Jerrold thrust him away. St. James had made off with his gold and his money, and with that note it was obvious that he’d also abducted Elyse. St. James was the Raven.
* * *
After leaving the church, Zach carried her to the waiting horses. A cart or wagon would have been more comfortable for her, but they needed to leave quickly before Barrington put out the alarm.
He checked the rope that bound her, then eased her across the saddle, and swung up behind her. Instead of heading for the east end of London and the docks as Barrington would assume, he turned south. There was a long ride ahead.
It was just after dark when Zach reined in at a roadside inn. He paid the man for a room, then pulled Elyse from the back of his horse.
She thrashed and squirmed as he carried her up the stairs. If the innkeeper thought anything of it, he said nothing and returned to his own bed with a good amount of coin in his pocket.
Once inside the room, Zach tossed Elyse down onto the bed. He loosened the rope that bound her. She fought and struggled, then tumbled to the floor. He knelt beside her and eased the cloth from her mouth.
"Bastard!" she screamed at the top of her lungs.
"Possibly, but that won't help you," he told her.
She was completely disheveled, her hair tangled, and furious. Considering the long ride they'd made, he was impressed even as he put the gag back into her mouth.
She continued to fight him, kicking out with her legs, and thrashing wildly about, her head connecting with the leg of the bed with a faint crack. Everything went dark.
Zach removed the gag. When she didn't stir or so much as open an eye, he made her as comfortable as possible on the bed, then gently probed the bruise on her head. For the first time since that last night at Fair View, he allowed himself to look at her, really look at her.
She was beautiful and, try as he might to hold on to it, the anger slipped away. He stroked her cheek and smoothed back her hair that had come loose when she’d struggled at the church.
She was clad only in a chemise, her slender body curled under the blanket. There was regret as he bound both her wrists to a bedpost and slipped the scarf back over her mouth. Then he stretched out beside her.
If only things were different, he thought.
It was still dark when he slipped out of the room and wakened the innkeeper, and learned they were still some distance from Dover. The innkeeper wrapped food for the rest of the ride and was well paid.
Elyse had wakened when he returned. She stared at him with a wary expression. He untied her ankles, leaving the rope around her wrists, then walked her down the hall to the water closet that was nothing more than a small room with a hole in the floor, a bucket with fresh water and a cloth. He held onto the rope while she took care of necessary things, the wariness in her eyes now a glare of anger.
She'd been abducted, bound and gagged, thrown over the back of a horse for hours, then tied to a bed God knows where, and now the insult of being held at the end of a rope while she relieved herself. If she wasn't still bound and gagged, she would have seized the bucket and hit him with it.
Back inside the room, he removed the gag so that she could eat and have a drink of water.
"If you cry out, the cloth goes back inside your mouth," he bluntly told her." Not that the innkeeper would pay much attention. I suspect this isn't the first time he's seen this sort of thing."
She glared at him as she downed a biscuit and hard cooked eggs, then drank water. Her throat was raw from the past hours with the cloth in her mouth. "I hate you," she whispered.
"You're entitled to that," he told her.
"Whatever you hope to accomplish..." she drank more water. "You will fail."
"That is always a risk, but I'm willing to take it."
"Why?" she croaked.
"An old score to settle," he replied as he gently probed the bump on her head. She was going to have a good bruise there. She pulled back as if she'd been struck—the look in her eyes went straight through him.
"What old score?" she demanded. "What can you hope to achieve?"
He answered with just one word. "Revenge.”
She fought him again when he slipped the gag back into place.
"I'm sorry," he told her, but it was time to leave. Her eyes filled with anger.
