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A third man appeared from the trees, this one broad like the giant, yet not as tall. He was a rotund man in the middle. His face spoke of horrors and kindness. A stern look in his eyes, with laugh smiles around his mouth. A ruddier, rawer complexion than the beautiful youth with the two swords or the grizzled hunter towering over me.
“Yes, a coward he might be,” the man said, and there was a hint of familiarity in his tone, “but he’s left his most precious cargo behind.”
His eyes bore into my face. My cheeks went cold, blanching as he approached. Then he shook his head with a snort. “Not you, silly lad.” His hand reached out and I tensed, preparing for the worst.
His warm palm landed on my shoulder—
And he shoved me aside. I spotted a twinkle; a band of silver around his small finger.
Recognition hit me. Emma’s secret partner from the almshouse!
The large man gazed past me into the carriage, to the crates and barrels overflowing with linens. “This.”
“Always a one-track mind with you,” the tall hunter said.
“Hoy!” the dual-wielding youth growled. “I’m still stabbed, and he did it!” He pointed at me with a sword, tilting the flat of the blade under my chin. He took me in for the first time. “My, but he is a pretty one, isn’t he?”
The man’s youthful visage was blindingly attractive. Smooth, sharp jawline, chiseled chin, dreamlike blue eyes under a mop of curly dark hair.
“Alan will be happy,” he added.
I was too scared to move. If I swallowed too hard, the young man’s sword would cut into my neck. If I swallowed at all, he might’ve noticed I didn’t have the same bob of my throat that a boy did.
In the dark, my disguise was working. For at least a while, they thought I was a man. I prayed to God my disguise would see me through this. That my beliefs about the easiness of being a man over a woman would prove true.
I glanced to the deep track marks of my father’s carriage. He was long gone. Gregory was possibly dead. Other men were starting to arrive in the clearing. None of them were the soldiers we had come here with.
I suspected our guards were all dead. Which meant I was alone. Well and truly alone, at last . . . except I had never wanted it like this.
I suppressed a shudder.
Why is there excitement in that shudder? I was disturbed, again, at the direction of my thoughts.
The hunter slapped the younger one’s sword down from my neck. He scowled, flaring his nostrils. “You were right the first time, Tuck,” he said to the big man in the carriage. “This one is precious cargo. He comes with us.”
“W-With you?” I stammered, trying to keep my voice from squeaking and cracking.
“Yes. We know who you are, Prince of Wilford.”
Prince of Wilford? Someone is leading you astray, then. Or their intelligence is faulty. I knew to play the part, because I knew what happened to women in the wilderness when they were surrounded by savage men.
Hell, it happened in civilized places, too, if Peter Fisher was anything to go by.
“Don’t be scared, lad,” the bearded giant said. “We aren’t so bad. We can actually be quite . . . merry.”
Chapter 15
Will Scarlet
“Oh, I think he should be very scared,” I said, giving the young man a sadistic smile. He looked so young, with nary a whisker on his face. Thin as a skeleton, yet undeniably pretty in a way I couldn’t put my finger on.
Little John frowned down his nose at me. “Don’t be a cock, Will. Can’t you see he’s shaking like a leaf?”
“Good.”
It wasn’t my problem to care for pompous lordlings in their time of need. What had the nobility ever done for me, Ma, or Pa? Even if this boy wasn’t a Plantagenet, he deserved no mercy or quarter. They were snakes, and deserved all the grief and pain they received.
“Don’t terrorize our captives,” John said.
