrible ordeal she had been drawn into, no matter what it cost her.
“Let me go. Please.” She moaned tearfully.
Mallory twisted, tugged, and pulled against him, but her captor’s hold remained unrelenting.
Suddenly, he slammed her harshly against the wall of the barn with such force that it stole her breath and immediately rendered her useless.
“Oomph,” was all Mallory managed before the man’s hand slammed over her mouth, stemming any further objection.
Mallory watched in amazement as the man planted himself directly in front of her and pressed himself tightly against her. A scream hovered on her lips but it wasn’t uttered because she was swiftly enveloped in the long edges of the man’s flowing cloak, which were flicked around them both and held firmly in place by the man’s arms which were bound tightly around her.
“Stand still,” he breathed directly into her ear. “Don’t say a word.”
Mallory had no choice. She was stunned, amazed, and yes, curious. Who was he? Where had he come from? What was he doing in the darkness? Did he know who she was? Was he mistaking her for someone else?
As she waited for the chance to speak, Mallory’s thoughts turned to the stranger she had spoken with in the kitchen garden that afternoon, but she dismissed all possibility that this man might be him. The man before her was a lot taller, and heavily muscled given how hard his thick biceps were beneath her frozen fingers. While pressed so shockingly close to him as she was, Mallory could hear the steady thump, thump, thump, of his heartbeat. It echoed her own, but that made her wonder. Why didn’t he want to be caught either? What had he been doing when she had bumped into him? Was he a thief?
Mallory tried to peek at the guard just a few feet away but the stranger before her refused to allow her to budge. Instead, he held her perfectly still and intimately pressed against him. His arms were wound so tightly around her that she felt infinitely fragile against his strength, but she didn’t mind because he was keeping her safe – for now.
Unfortunately, while she was glad of his quick thinking, it was a little concerning to know that nobody knew she was outside with him. He too could do anything he liked with her and nobody would ever know.
The urge to ask the stranger who he was hovered on her lips. It was only the presence of the guard that compelled her to remain quiet – for now. While the minutes ticked by, Mallory once again contemplated the stranger who had appeared in the kitchen garden earlier that afternoon. He had said someone was coming to ‘fetch her’. Was this the man? Could she ask? Dare she ask him? What would she do if he told her he wasn’t?
Mallory shifted so the stranger wasn’t pressed so intimately against her only for the man to reflexively tighten his arms and narrow the distance she managed to create. With a sigh, Mallory succumbed to his silent command, and remained still.
Together, they watched a guard with a dog appear around the corner of the barn. He stopped and studied the open field beside the barn. When he was apparently satisfied that nothing was amiss, the guard retraced his steps. Rather than leave, though, the guard hesitated, as if sensing something was wrong. Thankfully, he looked over his shoulder, in the opposite direction to where Mallory and the stranger were standing.
“Wait. Stand still,” Callum breathed.
Despite the danger, a warning shiver slithered down Callum’s spine when the warmth of his breath slithered over them both. Callum mentally cursed but daren’t
move to ease himself away. He waited, silently willing the young, trembling woman in his arms to stand still for just a moment or two longer. If she moved, spoke, or even violently shivered, the dog would pick up on their scent and they would be seen. There was no more dangerous situation than the one they were facing right now. Within a heartbeat, everything could turn sinister and put them both in more danger than either of them had ever faced in their lives.
And here I am with my back facing the enemy.
Callum wished he could turn around to see what the guard was doing, but he had to hold the young woman in place just so that fear didn’t compel her to do something foolish – like move.
Thankfully, Mallory was able to pick up on the stranger’s aversion to being caught and remained perfectly motionless as she watched the guard turn to study the shadows that she and the stranger were standing in. Whatever he was looking for, the guard didn’t find in the shadows Mallory was standing in and so, with a quiet word to his dog, he ambled off.
Callum remained perfectly still for a few minutes, until he could be positive that the guard wasn’t hiding around the corner.
“I need you to follow every order I give you,” Callum breathed into the woman’s ear.
All I can do is hope and pray that she is Mallory and not one of the servants out for a secret rendezvous with her lover.
“What do you want with me?” Mallory’s voice trembled.
“Mallory.”
Her stomach lurched when she heard her name on his lips, but she couldn’t be sure if it was a good thing that he knew her name or not.
“Let go of me.”
Mallory tried to twist her wrists out of his tight hold, but he refused to release her. Her concern grew.
“Are you Mallory?” Callum demanded.
He wrestled her to a stand-still not least because she was making too much noise.
“Who are you?”
“I have been sent to get you out of here,” Callum breathed.
It was then that a dull thud from within the barn behind them warned them that they were not alone. If the horses were being disturbed the guards were probably able to hear them as well.
“We have to go,” Callum growled.
Mallory knew she had two choices; she could either trust this stranger and take a chance that he wasn’t going to drag her straight back to the house, or she could try to avoid both him and the guards. What she couldn’t do was place her trust in this stranger.
The last time someone did that they snatched me out of the life I had.
“Come on,” Callum hissed.
Mallory refused to budge and dug her heels in when he caught her wrist in a firm grip and tried to tug her away from the safety of the building.
“Wait! We will be seen from the house if we go that way.”
“We are going to be seen by every guard and patrol dog in the area if you keep hesitating,” Callum retorted.
He sighed heavily when he looked at her and saw reluctance on her face. He knew he was being harsh but struggled to find a way to get her to leave with him and follow his orders without telling her who he was.
“Look, I don’t have time to explain myself, or cajole you, or even ask your opinion about which way we should go. We must go, and we must go this way, all right? Preferably as quickly as you can?”
With a sigh, Callum was forced to resume their position beside the barn when the guard with the dog returned. Again, the guard stood in the gap between the barn and the stable block and studied the field before turning to look closely at the shadows. This time, Callum hadn’t had the chance to cover them both over with his cloak. All he could do was hope guard had poor eyesight and couldn’t see them in the darkness.
“What do we do?” Mallory hissed.
Callum sighed. Looking down on her porcelain face in the shadows of a moonlit night he wondered if this was what a romantic tryst was like. He had never stopped to consider it before, but the gentle silvery haze that hung over everything bathed the atmosphere in a sensuality that was startlingly intimate. He wanted to murmur something loving, but words failed him. He wasn’t usually a frivolous kind of man. His actions were a testimony of the kind of man he is; brief and to the point. However, tonight he wanted more, a lot more, and that alarmed him, especially now when they were in the middle of a rescue mission.
“I don’t have time for this,” he grumbled in disgust.
Mallory stared at him and wondered what she had done that had displeased him so.
“We have literally three minutes at the most to get out of here once the next guard leaves. Each time he returns we increase the risk that he will see us. Neither of us can allow that to happen,” Callum warned.
“Who are you? Why don’t you want them to see you? What have you done?” Mallory demanded in a voice that was as low as she could make it.
Callum rolled his eyes, and mentally promised himself that the next time the guard vanished he would make her leave with him.
“I haven’t done anything – yet. I don’t want them to see me because I am with you! Isn’t that enough?” He threw her a dark look but suspected she couldn’t see it.
“Did he send you?”
“Who?” Callum scowled at her.
“That man. That stranger.”
Callum knew who she was talking about but wasn’t at all surprised that Sir Hugo hadn’t given her his name.
“I have no idea what you are talking about,” he replied dismissively. “Now, do you want to get out of here or not? If not then stay, but I am not going to end up as dead as you will be if you don’t hurry up. You will be on your own,” Callum warned. “The guards will come this way soon enough. If you want to live, we cannot be here when they do come back. If you want to come with me, don’t make a sound, don’t argue with me, and don’t hesitate to follow what I tell you to do. Do you think you can keep up?”
Mallory looked helplessly at him. She wanted to be able to say that she could keep up with him, but in truth she was struggling to stand upright by herself. Jerkily, she nodded anyway because she didn’t want to admit she wasn’t that strong and have him leave her.
“Good. Come on.”
This time, when Callum grabbed her wrist and tugged her, Mallory followed him.
Thank Heavens for small mercies.
Callum knew that persuading her to come with him was a huge obstacle he had cleared with relative ease. He could only hope and pray that if they were caught, she would continue to follow him.
It was concerning that he could feel shivers coursing through her. The touch of her fine bones beneath his fingers, and the frigidity of her skin, was incredibly alarming. So much so, he was compelled to urge her to walk just that little bit faster if only to get her to warm up a bit.
“We have to go the other way,” she stammered, pointing in the opposite direction to the one the stranger wanted to take.
Mallory stared at him and wished there was better light to see him more clearly. From the impression she got of him he was stern, commanding almost, with a sharp jaw and dark, probing eyes.
But maybe it is my imagination. Because it is dark my mind has conjured someone that I think I see.
What Mallory did know was that the man was just as eager to get out of the area as she was and in that they were together.
“Do you know where that way takes you?” Callum lifted his brows and waited.
He didn’t need to look down the driveway to shake his head.
“Well, no, but I have seen the guards come from that way. There has to be a town over there.”
“Don’t you think that is the first place they will look for you?”
“Which way do we go then?” Mallory snapped impatiently.
Callum pointed toward the fields.
Mallory studied the open fields he wanted to take her into and felt sick. She wasn’t sure she had the strength to run across them.
At least I know now why the guard keeps studying them.
“We can
not run across this before the guard sees us,” Mallory gasped as she followed the stranger toward the gate and looked at the huge field beyond.
“I can’t do this,” she moaned. “We will be seen.”
“You have to at least try.”
There was such firmness in the stranger’s voice that Mallory paused.
“I don’t think I can,” she persisted.
Callum glared at her. “You can either go across that field, or into that house, it is your choice. Either way could lead to your death. One way can lead to your freedom if you hurry and try to reach the other side. What do you want to do? Tell me now because this is my life at risk now as well. I should like to know if I am placing it in danger for no bloody reason.”
“I have to get free, but I don’t know you.”
“I am here, aren’t I?” Callum growled. “I saved you from being caught just now, didn’t I?”
“But who are you?”
“Do we have to go into this now? Does it really matter? You have a chance at freedom. Are you going to stand here dithering or are you going to run for it?”
Mallory sighed.
“I can let you go back into the house if you would like me to, but you will die,” Callum warned her when he sensed her hesitation.
Mallory gasped when she heard someone murmuring. Whirling around, she stared into the darkness with wide eyes.
Callum cursed when he heard the patrol heading toward them once more.
“We have to get moving. The longer you are out here the colder you are going to get and the more risk there is that we are going to be caught. Hurry up. We can talk later. I will answer your questions. For now, do you think you can make it across that field?”
Mallory contemplated the open space. Slowly, she shook her head. When she looked at him this time there were tears in her eyes.
“I don’t think I can,” she breathed.
Callum didn’t doubt that she was being honest. She was shivering so badly he was truly concerned for her welfare. Without saying another word, he bent over and rammed his shoulder into her waist, tossing her over his shoulder as he stood back up. It was startling to feel how light she was. She was so slim her bones dug into his shoulder, but her slenderness was no less disturbing than her lack of protest when she found herself upside down over his shoulder being carried off into the night.