Page 63 of Rogue’s Holiday

Chapter 13

Exhaustion overcame her but Chastity refused to give in to it. Instead, she concentrated on the jarring she endured as the carriage bumped over the rutted road and surreptitiously watched her captor, willing him to sleep so she could work at the bindings around her wrists.

The Russian serf stared at her from the shadows across the conveyance. She felt his hatred and the cold determination he wore like a mantle. His dark eyes were hard as if steeled to some distasteful task. The man scared her to death but she would not let him see her fear.

Finally, he drifted into a fitful sleep and she went to work on the bindings in earnest. She could feel the knot beginning to give way when her captor roused, looked at her, and then returned to sleep. She breathed out a sigh and returned to the bindings. This time, they loosened.

With her hands free, she removed the gag around her mouth and, with a last look at her sleeping captor, opened the carriage door and leapt out. She hit the ground hard with a grunt but the vegetation along the side of the road softened the blow. She picked herself up and turned back toward Brighton. At first, her steps were slow but then she picked up speed and ran, her one slipper the only protection against the stones of the road.

The carriage slowed and she heard a shout behind her. The sounds of running feet followed. She ducked behind a bush, her heart racing in her chest. Forcing her breathing to slow, she prayed they would not find her.

They passed the spot where she was hidden. She thought they had missed her, but one man carried a lantern and he turned and came back, slowing as he neared her. “The footprints stop here,” he said, lifting the lantern. It was the voice of the leader. “There she is. Grab her!”

“Thought ye’d get away, did ye?” asked the one who had been driving. “Old Augie weren’t gonna let that happen. He bound her hands again, this time much tighter. When that was done, he began to paw her, his rough hands moving over her body.

“You disgust me,” she spit out. “Take your hands off me!”

Gripped in his one hand, he slapped her hard across the face with the other, leaving her skin stinging. “Where ye’re goin’, ye’ll learn to like a man’s touch, Sweetin’.” Then he hit her in the mouth, splitting her lip.

“Enough!” said the leader. “I want her undamaged. Retie the gag and return her to the carriage.”

By the time the man Augie had dragged her to the carriage, she was aching all over, bruised from her fall to the ground and her face swelling and sore from the impact of his fist. She held on to the hope that whatever had led to her kidnapping would soon be discovered. Her father was a landed squire who could well afford to pay a ransom. But what she heard in Augie’s words and saw in the leader’s cold pitiless eyes in the lantern’s light as he took the seat opposite her told her she was not to be ransomed.

Despairing, she sank against the side of the carriage, tears running down her battered face.

When dawn began to creep into the sky, the carriage jarred to a stop in a part of London she had never been in. It had to be the East End of London from the descriptions she’d heard. A place of dilapidated tenement houses in which poverty and disease flourished and the stench of open sewers hung in the air and rats scurried from the shadows.

The carriage door opened. Her captor stepped down and, grabbing her by the shoulders, wrenched her out. “How unfortunate you have muddied your costume and lost your shoe.” He reached down and pulled off her one remaining slipper, muddied from her attempted escape, and stuffed it into his pocket. “Barefoot might suit you better where you’re going, but we’ll have to clean you up a bit.”

He left her to Augie and turned toward the building. The growing light reflected in the polish of his boots, a design she recognized as her father’s. At the base of the outside shaft tooled in the leather was a small stylized “R”, a symbol of his fine workmanship. This man was certainly a villain of the worst sort but he had means to buy expensive boots and hire brigands to do his dirty work.

He yanked her toward the door. She glared at him, grunting her disapproval. She was terrified to enter such a place and could only hope wherever he meant to take her was not so bleak. Her hands were cramped and her arms ached from being tied behind her. Her mouth was tight from the cut lip and her throat so dry she could barely swallow.

She stumbled up the stairs they ordered her to ascend, nearly falling more than once as she tripped on her gown and the cloak. She wasn’t freed of her bindings until they shoved her through the door to a bedchamber at the top of the three-story house.

“Guvnor, what say ye to lettin’ me test the goods before we deliver her to the madam?” said Augie. “One tumble for good luck?”

She could see the leader was tempted. What better way to sully a virgin than to compromise her?

“No,” he said to Augie. “It would not serve my purpose. She’s worth more as a maid.”

Cold fear crept up her spine as Chastity listened to them talk. She had been right to think it was not ransom they sought. She was merely a piece of goods to be traded, perhaps to the highest bidder, or handed off to some place of ill repute. The thought caused her to shudder.

Once the scarf around her mouth was removed, she turned on her captors, anger welling within her, vowing they would not see her quaking before them. “Are you such worms that a woman must be bound, trussed up and forcibly taken?”

“Shut up!” spit the Russian serf.

“Why should I? What cowards you are! For shame, beating a mere woman.”

The one called Augie raised a hand to strike her but the leader grabbed his arm. “No more bruises.”

“Why have you kidnapped me? Why am I here?”

“’Tis the company you keep,” was the gruff answer the leader gave her. His speech was more refined than the man he called “Augie”, who had driven the carriage, but instead of Augie’s lust, the Russian serf gave her a look of utter disgust.

“I keep no bad company,” she said, drawing Sir Robert’s cloak tightly around her.

“Oh, but you keep the very worst of company, and he is a wretched traitor to all good Englishmen.”