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“What do you mean, insist?”
“I mean you’re coming with me. Willingly, or….” He let the sentence trail off.
She took a step backward. “I cannot.”
“You have no choice.”
Her jaw fell. The color drained from her face and she looked at him with wide, wounded eyes. She’d not believed him capable of this.
For some reason, this angered him wildly. It moved through him like a fist, smashing and shattering, blasting holes through his façade of calm. Why should she believe him incapable of such things, after all he’d shown her so far?
“You would not,” she whispered, her eyes searching his.
He pulled her close, captured her wrists into a bundle of clenching fingertips and pressed them tight against the V of her collarbone. “Whatever you doubt me capable of, Magdalena, now is the time to believe in the very worst of them. There is nothing I will not do to complete my mission.”
“But what matter I to your mission?” she cried.
“I will never get out of your town, not now, not alone. Nor will I make it through the gates of any other town along the French coast; Sherwood has them all watched. They are seeking a man on the run, alone. They care nothing for a man and a woman together. You shall get me through gates I could ne’er pass through alone.”
Her eyes searched his, shifting from amazement to fury. “Then you are no different,” she spat.
“From who?”
“From them all,” she said, almost a hiss, tugging on her wrists. He released her. “From the man I helped protect you from. From the man who raised me and the one who wed me and the ones who steal from me, every day. The men who rule the ports and castles and kingdoms. You take whatever you wish, whensoever you wish it, and care nothing for anything that stands in your way. You use us all.”
“We none of us are different, lass.” His voice was hollow. “We are all the same man, over and over again.”
She thrust up her chin, as she had with Sherwood. “And if I say no?”
His hand closed around her spine and yanked her to him, her breasts flattened against his chest. “I recommend against it, Maggie,” he murmured, his tone low, that of a lover, but his words were fierce, those of a warrior. “Heed me well: I will do anything necessary to get back to England. You do not want to stand in my way.”
She stared up at him in horror. “England? You are taking me to England?”
“You need go only as far as St. Malo, where I can get a ship.”
“But that leads through the heart of war,” she said in a low tone.
“I know.” He released her hands. “Pack light.”
He stood watch as he gave her time to dress warmly, trap her hair in a long silken case, and throw a few items in satchels—blankets, a few toiletries, food and clothes—then he wrapped a cloak around her shoulders and bundled her to the door.
“Where will she look?” he asked curtly as he kicked the fire apart.
Maggie blinked in confusion. “Who?”
“Your apprentice. Where will she look, in the morning, when she comes and finds
you gone?”
Forcing her mind to the mundane, she pointed at the mantle. “We occasionally leave one another brief messages there, when business calls me away.”
He looked at her sharply. “She can cipher?”
“Not well. Numbers better than words, but a few. She is to be a merchant,” she said almost defensively. “She is mine, my responsibility. I taught her.”
He pointed at the table. “Write her, tell her business called you away.”
She gave a helpless sort of laugh and gestured at the shambles of her shop. “She is not a fool. This was no matter of business.”
