“Get her out of there,” she heard her father say to someone just out of her vision.
The mountebank appeared. She scooted, desperate to be free of the tomblike enclosure. He pulled until she could sit on the tailgate. A chill wind hit her. As the rough hemp on her ankles was hastily removed, she glanced briefly at the mottled magenta and amber-stained sky before focusingon the hand that helped her stand. The mountebank wore the same tatty loose-fitting frock, waistcoat, and greasy leggings she’d seen him wearing in Castleton.
As she struggled for balance, she faced her father. He captured her chin between his thumb and his forefinger and tilted her face. “Who struck her?”
When no one answered, he dropped his hand and turned to face Geddes. Without warning, her father’s arm swung in an arc and backhanded Geddes across the mouth. “I don’t care what you bloody do to the other women in your life, but this one is my daughter, and you will not lay a fucking hand on her again.”
Geddes’s lank brown hair hung in his eyes as he pressed the back of his hand to his bloody mouth. “She ain’t te be trusted,” he said.
“Of course, she isn’t to be trusted! But I want Roxburghe cooperative. See that she is fed and cleaned up.”
Geddes grabbed her arm. “Why are you doing this?” she demanded of her father. “Why did you go to all the trouble to send me my mother’s things and ask to visit Stonehaven ...” His actions were so cold. So utterly ... cold.
Hereford’s gaze swung back around to her, his smile unpleasant. “Roxburghe reneged on every agreement we made. A week ago, I received notice from his solicitor that he has made a legal claim upon Kirkland Park on your behalf. No one. I meanno onebetrays me.”
“Can he do that?” she whispered.
“Oh, aye. ’Tis called blackmail. He can tell the world I am a pirate, I can tell the world he is a pirate. We can both produce proof against the other and most probably be hanged for it all. And he can face a tribunal for kidnapping and raping you.”
“But youforcedour marriage.”
“No jury will deny a father’s need to protect his daughter any way he can. And I will see it annulled.”
More powerful at that moment even than despair was fury at her father as he turned on his booted heel and strode across the camp, where he conversed with two red-coated dragoons setting up a tent.
She shouted after him. “It cannotbeannulled!”
Geddes tossed a blanket on the ground at her feet. His contemptuous gaze swept her tangled hair and crumpled clothing. “Many pardons, m’lady, that we cannot offer ye a more accommodating bedchamber. One I’m sure you’ve grown accustomed to these past months.”
“My husband will come for me,” she said casually, as one might announce a change of weather. “He will hunt the lot of you down. But you, Geddes Graham ... he will take special pleasure in killing. And if he does not, I will!”
She derived enormous satisfaction as she watched a momentary flash of doubt in his eyes. “My father will not protect you. Let me go now and I will see that at least your life is spared.”
Geddes sneered. “If only I could, me thorny Rose. Lord Hereford and me ...? Let me just say we got us a special understanding.”
Her eyes swept his swollen mouth. “I can see how much thatspecialunderstanding means to him.”
Geddes walked away, leaving her to sit on a rock and absently rub her ankles where the ropes had burned into her skin.
The mountebank presented her with a bloated skin that looked as if it had been recently filled in the stream. “We’ve stopped fer the night, Miss Rose,” he said. “So ye can rest now.”
Rose numbly accepted the skin. Her hands remainedbound and they trembled despite her best effort. As she drank, she looked over the rim at the mountebank. He had a face like a shaggy brown cow with large sad eyes and an underbite that made his lower jaw protrude. More so now with his emotions in his eyes. Wiping his greasy hands on his frock, he shifted from foot to foot. “I’ll bring a bowl and a rag fer ye to clean up.”
She watched him rummage through the back of his precious wagon filled with nostrums, throwing items this way and that. The sun was almost gone for the day. Rose looked up at the indigo sky and could not help the path of her thoughts as she thought desperately of Ruark.
He was trying to get back Kirkland Park for her. He must know the effort would fail.
Her father stood across the camp outside a tent, directing men to the watch detail. She studied his harsh profile. She glanced briefly at Geddes’s men as they unsaddled horses and prepared a small cooking fire.
She could see about three dozen men sprawled out over forty yards. A wood of trees sat to her right and at her back. In front of her, mist rose from a field stretching into the darkness that ended on a high ridge a half mile away.
Rolf returned with a ceramic bowl the size of a cocked hat. “Why are you involved with Geddes and my father, Rolf?”
“I travel. Know things, Miss Rose.” He looked away. “I’ve seen things, too. Things a man oughtn’t see.”
After he left her, Rose dipped the cloth in the water. The rag was fraught with some questionable sticky substance and she dropped it in the bowl without using it. Pulling experimentally at the bonds on her wrists, she looked toward the woods. Men walked the perimeter of the camp. Would she get far if she ran? Maybe. Dark was upon them. She threw one last glance at the clearing.
Standing and making a pretense of cleaning a spot on her ankle, she let the blood circulate in her feet. Then, with skirts lifted, she ran twenty yards and she was in the trees. Shouts followed her escape.
