Elizabeth Elliott (8 page)

This was hell. Thomas had pushed her and she just didn’t remember the fall that had killed her. Whatever sins
she committed in her life, she had been damned to climb down this rope for eternity.

Someone grabbed her ankle. A smothered sound of relief came from behind her gag. Guy. She released the rope and fell on top of him. They both landed in a heap, although he managed to cushion her fall.

“Christ’s bones, you are heavy!” He pushed her away and stood up.

If he thought she might try to escape him, he didn’t appear worried by the possibility. He drew a dagger from his waist and cut a length of rope several feet long, then he gave the remaining rope two sharp tugs and kept his attention focused high overhead. From her seat on the ground Claudia watched Friar Thomas pull the long rope back inside the wall. She wanted to stay there for a very long time, mayhaps even kiss the solid rock beneath her. In another week or so, she might be able to walk again. But she had made it this far, and would not return to the fortress after this much trouble to escape it. She scrambled to her feet and swayed once before she steadied herself.

Guy turned to face her, the short rope lying across his upturned palms. “Give me your hands.”

Not again, Claudia thought, but this time the order was for both hands. He meant to bind them. When she obeyed his order, he hesitated. For a long moment he stared at her hands, then he looped the rope around her wrists and secured the binding. He didn’t knot the rope as tightly as she had expected. Indeed, the rope seemed almost loose around her wrists. She glanced down and saw how much her hands shook.

He had noticed as well. “ ’Tis over, Claudia. You are safe now.”

Safe? Aye, from the danger of falling, mayhap, but now she faced a threat just as perilous. She looked at the baron’s face and knew he must have realized how ridiculous his words sounded. He scowled, then pulled her hood into place.

“Keep your head down. Your cloak is dark enough to
blend with the rocks, but the moonlight could reflect your face enough that a guard on the wall might notice.”

She nodded and bowed her head. She could not look him in the eye any longer, to see what the moonlight reflected in his face. The pity and trace of regret in his eyes were nothing she wanted. Once they were safely away from the castle, she would try again to explain this colossal misjudgment of her character and offer payment to hire a company of his soldiers to escort her to Dante. Wherever
he
might be. She had to keep her faith that the emeralds would buy her that information as well.

4

“S
top squirming.” Every muscle in Guy’s body tensed, his patience strained to the breaking point. Claudia sat sideways in his lap rather than astride the warhorse, with her cloak arranged to hide the slash in her gown. She had wriggled around every moment of every hour since they left Lonsdale. He could not take much more of it.

When they met his knights in the forests outside Lonsdale, he didn’t think he would mind sharing his mount. He had exchanged a handful of words with Evard, then lifted Claudia to her seat before him. As the bright moon that guided their flight gave way to the rose-colored streaks of dawn, the hip that once felt soft and supple now seemed solid as a rock against his groin. She shifted position again. “Can you not sit still?”

“My legs fell asleep.”

It took him a moment to realize the gag should have prevented her from answering his question. He jerked her hood aside. “When did you pull that down?”

A wide yawn delayed the answer. Her still-bound hands rose to form a steeple over her mouth, then dropped again to her lap. “Soon after you put me on this beast. You had no need to gag me in the first place, Baron. I would be the last to raise an alarm.”

He didn’t know why it irritated him that she spoke in Italian, but it did. “You will speak in my language, or not at all.”

Her lips parted, then closed again. She lifted her chin in the air and looked pointedly away from him. She tugged her hood back into place, too.

He scowled at the back of her head. “You will never learn to say the words correctly if you do not practice the language aloud.”

Her head tilted sideways as if she considered this logic, but she remained silent. Evard rode up beside him. “Our soldiers await, Baron.”

Guy followed the direction of Evard’s gesture. The wide valley before them lay blanketed in morning mist, the air scented by dew-fresh meadows that lay beneath the fog. The valley belonged to Halford, while the ridge across from them marked the edge of Montague lands. On the ridge, a thin column of smoke rose above the treetops.

“And my cousins?” Guy asked.

“I sent a messenger to Halford before we returned to meet you outside Lonsdale, a different messenger than the one I sent to Montague. Each had orders to fulfill the other’s duty if one did not return to this ridge by dawn. The signal fire means both were successful.”

As usual, Evard left little to chance. Guy nodded his approval. “When we reach the ridge, the men and horses may rest while I meet with my cousins. You will stay with Lady Claudia.”

The cold look in Evard’s eyes when he glanced at Claudia revealed what he thought of that duty. Their flight from Lonsdale had required few words. Evard had not asked whether Claudia came with them of her free will or against it. He saw now that Evard regarded her as a captive. He supposed the rope that bound her wrists was a sure indicator. “See that the men know my wishes.”

“Aye, my lord.” Evard knew his overlord’s tone of dismissal, and he allowed Guy to take the lead once more.

Guy studied the thin ribbon of road that led into the valley, more like a path made just wide enough for carts with deep ruts from those conveyances and the rains that must turn the sloping road into a river. He loosened the reins and let the horse pick its own path down the incline as he considered his “prisoner.”

He could almost believe the wild tale she had spun, for he had indeed given Baron Lonsdale reason to believe the sale of Halford was in jeopardy. There was also the fact that they had encountered no opposition to their escape other than the guard at his door. Either Claudia was telling the truth or Lonsdale wanted him to escape. Claudia herself provided the reason Lonsdale might allow him to leave the fortress. As long as Lonsdale held a betrothal contract signed by the bishop, Guy could not marry another. That contract would provide a safer means of blackmail for Lonsdale than a forced marriage. Yet why would Lonsdale allow Claudia to escape with him? Or did Lonsdale allow nothing at all?

He fought the urge to believe Claudia, the deeply ingrained instinct that she was telling the truth. In the past his instincts had never failed him, but he was vulnerable where she was concerned. He wanted to believe in her too much to allow himself that luxury. Never again would he put himself into a position to be played for a fool.

Claudia broke into his thoughts. “I am to be your prisoner?”

“Are you talking to me, or to my horse?”

She turned to look up at him. “I no talk—” She drew a breath that made her nostrils flare. “I do not talk to horses. Will you make me a prisoner, or allow me my freedom?”

She spoke in a deliberate voice, making an obvious effort to be understood. Guy found that he liked her sultry accent. He had to concentrate on what she said, rather than on the way she said it. “I will decide your fate when we reach Montague Castle.”

She did not look satisfied with the answer. “Am I tried and condemned already in your mind?”

Her words carried the rhythm of a caress rather than a barb. The affect on him was startling. And unwelcome. “You would be wise not to press me, Lady Claudia. ’Tis been a long night, and my mood was not the best when we began this journey.”

Her lips puckered into the beginnings of a pout, then she
turned her attention forward. The snub annoyed him. She did not behave much like a woman who had plotted against him. She had either ice in her veins or an impressive streak of courage.

They began to cross the valley, and the fog soon engulfed them. He made his way toward the ridge by the muted sunlight to the east rather than by sight of the ridge. The fog muffled the sounds of the men and horses behind them as well, and made him feel as if they were alone together. He found himself thinking about what he would do with Claudia if they were truly alone.

Her treachery should have destroyed whatever lust he had felt for her. Now he discovered that was not the case. He became aware of every inch of her that pressed against him, the floral scent that did not belong entirely to the meadow flowers, and the heady scent that was Claudia’s alone.

He lowered his head until his cheek almost brushed against the side of her hood. He was obsessed with her, felt every part of her swaying gently against him in the saddle. Could she truly be as soft as he remembered? She would have to be naked before he knew for sure.

He lifted his hand to rub his tired eyes, and his arm bumped her head by accident. Claudia’s hands disappeared inside her hood and she groaned just as she began to slump forward. His arms tightened around her even as she caught herself. “Are you all right?”

She moved her head from side to side, her hands fisted against her forehead. “My head hurt. Hurts. The back, where Friar Thomas hit me. He is the one who hit me, no?”

“Aye.” He felt a rush of guilt. He should have checked before now to make sure her skull was not fractured. With one arm wrapped around her waist to steady her, his other hand searched the back of her head until he found the large knot, and she cried out.

“Hush,” he murmured. “I will not touch it again.” He tried to part the hair around the bump. “Did it bleed?”

“Nay. ’Tis but a lump and a headache. It will heal itself in a few days.”

He frowned. How in the world would she know? Still, she had not complained of it before now. “Is your headache worse than before?”

“It will pass.”

He pressed her for a more thorough answer. “Did you feel faint before now?”

“Aye, when we first set out, many times I felt faint. Now the spells are not so many.”

That had to be a good sign, he decided. “Lean back in my arms until this one passes.” He added an excuse when she looked wary of the offer. “I do not want you to fall off the horse.”

She leaned back until his arm supported her shoulders and head, then she closed her eyes and he felt her body begin to relax. She lay in his arms as trusting as a child. A very foolish child. When she tucked her hands beneath her chin and burrowed closer to his chest, he realized she had fallen asleep.

How could she sleep?

She wore a gag around her neck, and a rope bound her wrists together. For all she knew, he might change his mind at any time about slitting her throat. She should be on her guard, not asleep, for God’s sake. She was indeed a fool. A soft, warm fool who smelled good, too.

Guy rolled his eyes. He had been without a woman too long. Nothing else could explain his ridiculous obsession with this one. On the other hand, the urge to finish what he had started in her chamber was a logical one, he supposed. He’d wanted her more in that moment than he had wanted anything in his life. His body reacted immediately to the memory. He gritted his teeth and tried to concentrate on the horse’s direction.

The ground began to rise again, and they emerged from the fog. A treeless gap along the ridge overhead revealed the
distant figures of mounted soldiers. Montague soldiers. They were safe now, on Montague land.

Sometime while he held her the land had wakened around them, the birds mostly, with their cries and twitters, and the hum of an enterprising insect here and there. The fog would burn off fast now that sunlight blazed into the valley. Even the woods they passed through seemed less forbidding than those on the ridge behind them.

“Claudia, wake up.” A half-remembered warning surfaced that a deep sleep after a blow to the head sometimes proved fatal. He gripped her shoulders harder. “Claudia!”

“Mm.” She rubbed her cheek against his chest.

He made his voice sharp, angry. “Claudia. Wake up.”

Her eyes fluttered open and she met his gaze. Her lips curved into a smile that made his heart do strange things inside his chest. It returned to a more normal beat when the smile disappeared. She sat up with a start, looking guilty. “I did not mean to sleep.”

Her regret did not change the fact that she had. A prisoner who slept in her captor’s arms. What was he to make of that? “We will reach the main force of my soldiers soon. Give me your hands.”

“Why?”

“Just give me your hands.” He untied the knots that bound her, noting that she struggled to sit straighter in his arms. When she was free, he examined her wrists for signs of chafing. “There,” he pronounced, “no lasting damage.”

“May I remove this?” She looped one finger through the makeshift gag around her neck.

He inclined his head.

She lifted her arms to untie the cloth, and her cloak parted and fell to her sides. First he looked at the slender bare arm that lacked a sleeve. Next he watched the dark brown fabric of the gown stretch tight across her breasts as she went about her work. He showed no reaction until the third time her elbow accidentally jabbed him, this time in the nose.