“I know what you mean,” he whispered. “Most confusing.” He looked again to the small rear window. “I was thinking our captor and I have a personal connection. Seems more possible now that we know my father’s second wife and MacAlasdair were involved.”
“You and Lord Duncan saw through it.” She, too, looked to the rear of the coach. “Could His Lordship now still be in the lodge? They set it on fire.”
“My brothers were to follow my trail,” he confided. “Duncan and I set plans in motion, but I pray they were not too late. The fault for all that has happened this past year lies at my feet,” he said sadly.
“You are not the cause,” she insisted. “You are a victim, the same as all your family.”
Silence held between them for several minutes as they bounced along the winter-rutted road. He presented her the only comfort he could give her. “My brothers will come for you.” Aaran had expected to be taken prisoner. He and Duncan had predicted what would likely occur. Naturally, they both had hoped their attackers would have left Lady Freya behind and taken only them as hostages. They had erred in that manner. “You will be safe.”
“I am witness to it all,” she said in a whisper. “I shall not be set free any more than will you.” She sagged in defeat, though the ropes kept her arms above her head.
Looking upon her misery, Aaran was sorry to have been correct about what would happen today. He should have insisted upon her remaining at Thom Manor, but Duncan had persisted that their tormentors would have known of their plans and waited for another day to attack. Lady Freya’s presence presented them the look of ignorance to what was happening all around them. His experience in government investigations had predicted just about every detail except how much Aaran loved the woman with whom he shared his carriage. Unfortunately, viewing Freya tied up and barely hanging in place, and exhausted, kept him from knowing satisfaction at being proven correct.
He continued to study her sweet countenance and reality arrived. He told himself, “Be the government agent you have been trained to be. Protect the woman you love. Do what is necessary for Freya to know a future, even if it is without you. Protect her at all costs.”
“We must discover a means to free ourselves,” he whispered. He looked up to the knotted rope holding him in place. “We must make some noise. Eventually, we will pass through a toll. Even the country roads must be maintained by a village or a landowner. People will be out, despite the cold. Fields must be tilled. Villages will have shops and people in them. When we pass them, we must make this coach rock and shake until someone notices.”
She stood straighter then, as hope appeared to lift both her spirits and her awareness.
As if he could predict the future, in a little over what could be ten minutes, the coach slowed to take a connecting road. “People in the field!” Lady Freya squealed.
Aaran rattled the chains holding the ropes in place as both he and Freya whooped and hollered for help. Freya kicked the side of the coach, causing a small tear in the leather. “Stop the coach!” she demanded again and again.
“Be quiet!” the driver ordered in what could only be a feminine voice, but Aaran had no time to consider the revelation.
Instead of quieting down, they yelled louder and kicked with all their might. The driver jerked on the reins and the horse veered onto a rough country road. The coach bounced so hard they were thrown both left and right. He wondered if one of them would break an arm or pull a joint out of its socket. Before he could tell Freya to brace herself differently, the coach turned onto yet another road, one even more narrow than the last, and it was slowing down. Finally, it came to a full stop.
They were in for it now. They had poked the lion one too many times, and now they would pay the piper. Within seconds, the door was jerked open. Their captor must have jumped down from his perch, for the coach did not move beyond the horses pawing the earth in agitation. The movement had been so swift, Aaran could not but be impressed. Unfortunately, he had not predicted what would happen next. The steps were abruptly dropped, and their captor climbed inside.
Aaran had come face-to-face with a variety of deranged individuals during his various assignments in London’s jails and prisons, but their captor’s eyes spoke a language of evil he had never encountered previously. Reasoning with the man would not know success.
“Shut up, both of you! I will cut you up and leave you for the animals to have their fill!” their captor threatened.
Aaran chanced a dare. “We are in England, not on the American wilderness. The only predators here are men,” he declared with as much confidence as he could muster.
“I am in charge!” the man’s voice screeched. He took out a long knife to cut Freya’s ropes free of the coach’s joints. “One squeak from you, and you are dead, and Lord Graham will stand witness to your death.” Freya’s eyes had grown so large that Aaran knew her fear was quite real. Could she keep her wits about her? If not, she would die while he looked on.
Freya swayed in place as her feet once again dropped so she might stand fully on both. The movement, though natural, was enough to knock their attacker into Aaran’s side of the coach.
A hateful epithet escaped the man’s lips, bringing on Aaran’s quick reaction. He caught the ropes above his head and lifted his legs; though tied at the ankles, they were still a weapon he could use. A jolt of pain skittered along his lower leg, but it was now or never. When their attacker hit the side of the coach, Aaran liftedhimself a second time so he might kick his nemesis on the side of the head. “Claim the knife!” he ordered Freya.
However, before Freya could reach the weapon, their captor lunged for it. The man knocked Freya back against the wooden bench seat, making it easier for their opponent to grab the knife. Aaran frantically lifted himself upward once more, thinking all the time that the frame of the coach would surely collapse on them all. This time, he managed to lift himself high enough to kick the man in the face a second time, bringing blood from both the fellow’s nose and his mouth.
Their attacker instantly turned his rage on Aaran and away from Lady Freya, which was all that Aaran had hoped to achieve. The man punched Aaran in the area of his kidneys and then in his mouth. Aaran could taste the coppery slime of blood upon his lips. That was followed by another blow to the lower part of his back. One to his chin, snapping his head backwards. Another to his midsection. The man continued to rain down blows on and about Aaran’s head and side, but he could not kick the man from the way, for he was too close.
Then it happened. How Freya managed to pull the steps free from where they were attached to the coach, Aaran would never know, but there was Freya in all her glory, using the chains of the stairs to pound their captor to the floor of the coach. It was as if the Egyptian overseers were beating the children of Israel in the mud pits. Aaran would remember this day forever. His beautiful Amazon fought to save him, and Aaran was to be a blessed man, at last.
“Freya!” he called. “Freya!”
At length, her arms dropped in apparent exhaustion, but she held the chains close to her chest, prepared to take up where she left off.
“You are magnificent, my girl,” he said as her chest rose and fell while the fear drained from her body. At length, reason returned to her countenance. “The knife, my lady,” he prompted.
She dropped the chained plates and caught up the knife. Stepping around and over their captor, who had not yet moved, Freya sawed at the ropes until his hands were free, and then he took the knife and did the same for her, cutting away the rope that held her hands and her feet. Once his ankles were also free, Aaran handed her back the knife so she might stand guard while he claimed enough of the rope to bind their attacker.
Freya pulled a dainty handkerchief from the pocket in her coat and began to dab at the blood on his lip.
“You may attend to all my wounds once we are back at Thom Manor,” he told her. “We have a life to plan, thanks to your bravery. I will be blessed among men.”
