She was being fanciful, and she knew it. What she had heard could have several explanations: a creaking branch, say, or a cricket. No matter what she told herself, however, the sense of not being alone stayed with her, refusing to be shaken off.
As she drew closer to the path her speed increased until she was practically running. If there was something abroad in the night, it would not be able to follow her down that steep, winding trail unless it was a mountain goat—or a ghost. The latter thought raised prickles on the back of Amanda’s neck. Could it be a ghost, Matt’s ghost, feeling betrayed and seeking vengeance?
Pure, unreasoning terror rose like bile in her throat. She was not alone—she knew it. Someone, or something, was right behind her. She whirled, tripping over the hem of her skirt in her panic, and felt herself falling backward only to be brought up short as a man’s hard arm grabbed her around the waist.
She screamed. Or, at least, she tried to, but a thick, broad hand smelling faintly of turpentine clapped painfully over her mouth, stopping the sound. She tried to kick, to hit out, but to her horror her feet were caught and roughly bound, then her hands were bound, too, behind her back. The ropes were tied tight, as if whoever it was didn’t care if he hurt her. She could feel the bonds cutting off the circulation to her hands and feet . . . The hand was removed from her mouth. She opened her mouth again to scream, only to have a smelly, oily-tasting rag thrust between her teeth, choking her. She gagged and tried to spit out the loathsome piece of cloth, but it was already being tied securely in place.
A light flared in front of her as someone struck a match. It came to her then that there was more than one of them, whoever they were. As the man holding the match used it to light a lantern and then lifted it high over his head, Amanda saw that there were three of them: three big, burly men dressed in rough clothes with faces in varying degrees of unshavenness. In one respect, however, they were identical. They were all staring down at her with an expression that, she recognized with a shock, bordered on hatred.
Amanda was still trying to come to terms with that when the lantern was abruptly doused. The man who had been holding her against his chest swung her up in his arms, and from there to his shoulder, where she was left to hang facedown, like a sack of meal. With one of his partners in skulduggery in front and the other behind, they moved off, their pace becoming slower and more cautious as they headed down the path to the beach.
Amanda’s head throbbed painfully as blood rushed to it; her stomach felt as if a knife were lodged in it from the pressure of the man’s hard shoulder on which it rested; her feet and hands had lost all feeling; and she was shivering with cold. But she was scarcely aware of these physical discomforts. One thought occupied her mind to the exclusion of all else: who were these men, and what did they mean to do with her?
She could do nothing while they were on the path, no matter how intense her terror, for she would only precipitate her own end. If she kicked or otherwise struggled, she might succeed in knocking her abductor off the path—but she would go with him to certain death. Bound hand and foot as she was, she had no chance of escape. The rational part of her mind recognized that. But still she strained her eyes and ears to gather all the information she could. If she could learn who these men were, it might help her to prepare for what lay ahead.
At last they were safely on the beach. Amanda closed her eyes in relief.
“You sure she’s the right one?” Amanda despaired as her abductors were joined by a group of three men. It was one of the newcomers who spoke.
“Yeah.” A rough hand caught at her hair, holding it out from her head. A match flared. “Look at that hair. There can’t be two up there with hair like this.”
A grunt signified the other man’s agreement. The match went out. Amanda lay deathly still, hoping they would think she had fainted and perhaps leave her alone. Apparently they had been looking specifically for her. But why? Her heart throbbed sickeningly as she pondered that question.
“Did you signal the boat?”
“Yes. Up there on the cliff. It should be here soon.”
They were standing at the water’s edge. Amanda could feel the nervous movements of the man holding her as he occasionally turned to look over his shoulder. From the faint crunch of booted feet against the shale, Amanda deduced that the other men were similarly uneasy.
“Here she comes.”
The faint slap of oars on water told Amanda that a boat was approaching. Obviously they were expecting it—and equally obviously it was the same boat whose light she had seen from her window when it had come ashore to drop the men off. Why had she not stayed safely put instead of hating outside like an irresponsible child? And why did she always ask herself these questions too late?
The boat must have been near shore, because the men were wading into the water. Amanda jumped as a surging wave sprayed her head with cold water.
“Easy, now,” the man holding her growled, and placed his hand on her rump to steady her. At the familiarity of his touch, Amanda’s instincts took over. She jerked frantically, trying to free that most personal part of her anatomy from his hand. When that didn’t work, she lifted both her bound feet and kicked him squarely in the stomach. The man cursed and flinched. To her horror Amanda felt herself slide off his shoulder and land in the water with a tremendous splash.
Amanda struggled frantically, but the cold water closed over her head and, bound as she was, she could not seem to find the surface. She was sinking, sinking—she would surely drown . . . But then something caught at her hair, jerking her head free of the water. The pain was intense, but Amanda was so glad to be able to breathe again that she was almost grateful for it. She sucked in a deep, shuddering gulp of air—and was simultaneously scooped from the water by a pair of strong arms.
“Christ, man, you weren’t supposed to drown her. Can’t you hold on to a little-bitty thing like this?” The voice was younger than the others’, and the face was younger, too, from what Amanda could see of it in the darkness and with the water streaming across her face. She could taste salt from the sea on her lips, feel the bite of the wind as it traveled over her soaked body . . .
“The little she-devil kicked me.” The man who had been carrying her earlier spoke with a strong sense of ill-usage. Another man guffawed; the sound was quickly muffled. The men’s movements increased in tempo, as if they were anxious to be gone.
Then Amanda was dumped unceremoniously into the gunwale of a small boat. The six men heaved themselves in after her while the two manning the oars began to pull away from shore. Sitting upright, her arms clutched around herself in a futile effort to control her shivering, Amanda got her first good look at the men who had abducted her—and what she saw struck fear into her heart.
They looked like pirates. They were all cut from the same cloth, hard-bitten men ready to cut a man’s throat as easily as lend a hand at the oars. And she was at their mercy. Her shivers intensified as she wondered once again what they had in store for her.
“Peake, pass me your nor’wester. Much as I’d like to give her pneumonia, I don’t reckon we’d better.”
“Aye, sir.”
So the younger man, the one who had scooped her out of the water, was addressed as “sir.” Amanda pondered the significance of that as he dropped a burly wool coat over her shoulders and carelessly fastened a couple of buttons up the front to hold it in place. He said nothing to her, didn’t even look at her, in fact. Amanda felt that he disliked her intensely, but for what reason she couldn’t fathom.
No one spoke to her as the men took turns at the oars, pulling strongly for the open sea. Rowing against the incoming tide was hard work under the best of conditions, Amanda knew. Tonight, with the waves whipped into frothy peaks and an icy wind blowing in from the sea, it was doubly difficult. The men labored silently for the most part, with only an occasional muttered remark filtering to her ears over the lapping of the waves and the whistling of the wind.
She was left alon
e and unguarded in the gunwale. Amanda wondered at that briefly, then realized they were confident she couldn’t escape. And they were right. Although she could swim, it would be suicide to throw herself into the sea bound hand and foot. And no matter what fate they had planned for her, she knew she was not prepared to end her life rather than risk it. Death was the ultimate horror; she couldn’t think of anything they could do to her that wasn’t preferable to that.
The boat was passing the point, nearing the open sea. As the last bit of land receded, Amanda’s fears increased. The seas were rough, and growing rougher with every passing moment. The small boat bucked up and down like a child being bounced on its father’s knee. If she had eaten anything at all in the last few hours, Amanda knew she would have been ignominiously sick. As it was, her stomach churned in protest, but the emptiness prevented outright nausea. None of the men seemed affected. She supposed they were all used to this never-ending pitch and roll. But far worse than being seasick, even with a gag in her mouth, which might cause her to choke to death, was the fear that they would capsize at any moment. Boats of this size weren’t meant to take on the full fury of an angry sea. If they did not reach their destination soon, be it land or a ship anchored well outside the bay, she did not like to think of what the probable outcome would be. The men might just manage to make it back to shore, although, unless they were exceptionally strong swimmers, she doubted it. She herself, bound hand and foot, would certainly drown.
When the dark outline of a three-masted ship appeared on the horizon, Amanda nearly sagged with relief. She would rather face anything than be pitched headlong into the sea.
The men brought the small boat alongside the much larger ship with practiced ease. Amanda was forced to admire their skill: it was no easy task in tonight’s seas. A flurry of activity on the deck high above them announced that they had been spotted. Ropes were tossed down to them. Peake, the man who had given her his coat, and another man secured the ropes at bow and stern, elbowing Amanda aside in the process. When that was done, the ship hands dropped a rope ladder. Before Amanda had time to do more than blink, she was scooped off the gunwale and into the strong arms of “sir.”
“Kick me, missy, and you can play patty-cake with Pluto for all I care,” he warned grimly, then tossed her up over his shoulder and proceeded to climb the ladder. After one horrified look into the swirling black water below, Amanda shut her eyes. And was very careful not to give him the least excuse to drop her.
In what was actually a very short time, though it seemed long to Amanda, they were on the deck. Instead of putting her down, as Amanda had expected, and helping his men raise and secure the small boat, which she thought from overheard remarks might be called a gig, he strode along the deck with her in the same ignominious position over his shoulder. Amanda was too miserable to wonder where he was taking her or for what purpose. Her hands and feet were numb, the ropes around her wrists and ankles cut into her soft flesh painfully, she was soaking wet and icy cold, and her stomach, besides churning wildly, felt as if it were badly bruised. She only hoped that wherever he was taking her was warm and dry. Everything else she would worry about later.
Dangling upside down as she was, she did not have the best view of the ship, although she did register that it seemed large and that an inordinate number of men were bustling about the deck. Amanda caught fleeting glimpses of coils of rope, partially opened hatches, and booted feet. Then her abductor paused to shoulder through a door; they were inside a small cabin, Amanda deduced, though she could see only part of the floor and the lower half of the door.
“Well, I have your red-haired she-devil,” the man carrying her announced cheerfully. “Where do you want her?”
And without waiting for a reply flung her on the floor.
chapter fifteen
A man rose from a straight-backed chair that had been pulled up to a small table. From her vantage point on the floor, Amanda’s eyes touched first on gleaming Hessian boots, then slid slowly up long, muscular legs clad in superbly fitting buff-colored pantaloons, to a hard waist and broad chest covered by a spotless white shirt made of fine linen and lace. Her gaze traveled upward to wide shoulders—then her eyes widened with shock as they registered the dark, masculine splendor of that face. Matt. She would have cried his name out loud, but the gag prevented her from making any sound more intelligible than a moan.
“What happened?” Incredibly, Matt didn’t seem concerned at finding her, soaking wet, bound, and gagged, at his feet. He made no move to approach her or to remove the bonds that cut into her soft flesh. Amanda’s eyes were huge purple pools as she stared up at him disbelievingly. It was Matt, wasn’t it? The face and body were the same, but she had never seen him so richly clad before—and she had never dreamed that those silver-smoke eyes could regard her so icily.
“She kicked Grumman in the gut,” the man who had carried her replied negligently. Amanda didn’t look at him; her eyes were riveted on Matt’s face. It was Matt, without a doubt. Why, then, was he making no move to come to her aid? “He—uh—was taken by surprise and dropped her.”
“In the sea, by the look of her.” There was no doubt that that was Matt’s voice discussing her plight in that cold, dispassionate tone. Amanda wanted to scream. What ailed him? He looked like a stranger—a cold, frightening stranger.
“Yes.” The other man’s agreement was laconic. Amanda’s eyes left Matt for just an instant to touch on the stranger’s face. It was narrower than Matt’s, with a longer nose and chin, and the eyes were hazel instead of silver and the hair was rusty brown. But there was something that was similar, more in facial expression and voice inflection than any physical resemblance. This man was tall, too, nearly as tall as Matt, and though he bordered on being thin, she knew from her own experience with him that he possessed a whipcord strength . . .
“Thanks, Zeke.” Matt confirmed what she had begun to surmise. This, then, was his brother—the younger brother he had been so sure would come for him . . . “You can get on about your business. I want to catch the tide.”
Zeke looked from Amanda to Matt. His lips compressed. “Are you sure you want to take her with us? If you ask me, she’s going to be a peck more trouble than she’s worth.”
Matt smiled tigerishly. “Oh, yes, I’m sure. Amanda would be heartbroken if I left her behind, wouldn’t you?” It was the first remark Matt had addressed directly to her; Amanda felt sick at the harsh derision. This cold, hard, angry man was not her Matt . . . Her eyes must have conveyed her bewilderment to him because his smile widened and became tinged with hateful mockery.
“You’re the boss.” Zeke was clearly none too happy with his brother’s decision, but just as clearly he was not going to argue about it. He turned toward the door. Matt’s voice stopped him.
“Have a couple of the men bring in that old hip bath and some hot water. Milady here looks a tad bedraggled. And that will never do at all—not for what I have planned for her.”
Zeke nodded once in reply, then left the cabin, closing the door behind him. Amanda was left to stare apprehensively at Matt—a Matt altered almost beyond recognition.
“Well, well, Amanda—how lovely to see you again.” His voice was laced with an awful affability as he came to stand behind her, then knelt to work the knot on the gag. “A most unexpected surprise—for you. As for myself, I must admit that I’ve been anticipating this meeting for some days—ever since I had to swim for miles to escape the little party you had arranged for me.”
The gag was loosed at last. Amanda spat out the crumpled rag, then ran her tongue around dry lips.
“You can’t believe I planned that,” she croaked, swinging her head around so she could look at him. He was kneeling, his head bent as he labored to undo the knot that bound her wrists. At her words his eyes came up to meet hers. They were as cold as the sea in winter.
“Can’t I?” The tone was silky. “Oh, I believe I can. You told me yourself that no one else knew of the way to the cave t
hrough the convent. And following hard upon your latest temper tantrum . . . Yes, I can believe it—and I do.”
“It was Edward.” Her words were despairing, for he clearly was convinced of her guilt. But why should he so readily believe the worst of her? “Matt, it was Edward. Somehow he learned where you were and told the authorities. They were searching the convent that morning. That’s what I came down to the beach to tell you—only I never got the chance. I didn’t think anyone saw me go there, but I must have been followed.”
“Like hell.” For just an instant something ugly blazed in his eyes. Then the fire was once again swallowed by ice. He smiled unpleasantly. “Allow me to congratulate you on the improvement in your ability to tell lies. Except for a bit of overacting—barely noticeable, I assure you—that was really quite good.”
“Matt, I’m telling you the truth—I swear it.”
“I don’t believe you.” Her hands were freed, and she brought them forward to rub them together, absently trying to restore the circulation. His voice had been brutal, final. She was very much afraid she would be unable to change his mind.
“Matt . . .” She was determined not to give up. He had to believe her. She loved him, had thought she would die when she believed he was dead. At least, she loved the Matt she thought she knew. This icy stranger with the blazing eyes terrified her.
A brief knock on the door interrupted her before she could say anything else. Matt called out a brief assent, and the door opened to allow two burly seamen to enter the room. One was carrying a battered tin hip bath; the other held two buckets of steaming water. Wet and cold as she was, Amanda would have welcomed the sight of the bath at any other time, but now she was too preoccupied with convincing Matt.
Amanda Rose Page 20