Amanda shook off the horrible thought as the light glimmered once more, then vanished. The boat, whatever it was, whoever was in it, must now be fairly close to shore, for the overhanging cliff hid it now from her sight. She had to hurry if she was to catch it …
Amanda sped around the end of her bed, barely pausing to slip on her flat black slippers before hurrying from the room. Moments before, the ringing of the bell had signaled the girls to extinguish their candles, and now the convent was dark. The easiest, most convenient way to the beach was through the cave, but Amanda shivered with distaste as she thought of making even one more journey into its cold darkness. For her, it would always be haunted with memories of Matt; to go that way would be to increase her pain tenfold. Besides, the practical part of her cautioned, it was just possible that the constable had stationed one of his men down there, on the off chance that Matt had survived and might return …
She would go along the cliffs and down the path. This route would be longer but less harrowing in her present state of mind. Until she determined who was in the boat, she would stay well out of sight. How she was to recognize Zeke or his men Amanda had no idea; but, she reasoned, if it wasn’t the smugglers, it almost had to be someone coming for Matt. Nocturnal visitors were a rarity in Lands End.
It was a cold night. The wind was the first thing Amanda noticed as she let herself out through the back garden. She shivered, clutching her arms around herself for warmth, reminded irresistibly of the night she had first discovered Matt on the beach. The wind had been blowing then as now … But she had been dressed in a long-sleeved wool dress, and now she was wearing a frivolous concoction of pale yellow silk, with little puffed sleeves that left most of her arms bare and a lace-edged neckline that revealed her shoulders and the tops of her creamy white breasts. Only her long, thick hair provided even a modicum of warmth, but suddenly the wind caught it and whipped it out behind her back like a crimson banner.
She had to bend her head against the wind as she hurried along the top of the cliffs. It was blowing in bursting gusts that Amanda suspected presaged a storm before morning. Whoever was out on the bay in the small boat would be well advised to take shelter before the wind increased.
She could no longer see a flashing light on the bay. Either the boat had reached shore or it was running without a light—dangerous in a sea like tonight’s. But perhaps she was imagining things, and the silvery flash she had seen had been only a leaping school of fish.
It was so dark she could barely see a foot ahead of her. Instead of staring down at the bay to watch for the reappearance of the light, as her every instinct urged her to do, she was forced to watch where she put her feet. At this height, so close to the edge, one misstep could be fatal. The short brown grass beneath her feet provided fairly even walking, but she knew that in a few places treacherous rocks protruded nearly invisibly from the ground. And if she should trip …
The path could not have been more than a few yards ahead of her when she first heard it: a creaking sound not in keeping with the wind-born noises of the night. Her head jerked up and her eyes peered suspiciously at the darkness around her, but she could see nothing. Still, she could not shake an uneasy feeling that something was out there with her, watching her.
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 alone 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.