“I will not waste a perfect axe on a Scottish corpse,” the man said, and he dragged Jane until they came to the warrior’s fallen form. With his boot, he kicked at him until the axe was in view. He bent to retrieve it, and it left the warrior’s body with a sickening squelching sound.
Jane gasped. The soldier dragged her back in the direction from which they had come. He roughly flung her atop his horse and mounted behind her. Suddenly, a piece of cloth wad bound about her wrists. Jane protested by moving her hands around, but the soldier was brutal. He squeezed her left hand as though he intended to crush it, and Jane yelped. With her weakened, he then bound her arms successfully. His hand went around her waist, which made her skin crawl, and he kicked the horse into a punishing pace.
It did not help that Jane was still a little sore. She winced. Then she wriggled in an attempt to free herself from her attacker’s hold. Surely, she could fall to the ground and begin to run? It was not the brightest of ideas but it was the only one that presented itself at the moment. She could not go to wherever he was taking her. With all the strength Jane could muster, she pushed at the soldier.
The result? Nothing. He was hard as a rock.
He sneered at her and boxed her on the head. She yelped. They rode for hours, even when it began to rain. Jane felt it soak into her clothes and touch her skin. The moisture made the uncomfortable trip even more so. It seemed like there would be no end to the riding. The horse was becoming slower, but it’s rider only whipped it more and more into submission. Jane thought about how Alistair would never do this. He was kind to his stallion. Kind to everyone except those who had made themselves his enemies. If only he could save her! She was aware of the peril she was in. If she was taken to Commander Pierce and the soldier explained the circumstances under which she was found (in good health and picking flowers, for goodness’ sake), the commander would accuse her of cavorting with the enemy. He would use her harshly and send word about her betrayal to her father in England. She might then be kept under lock and key, her life, as she now knew it, over before it even began.
She must try once more.
The blow to the head still throbbed faintly, but she did not care. Her plan was to hurl herself down from the horse. How far she would be able to run, she did not know, but she spotted what looked like a cave to their left. The horse was galloping at high speed, which meant that it would take it a while to, at the command of its master, stop and turn.
Suddenly, her attacker brought the horse to an abrupt stop. Jane frowned in confusion. She heard the glint of metal and suddenly there was a blade pressed against her throat. “This is no ordinary blade,” the soldier drawled. “It is tinged with wolfsbane. One cut, and you’ll be dead in a matter of hours. It would be an agonizing death, would it not, here in the middle of nowhere, with no one to help you? Scavengers will pick the flesh off your bones until there is nothing left. Is that what you want?”
Jane sat still, her heart beating hard in her chest. Unless His Majesty’s soldiers were now mandated to add poison to their cache of weapons, she may very well be in the arms of the soldier that had almost killed Alistair. Her skin crawled, and it was made worse when the soldier said, “I will take you back to Commander Pierce. I will be hailed as a hero as opposed to being regarded as the fool that let that bastard Scot get away. So you see, madam, you must stay very, very still, and be very, very cooperative.”
So, she was right! This was the soldier that had almost killed Alistair! Jane straightened her back, the only move of defiance she could afford in this position, trying to keep her hatred from boiling over. The horse began to move again, and Jane began to think of all the options of escape that were open to her.
Again, her initial plan came to mind. Could she throw herself off the horse and begin to run, like she had done with Alistair’s company? No. That would not work. They were now on even terrain, so the horse would have the ability to stop in the fraction of a second, and he would slit her throat like he had threatened to. Could she find a way to get the knife from him and brandish it while she ran? Could she, if she managed to get hold of the knife, use it on him?”
The horse stopped, putting an end to her thoughts. “I have had a thought,” the soldier said against her ear. Jane’s skin crawled.
Th hairs on Jane’s body stood on end. “You wouldn’t dare!”
The man chuckled. “Wouldn’t I? We would just have to blame it on the Scots, wouldn’t we? Savage barbarians, they’ll take anything in a skirt. And you… you’re better than ‘anything’.” She did not see it coming. He threw her against the grass and followed swiftly with his own body. He covered her, and the smell of unwashed clothes assaulted her nostrils. She strained against him, but he weighed far more than she did. Roughly, he drew her skirts up. With all the strength that she could muster, Jane gave him a kick in the testicles. He wailed and rolled off her, clutching his wounded parts. Jane rushed to her feet and began to run as though her life depended on it, for it did. She knew that, even with his incapacitation, he was following her, for she heard his stream of vituperative curses getting closer and closer.
Suddenly, it stopped, but Jane did not dare look back.
She tripped on something and fell. She swiftly scrambled to her feet and began to run again. But curiosity got the best of her, so she looked back, still running.
She ran into a man’s solid form.
A UNIQUE INVITATION AWAITS
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CHAPTERFIFTEEN
For the second time that week, Tasgall burst into the war room.
“Oh, we have seen this afore,” Keith chuckled.
Douglas was less amused. “Ye cannae dae this again, child!” he admonished.
“I am sorry, Faither, but Jane Marsh has been taken by an English soldier!”
Alistair, who had been sitting at the head of table, stood up. “What did ye say, Tasgall?”
