Run Wild (Escape with a Scoundrel)

chapter 2




The unsteady flame of a single torch glowed red on the black iron bars of his cell. Nicholas closed his eyes with a groan and allowed himself to just lie there for a moment, on his side, letting the cool stone of the floor soothe his stinging cheek. He wanted to sink back down into unconsciousness, but the pain kept him awake—pain throbbing in his temples, in his jaw, in his stomach, everywhere. He recognized the sharp, metallic taste on his tongue as blood. His own.

Sounds of human misery assaulted him from all sides, the wretched sobs and moans leaving no doubt about where he was. He coughed, wincing.

First-rate job of it, Brogan. Back in England less than a day, and already you land yourself in gaol.

For something you didn’t even do.

He might have laughed at the irony of it, but his bruised ribs brought a stab of pain that choked off his breath in the back of his throat.

Gritting his teeth, he lifted one hand to inspect the damage. His ribs didn’t seem to be broken. His left eye had swollen almost shut. His lip felt about twice its normal size. And beneath the thick bristle of his beard, a deep cut along his right cheekbone still bled. He moved his jaw cautiously and discovered to his surprise that it wasn’t broken. There was no permanent damage. He would heal.

If he lived that long.

Letting his hand fall back to the stone, he lay there with his eyes closed and muttered curses under his breath, each one hurting his battered lips. He cursed himself. Cursed the local marshalmen who’d jumped him in the darkness, mistaking him for some footpad they’d been hunting for weeks.

Most of all he cursed God for deserting him. Again.

Rolling slowly onto his back, he opened his eyes—or at least his right eye—and glared up at the iron bars overhead. His vision, such as it was, slowly adjusted to the meager, flickering light. He could see that his cell was in the middle of a row of cells, each made entirely of iron bars. Including the ceiling, which was less than six feet overhead. He wouldn’t even be able to stand up straight.

It was like a stall. A kennel.

A sudden knot clenched his stomach. The local lawmen might be bumblers when it came to identifying a suspect on a moonless night... but their gaol appeared secure. Alarmingly secure.

He fought the unease rising within him. He’d survived worse situations than this. Much worse.

At present, however, he couldn’t remember any one in particular.

He closed his eyes and exhaled a long, slow, steadying breath, telling himself he was in no immediate danger. They didn’t know his true identity. They had no reason to suspect.

But in rural areas like this, even those charged with minor crimes—even accused footpads—had to wait for the arrival of the assize judge to have their cases heard. And the assize judge only visited from London twice a year: summer and winter.

Which meant his honorable lordship wouldn’t be arriving for several months.

Long after Michaelmas Day.

Nicholas flattened his palms against the floor and pushed himself up to a sitting position, gritting his teeth. His injured ribs ached and his swollen eye throbbed and the haze of pain made it difficult to think—but he bloody well had to find some way to escape.

Turning his head, he realized that the back wall wasn’t made of bars, but of wood. He reached out with one foot and kicked it experimentally. Solid wood. A good ten inches thick. No escape there.

Grimacing, he let himself fall back against the bars behind him, wiping blood from his face as he surveyed his surroundings more thoroughly. The gaol was half empty, his nearest neighbor two cells to the left. The man lay on the floor, sobbing drunkenly, telling the rambling tale of his sorry life to anyone who cared to listen.

Nicholas looked away. The gaol’s stale air made breathing about as pleasant as trying to inhale some reeking liquid, but beneath the sour smells of sweat and fear, he caught the lingering scent of horses. It seemed this place had once served as a barn. Or a stable. The heat only intensified the—

He stilled as a shudder rippled through him. A memory.

The stifling air. Couldn’t breathe. Darkness. Bodies crushed together in the hold. Father! Why did you kill my father? The lieutenant with a hot iron in his hand. Someone crying. An orphaned boy. Crying. Begging. “Please don’t. No! Please. Don’t—”

The scream. Agony. The smell of burning flesh...

Nicholas shook his head, blinking rapidly, caught off guard by the vivid, unwanted images. He steadied himself with a hand on the floor, sweat running down his face. The sting of it against the cut on his cheek made him reach up—and the roughness of his beard yanked him firmly back to reality.

He was thirty-eight, not ten.

He was in the custody of rural marshalmen, not the Royal Navy.

Jesus. He had thought those particular memories long ago exterminated. Wiped clean. Obliterated by blood and vengeance.

Almost without thinking, he touched his chest, finding his waistcoat, his cotton shirt buttoned to his throat. The mark concealed. As always.

Breathing hard, he forced his mind back to the problem at hand. His fingers closed around one of the iron bars that caged him, his grip tightening until the cool metal bit into his palm.

Escape.

It would be far too fitting, too ironic, for his notorious career to end this way—since this was how it had begun, twenty-eight years ago.

On the day he’d turned his back on God.

He shut his eyes. Perhaps this was the divine retribution he’d been expecting ever since. Perhaps it was fate that he should find himself here, mistaken for a common footpad, a nameless prisoner in the town of... bloody hell, he didn’t even know the name of this place.

A nameless prisoner in a nameless town, facing a noose for a crime not his own. An ignominious end to a nefarious life.

Fate.

He rejected the idea almost as quickly as it entered his head. Opening his good eye, he stared defiantly heavenward. He didn’t believe in fate.

If anyone was to blame for his current predicament, it was him. The knuckles of his right hand still throbbed and stung. He had managed to land a few solid blows and inflict a bit of damage with his blades before the four men had wrestled him to the ground.

If he hadn’t resisted, if he had answered their questions civilly, he might have talked his way out of it.

But some old habits died hard, he thought bitterly. When cornered, Nicholas Brogan fought. Instinctively. Viciously.

Had he thought he could change? It was clearly too late for that. Too many years of blood and violence had made him what he was. What he would always be.

Too late. Those two words seemed to sum up his entire life.

A metallic clatter of chains and a groan of old hinges sounded from the far end of the long, dark chamber as a door creaked open. A slash of light streaked across the stone floor. A man stepped inside, an oil lantern in one hand. A ring of keys jangled on his belt.

Ignoring the pleas, curses, and grasping hands that came at him, he moved slowly along the row of cells, heading straight for Nicholas.

Nicholas was about to get to his feet, but decided it would be better to give the impression that he was too injured to be much of a threat. He remained where he was, slouched against the bars at his back... ready to take advantage of any opportunity that might present itself.

Even before the man drew near, Nicholas could tell this wasn’t one of the marshalmen who’d ambushed him. This man waddled more than walked, puffing at the effort of moving his considerable bulk. He was either the gaoler, or the county magistrate coming to interrogate him.

He doubted the latter. County magistrates tended to be aristocratic popinjays who prized the status of their crown appointments while disdaining the actual work. Rather than sully their lily-white hands, they generally hired others to carry out their duties—a gaoler to oversee the local prison, marshalmen to gather evidence, interview witnesses, and arrest and interrogate suspects.

Some of the hirelings were honest men. Others, like the ones he’d encountered tonight, were worse brigands than the people they arrested. Brutal thugs more interested in bribes and bounties than truth and justice.

“Glad to see yer finally awake, mate,” the man wheezed as he came to a halt before Nicholas’s cell. “Brought ye yer supper.” He set down a metal pail with a clang.

This, evidently, was the gaoler. “I’m not hungry,” Nicholas said weakly, trying to sound like an outraged, innocent citizen. “I’d like to speak to the magistrate.”

“Makin’ demands, are ye?” The man glowered at him. “Yer lucky we didn’t hang ye straightaway, after the way ye near spilled Tibbs’s guts with yer knife.” He set the lantern down behind him.

Nicholas’s every muscle went taut. The pail of food was too big to pass through the bars. The gaoler would have to unlock his cell door. “How was I to know they were the law?” He pressed an arm across his midsection with an exaggerated wince, holding his bruised ribs. “I was merely passing through this pleasant hamlet of yours and when I stopped at the stables to hire a horse—”

“Steal a horse, more like.”

“Hire a horse. The next thing I knew, four hulking blokes ambushed me. It was the dead of night. I thought they were outlaws. I simply defended myself.”

“They’d been trailin’ ye fer half an hour, mate. If yer so innocent, what were ye doin’ skulkin’ around the roads so quiet-like after midnight?”

“As I told them, I was merely passing through—”

“On business. Aye, a planter from the Colonies just passin’ through on business.” The gaoler shook his head in disbelief, the rolls of fat under his chin wobbling. “Ye don’t fight like no planter, mate.”

Nicholas clamped his teeth to stop an oath, chastising himself again for fighting when he should have remained calm and reasonable.

Unfortunately it seemed that old pirates, like old dogs, couldn’t be taught new tricks.

“The magistrate don’t need to be seein’ ye,” the gaoler continued. He still didn’t reach for his keys. “Ye match the description well enough. Been in all the county broadsheets fer a month. There’s a nice fat reward out fer ye. Fifty pounds.”

“Really?” Nicholas asked, one eyebrow quirking upward, the irony in his tone completely lost on the gaoler. “Fifty whole pounds?”

“That’s right. More’n any of us makes in a year, even split four ways.” Instead of opening the cell door, he bent down and withdrew a few items from the pail. “An’ now we got a witness what swears yer the one he saw sneakin’ away from Lord Alston’s house with a sack full o’ loot a month ago.”

“Witness?” Nicholas demanded incredulously. “What witness?”

“Tibbs himself.”

Nicholas swore. The wounded marshalman was obviously so infuriated, he would say anything to see Nicholas hanged.

The gaoler passed the foodstuffs through the bars—a leg of mutton, a slab of bread, and a tall pewter mug filled with some sort of drink. Nicholas took them one by one, his frustration deepening when it became clear the door wouldn’t be opened.

This unsavory bunch wasn’t going to take any chance of their fifty-pound prize getting away.

And he couldn’t bribe his way out. They’d relieved him of his coin purse when they arrested him. Along with the few weapons he’d been carrying.

His chances of making it to York before Michaelmas were narrowing by the minute.

“You’ve arrested the wrong man,” he insisted. “The assize judge won’t give you a shilling for me. Because you won’t be able to prove a thing.”

“Oh, we’ll prove it, mate.” The man’s tone made it clear they could prove whatever they wanted, that they had done so before. “And we won’t be waitin’ fer the assizes.”

A new sense of foreboding prickled up Nicholas’s spine. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“It means this lot here”—the gaoler waved a beefy hand to indicate the half-dozen prisoners held in the other cells to the left and right—“can wait ’til January when the judge comes on his usual rounds. But not you, mate. Yer worth too much. We’ll be taking ye in now so we can collect straightaway.”

Nicholas felt his heart slam against his bruised ribs. “Taking me in to...”

“London,” the gaoler confirmed with a nod and a grin filled with greed.

Nicholas stared up at him, speechless, struck by a sense of doom that was like a cannon blast. He was done for. London. Not just London but the Old Bailey—the venerable courthouse filled with justices and lawmen who had hunted him for years. If any one of them recognized him...

He’d be handed over to the admiralty. Strung up at Execution Dock. Drawn and quartered and left to swing from a gibbet cage as a lesson to others who might be tempted to take up the pirate’s easy, profitable life.

Either that or he’d be cashed in for fifty pounds and executed as a footpad.

Either way, he wouldn’t have to worry about Michaelmas anymore.

He’d be dead before then.

“If ye can prove yer innocent, ye have nothin’ to worry about and the judge will let ye go.” The gaoler leaned down with a stern expression. “But I don’t think yer innocent, mate. And I don’t think he’ll be lettin’ ye go.”

Not likely, Nicholas thought. Not bloody likely. He managed to force only one word past his clenched teeth. “When?”

“The lads will be comin’ to collect ye at first light on the morrow.” The man picked up the empty pail and his lantern. “Eat up, mate.” He nodded to the food Nicholas had set aside. “This may be yer last meal.”

With that pleasant prediction, he turned and waddled out.

Nicholas sat very still for a moment after the door closed with an ominous thud and the chain clattered back into place.

He stared into the darkness as the facts of the situation sank in... and an image left over from his childhood lessons reeled through his mind.

An image of hell.

He didn’t believe in much of anything anymore, but he still believed in hell. He had no doubt he would be spending eternity there—and he had no desire to hasten his arrival by even a day.

Somewhere deep inside him an old, almost-forgotten cunning sparked to life, already had him thinking, scheming, planning. He would not let the Royal Navy get their hands on him.

He would never let them do to him what they had done to his father.

No, by hell, he wouldn’t let that happen. He was going to escape. Somewhere between here and London, he vowed, he was going to escape.

~ ~ ~

A half-hour later, the rest of the prisoners had quieted down for the night and the torches had burned low. Nicholas leaned back against the bars of his cell as he ate his supper, slowly, being careful of his swollen lip. He had to keep his strength up, and the food was edible enough—the mutton not too overcooked, the thick bread reasonably fresh, the mug filled with water drawn from a cool well. There was something to be said for being arrested in the countryside.

He bit into the mutton, thinking as he chewed. Since he alone would be hauled off to London, the marshalmen might take him on horseback or on foot, rather than in a coach or cart. That, at least, was some small cause for hope. It would give him a better chance to escape.

Finishing the water, he pressed the cool pewter mug against his bruised face with a pained sigh. He still had a chance of survival. Not a great chance, but a chance nonetheless.

Perhaps God hadn’t deserted him entirely after all.

A commotion at the door made him sit up straight and set the mug aside. It couldn’t be dawn already.

As soon as the door was thrown open, he realized the marshalmen weren’t coming to collect him. They were bringing in another prisoner—a kicking, bucking, struggling prisoner that two of them fought to restrain.

“Hurry up, Bickford!” one of the men shouted.

“Let me go, you cretins!” The new arrival accompanied the demand with a string of oaths that would burn the ears of a Barbary sailor.

Oaths made all the more remarkable by the feminine voice that uttered them.

The gaol’s awakened inhabitants quickly filled the air with whistles and catcalls.

“Bring ’er ’ere, mates!”

“Give ’em hell, missy!”

“I’ll take her off yer hands!”

Swearing, the marshalmen wrestled her along the row of cells, the gaoler waddling behind, fumbling with the ring of keys at his waist.

“Ow!” one of the guards howled. “She bit me! Bickford!”

“Hold on to her, Swinton, hold on,” Bickford muttered. “It’s hard to see and these ain’t numbered, ye know. I have to find one what fits one of the empty—”

“Unhand me!” the woman cried, lashing out with her heel. “You half-witted, barmybrained gullions, let me go.”

The second guard uttered a yelp as the girl stomped on his foot. “Just pick one, Bickford! Any of ’em.”

“Plenty o’ room in my cell!” one prisoner offered.

Nicholas remained silent. He could see her better by the light of the gaoler’s lantern—though he couldn’t make out much more than a whirlwind of blonde hair, pale yellow skirts, and white teeth.

The first marshalman, Swinton, yelped as those sharp little pearls again chomped on some portion of his anatomy. “Damnation, Bickford!”

The gaoler triumphantly held up a key in the light. “Here’s one.” He pushed past them down the row and unlocked an empty cell.

One right next to Nicholas’s.

“Wait a moment,” Nicholas protested. “Can’t you put her somewhere else?”

“Sorry, mate,” Bickford wheezed, jerking open the door. “Ye’ll be safe enough with these bars to keep her away from ye.”

Swinton grunted in pain as the blonde’s elbow connected with his midsection.

“Just watch out fer them teeth of hers,” the other guard advised, trying to grab a flailing, silk-clad arm without getting his eyes scratched out.

They dragged her toward the open cell, but the girl was now resisting with one last desperate effort.

Swinton finally snapped. “Listen, missy, I’ve had enough of yer nonsense!” He slammed her backward against the bars, knocking the air and the fight from her.

Before she could recover, he pressed up against her, twisting her hair around his fist and giving it a savage yank. His hawklike features burned an angry red and he took her jaw in his other hand, his grip so tight Nicholas could see the marks of his fingers pressing into her soft flesh. Her eyes widened in fear.

“Ye should learn to be a bit more friendly, yer ladyship,” Swinton suggested. “We might take pity on ye if ye were to be... friendly.”

All color fled her cheeks—except for bright scarlet around the marshalman’s grimy fingers. His other meaty hand came up to grope her breast.

The other prisoners cheered him on.

“That’s the way t’ deal with a woman!”

“Let’s ’ave a look at ’er!”

“Leave some fer me, mate!”

Nicholas glanced away. Turned his back. Help no one, trust no one, care about no one. That was the rule he lived by. A rule that had kept him alive for the last twenty-eight years.

The girl made a strangled sound of shock. Of pain.

Nicholas fastened his gaze to a corner of the back wall. He didn’t bother to guess what Swinton was doing to her. He didn’t care. He did not care.

“Here now, missy,” the marshalman growled. “Give us a kiss. I might convey a good word to the mag—”

Swinton never got to finish the word or the sentence.

Nicholas glanced around in time to see a feminine knee finding its mark with a blow that made Swinton yowl and Nicholas wince. She followed it with a swift, sharp kick to the same vulnerable spot.

Swinton collapsed on his back with the gurgle of a dying man, amid the laughter of his companions and hoots of derision from the prisoners.

The girl’s eyes glittered with fury. “Convey that to the magistrate, you filthy piece of rotting gutter slime!”

Before the other two lawmen could collect themselves enough to maneuver the blonde hellion into the empty cell, Swinton was on his feet.

“You little bitch!”

He struck her, hard—a blow across the face with the back of his fist that snapped her head sideways. The girl cried out and suddenly went limp, falling.

Swinton caught her but Bickford shoved him aside before he could inflict any further damage. “Come on, Swinton, ye’ve had yer sport fer the night.” He dumped her in the cell, shut the door, and locked it quickly with a sigh of relief.

“Her ladyship just don’t appreciate yer handsome face,” the other marshalman commented, still laughing as he turned to leave.

Swinton stood there, shaking with fury, glowering down at her.

“Come along, lad.” Bickford walked off, carrying the lantern. “Ye’ve got an early morning of it on the morrow.”

With one last growled curse, and a glare—which he shared equally with the girl and with Nicholas—Swinton turned away and followed his cohorts toward the exit, slowly. Limping.

He slammed the door behind him, and Nicholas heard the sound of a bar being dropped in place, then the heavy clatter of the chain.

The rest of the prisoners, their brief entertainment ended, settled down once more. One man whispered his prayers. Another moaned for a while in pain or simple misery before he fell silent.

Nicholas turned his gaze to his new neighbor.

The girl lay unmoving, her breathing even but shallow. From the force of the blow, she might be badly hurt.

But somehow he didn’t think so.

Leaning one shoulder against the bars that separated his cell from hers, he looked down at her.

She was young, no more than twenty-two or twenty-three, he guessed, with a flawless honey-colored complexion framed by a regal mane of tawny hair. A straight little nose that tilted ever so slightly upward at the tip. Thick, dark lashes resting on elegantly high cheeks. It was an aristocratic face. One that should be painted on an expensive cameo, protected in a gold locket, and kept close to some wealthy young lord’s heart.

Nicholas frowned. He was supposed to be making escape plans, not ogling fellow inmates.

He picked up the mutton leg from his interrupted supper and took a bite. “You can get up now,” he said with his mouth full. “They’re gone.”

Her even, shallow breathing suddenly stilled.

After a moment, she opened one eye and cast a cautious sideways glance toward the door. Then she opened the other and glared up at him. “How did you know I was faking?”

“Women have fainted on me before,” he said sardonically. “One learns to tell a true faint from a display of female dramatics.”

She sat up, gingerly touching her bruised cheek, and squinted at him, as if her vision were only now adjusting to the torchlit darkness. Her eyes widened as her gaze traveled from his beaten, bloodied face down over the breadth of his shoulders and chest.

She quickly, warily moved to the other side of her cell, as far away as she could get. Which wasn’t far. Her slender back came up against the metal bars with a muted clang. She sat speechless, staring at him as if he were some kind of dangerous animal in a zoological park.

Her expression made him feel every bit as rough and brutish as he must look. She regarded him with a trace of fear in her eyes, and something else... a certain disdain, a haughtiness that he had seen before in the eyes of ladies of quality.

It was a look that never failed to annoy him.

And it made him stare all the more boldly back. He allowed his gaze to roam over her, deliberately undressing her with his eyes.

Every rich, creamy inch of her.

He mentally slipped her lemon-colored silk gown from her shoulders and admired the delicate line of her collarbone... the generous swell of sweet feminine flesh below, almost overflowing her lacy bodice... her slim waist and the womanly swell of her hips. Her skirt had tangled around her, revealing a glimpse of long, long legs.

He lifted his gaze slowly, lingering over every ripe, soft curve hidden by the fragile silk. Curves that would fit so perfectly in a man’s hands. His hands.

Honey-colored skin, flaxen hair... spun from gold, she was, burnished and sleek like a treasure plundered from a Spanish galleon.

And the pirate in him had never been able to resist the lure of gold.

He felt a stirring, tightening sensation low in his body, felt his breathing deepen even as he looked at her, imagining those legs wrapped around his hips.

As if reading his thoughts, she quickly rearranged her skirts with a whispered oath.

He lifted his gaze to hers. This close, he could see the color of her eyes, sparkling defiantly in the torchlight.

Gold. She had golden eyes—a light, clear amber color with flecks of pure gold around the center.

Forget the last meal, he thought with a slow, hungry curve to his mouth. One night with her would do quite nicely for a doomed man’s final wish.

Another flash of gold caught his eye—something dangling from a short, pale ribbon attached to the center of her bodice. A strangely shaped medallion or locket. Oblong, like a small barrel. Gasping, she grabbed it in one fist and clasped it against her. As if she meant to protect it from him.

Or as if it had some power to protect her.

He wondered how the devil a pampered chit like her had landed herself in gaol. And where she had picked up the salty language and street tricks she had used earlier.

One thing was certain: if he was any judge of women—and he was—this was easily one of the most beautiful he’d ever laid eyes on. “What did they arrest you for, lady? Caught stealing crumpets at a tea party?”

“What affair is it of yours?” Her frosty tone matched the disdain in her eyes.

He noticed, however, that her gaze flicked to his food with obvious longing.

He settled more comfortably against the bars and finished the mutton leg, noisily cleaning every last morsel of meat off the bone, licking his fingers with a sound of enjoyment. “Just making a bit of friendly conversation.” He tossed the bone aside.

He was definitely not making friendly conversation. If she was a petty criminal, she could sit here and rot until the assizes for all he cared.

But if the charges against her were more serious—and the reward high enough—they might transport her to London tomorrow. With him. Which might mean going by coach or cart.

She could, in short, cause him trouble.

And more trouble was the last thing he needed at the moment.

“Friendly conversation?” She arched one tawny brow. “I am not interested in being friendly.” The locket still clutched in one hand, she added under her breath, “Especially not with one of your kind.”

Tucking the ribbon and its attached bit of metal safely back into her bodice, she looked around, evaluating her surroundings much as he had earlier. She stood up, dusted herself off, and investigated the lock on her cell door, rattling it, studying it for several long moments before she gave up and checked the wooden wall at the back.

“No use,” he advised. “Locked up tight. Looks like you’re stuck here until the winter assizes... unless, of course, you’re charged with some serious offense.”

She slanted him an irritated glance. “Picking pockets,” she mumbled.

Not serious, Nicholas decided with relief.

“Forgery,” she added after a moment.

His relief faded a bit.

She sighed wearily. “And burglary.”

His mood was worsening by the minute.

She slumped against the back wall of her cell, her voice so soft he had to strain to hear it. “And attempted murder.”

He gazed up at her in astonishment and disbelief. “Let me guess, your ladyship—it’s all a terrible mistake and you’re completely innocent?”

She laughed, a humorless rasp that sounded harsh enough to hurt her throat. “Innocent?” She closed her eyes and repeated it, as if it were a foreign word beyond her understanding. “Innocent.” She shook her head, whispering, “No, I’m not innocent.”

The expression on her face held an odd mixture of bitterness and wistfulness.

She hung her head. “And they said something about not waiting for the assizes. There’s a rather large reward out on me.”

Nicholas exhaled a curse. “Lady,” he ground out, “you picked one hell of a rotten time to get yourself arrested.”

“Well, pardon me,” she snapped, her head coming up. “It’s not as if I planned this. So sorry if it’s some sort of inconvenience to you.”

“Oh, no inconvenience. We’ll just be sharing a trip to London tomorrow, in a bloody secure cart—”

“London?”

“That’s where the judges are this time of year. Where did you think they would be taking you? To the fair?”

“Manchester. Or... or Nottingham. It can’t be London! You must be mistaken—”

“No mistake. You and I are going to London tomorrow.”

She paled, looking as if she might truly faint. “Oh, God. Oh, no.”

Sinking to the floor, she wrapped her arms around her raised knees and pressed her forehead against them with a small moan.

“Such is the high cost of having a high price on your head,” he muttered, wondering despite himself what made her so terrified of London.

“And what about you?” she retorted, lifting her head, her tone mocking. “I suppose you were arrested by mistake and you’re innocent of the charges against you?”

“As a matter of fact,” he said dryly, “I was and I am.”

She cast a dubious glance over every battered inch of him. “Certainly.” Her voice held both sarcasm and that annoying haughtiness.

“Completely innocent. They jumped me near the stables when I was trying to hire a horse. They think I’m some local footpad they’ve been hunting for weeks.”

She blinked and studied him more closely. Then her eyes widened. “They think you’re Jasper Norwell,” she declared. “He’s the one they’ve been after. He’s very tall and dark and he has a beard...” Suddenly she started to laugh. “You’re telling the truth, aren’t you? It was a mistake. You really are innocent.”

“I’m so glad you find it funny.”

She was laughing herself silly. “You’re innocent and I’m not. I can’t tell you how funny that is.” Just as abruptly, she sobered. Her expression turned serious... then oddly thoughtful. “Actually, you’re right,” she said quietly. “It isn’t funny. Not at all.” She stood and went to the door of her cell. “Bickford!”

“What the devil are you doing?”

“Bickford!” she shouted again. “I demand to talk to someone! A terrible mistake has been made!”

Nicholas couldn’t believe his ears—but he wasn’t about to stop her. If she wanted to declare his innocence, so be it.

Reason, bribery, and tunneling were useless... but this stunning blonde might just help get him out of here.

“Bickford!” she called again.

A jangle of metal at the door was followed by a grunted oath. “What’s all the racket?” Bickford ambled through the door.

The girl glanced down at Nicholas, then back at the approaching gaolkeeper. “I’m afraid a terrible mistake has been made—”

How noble, Nicholas thought, smiling at her. How kind. How—

“This is obviously the thief who’s been plaguing your town, not me.” She pointed a finger straight at his nose. “And you already had him in custody before I was even arrested. I’m innocent and your men have made a terrible mistake—”

“You lying little wench!” Nicholas snarled, jumping to his feet and immediately regretting it when his head clanged against the barred ceiling, adding a headache to his other pains.

She ignored him completely, appealing to Bickford. “Do I look like a thief?” she asked sweetly. “Now look at him—he’s obviously dangerous. Just look at those cold green eyes! The eyes of a born miscreant, I tell you—”

“Lady, you are lucky there are solid metal bars between us.” Nicholas fastened his hands around the bars as he wanted to fasten them around her throat.

Bickford merely looked annoyed. “Bah!” he spat on the floor. “You roused me from me bed fer this, lass?”

“But I tell you he’s the one who stole the silverware from Lady Hammond’s parlor, not me. I saw him myself! I’ll swear it before the magistrate—”

“The magistrate is at his country house and can’t be disturbed fer the likes o’ you. And I don’t have no say in lettin’ prisoners go once they’re in here.”

“But since you already have the real culprit there’s no point in taking me all the way to London. If I could just speak to the magistrate—”

“Ye’ll have to explain it to the judge in London, missy.” With a disgusted shake of his head, Bickford turned away. “He’ll sort it all out. Now I warn ye—I’ll not be listenin’ to any more of yer yawpin’, so quiet down.”

“No, wait!” She strained against the bars, reaching for him.

He kept walking. “Swinton and his men will be comin’ to collect ye both in the mornin’.”

“Wait!” she cried. “You can’t do this! You can’t—”

Bickford closed the door behind him and slammed the bar in place with finality.

The girl slumped against the bars of her cell, eyes closed, shaking. “Damn.”

“You treacherous, scheming little liar,” Nicholas spat each word with sharp malice.

“I can’t let them take me to London,” she whispered. “I can’t.”

“So you decided to send me to the gallows in your place.”

She gave him a glance that almost held a trace of remorse.

Almost.

“It was worth a try,” she muttered.

He studied her with disbelief. She was ruthless. Which made her dangerous.

Not qualities he admired in a female.

“Face of an angel,” he appraised coldly, “but no heart to go with it.”

Her gaze held equal distaste for him. “I didn’t see you leaping to my assistance when that guard was trying to... to have his way with me.”

“I look out for myself, angel. If you’re looking for some gallant, lackwit knight who makes a habit of rescuing damsels in distress, you’ve got the wrong man. You’re on your own.”

“That’s perfectly fine by me,” she shot back. “I’m used to it. I prefer it that way.”

“That makes two of us.”

They glared at one another silently.

Eyes like stolen treasure, he thought, the face of an angel, curves that could tempt a saint into sin... and a ruthless heart.

That sense of foreboding prickled up the back of his neck again. A sense that this devious beauty had some part to play in the divine retribution God had in store for him.

That somewhere above, God was already chuckling with anticipation.