“My lady …!”
The door was jerked open, A man stood in the aperture, one hand holding the door wide, the other grasping a pistol. Even Isabella gasped. Jessup squealed, and shrank back against the rolled squab. The dense blackness of the night outside shrouded all beyond the intruder in mystery. He stood, large and menacing, in the wavering pool of light that spilled from the coach. Masked and hooded as he was, Isabella could not distinguish a single feature, not even so much as an ear. All she could tell was that he was a man of some girth, not fat but solid and square-built, and his eyes, glinting through the slits in his mask, were a hard, flat brown.
“Lady Isabella?” He was looking at her as he spoke, his voice as hard and flat as his eyes. Isabella felt the sudden, sharp bite of real fear. He knew her name. But how could that be …?
“Here, this is all I have.” She forced the words out around the sudden dryness in her mouth, thrusting her reticule at him at the same time. “Take it and be gone!”
“Nah! You’ll not be rid of me so easy-like, my lady.”
His accent was sharp and unfamiliar to her ears, not the well-modulated syllables of the well-bred nor the soft Norfolk burr she’d grown accustomed to since her marriage. But she had no time to ponder his origins. Despite his words, he snatched the reticule from her hand and stuffed it into a pocket well hidden by his enveloping cloak. Then he looked at her again. Though she could see nothing save his eyes, she gained the impression that he was grinning. An evil grin …
For a long moment they stared at one another. Isabella’s heartbeat quickened, and she felt her stomach clench.
“Jessup, give him the jewel case.”
If her words were sharp, it was because it was all she could do to keep her voice from shaking. Jessup blanched as the man’s eyes slid around to her, but she reached into the little hidey-hole in the upholstery for the leather-bound case.
“Here ‘tis.” Jessup’s voice was scarcely more than a squeak as she thrust the case at the man. He took it in his left hand, hefted it.
“ ‘Tis a rich prize,” Isabella said steadily.
The man nodded. “Aye,” he said, apparently impressed by the weight of it. Then he shouted over his shoulder to a henchman, tossed the jewel case to him, and turned his eyes back to Isabella. She had to fight not to shrink away from his gaze.
“You have it all now, so you may take yourself off.” Her voice was surprisingly steady.
“Nah.”
To Isabella’s horror, he reached in to close a large, meaty hand around her upper arm. He dug his fingers into the soft flesh beneath her sleeve, hurting her and not caring if he did. Isabella knew in that moment that there was to be no speedy end to this nightmarish encounter, after all.
“Unhand me!” she cried, truly frightened now, beating at his arm with her free hand. She might as well have beaten her fist against an oak tree for all the effect it had.
Jessup screamed and cowered back in a corner as her mistress was dragged from the coach.
Only the hand on her arm kept Isabella from falling headlong into the muddy road. Her shoes sank deep and her skirt trailed in slimy ooze. The cold needles of an icy rain beat down on her uncovered head, wetting her to the skin in a matter of moments. An equally cold fear chilled her heart.
As she found her feet, Isabella was just able to make out three or four shadowy forms on horseback milling around the coach. Searching further, she discovered Will Coachman and Jonas, bound as neat as Christmas geese, lying in the tall grass at the side of the road. They were uncovered and, if left to lie thus in the rain for very long, would be in grave danger of contracting an inflammation of the lungs, or worse.
But at the moment Isabella harbored fears of a far more immediate danger, to herself as well as her servants. No highwaymen who chanced to rob a coach at random would know their victim’s name—nor would they go to the trouble of tying up her servants. Stomach churning, Isabella reached the inescapable conclusion that her coach had not been chosen at random. These men had a purpose.…
“What do you want from me?” she demanded, her voice suddenly grown hoarse. Freezing cold from fear as much as from the rain, she turned and swept the dripping tails of hair from her face, looking up at her captor with what dignity she could muster as she struggled to quell a burgeoning panic. Her fright was rapidly assuming monstrous proportions. Instinctively she fought to remain calm. It was the only defense she had left to her.
He laughed, the sound coarse, and shoved her brutally on the shoulder, spinning her around, making her stagger and nearly fall. Then he caught one wrist, dragging it behind her back to yank her upright. Isabella cried out as he caught the other one, too, and bound them both with a leather strap. In the next instant a sour-smelling rag was tied roughly over her eyes, blinding her. Terror brought a
bitter taste surging into her mouth. Whatever these men intended, it was not simple robbery.…
With her eyes rendered useless, her hearing was suddenly more acute. Over the sounds of the rain and the wind she heard a rhythmic splashing that warned of the approach of horses. At least two …
“What do you want?” she asked again, her nerve nearly broken. A grunt was her only answer. There were presences around her, horses and men; she could feel them, hear them.…
Without warning she was spun around. Isabella cried out, staggered. Her cry was cut off by a wad of dry cloth thrust between her teeth. Her head swam sickeningly as in the next instant she was lifted off her feet to dangle head down over a man’s shoulder. Instinct warned her to lie perfectly still as he strode away with her, one arm holding her about the thighs. In the background, Jessup’s screams as she was dragged from the coach were abruptly silenced by what sounded like a blow. Such or worse would be her own fate if she gave her captor any trouble at all, Isabella sensed. Struggling mindlessly would avail her nothing. Better to remain calm so that, if an opportunity presented itself, she could use her wits to escape. To give way to the panic that threatened to overwhelm her would be useless.
With no care at all for her delicate bones or tender skin, Isabella found herself tossed facedown over a saddle. The leather creaked as a man mounted behind her. Isabella turned her head from the smell of wet horse and wet leather, her cheek resting against the beast’s soaked, heaving side. Then, with a surge of muscles, the horse was off, bounding over the ground in great jolting leaps.
Held in place as she was by the man’s hand on her back while her head spun sickeningly and her stomach churned, the truth of the matter occurred to Isabella in a blinding flash: for whatever purpose, she had just been kidnapped!
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