St. Raven Read Free Page A

asked the other man, still sounding amused.
    “It’ll damn well have to. I’m not doing this again.”
    “Perhaps you should mind what you say, the lady not having anything blocking her ears as yet.”
    “Damn it all to Hades…”
    “Perhaps you should mind your
language
.” The second man sounded as if he was laughing.
    “Stubble it.”
    Then the horse jolted, and they were off again. Her mouth was free and she could have screamed, but for the moment she didn’t dare. She couldn’t even clutch now. She was entirely dependent on her captor’s strong arms.
    “Where?” asked the other man.
    “The house. That’s why she’s blindfolded.”
    A house. A house that mustn’t be seen.
    Fear turned her cold. Le Corbeau was not a Frenchman, but an Englishman. A well-born Englishman. He’d do anything to save himself from the hangman. Killing her would be a mere nothing.
    Lord, save me. Lord, save me. Lord, save me
, she prayed with every sickening jolt of the horse beneath her, with every crush of her captor’s body. He was her terror now, not the horse.
    She was powerless, helpless, completely at the mercy of this mass of muscle and power.
    She was going to vomit.
    Would it choke her?
    Would anyone care?…
    The horse stopped.
    Cressida shuddered and gave thanks, trying to swallow the taste of bile. The man moved, taking the pressure from her, settling her to sit sideways on the smooth and slippery saddle.
    Then he was gone.
    She was
alone—
blind, bound, and unbalanced in the cold air. The horse moved.
    She fell!
    Even as she screamed, strong hands caught her waist. She cried out again, this time in thanks for the strong arms beneath her, then for the strong body she was held against.
    The monstrous beast again, but this one was solid and safe—and two-legged.
    From her right the other man said, “Dear lady, please don’t be afraid.” He sounded sincerely concerned.
    But it was the highwayman who held her, carried her. To where? To what? New fears should be boiling up, but it was as if terror was exhausted. She could only pray.
    No. She could
think
. “Knowledge is power,” Sir Francis Bacon had said, and she needed any power she could grasp.
    She could hear, so she sorted through sounds. They’d left the horses behind, and the men must be walking on soft earth, because there was no sound of boots.
    She could smell. No smell of horse, either, but a slight whiff that might be a pigsty not very far away. A farm? And sandalwood, of course, so common to her nostrils now that she hardly noticed it.
    Then the men’s feet made a crunching noise. Gravel? No farm had a gravel driveway. They were approaching a house of substance.
    She was blindfolded
because
of the house, so she wouldn’t recognize it. No, so she wouldn’t recognize it again if she returned with the magistrates. That did suggest that they expected to let her go eventually.
    After they’d had their wicked way with her?
    She’d thought such things the stuff of Minerva novels!
    They stopped. She heard a click. A latch?
    Yes. The door didn’t squeak, but it made a slight sound as it opened, and she was moved from outside to in. No breeze. Staler air. Polish. Faint memories of a meal. The steady tick of a large clock and wood floors beneath boots.
    Fear trembled back into life. She didn’t want to be inside, inside his house. “Please…” she said.
    “Hush. Make noise and I’ll gag you. I’ll put her in my room.”
    The other man must still be there. Did that offer more safety or more danger?
    With a shift of balance, Le Corbeau began to carry her upstairs.
    To his room.
    To his
bedroom
.
    Cressida prayed. With Crofton it would have been vile, but it would have been her choice and for her purpose. Was she to lose her virtue to a thief’s whim?
    Another door opening. Carpet under boots. A stronger smell of sandalwood.
    His bedroom.
    She was lowered onto something soft.
    Onto his bed.
     
Chapter Two
     
    Cressida’s heart had been racing