No matter how she tried, she couldn’t reach it. Her arms were too short. She couldn’t climb up onto the bucket to get closer to the rope because of the binding around her ankles.
Someone else was going to have to retrieve her knife.
“If you were to stand, Dair, do you think your arms would be long enough that your elbow could bend over that rope?”
“Aye. If I could but get to my feet. Why do you ask?”
That was it, then, her only choice.
Shuffling bit by bit, using the limited slack available in the rope that bound her ankles, she slowly worked her way across the ground between her and Dair. Never had twelve inches felt like such a vast distance to travel.
“Balance against me and work your way up to your feet.”
“I’ll brace you on this side,” Simeon offered.
“Get to yer feet, the woman says, like it’s nothing at all to accomplish.” The last of his complaint was lost in a grunted whoosh of air as he made it to his feet. “What now, my lady? What is it you need of me?”
“There’s a knife hidden in my bodice. I can’t reach it. You’re going to have to do it for me.”
“In . . . yer . . . bodice . . .” He repeated the words slowly, as if he didn’t really believe her.
“Just do it.”
She turned her head and lifted her chin trying to clear a path. His hand was cold, eliciting an involuntary shiver the instant his fingers dipped below her neckline.
“Sorry, my lady.”
He apologized but pressed on. His hand was large, too. Large enough it required him to work his fingers back and forth between her skin and the tightly laced bodice in his attempt to reach lower.
“I’m no finding any—” His words bit off suddenly as his fingers brushed across her nipple. “Apologies, my lady.”
“Under the boob.” God, could this get any more embarrassing?
“What?”
She’d never heard a whisper sound strangled before. “My breast. It’s underneath my breast.”
Was that stifled laughter she heard coming from Simeon?
“One thing I must ask of you, my lady. When we find Colin, you must never speak of this moment. Agreed?”
“Or if you do, make sure to give Dair a day’s head start.” Simeon was definitely laughing.
“I never thought to see the day I’d find myself wishing for a woman with smaller breasts.”
“Just get the damned thing.” Someday perhaps she’d be able to see the humor in this moment, too. But today was not that day.
She lifted onto her tiptoes, offering as much access as possible, and Dair dipped lower, his fingertips at last grazing the little knife. Cautiously he worked it across her skin until he could grasp it fully.
“Got it.”
Once his hand was out of her dress, she dropped back onto the balls of her feet. Just in time, too. Her calf muscles were already cramping from the time spent up on her toes.
It seemed forever before she felt the pressure of the ropes at her feet relieved. Dair shoved the little blade into the knot binding her hands and began a sawing motion, stopping when, in the dark beyond them, a stumbling, scraping noise captured their attention.
“We canna afford to bring down the whole camp. We canna fight them all unarmed, aye?”
With the whispered warning in her ear, Dair left the knife tangled in the rope while he and Simeon scrambled back to their spots, dropping to their knees and lifting their hands to the bindings as if they were still securely bound.
