No wonder their progress was slow. The horses were being kept to a walk. How many horses? How many riders? She strained to hear every sound and counted three mounted men. At the station, she’d counted four men. One was missing. Her spirits soared. One down, three to go. This was Alex’s doing. She held on to that thought. Alex was alive. He was coming for her.
Over the next hour, she learned a lot more. They were traveling west, going back toward Ballater. She knew what that meant. Murray was taking her back to her father. It gave her a small advantage. Murray might hurt her, but he would not kill her. If he did, he wouldn’t earn his bounty.
Every so often, they would stop and take cover in the trees. She heard other riders pass by, soldiers or smugglers who swore copiously as they came to grief when they inadvertently strayed from the road. At this point, Murray gagged her, fearing, she supposed, that she would cry out and alert soldiers to their presence. She wouldn’t have, of course. She feared the soldiers almost as much as she feared Murray and his cutthroats, not for herself, but for Alex.
One of her abductors mentioned the name Mungo Miller, and the others sniggered, as though it were a private joke. For the most part, however, they were silent, silent and watchful.
They veered off the road and followed a dirt track that led down to the river. A hovel appeared out of the mist. On closer inspection, she saw that it was an abandoned cottage that the storm had battered so badly that half the roof had caved in and doors and windows had blown out. Here they halted. Her bonds were untied, and rough hands dragged her off the horse. Her legs were so stiff that they buckled under her, and she fell on her knees. Her muffled cry of pain was greeted with raucous laughter and lewd threats from one of her captors about what they would do to her if she gave them trouble.
“Shut your mouths,” Murray hissed to his men. “Do you want the soldiers to hear us?” He hauled Mahri to her feet. “Leave the gag,” he warned when she made to tear it off.
A shove sent her stumbling to the hole where the door should have been. Though it was dim inside that hovel, the mist had been kept at bay by the cross breeze that whistled through the windows, so that she could see her captors more clearly. She wished the breeze could have done something about the water that lapped at her feet.
Only two of the men had entered the cottage with her, Murray and a younger, dark-skinned, dark-haired man who could have passed for a gypsy. She thought of Murray as a stern-faced, thin-lipped schoolmaster, and the third man, whom she assumed was taking care of the horses or keeping watch, made her think of a ticking bomb. He didn’t say much, but his eyes spoke volumes.
“Sit,” said Murray, pointing to a rickety chair.
When she obeyed, the gypsy got behind her and tied her to the chair with a length of rope. He could have made it tighter, more unpleasant, and she flashed him a grateful look. When he leered suggestively, she quickly looked away.
The reason they had stopped soon became clear. They hadn’t chosen this hovel at random. They’d stowed a box with fresh clothes to change their appearance. She could hear Murray and the gypsy talking in an alcove that served as a bedroom. They were worried about a man called Frenchie. If he didn’t catch up to them soon, Murray said, one of them would have to go back to find out what had happened at the station. But whether Frenchie turned up or not, as soon as it was dark, the rest of them would press on to Ballater with the girl.
It took a moment before the full import of his words registered. So she was right. One of Murray’s men was missing. He had to be the man who entered Alex’s carriage. If she hadn’t been gagged, her smile would have split her face.
She looked up to find the gypsy hovering over her. Her throat went dry. One by one, he began to undo the buttons on her shirt. She looked frantically for Murray, but he was still in the other room.
The gypsy’s hand slipped inside her shirt. The binder that she’d used to flatten her breasts had slipped to her waist so that his hand touched bare skin. He caressed the fullness of one breast, then the other. Fear raced along her spine and edged her toward panic. She didn’t think about what she was doing, didn’t care about being tied to a chair. She jumped to her feet. Crouched over, with head down, she charged, and they both went down in a jumble of arms and legs. The chair suffered the most. It fell to pieces, leaving Mahri free to make a dash for it. She tore off her gag and ran.
Murray caught her before she had taken more than a few steps along the track. He grabbed her by the hair, dragged her head back, and his hand lashed across her face, sending her to her knees. He hauled her to her feet again.
Teeth gritted, he said, “Little girls who misbehave must be taught a lesson.”
He thought she was at fault. She tried to explain, but he wouldn’t listen. He hauled her to the side of the cottage, to where there was a trapdoor. He removed the bar and kicked the door open.
“Get in,” he ordered in the same hard voice. “I’m warning you, if I hear one cheep out of you, I’ll turn you over to Archie. He likes playing with little girls.”
The gypsy—Archie?—had come out of the cottage, and he strolled toward them. “If we have time to waste,” he said, “why don’t we have a little fun—”
Murray felled him with one blow. “Didn’t I warn you not to handle the merchandise? You never could keep your hands to yourself. One more trick like that, and you’ll be in the root cellar and not the girl. We’re being paid to bring her to her father intact. Have you got that?”
The gypsy said something coarse under his breath, but he pulled himself to his feet and stumbled back to the cottage.
“Move!” Murray ordered.
Mahri looked down into what seemed like a bottomless pit. The cellar was in complete darkness. What was worse was the stench. She thought she might be sick. She glanced at Murray. There was no relenting in that hard face.
She stepped onto the first stone step and hesitated. One shove from Murray made her lose her balance. She sat down with a thud, and her feet went sliding into an unspeakable midden of garbage and rotting vegetables. She heard the door slam and the bar thud into place.
Heaving, straining away from that veritable cesspool, she hoisted her bottom up to the next step. Sludge still lapped at her feet. She dug in her heels and managed, by sheer force of will, to lever herself higher. She stopped on the fourth step up. There was nowhere else to go. There was no room to stand unless the trapdoor was opened.
She crouched there, shivering, hugging herself with her arms, devising all kinds of deaths for Murray and his thugs, each one more gory than the last.
He’d been right about the man he’d thrown from the train. The fall hadn’t killed him, but he was hurt. He was lumbering through the underbrush like a wounded bear. Alex didn’t have to see him to know where he was. All he had to do was follow the sound of his progress.
Alex dropped down behind an uprooted fir tree when his quarry stopped, either to get his bearings or because he was cautious, making sure that no one was following him. The mist was a godsend, obscuring him from the man he stalked as well as concealing them both from any patrol they were likely to encounter. There were none, as far as Alex could tell. Only smugglers.
Why wouldn’t the man move? He’d considered breaking his fingers one by one until he told him where his friends had taken Mahri, but if Demos had sent him, he wouldn’t frighten easily. Besides, his quarry knew where he was going. They were both on foot, and by his reckoning, they’d come about three miles. Mahri had to be close by.
He was trying to give her the benefit of the doubt, trying to convince himself that she hadn’t left him of her own free will, but at the back of his mind he was remembering that she had never concealed her intention of escaping him the first chance she got.
There was more to it than that. She’d had her revolver with her. She could have got off a shot if only to warn him. Maybe she hadn’t known about the thug he was following, the thug who had tried to kill him, but she’d known something was afoot. With his own eyes, he’d watched her leave the station with her comrades-in-arms.
Had she been part of the plot to assassinate the queen? Was that why Demos was after her, not to punish her but to rescue her? Had he allowed himself, once again, to be taken in by a pretty face? When all was said and done, his record with women was hardly stellar.
He ground his teeth together. When he caught up with her, there would be no more deferring to his code of honor. He would get to the truth, even if he had to beat it out of her.
When he heard the soft whinny of horses, he melted into the shadows, thinking that it might be a patrol. The man from the train must have heard it, too, but it didn’t seem to alarm him. They’d come to a small clearing. Ahead of them, Alex could just make out a derelict building. On his left, tied to a fence pole, and the only part of a fence left standing after the flood, were three horses, maybe four.
The man stepped into the clearing. Revolver in hand, Alex tensed to rush the building. Suddenly, all hell broke loose. A volley of shots came from behind him. They whistled through the air, and the man crossing the clearing dropped like a stone. Alex dived for the nearest hedge and flattened himself on the ground.
“We got one of them, sir,” a voice shouted.
More shots followed and were returned by those inside the house, then everything went quiet.
Soldiers were taking cover behind trees and anything else they could find as they advanced on the ruin. Alex slipped in beside them. He was in uniform and hoped that in the half-light, they would take him for one of their own.
Two soldiers burst into the cottage. Alex was hard on their heels. There was no one there. He looked at the broken chair, the length of rope, a discarded cravat, and a man’s coat flung carelessly over a sideboard. A brown coat, he noted.
One of the soldiers ran to the door. “Sir, they’re not here. They must have gone out the back.”
“After them! They can’t go far.”
Alex melted into the gloom of a small alcove bedroom. Mahri’s essence seemed to fill his nostrils, his mouth, his head. He sensed her presence, but he couldn’t deny what his eyes told him. There was no one there.
Horses’ hooves pounded outside as the patrol went in pursuit. He waited a moment then slipped soundlessly outside. There wasn’t a uniform in sight, not even a sentinel to guard the horses that were tied to the fence rail. It was no bloody wonder that the British Army lurched from one disaster to another.
But where was Mahri? Fear began to steal into his mind. He’d sensed her presence, could still sense it, but was she alive or—He couldn’t complete the thought. Frantic now, he made a circuit of the house and came upon the root cellar. He was afraid to lift the trapdoor, afraid of what he would find. She must have heard the shots going off. Why hadn’t she called out?
His fingers shook as he threw back the door. In the next instant, he was bowled over by a hissing, biting, scratching wildcat.
He rolled with her on the ground. “You little spitfire!” he bit out. “You didn’t think I’d catch up with you, did you?”
Her fist landed on his chin and brought tears to his eyes. Heaving, kicking, she strained away from him. He rolled on top of her and caught her wrist just before she could rake his face with her nails.
“If you don’t behave yourself,” he said tersely, “I’ll be forced to tie you up and gag you.”
She stopped struggling. “Alex, is it you?”
“Who else would it be?” He was still angry, still unsure of her.
“Then get off me, you big lump. I can hardly breathe!”
He helped her to her feet. The stench clinging to her clothes made him want to gag. “Why in blazes did you hide in the root cellar?” he demanded.
“I didn’t hide. They put me there.” She removed the coat. “I can’t wear this.”
Her coat was drenched in the stench of rotting vegetables and only God knew what else. He took it from her and threw it away. “They put you there? Don’t lie, Mahri. You’re adept at landing on your feet when everyone around you is toppling like pawns. What were you going to do, creep away after the soldiers were gone? Did you think even once of the people you’d left in the train? I suppose you’ll tell me that you would have found a way to catch up with us?”
She didn’t seem to understand the trouble she was in. “Well, of course I would. Is everyone all right?”
“As happy as harpies!” he replied savagely. Grasping her wrist, he dragged her into the cottage.
“We haven’t got time for this,” she protested. “Murray might come back at any moment. So might the soldiers.”
“Who is Murray?”
“He was the leader.” She added quickly, “I heard someone say his name.”
Alex picked up the brown coat. The left pocket was bulging. He removed a fat purse, transferred it to his own pocket, then wrapped Mahri in the coat. “Now we can leave,” he said. But there were still a lot of questions he wanted answers to.
When they passed the body of the man who had been shot, he turned her face into his shoulder. There was something odd going on here. Those soldiers had known about the hovel. They hadn’t been lying in wait, exactly, but they’d been close enough to take Mahri’s abductors by surprise. They hadn’t told the man he was following to halt or surrender. They’d opened fire and shot anything that moved.
What was he missing?
The noise of gunfire had frightened the horses. They were pulling on their tethers, rearing and stamping in an effort to get away. He untied two of them and whacked them on the rear end to hasten their flight.
When he and Mahri were mounted on the other two, he kept the horses to a walk and his eyes peeled. The short hairs on this neck began to rise, and he whipped his head round to look back at the cottage. A shadow moved within shadows. He heard the creak of the door to the cellar as it was opened.