Duchess of Mine (17 page)

“Where is Lady Fleur?”

“Thought perhaps she was at the Green Cat.
Mayhap she wanted a beverage too.”

Rory nodded, but didn’t stop staring at where
Fleur was supposed to be.

“Will ye come with me to find her?” Duncan
asked, not sure why he’d extended the invite to Rory. When it came
to Rory being close to Fleur, he’d prefer the two never saw each
other again. Lord, he was jealous of Rory, and if Fleur wanted the
golden lad, he wouldn’t fault her for it. But he would try
everything he could to have Fleur look his way, instead of
Rory’s.

Rory nodded and they began to follow the
young troops. Nearly to the door, Duncan heard a thudding that only
belonged to feet running as fast as they could. Already he was
bothered by something—he hated to admit that it gnawed at him when
Fleur wasn’t there to watch him show off. Lord, he was a royal
arse, vying for the woman’s attention like a knight of yore would
have by his jousting prowess. Nay, he was much worse. He’d seen
many a peacock in Sweden’s court, although it seemed they never
lasted through the winters, but he feared he was strutting about
like one of the colorful birds. Jesus.

But something else was off. The pounding of
feet racing toward him seemed to confirm it. He wheeled about.
Jamie, the young lad who every day since he’d met Fleur in the cave
had come to call on her with bouquets of leaves and sticks, came
racing toward him, his gang in tow. His too large feet and hands
made running seem almost impossible, but somehow he kept sprinting
toward Duncan.

Jamie was trying to shout something, but
Duncan couldn’t make it out. He began to jog in the direction of
Fleur’s lads, as they were now called, finally catching the words.
“...got her! They’ve got the princess.”

Before he knew what he was doing, Duncan had
reached for his
sgain
dubh
from his hose and been
about to charge in some wild direction, when he felt a firm hand on
his shoulder. He turned to Rory, slightly flinching from the knife
Duncan accidentally aimed it at him.

“We need a plan, Duncan.”

He couldn’t even nod, but looked at Jamie as
he lowered his blade. “Who—who took her?”

“Mosstroopers,” the lad huffed, his hair a
tangled mess, his face covered in grime and sweat.

“Where? What direction?” Rory asked almost
calmly.

Panting, Jamie pointed south.

“What’s this about?”

Duncan could hardly believe his mother had
come up on them unawares, and her voice felt more like a dirk
inserted into his ribs.

Rory turned to her. “Mosstroopers spirited
Lady Fleur away.”

Helen clasped her hands over her mouth, then
to her heart. She turned to Duncan. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’
have—”

“’Tis no one’s fault, save the mosstroopers,”
Rory interrupted. Then he glanced at Duncan. “And they’ll pay for
what they’ve done.”

Duncan ground his teeth, but nodded at the
sentiment. “Aye.”

Within a few heartbeats, they had a plan.
Duncan wasn’t sure how Jamie and the orphan lads had gotten
involved, but they had. They would track the mosstroopers, while he
and Rory and the troops would try to gain as many horses as
possible, then hunt down Fleur’s abductors like the thieves they
were.

Chapter 14

F
leur lashed out with all her might.
One pair of hands dropped her right shoulder, and she swung out
violently. When she made impact with a man’s stomach, he groaned.
The running stopped.

“Greggor, grab hold o’ her.”

Fleur kept swinging until someone took hold
of her hand then crushed it in his grip, pain ripping all the way
from her fingers to her chest. She shrieked, or tried to, but the
noise was muted behind a giant hand. Suddenly, a pair of bright
green eyes, heavily rimmed with red, hovered above hers.

“Hold, or I’ll slice off that wicked arm of
yers.”

The eyes held a menace she’d never seen
before. They were cruel and desperate.

She remained motionless, wanting to cry.

No, this couldn’t be happening. No! She was
here to do something good, then she’d go back to her time. This
couldn’t be happening. This couldn’t be happening. This couldn’t
be...

“Grab her arm like I told ye,” the man with
the green eyes said.

Her arm was clutched at, but the man who
she’d hit in the stomach didn’t hold her so tight. It was subtle,
but he held her looser. She searched for the man holding her arm
amongst the mass of her brawny kidnappers and finally found arctic
blue eyes. They were such a light color they almost looked like ice
reflecting the sky. He glanced down at her and when their eyes met,
she could have sworn he grimaced. He should have appeared even more
villainous with those light eyes of his. But the way he looked at
her, showering her with compassion and worry, she thought him oddly
kind, although the son of a bitch was abducting her.

They ran again, but didn’t go far before they
stopped, and she was instantly on her feet. The man with glacier
eyes was at her back, holding a small knife at her throat. Horses
with no riders trampled tall grass, tethered close to a small
chortling brook, almost as if the waterway were laughing at her for
getting herself kidnapped. She’d basically been kidnapped to this
time in the first place—she
had
been taken against her
will—and now this?

The man with flashing green eyes leaned
close, inches from her face. “Ifnye scream, Greggor will slit yer
throat, ye ken?”

“Faolan, ye certain she can understand ye?
She isn’t Scottish. Mayhap talk slower,” said the man at Fleur’s
back.

Green Eyes’, Faolan apparently, fierce stare
shifted to just beyond Fleur. She actually pitied the man holding
the dirk at her neck, whose name was Greggor it seemed, because the
look Green Eyes was giving him was pure rage.

Odd thoughts flittered through Fleur’s mind,
like aimless butterflies. Those goddamned muses would have to get
her out of this. Coyote better find her about now. But then
usurping all other considerations, she imagined Duncan’s face, so
handsome, especially when he smiled, and how she wanted to see him,
have him close, rescue her.

Another man still held her mouth closed, and
sometimes, while jostling her around, he pushed his grasp over her
nose, making breathing impossible. Bite him. Bite him. Bite him,
echoed in Fleur’s head. Besides the need to fight, terror also
rippled through her body, making her feel so powerless. Through it
all she was slightly aware of the fact that the man at her back
wasn’t holding her too tightly. She had the oddest feeling that if
she fought him, he’d surrender to her.

Faolan focused back on her, and all thoughts
whispered away as fear oozed through her body, like a tar pit would
suck an animal to death.

“Ye’ll go on the horse with Greggor. Ye’ll go
up like a good lass. Charlie, bind her.” A blond man who carefully
avoided looking at her tied her hands together, then finally the
hand over her mouth was removed to be replaced by a strip of cloth
going through her lips and tied tightly behind her head. After that
Green Eyes towered over her again, saying, “We’ll not hurt ye as
long as ye do as I say, ye ken?”

She stopped breathing.

Bite. Fight. Get your life back.

Something in Fleur bucked and lashed about
internally.

The man behind her moved and in a swift move
was on a horse. He scooted back in the saddle, and before Fleur
knew what was happening she was on the horse too, sitting in front
of the man with the light blue eyes, Greggor. His arms instantly
surrounded her, holding her very close with the reins in one of his
hands.

“Hold yer dirk to her neck,” Faolan
reproached.

“I—I fear I’ll cut her while on the
horse.”

Fleur almost looked behind, wondering about
the statement.

Faolan actually nodded, his scarf moving in
the process, revealing a cheek with a black beard. “Fine. I’ll ride
beside ye. Ye hear that princess?” Green Eye’s gaze lasered in on
her. “I’ll be right beside ye. So if ye try to escape, I’ll kill
ye.”

Fleur believed him with a sickening feeling
twisting her stomach.

Faolin jumped onto a paint horse, then
signaled the rest to ride. And ride they did. But before the dark
bay under Fleur began to cantor, the man at her back leaned even
closer, holding her tighter. Over her shoulder he whispered, “I’m
sorry.”

At that she finally did turn slightly,
staring at her captor. Blue eyes held hers for a second, but then
he looked ahead.

Again, she thought of fighting back, but then
she glanced at Faolan. He was close. Terrifyingly so.

The bay she rode was nervous and liked to
favor a trot instead of a gallop. Already, Fleur absorbed the
horse’s energy, begging for the mighty animal to heed to her
internal pleas.

Her uncles had taught her how to listen and
talk to horses. How a human wouldn’t communicate with words, but
with energy and sentiment, how horses could obey complex orders
with mere thoughts. Fleur hadn’t thought of horse whispering for so
long and wondered if she believed any of it. It sounded a bit like
a fairy tale, didn’t it? Communicating to a horse with one’s
feelings.

As if the horse sensed her doubt, it stumbled
slightly. Fleur began to transmit her silent chant of tranquility
as well as pleas for freedom in earnest.

The horse’s gait steadied.

She grabbed hold of the mane above the
steed’s withers, amazed. Glancing back at the blue, blue eyes that
caught hers once more, she checked whether he noticed the horse
accepting her. If she could have seen through his scarf, she would
have thought he was trying to smile for her, trying to encourage
her. He adjusted his hold again, holding her tight against him.
Protectively, not provocatively. Perhaps Greggor’s embrace should
have made her more comfortable, or the horse seeming to accept her
as the guide should have buoyed her spirits. But her gaze kept
returning to threatening Faolin.

She shuddered, unsure what to do. What if
there wasn’t anything to do?

“Yer cold, eh?” Gerggor asked in a soft
whisper.

It was still incredibly hot. The sun
castigated them with vicious rays that would melt the dead. She
searched the horizon and all around for something that stood out,
something that would help her get back to Duncan.

God, she didn’t even think about going back
to her own time, just to him. Her mind then raced to think about
her adrenal medulla that was presently producing a huge amount of
catecholamines, which would make her fight or flight. So why wasn’t
she trying to flee? Or struggle?

Why wasn’t she
doing
something?

Cortisol had to be rushing through her blood
streams, enabling her to heart to beat faster, her reflexes to be
quicker, and her...and then it hit her. She was frozen. Another
aspect of severe fear is paralysis. Immobility. As she had when
she’d first been dropped in Texas. It hadn’t been her first time
facing bigotry. But it had been the first time she’d been alone.
Rather than fight against the whispered put downs about the way she
had been raised, murmurs that she would scalp the student body,
that she was inherently lazy and dirty, and the many, many feather
pranks, Fleur turned to books. Words and thoughts had been her
sanity, her comfort, her sanctuary from the new world she lived in,
from all the uncertainty. She’d fallen into the tomes, as if she’d
fallen into a different realm of reality, pushing away her fear,
numbing it, until she felt nothing but her books. Later, she would
feel nothing but her job. Ironically, her research was to help
people discover their past, while she numbed herself from hers.

Hopelessness had shadowed her since she was
fourteen. Now, twelve years later that obscurity still usurped her
heart. Twelve years of fearing her choices would be ripped from
her, even though, absurdly she never made many choices other than
her career that gave her the impassiveness to keep, well, numb.

Making friends with Rachel and Ian had been
the one exception in Fleur’s life, and thanks to that one
allowance, she had just started to feel again.

Faolin yelled something. Immediately the
horse’s cantor slowed to a trot, then a quick walk.

God, she hadn’t been paying attention to her
surroundings. Or maybe it all looked the same—big boulder there,
small mountain range there, tall grass along a strip of a games’
trail, sometimes, though, there was a bright purple from a blooming
thistle. If she could escape, she would have no idea where to head.
She’d gotten herself in a hell of a mess and didn’t even have the
wherewithal to pay attention to any markings on the boulders or
crags or whatever they were called. All right,
she
hadn’t
been the one to get herself into this mess. Like so much of her
life, she hadn’t had a choice.

She was hopelessly lost. Lost in her own time
and in this one too, in her own head, in her own damned way.

Faolin jumped from his horse and led it to a
creek, and Greggor soon enough did the same, except he kept Fleur
on the mount. As soon as Greggor had left the saddle, she caved in,
wrapping her arms around herself and bowed her head to cry. She
hadn’t really given herself the allowance to weep since she’d lived
in Porcupine. Hated doing it in front of her kidnappers, but the
fear, the panic and her self-incrimination had gotten the better of
her. The tears flowed down.

Something warm patted her calf. She flinched
when she realized it was Greggor touching her.

“It’ll be all right, princess,” he
whispered.

Angrily, she wiped at her tears with the back
of her hand. “Why? Why are you doing this?”

Greggor sighed, slumping his shoulders. “’Tis
Faolin. Thinks he’ll get a huge bounty from ye, what with ye being
a princess.”