My Lady Series Bundle (64 page)

Joelle's lips quickly pressed with firmness against his lips, stopping his statement. When she pulled back, she said, "Saxon." She shook her head, showing her intent not to let those thoughts journey any further. Then, bravely changing the subject to the necessary, she asked, "Once out of the cell do you really think there is a chance we could win our freedom?" Her dark eyes shone with measured hopefulness.

"If they have not barred the door at the head of the steps, then we have all the chances in the world. Especially with those lunatics so occupied with the aftermaths of the . . . Well."

Joelle nodded, then she moved to stand. "Then let's go quickly."

"You take the cloak and your prize key. I will go
en flagrante delicto
."

Joelle grasped the cloak, turning her gaze down to look for the key. "Saxon you have a humorous side. I like that. Ah, here it is," she said, holding up the key.

"I have just recently acquired it."

"Well, you must keep it." Joelle put the cloak on and they went to the lock.

"I have some ideas on which direction we might want to try. And we should also try to set a diversion."

Joelle stuck her hands through the bars and worked the key into the lock. "Very good, because I have no clue as to where we are in relation of getting out of here. They might follow quickly . . . we have to think of that. And, any diversion that involves the most destruction to these abhorrent villains gets my vote."

"Right."

The lock clicked open and Joelle worked it free of the bars. "I am keeping this," she said as she put the heavy lock and key in an inner pocket in the cloak, while Saxon swung the door open.

"I will go first?"

Joelle was pleased Saxon asked instead of directing and before she nodded in agreement, she reached upward. "I know it is the only thing you are wearing, but let me take this collar off quickly and I will get mine as we go along."

Joelle saw a light blush coloring Saxon's umber skin as he lowered and bent a little so that she could unbuckle the wide leather collar at his throat. They were pretending between them that everything was not still affecting them. Or, still as dangerous. It was just what they had to do to proceed. When they gained their freedom, there would be time later to reflect, or perhaps even crumble.

The collar came free and she handed it to Saxon who tossed it onto the stone flooring away from them. "I want no souvenirs."

Joelle followed him up the long incline of stone stairs, while taking her own collar off and tossing it aside to hit the floor of the dungeon below. Then, she set about tearing a couple strips from the lining of her cloak. She thought further on it, and then she tore more of the material, as much as she could gather. Then, when they reached the landing before the large door and Joelle looked up holding her breath as she saw Saxon's hand pressing to it. It swung open and her heart thumped. They might actually escape.

Instead of easily becoming emotional, she grasped Saxon's arm. "Here . . . here is something to wrap around you and another strip to tie your hair back."

They kept moving forward as they made the exchange, then Saxon said a curious thing, "Firefly, you would make an excellent spy."

Saxon led her forward, and up another set of steps. He seemed decisive, yet she remembered the myriad of corridors. It had seemed that none of them led to the ground floor from the dungeons below, but somehow bypassed that access and instead went higher into the castle. She was impressed with Saxon as he stopped at each corridor, looking around the corner first before continuing forward quickly and quietly.

Suddenly, Saxon grasped her arm and pulled her into the arch of a closed doorway. She did not see or hear anything, but Saxon looked down the hallway intently. Then, she heard the movements and saw the shadows wavering on the ceiling of someone, perhaps coming in their direction.

Saxon pushed the latch on the door, and then he entered the room silently with Joelle beside him. His gaze was everywhere at once, searching out the room. "Empty."

Joelle stepped forward beside him. "But it is a bedchamber setup for someone to return to. Maybe there are clothes?" She turned her head quickly to him, "Do we have time?"

Saxon moved to the door adjoining the bedchamber as he spoke. He knew by the layout it must lead to the next room and it was possible the rooms connected this way all the way down the corridor. "If you see something, quickly grab it. But..." Joelle moved forward toward the armoire as she listened to him. "I want to topple the candles in these rooms as we go. Hopefully through a bit of time delay they will start some fires."

"Our diversion?"

"Exactly."

Crossing the room, Saxon took a candle from the wall sconce beside the bed and he tossed the candle onto the bedding. Joelle had a bundle of clothing in one arm as she picked up another candle off a side table. She lobbed it toward the curtains.

"Next room, Joelle." Saxon stopped at the connecting door for a moment. "Slowly, dear heart, slowly."

They continued through four rooms this way and Saxon knew there were only two rooms left until the end of the corridor. Nevertheless, in the second to last room when he stopped and he took a breath, then he peeked into the room, something instantly cautioned him. It was not someone else's presence, but a chilling smell.

"Oh spirits, that is awful." Joelle evidenced her distaste by nuzzling her nose against his upper arm as she leaned into him looking into the darkened room.

"Are there any candles left there, Joelle? Can you get one?"

Joelle left, then returning quickly with one. Saxon thought for one brief moment it would be wiser to just leave out the door to the room they were in. Nevertheless, some instinct made him enter the darkened room with the sickly sweet odor. He nearly wished for a cloth to cover his nose as he stepped in the room holding the candle up high. He could see that the room was different from the others in the fact there was no connecting door to the next room. Instead there was an open archway. The candlelight did not delve as far as that room, however the room they were in was dimly lit and appeared to be like a dining room with a long table and numerous chairs.

Saxon bypassed the table, moving toward the other room, where the odor was becoming stronger. Then, just before he reached the archway, he saw something glint, catching the candle's light in the other room. Extreme caution attacked him.

"Joelle, stay here."

But something told him that he had to see. He just assumed Joelle obeyed him as he stepped forward, finally succumbing to the need to raise his handless wrist to his nose, as he did so. Saxon lifted the candle and nearly dropped it in the same motion.

"Oh my, Lord."

Saxon evoked God's name with horror running violently through his brain. Joelle cried out with sharp aversion behind him, but he could not take his gaze from the abomination in front of him. It was an altar of decaying human parts, set up in a circular frame and raised above the floor. The different body parts were assembled into the shape of a human body, but all of them were not quite reaching the other that they should attach too.

"Oh, my God, my God, Saxon. The last limb. That's why Hellion said . . . he said." Joelle fell silent with a small cry.

The face of the pieced together monstrosity was just dried skin. Hellion had skinned a man to get it, Saxon thought, feeling nearly as if he were not really in his own body. "Burn it!" he snapped with fury. "Burn it to the ground!"

Joelle went for more candles as he rushed forward to find as many means as he could to start flames about the room. At one point he noticed his hook placed in front of the corpse-limb altar as though it was an offering and he grabbed it, while setting flame to the front of the sacrilegious abomination.

"Saxon, Saxon." Joelle tugged his arm, coughing. "We must go, Saxon!"

"Rot in hell!" Saxon blurted as he threw the candle down onto the floor and he turned to follow Joelle. He never thought that he would view either Joelle or himself as lucky. But now he did!

S
axon successfully brought them to the rear of the castle without being seen. Joelle stood to the side at his gestured direction, as he looked both ways. His handsome face was a study of concentration in the waning moonlight.

"The cutlery, kitchen, and service entrance should logically be this way. Some servant's horse, perhaps. If not, we will round the castle to the stables."

Joelle thought it was logical and well thought out, better than her urge to simply run screaming into the burgeoning dawn. She used a Saxon term. An Englishman's, idiosyncrasy. "Right."

Luck was with them, because the grass they walked on made it easier for their bare feet. A short time later they came to exactly what Joelle knew Saxon hoped to find. A stand of horses tied behind the castle. The dirt and gravel road getting to the horses was a hasty bit of tiptoeing and wincing, until they arrived and Joelle saw only one horse was saddled.

"Luck is with us, although I cannot imagine this will be pleasant dressed as we are and being as bruised as you must..."

Saxon's discourse slipped to a halt as Joelle watched him reach for the bay-colored horse's reins.

"I will manage. It will be an adventure. I have never ridden anything but a sidesaddle."

Saxon's dark eyes gleamed at her. "Front or back, Madame Firefly?"

Joelle felt her cheeks heat unexpectedly at the endearment he used that she secretly cherished. "You pick. I have no clue which will be better for a hasty escape."

Saxon turned partially away from her with his bare shoulders moving for a moment and when he turned back she saw a small hook strapped to his left wrist.

"Now, I can help you up," he said, with a left-sided quirk to his lips, while she remembered kissing the flesh of his left wrist so passionately.

A moment later, while gingerly straddling and using as little space as she could manage on the front of the saddle, Joelle was impressed with Saxon's dexterity using his hook, as he mounted behind her.

"Sit on the cloak too, Saxon."

Joelle knew it was little enough barrier for a gallop. A second later her breath caught in her lungs as the first forward galloping step of the horse came. She heard Saxon grunt the same reaction behind her as he leaned up in the stirrups and she knew which part of his anatomy he was trying to protect. The initial pain grew worse, but not as shocking between her thighs as she strove to ignore it. When they rounded the east side of the castle, Saxon kept the bay-horse to the tree line, however after a good distance, Joelle was able to look back and see a partial view of the front of the castle.

They could see the fires they had set, against the dusky pre-dawn sky. And also, a clamorous hive of activity outside, spreading across the front lawn.

"Odds are they will not realize we are gone or be able to follow us for a while," Saxon said with his mouth pressed to her ear as the horse galloped steadily beneath him. "I have a hunch there is a river back here and if there is, we can follow it."

"Yes, they will think we took the road," Joelle called, but her words were lost in the wind.

"Say again," Saxon said against her ear.

Joelle turned her head back and he turned his ear to her as she repeated herself, and then she felt him nodding. She wished she could stay like that, with her cheek pressed to the side of his jaw. But the gallop was too ungainly and she had to keep her face forward and her inner thighs tensed in a manner she was unaccustomed to, to stay astride the horse.

They were both weak, without sleep and food for several days, and both their bodies were battered in the wrong places for a swift escape on a horse. It was a study in willpower that was utterly draining. Therefore sometime after, when Joelle noticed in the early morning sunshine that the stand of trees they were passing through had a uniformed look about them, without really thinking, she blurted, "Those are apples!" Less for their food value than the possibility to stop the horse's seesawing between her thighs.

Saxon pulled upon the reins and he brought the horse to a walk. Joelle could feel the tension in his body. "We cannot keep this up. We are going to have to eat and rest. Perhaps, try on some of those clothes you have to see if they will help."

They were both of common understanding of each other's intimate pain without needing to overtly state it. "I say they would never guess that we would stop within five miles of the castle. They will think we have traveled further taking advantage of the time they had to spend on the fire."

Neither she, nor Saxon, questioned the fact that Hellion or his cult followers would eventually come after them.

"Right. And they will not think of the river, which is what we are going to look for as soon as we dress, eat, and rest. A boat, somewhere down the river."

They picked apples, filling one side of the hem of her cloak with them, while they each ate one. Now that the horse was walking, it was nearly bearable, and Joelle had never tasted anything as fine as the apples juices bursting into her mouth. Then, a little while later, she was the first one to see the field barn and she quickly pointed it out to Saxon. They found it was filled with hay and it appeared that the main farm residence must be miles away. But the best find was Saxon's, because he found a water pump.

They both walked as though they had huge balls between their legs and Joelle could not help laughing at the picture they made. "I am sorry." She pressed a hand to her mouth looking at Saxon where they had stopped by the water pump.

She burst out giggling again and Saxon's chuckle followed as he bent to pump some water, while he cautioned, "Not too much at once."

They drank, hid the horse and tended to him, then they found a spot in the hay at the rear of the barn to collapse in.

"O
uch," Saxon winced, and Joelle saw that it was more than just his battered body. The straw had easy access to poke his bare skin in any willy-nilly fashion.

"Let's lay out my cloak."