Surrender to Me, Page 2

  Instead, she felt the ties cutting into the tender flesh of her throat finally give and snap as she was flung down.

  Griffin Shaw turned his face to the skies and shivered at the bite of cold in the air. The clouds moved swiftly overhead, patches of dirty wool drifting through the sky. With a curse, he pulled up the collar of his jacket. No wonder his parents had emigrated. The damnable weather was reason enough.

  Soon he would be home, he reminded himself, even as he tried not to think too hard on what had brought him halfway across the world—the foolish urge that had seized him following his father’s recent death to investigate the deathbed ramblings of his mother three years past.

  His horse blew heavily against the fierce wind, pulling him from thoughts and questions he could never quite answer…a gut need that drew him to Scotland he could not understand.

  He scanned the craggy horizon. Unremitting rock, broken up by wild gorse, heather, and leafless trees that shook in the wind like naked gnarled old men, stared back starkly.

  Reaching down, he patted his horse’s neck. “Beats the heat back home, Waya,” he offered. Griffin would take a little chill over the sweltering heat of south Texas any day.

  Waya blew out harshly through his nose, his breath a frothy cloud on the air, and Griffin wasn’t certain whether to take that as agreement or not from the Appaloosa.

  At that moment another sound pierced the graying skies. Shrill. Chilling. The hairs on his arms tingled.

  Waya’s ears flattened and he neighed in agitation, dancing sideways at the sound. A woman’s screams strongly resembled the cry of a mountain lion.

  Griffin slid his rifle free of his saddle and urged his mount ahead with a squeeze of his thighs and dig of his heels. His parents had instilled a streak of chivalry in him that even good sense could not suppress. If a woman was in jeopardy, he could not stop from investigating, and helping, if need be.

  Rounding the bend, his eyes surveyed the scene at once: the idle carriage, the man crumpled in the road, the two females fighting off an unsavory-looking pair of men while a third watched, cheering on his cohorts and shouting lewd suggestions.

  Highwaymen.

  He’d been warned of their prevalence. Especially with Scotland caught in the throes of a famine. Desperate times brought out the worst in men. He knew this firsthand. A grassy blood-soaked plain flashed across his mind as testament to that.

  A shrieking, dark-haired woman flailed in the mud as one of the bastards cut open her dress and hacked at her corset with an ugly-looking blade. Intent on their foul business, none took note of his approach.

  Griffin lifted the rifle to his shoulder, closed one eye, and fired. He watched in grim satisfaction as the man collapsed atop the dark-haired girl. Her shrieks only increased as she fumbled beneath the dead man’s weight.

  Wincing over the racket, he turned his attention to the remaining two men.

  A grisly red-bearded Scot whirled off the other female, one as fair as her companion was dark.

  In a blur of movement, her attacker flung a blade through the air, sending it whistling on the wind in Griffin’s direction.

  He dodged to the side, missing what would have been a clean hit to the heart.

  “Shit,” he swore as he righted himself back in his saddle.

  Lifting his rifle with one hand, he propped it against his shoulder, and squeezed the trigger. Red-beard fell back into the road, his expression forever locked in shock.

  The third Scot grappled for his pistol and raised it the precise moment Griffin swung his rifle in his direction.

  Everything slowed then.

  The squeeze of his finger on the trigger felt like an eternity. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed movement, a flash of color in the otherwise brown landscape.

  It was the girl. The fair-haired one.

  She flung herself at the man, shoving him off balance. He went down with a burning oath, struggling in the road for his fallen pistol. But it was enough. All the time Griffin needed.

  He squeezed the trigger.

  The Scot jerked once. And yet his hand still grappled in the road, foraging for some type of weapon. His fingers closed around a large rock littering the road. Too late, Griffin realized his intent.

  Pain exploded in his head. His hands tightened on his reins to keep from sliding off his mount. His vision blurred, and he brought one hand to his forehead, feeling the slipperiness of his own blood on his fingertips.

  Blood pouring from the wound in his chest, the Scot fell back in the road, a damn fool grin of triumph on his face as he expired, his life’s blood feeding the earth.

  The woman rose to her feet, staring down at the fallen highwayman, her posture stiff and dignified despite her mussed appearance. A long pale strand of hair hung in her face that several swipes of her hand did nothing to remedy.

  The sleeve of her dress was torn from elbow to wrist, revealing a strip of creamy flesh, a stark contrast to the dark blue of her gown that covered her from hem to neck.

  Blood marked her mouth, vivid and obscene on rose-pink lips. That mouth was the only hint of softness in her rather severe appearance. The blood there seemed wrong, upsetting and offensive somehow. Another face flashed across his mind. Another woman with dark, obsidian eyes, whose blood ran freely. A woman he failed to save. The years could not chase her memory from his head…or rid him of his guilt.

  A deep, primitive satisfaction swelled inside Griffin that the men who harmed this woman were dead. That he had managed to save her.

  She broke from her trancelike state with a ragged breath. Her gaze lifted from the dead man and caught his.

  Pressing a hand to his throbbing skull, he nodded once in acknowledgment. He never would have thought a wisp of a woman, one who looked as though she could use an extra meal or two, could possess the mettle to save his life.

  She stared at him with dark brown eyes, an unusual contrast against her fair hair. Her mouth firmed into a hard line, until all softness vanished from those lips. She returned his nod with a brisk one of her own. And instantly he knew she rarely smiled, rarely surrendered to emotion. While the other female wailed on the ground three feet from her, she stood composed, remote as a queen, as if the ugliness that had just occurred failed to touch her.

  She wiped the blood from her lip with the back of her hand, and it was as if that motion alone freed her of the day’s events.

  God, she was a cool one.

  Those dark enigmatic eyes moved to his head. “Are you all right?” she asked, shoving at that strand of hair again.

  “Fine,” he replied even as a languid sensation stole over him, like he was perhaps slipping away from himself, drowning, sinking.

  She pointed a slim finger to his face just as a slow dribble of blood trickled past his eyebrow into his eye. “You’re bleeding.”

  He nodded. The movement added to his lightheadedness, making him feel suddenly, damnably ill.

  Waya danced sideways, no doubt scenting his blood.

  Griffin swayed in the saddle. One of his hands dove to his pommel for support. A hiss of air escaped him as he fought against an increasing wave of dizziness.

  The edges of his vision blurred and he heard himself curse again, but to his ears his voice sounded disembodied, as if it belonged to someone else.

  “Sir?” He heard her feminine voice ask, refined, clipped and soft, like rum swirling in his stomach, in his blood. “Sir, are you all right?”

  Leaning forward, he slid his hands along Waya’s neck, tangling his fingers in the coarse mane of hair, knowing he was dangerously close to losing consciousness.

  His gaze narrowed on the face looking up at him, on the expression both concerned and imposing, as if his not being well was strictly forbidden.

  Bones and muscle suddenly fluid as water, he pitched forward off his mount and fell with a hard thud to the ground.

  “Hell,” he muttered, staring up at the gray clouds moving overhead. Felled by a rock. It was damn humiliating
.

  Again, her face emerged, looming over him and blocking out the sky. That pale lock of hair fluttered in the wind and, absurdly, he wondered if it felt as soft as it looked.

  Her lips moved quickly, speaking. And yet he could hear nothing beyond the roaring in his head, the pulse of cold unyielding earth beneath his back.

  She might have been an angel with her flawless skin and fair hair. And yet those demon dark eyes void of emotion, and her hard unforgiving mouth, proclaimed the opposite.

  A fallen angel, he mused.

  One of God’s banished.

  And he was at her mercy.

  Chapter 3

  Astrid studied the man at her feet, cringing as a knot the size of an egg swelled upon his forehead. Biting her lip, she considered her options. A quick glance around her revealed what she already knew.

  Three Scotsmen lay dead—and for that she could not summon a scrap of remorse, not even for the human lives lost. She still tasted the fetid kiss Red-beard had forced on her, felt the coppery tang of her own blood as his teeth mashed against her own, felt his filthy hands foraging at her skirts. A shudder rushed through her. She could not regret the end to his life if it meant saving her from the depravity he would have forced on her.

  John still did not move from where he had fallen. Coral, whose screams had now ebbed into pitiful moans and sniffles, leaned against the side of the carriage and mopped at her face with a handkerchief. Useless as ever. The clouds thickened overhead. A threatening nip of snow rose on the air. All in all, a rather dire state of affairs.

  She glanced down at the unconscious man at her feet again. His wide-brimmed hat lay several feet away. His brown hair, unfashionably long, flowed into the earth, nearly as dark as the trickle of blood running from his forehead.

  Squatting, she assessed the injury, pressing her fingers gently to the goose-egg knot, wincing at his low moan. Blood oozed slowly from the short, jagged tear at the center of the fast-forming lump.

  Clucking her tongue, she reached under her skirt and ripped several long strips off her petticoat. Carefully, she lifted his head and snugly wound the strips around his head, hoping to impede the flow of blood altogether.

  She gave a gentle pat to his chest, the fabric of his fleece-lined jacket remarkably soft beneath her palm, unlike anything she had ever felt before.

  “Coral,” she called.

  When the girl failed to respond, she looked up and spoke sharply, “Coral, come here.”

  Still sniffling, the girl approached, pulling the tatters of her dress over her corset.

  “You take his feet,” she directed. “I’ll take his shoulders. We need to move him inside the carriage.”

  “W-what?” Coral stammered, looking from the man to Astrid.

  “You heard me, take his feet—”

  “But my lady,” Coral objected, eyes wide, “we know nothing of him. He looks little better than the vermin who attacked us.”

  “Only he is not one of them,” Astrid reminded her. “Not even close. He saved us.”

  “It isn’t fitting that we should—”

  “He saved my life…and yours,” Astrid emphasized with a wave at Coral’s person. “Now bite your tongue and take his feet.”

  Coral reluctantly moved to his feet. With a grunt, she lifted his boots.

  Astrid hauled him up by the shoulders. His head fell back to rest against her chest. With several grunts of exertion, they half carried, half dragged his considerable weight toward the carriage, stopping when they reached the door.

  “How are we going to get him inside?” Coral panted, unceremoniously dropping his feet. Propping a hand on her slim hip, she scratched the back of her head with no thought that she left Astrid struggling with the weight of his upper body.

  Trying not to feel disconcerted from his head resting snugly between her breasts, she carefully lowered him down to the ground, only noticing then that his horse had followed them. A peculiar-looking beast—white with brown spots lightly scattering his neck, increasing in number on his rump. Handsome, she admitted. Her father would have paid through the nose to purchase such a stallion. The creature stood near, watching them almost suspiciously from large brown eyes.

  Shaking off her uneasiness at being evaluated by a horse—and judged lacking—Astrid positioned one foot on either side of her rescuer. Wrapping her arms around his chest, she hefted him up with a deep exhalation.

  “Grab his legs,” she wheezed, her nose buried in his hard chest, fingers laced tightly behind his back.

  For once, Coral scrambled to obey.

  The stranger’s chest purred against her face, his breathing deep and shallow. The rough texture of his vest made her nose itch.

  With much huffing and puffing they guided him inside the carriage. With Coral shoving him from behind, Astrid managed to pull him in after her.

  Exhausted, Astrid collapsed on the seat, the stranger sprawled atop her, a dead weight wedged between her legs. Her chest heaved beneath the hard press of his body, the smell of him swirling around her, a heady mix of man, wind, and horse.

  The indignity of the position struck her at once, prompting her to squirm against the velvet squabs in an effort to free herself. Heat licked at her face. With a squeak, she slid from beneath him and landed on her knees on the floor of the coach.

  Leaning forward, she watched as his eyes flickered open, their blue color startling against his swarthy skin. His too-long hair framed the sharp planes of his face, the dark locks in desperate need of cutting.

  He gave her a quizzical, not quite lucid look. “What are you doing to me, woman?” he drawled in that strange accent of his, his voice warm as honey sliding though her and curling in the pit of her belly—even if his words rang out with a decided lack of charm.

  “You’re wounded. We’re going to find a physician, of course.”

  Pulling herself up off the floor, she fell back on the seat across from him and eyed him, still as death on the squabs, his booted feet still jutting out the door. His eyelids fell shut, lashes fanning his swarthy cheeks, dark as soot.

  Chest rising and falling, she permitted herself to look her fill, her gaze lowering to his mouth. Lovely. Full, wide, kissable lips. Her lips began to tingle the longer she stared. Appalled for noticing a man’s mouth, she sighed and dragged a hand over her face as if she could wipe the inappropriate musings from her mind.

  She had been propositioned over the years. Since Bertram had abandoned her. Her swift change of fortune had made her prime pickings for rakes and libertines.

  And yet she had never accepted an offer. Even when to do so would have provided her with more comfort in life. The idea of another man filled her with distaste. Her father, her husband, even Mr. Welles…they had brought her nothing but grief.

  Coral stuck her head in the carriage. “Is he dead?”

  “No.” Astrid shook her head, brushing her fingers over lips that still hummed from the direction of her thoughts.

  The man would probably be disgusted to learn that his mouth had become a subject of fascination. He had proven himself an honorable sort or he would not have risked his neck to save them.

  Dropping down from the carriage, she turned to John, relieved to see he was sitting up, his expression only mildly dazed. Astrid and Coral each took an arm and assisted him inside the carriage.

  With both men secured, Astrid propped her hands on her hips and faced the carriage, head falling back to eye the driver’s perch.

  “Coral,” she began.

  “No, my lady,” the maid rushed to say, following Astrid’s gaze. “I simply couldn’t. Never. I wouldn’t know how to drive this contraption.”

  Sighing, Astrid approached the stranger’s stallion, eyeing him warily. The beast eyed her in turn, and yet permitted her to take his reins and tie him to the back of the coach.

  Snatching her cloak from the road, she reclaimed her reticule and then clambered up to the driver’s seat.

  Looking down at Coral standing in the
middle of the road, a dubious expression on her birdlike face, she advised, “Secure yourself within and keep an eye on the men.” With more assurance than she felt, she added, “I’ve driven a gig. Many times.”

  Although not in years. And never on a road that looked like something a team of oxen traversed in biblical times. And a gig was certainly not as large as this four-teamed carriage.

  Grasping the reins, she drew a steadying breath and reminded herself that the next village wasn’t far. And Bertram. She inhaled deeply, fingers tightening around the leather.

  She would have her say at last. If in fact Bertram was in Dubhlagan, posing as the prosperous Sir Edmond Powell of Cornwall. For some reason, she knew he was there. She could not explain it, but she knew she would find him in Dubhlagan. She knew. She would confront him and have her say. And stop him from ruining another woman’s life.

  With a snap of the reins, the impatient team surged forward, throwing her back on the seat. Balancing herself, her thoughts turned to the man inside the carriage. Again, her lips tingled.

  She wondered at him. What manner of man is he? With his strange speech and appearance? With his unusual speed and dexterity with firearms?

  Astrid shrugged. It mattered naught. She would never know. She would see to his care—it was the least she owed him—and move on. He bore no consequence and she would do well to remember that.

  “Here you are.” Molly, a serving maid at the Black Hart Inn, set a basin of warm water on the bedside table. Plopping a pile of linens down, she faced Astrid with an expectant arch of her brow. “Shall I help you undress him, then?”

  Astrid blinked at the servant from where she stood several feet from the bed, keeping a proper distance from the man who lay there. “Me?”

  Molly nodded. “Of course. The doctor will want to examine him when he arrives.” The older woman’s lip curled. “I don’t think that girl of yours will be much help. She’s downstairs now asking after the next coach.”

  “Yes. Of course,” Astrid agreed as if it were commonplace for her to undress a strange man.