She quickly recounted the facts that she’d recalled. “I must have been followed, Phillip. I’m sorry.”
“No, it’s my fault. Bell warned me not to go out. I knew I was in danger. Luckily, the Home Office has been following me. It’s a good bet they’re on our trail.”
Sophie breathed a sigh of relief. “Oh, thank heavens.”
“Did you see either man? Recognize them?” Phillip asked.
“No. I’ve never seen either of them before. One was huge, tall and wide. The other was much smaller, but both looked unkempt, like they hadn’t washed in several days, and their clothing was cheap and torn.”
“Damn it. Hired lackeys, no doubt.”
“Have you heard anything? Any indication of where they’re taking us?”
“Nothing,” Sophie replied, still trying to pull at her wrist ties, even though her skin was raw and bleeding. “I just woke up a few moments ago.”
“If they hurt you, I will kill them,” Phillip said evenly, but with a determination in his voice that frightened Sophie.
“My wrists are sore, that’s all.” She took a deep breath. “What should we do?”
“There’s nothing much to do until we see where they’re taking us. Try to get some sleep, Sophie.”
Sophie nodded and closed her eyes. But sleep would never come.
Chapter Twenty
Phillip stayed silent for the remainder of their journey. He was listening for any sound that might give him a clue where they were going. He was specifically hoping their two captors would speak.
He would never forgive himself if Sophie was hurt because of any of this. Whoever the men were, they were clearly after him. She shouldn’t even be here. And he would be the one to blame. He’d told Sophie earlier that Bell’s cohorts from the Home Office might be following them, but the truth was he knew they were not. And he knew it because he’d purposely eluded them last night.
He hadn’t wanted to spend another day answering Bell’s pestering questions, so he’d evaded the men in a coach that looked like an innocuous hackney soon after he’d left Clayton’s house to meet Sophie last night. No one was coming to help them. But he hadn’t wanted to frighten Sophie any more than she clearly already was.
He fought against his ropes for the hundredth time. No use. Someone who knew what they were about had bound him. At least another half hour passed, as dawn broke, before they stopped among some trees along the roadside. A big, beefy man—who was missing an alarming number of teeth—opened the door and blindfolded them.
Phillip tried to remember every detail about him. Beefy blindfolded Sophie first while Phillip watched. “If you harm so much as a hair on her head, you will live to regret it,” Phillip calmly informed the man.
“Settle down, guv’na,” Beefy replied. “Ain’t nobody ‘urtin’ nobody…yet.” He guffawed after delivering his speech, revealing more of his poor dental habits.
Sophie kicked and cursed Beefy and even managed to land a decent blow to his shin as he applied her blindfold.
Phillip spent the time while his blindfold was being applied asking a multitude of questions, none of which Mr. Beef answered.
Once the blindfolds were in place, Beefy slammed the coach door shut and they were off again within a matter of minutes. The blindfolds told Phillip they must be close to their destination. Because the sun had barely risen, Phillip estimated that they’d probably been traveling for somewhere between four or six hours, but because he’d been unconscious for part of the journey, he had no way of knowing how often or how long they’d stopped, if at all.
When the horses finally pulled to a stop not a quarter hour later, Phillip heard the coach door being wrenched open. A breeze blew in across his face.
“Come on, ye blighter,” said the man he guessed was Beefy as he grabbed Phillip and pulled him bodily from the coach. The man was truly a giant.
“Ye, too, Missy,” the giant said.
“Where are we?” Sophie asked in a high-pitched voice that sounded so frightened it made Phillip’s heart wrench.
“Keep yer trap shut,” Beefy demanded. “Or I’ll stuff me old stockin’ in it.”
Beefy and the other man laughed at that pronouncement.
The threat was enough to keep both Phillip and Sophie quiet as the two men pushed them along in front of them, still blindfolded. The occasional grunt or squeak from Sophie told Phillip she was directly beside him.
There was no use asking more questions, even if they hadn’t been threatened with Beefy’s stocking. The man clearly had been given orders not to say a word.
