She stepped forward into the prickly flowers and smiled. Like the thistle, she would survive just to see him again.
“A good eve to ye, young lord!”
Ismay whirled around and saw a man stand to his feet among the thistles. His face was dirty and his hair stood up in various directions as spindly as the plants around him.
He grinned, revealing several blackened or missing teeth.
“Where are ye headin?” he asked.
Ismay looked around. There was nothing but purple flowers. It didn’t matter. She had no choice but to take off running. She ran until she had no air left in her lungs. Finally, she cleared the thistles and reached a dirt path.
Bending to grip her knees, she let her breathing slow a bit. She turned around to see if he was still chasing her. She was thankful that it seemed she had outrun him. She decided she was going to need a weapon of some sort. For now, she reached down and picked up a stick.
She didn’t see anyone again until she came to the second inn, the Trapped Deer.
She paid for a meal of bread and porridge and a small room behind the tavern with silk petticoats and matching stays.
She barred herself in but barely had closed her eyes when someone broke through the barricaded door to her room and came at her in the bed. She screamed and reached for her stick but he reached her first. He didn’t rape her but covered her face in a cloth soaked with something wet but odorless. Her struggle was brief, for with each breath she took she sank deeper into an endless black pit.
She woke up a few hours later feeling as if herhead had been smashed in with an anvil. Her body shook and rolled a little. She thought she was dying. A moment later she realized she was in the back of a moving covered carriage. Every time the wheels rolled over a stone or a dip in the road, she wanted to cry out at the pain. Others were crying or moaning around her. Women. When she tested opening her eyes she saw a dozen other women around her.
Someone had kidnapped them! Where were they taking her and the others?
Instead of being afraid, she felt angry. Enraged. How dare any man kidnap women and enslave them? Even animals deserved better.
But there were other kinds of men.
The thought of Constantine filled her thoughts just long enough to help her think clearly. He was fond of her. She knew it by the way he kissed her, the way his gaze spread over her, as if he were burning her into his memory. If she died, like his first wife, it would break his heart. She was determined not to let that happen.
Wherever they were headed, she had other plans that didn’t include being a servant to anyone ever again. Whether it was MacRae or some other kidnapper, they were the same. Her promise to herself still stood. She would escape or die trying.
Looking up and around at the heavy covering, she could see that it was tied to strips of wood, and in one corner, the laces that tied the covering to the wood had come undone. Her hands were tied behind her back, but she scrambled her way to the corner and tried to fit herself out of the hole. It was too small.
Using nothing but her teeth, she pulled the next knot loose and looked out of the carriage. The land moving by her didn’t look familiar. She didn’t know where they were. But that wouldn’t stop her.
Looking back at the other women, she whispered for them to follow her. They all shook their heads. They were too afraid and refused to follow her.
Without another word, Ismay crouched and tossed herself out of the carriage.
She hit the ground hard and rolled before she smashed her head against a rock. Then the world, wherever she was, grew black.
“Lady! Lady, wake up!”
Someone shook her and shouted at her until she opened her eyes. Och, her head. She reached for it.
“Hugh?”
“Lady, och thank the good Lord. Come now, let us get ye out of the middle of the road.”
“Hugh,” she managed while he lifted her in his arms. “How did ye find me?”
“I followed ye when ye slipped out of the castle. I’m ashamed to admit that I lost ye twice.”
He was still speaking when she closed her eyes again.
It was Hugh. She was safe now.
Wasn’t she?
