Grif wound the neckcloth partially around one hand.
Anna glanced at the neckcloth, then at Hugh, who stood casually before the open door. “You can’t carry me off like a bit of chattel!” she cried, backing up. “My father is a very powerful man, I’ll have you know, and he will look for you everywhere, and he will find you, and then, you bloody fool, you’ll be hanging by your neck!”
Grif walked toward her; Anna instantly backed up. “What are you doing?” she cried.
“I must do it, leannan, and pray that one day ye might see yer way to forgive me.”
Anna opened her mouth to shriek, but Grif had been trained by the best—his brother, Captain Liam Lockhart. He managed to get the neckcloth into her mouth and twirl her about while Hugh grabbed her arms.
And the fight was begun.
Twenty-eight
A nna had no idea where they were, or how long she’d been on the floor of the coach wrapped in some sort of carpet, which, incidentally, smelled as if a dog had once called it home. The least he might have done was to find a clean carpet.
Her hands, tied behind her back, hurt awfully, and her shoulders ached. She desperately wanted to sleep, but she was terribly uncomfortable. They’d been traveling a while; she had bumps and bruises from every rut to prove it.
She hoped that he had at least remembered her pelisse and gloves in this ridiculous abduction.
Anna was angrier than she’d ever been in her life. She was mortified, a little frightened, and desperate to escape this unconscionable attempt to kidnap the daughter of an important lord!
But there was no possibility of escape—not like this, not wrapped in a carpet with her hands bound behind her back. Images of her parents kept flashing in her mind, horrified at the news she’d been abducted, or worse, horrified, if anyone suggested it, that she’d gone off willingly. When she got out of this bloody carpet, she’d tear Griffin Finnius Lockhart limb from limb and feed him to her dogs.
And really, what in God’s name did he intend to do with her? If only he’d stop and let her out of this horrid carpet, she would ask him what he intended and, furthermore, suggest a few things.
Until that happy moment, apparently, she’d be forced to endure the agony of bumping about the interior of an old coach that had not even a single spring as far as she could tell, and feeling absolutely faint with hunger.
She must have fallen asleep; the next thing she knew, she was being abruptly tossed back and forth between the two benches, rolling like a log as the coach made a series of sharp turns. But then the coach came to a complete halt. At last! She hoped it was an inn of quality, where they might have a hearty dinner. And a bath! Oh yeesss, a hot, steaming, scented bath.
The coach bounced a little with the weight of someone climbing down from the driver’s bench. Anna tried to move herself around so that she could see out the top of the carpet tube she was in. But she couldn’t budge—it seemed as if part of the carpet was stuck somehow. There was more jostling about, and she could hear one of the horses neighing. At last, the door opened after what seemed another eternity. She couldn’t see him, but she could hear and smell the rain.
“Quite awful out,” Grif said, climbing into the coach and, apparently, stepping over her as he took a seat on one of the benches.
And then she felt the weight of something on her hip. What was that, his bloody boot? Anna wriggled furiously, trying to knock his boot off her hip, but he pressed down.
“Stop that, Anna.”
And what in heaven’s name did he expect? She was trussed up like a Christmas pig! “Uuuh,” she shouted against his neckcloth that was bound around her mouth.
He nudged her, annoying her to no end. “Aye, I know ye are quite alive and quite vexed, and Diah, I can hardly blame ye, can I? ’Tis no’ every day that a lass is taken from the bosom of her family.”
Certainly not, and if he’d just let her out of this carpet—she jerked hard again to indicate that he should free her, and he instantly put a foot on her hip again, stilling her. “Calm yerself, Anna,” he said sternly.
She would strangle him. Squeeze his neck until his head popped off—
“Now, then. As to where we are…” He paused then, and Anna shrieked against the neckcloth for him to let her up, but he only increased the pressure. “We have passed through St. Albans, which means, of course, that it would be near to impossible for ye to find yer way home were ye of a mind to escape.”