The Smithfield Bargain (4 page)

As they rode past a bend, trees closed around them and obscured the carriage they had left behind. Romayne heard a sharp retort, and her heart halted in mid-beat. A second blast followed in quick succession.

“No!” she moaned as the echo of gunshots faded into the night.

With a yell, Duffie raced his horse along the uneven road, dragging her mount behind him. She gripped the useless reins. Tears burned along her cheeks, but she did not wipe them away. She cursed when the last two men joined them. When they laughed at her, she looked away but could not close her ears to their jubilant voices.

Bradley was dead, and she soon would be. A twinge of terror mocked her, for she knew her death might not come as swiftly or as easily as his.

A gun fired, and a man screamed. Romayne gasped when she saw one of the highwaymen fall from his horse. Curses filled the air. The highwaymen raced their horses toward the trees, and she realized someone was firing upon them, someone who might be her ally.

“Help me!” she screamed. “They are kidnapping me!”

“Shut yer mouth, woman,” snarled Duffie. He swung his pistol in her direction.

Romayne nearly slipped from the saddle as she avoided the vicious weapon. Clinging to the reins, she regained her seat when he swore at her. He pulled her horse beneath the trees where shadows cloaked them in darkness.

Duffie whispered to his men. Scanning the trees on the other side of the road, Romayne saw a movement. She prayed it was salvation, yet it could have been nothing more than the branches in the wind.

She cringed when the highwaymen's guns fired. Smoke filled the air. She choked on the acrid smell but flattened herself against the horse's neck when a single shot answered the volley. Duffie shrieked. She did not wait to see where he had been hit. She reached forward to grasp the leading rein of her horse and jerked on the leather. It snapped out of his hand, striking the horse.

Slapping the reins, she screamed, “Go!”

She rode past the startled highwaymen and onto the road. Her spine pricked with the anticipation of a ball in her back. Hearing shouts, she urged her horse to go faster, but tightened her hold on the reins as she felt its feet slide on the frozen mud. She had no idea where to go; she simply wanted to get away from the highwaymen.

Smacking her hand against the horse, she turned it toward the trees on the far side of the road. She raised her head to see a stone wall in front of her. The horse reared, refusing to take the wall. She flew over its head.

Romayne hit the ground hard. The shriek of tearing fabric filled her ears, but she cared little for the state of her ruined clothes. Even as she fought to get her breath, she could hear hoofbeats. She could not lie here waiting to catch her breath. If she was recaptured, she would not get a second chance at escape. She must flee. She struggled to find the strength to push herself to her feet.

Broad hands grasped her shoulders. With a cry, she beat her fists against the hands, but her captor refused to let her evade him. He dragged her to her feet and behind a large stone in the shadow of the wall.

“Down!” he ordered.

Romayne hesitated as she stared at the man. Snow clung to his ruddy hair and outlined a hint of whiskers along his cheeks, but he was not one of the highwaymen. She backed away as she realized he could be another cove who was preying on rival thieves.

“Who are you?” she whispered.

He put his hand on her broken bonnet and pressed her toward the ground. “Shall we save the niceties for later? For now, we have to save our skins.”

“You're a Scotsman, too!”

“And unless you are as cork-brained as you are acting,” he said in a clipped voice that did not disguise his brogue, “you shall worry your mind about such things later.”

Romayne nodded as she squatted beside him. She knew she was being foolish, but she was so frightened, she was nearly separated from what was left of her wits. Looking across the muddy snow, she recoiled when she heard the report of a gun. Something struck the boulder in front of them.

The man swore viciously, then raised his pistol to take aim. The sound was louder than any she had heard before, and she held her hands to her ears. Even so, she could hear the panicked neighing of a horse.

“Are you hurt?” asked the red-haired man as he reloaded his weapon.

“No, just scared.” She added nothing about her dread that Bradley had been murdered. She must concentrate on surviving. Then she could help him and Scribner … if that was still possible.

He smiled at her, his teeth flashing in the faint light glittering off the new snow. “You would be a simpleton not to be frightened.” Looking toward the trees between them and the stone wall edging the road, he added, “I hope you are not planning on swooning?”

“No.”

“I cannot carry you and save our skins at the same time.”

“I said I would not faint!” If she were not so vexed by his words, she would have been startled that she could be angry with a man who was rescuing her from degradation and death.

“Good.” She thought she heard him chuckle, and she wondered if he was as wanting for sense as he sounded. “You have spirit. I was not sure if you were escaping when I panicked your erstwhile companions or if your horse was simply running away with you.”

Romayne started to answer, but he motioned her to silence with a wave of his hand. As she crouched next to him, the cold oozing through her torn coat and dress, she heard him whisper words she could not understand. She did not care if he spoke Gaelic or even French as long as he would save her from the high pads.

“They are trying to encompass us,” he murmured. “We have to get out of here before they discover how few our number truly is.”

“Few?” A tentative smile pulled at her wind-scored lips. “You have allies?”

He laughed softly. “Only one.”

“Where is he?”

“
She
. You.”

Romayne's hopes evaporated as quickly as they had formed. “There are six of them.”

“Only four now.”

“You killed two?” she gasped in horror.

“What do you care? They are the most common of thieves without a brain among the lot of them. We should be able to outwit them. You must have a lick of sense if you were smart enough to see the chance I gave you to flee, and I can assure you that I am smarter than a low-toby.”

“I have only your word for that.”

Again he chuckled. “If I had guessed you were such a dashed virago, I would have left you with them. It would be their just reward. I—” His words were swallowed by a gunshot. “By gravy! They are more persistent than I would have guessed. Are you loaded down with centuries?”

“They stole my ring.” Her voice nearly broke, but she fought to continue. “It was all I had of value with me.”

“Stay here.”

He edged around the rock before she could ask him what he intended to do. Peeking past it, she saw him sneak over another, lower wall to where a pale horse stood in the snow. He pulled something out of the bags on the back of the horse, shoved it under his coat, and started to turn back to her. He paused and bent toward the horse.

Romayne could not hide her curiosity. What could be so blasted important about his horse when death hid in the trees all around them?

A hand clamped over her mouth. In horror, she saw, from the far corner of her eyes, a gun raise to aim at her rescuer.

She clamped her teeth on one finger. The bridle-cull let out a screech as he pulled his hand back. Jumping to her feet, she had no time to shout a warning. Her rescuer leapt over the wall and struck the highwayman. A gun exploded.

Romayne shrank to the ground, waiting for death, but her hand was grasped. She heard her rescuer urge in an oddly strained voice, “Come on. We have to get out of here in case the rest of them have more guts than brains.”

As if in answer to his warning, another gun fired. She scrambled over the low wall as he shot back. When he ran toward the horse, she tried to keep pace with him. Snow and mud conspired to mire her on each step. Her thin slippers tore on the stones hidden beneath the snow as the wind buffeted her. Something hummed past her ear, and she screamed.

“Damn!” the man muttered as he reloaded his pistol and fired it into the night. “I have never seen them this persistent. What do you have that they want?” His gaze raked along her, and she drew away from him, for his eyes were colder than the wind. Putting his hand on her arm, he tugged her behind the horse. “Do not think your charms are so priceless, miss. They can get a willing lass along with a glass of ale at any pump in the valley. They want something else from you.”

“I have nothing else,” she answered tightly.

He pulled out a knife and cut the bags off the back of his horse. Tossing them toward the wall, he said, “If they are rapacious enough to pause to check out what booty might wait in my bags, it might buy us time to hide from them.” He took the horse's reins and began to stride through the shadows as he ordered in a whisper, “Hurry. We might not have much time.”

“Where are you taking me?” she gasped as she looked back toward the road.

He grasped her hand and brought her closer to his tall form. “What does it matter as long as you are alive when you get there?”

Chapter Three

Moonless nights offered the perfect protection for lovers and spies
, James MacKinnon thought as he trudged through the snow. But this was the worst night to have to come to the rescue of the woman walking beside him. If she had picked any night but this one …

James had been so close to catching his prey. The man had led him on a merry chase throughout the Cheviot Hills, and James had to bring it to an end before the nameless man betrayed Britain to the dirty Frogs and their leader. He could not understand why any Englishman would do Boney's work, but the facts were in front of him. The man had his price, and James had orders to stop him from trading his country's future for a pocketful of gold.

When the woman swayed from the wind, he reached out automatically to help her. He cursed when pain raced up his right arm and settled with a dull throb in his shoulder. His horse had been killed in crossfire when they had left the woods, and everything in his saddlebags was gone. If he was not mistaken, he had broken his arm in the skirmish with the highwaymen. But that was not the worst of it. His prey had escaped into the Scottish night. Two fortnights of work had come to naught.

Hearing a soft moan, James glanced at the woman beside him. She was having trouble fighting the wintry blast of the wind. With her pelisse molded against her body by the wind's frozen caress, he was treated to a view of her slender curves. He wondered how this woman, who was not of the local folk, for her clothes were of a fabric and cut far above what any farmer's lass could afford, had come to be in the hands of Duffie's caterans.

He put his left hand on her elbow as she struggled to match his longer strides. Letting his ebony cloak flow over her, he doubted if even its thick wool could combat the storm. Snow pricked through the rents in his coat and scoured his face. Overhead, the naked branches scraped and creaked. When the woman floundered as they walked through the frozen furrows at the edge of a field, he could not keep her on her feet.

“I hope they all rot in perdition,” she moaned as she stood, shaking her left hand.

James gripped her wrist and tilted her hand to see that it was bare. “Where is your glove, miss?”

“They took it when they took my ring!” She favored him with a glower that would have daunted a lesser man.

Instead of retorting, he held out his left hand. “Take mine.” Pain added to the vexation in his voice when he added, “Peel it off. I cannot when my right arm is useless.”

Even in the faint light of the stormy night, he could see her eyes widen. “Your arm is broken?” she whispered so lowly he had to strain to hear her over the wind.

“I pray not, but it aches so badly it must be.” A smile pulled at his taut lips as he saw a familiar shadow on the far side of a ruined stone wall. He had guessed they were within ambs-ace of the bourach where he was supposed to meet Cameron. His partner was sure to laugh at the mishaps he had suffered tonight, but neither of them would laugh if they did not catch that blasted traitor soon.

When the woman slipped her arm through his left one, James realized she intended to help him. There must be more strength in her than her feminine form suggested. A stubborn woman could be the worst thing that had happened since he left Struthcoille, even more horrible than a broken arm.

“No, we need to go in this airt,” he said in Scottish. “In this direction,” he corrected when he realized she did not understand.

She nodded and compliantly walked with him toward the wall. “Where are we?”

“On the main road leading south to Coldstream.”

“
South
to Coldstream?”

James stopped to stare down into her face that was shadowed so delicately by the torn lace on her bonnet. Fatigue and pain strained his voice. “You mean you have no idea where you are? How long were you with the caterans?”

“The what?”

He could not help smiling. Her accent labeled her origins as clearly as his did. Not only English, he guessed she had been reared in the Yorkshire countryside. “Highwaymen,” he said.

“I was not with them for long, but I thought we were in England.”

“Welcome to Scotland,” he said with a weak smile. “I can assure you that you are not seeing it at its best. This storm is showing no signs of abating, so I think it would be the better part of wisdom if we stopped.”

“Stop? Where?”

He pointed toward a black shadow that had coalesced as they neared it into a ruined hut. Beneath its sheath of snow, the moss which was clinging to the stones created a strange, variegated pattern. Tree branches scraped sections of the roof clear of any snow that might fall on it. No lights peeked through the darkness, but it offered them an escape from the treacherous wind.