The Wild Baron (Baron 1)

She straightened quickly when he returned with a mug. “Drink.”

She drank, then spat the first mouthful of water into the straw beside her. The rest she downed eagerly. She lay back, panting, on the straw.

He came down to sit beside her. He seemed tall, well muscled, and young. He was also strong, for he’d carried her as if she’d weighed no more than Marianne. She must remember everything she could, but the fear pounded at her, numbing her mind. She closed her eyes against it.

She saw the baron. He was giving her one of his wicked smiles. Then she saw a marigold held in his large brown hand, heard him humming. She said, “Where are we?”

“Tucked away someplace where no one will find you. I will not toy with you, ma’am. You will tell me where George hid the map and you will tell me right now.”

Map? What map? George had never spoken of a map, he had never shown her a map.

“I know nothing of a map,” she said as she opened her eyes. She saw his dark eyes gleam with anger, and she added quickly, “I swear it. You robbed Mulberry House three times. You found nothing. You managed to get into my bedchamber here at Mountvale, but you found nothing. That’s because there is nothing to find. There is no map.”

The man leaned over, grabbed her nightgown in two big fists, and ripped.

Susannah screamed and tried to roll away from him.

“There,” he said, holding her down easily. “Now you will tell me everything or I will shortly have you completely naked. If you still refuse, then I will take you. George said you weren’t much in bed, but I’ll force myself.”

“Please, there is no map.”

He pulled the nightgown open, laying the two jagged edges flat. She lurched up, gasping. He pushed her back down, his hands on her shoulders. He leaned back then. “Don’t move again. Beautiful breasts. I wondered. George said you weren’t much of anything, but he was lying. Perhaps he was afraid to tell us of your beauty, afraid we’d come after you and you would welcome us.” He reached out a gloved hand and cupped her left breast. “No marks on them from childbearing. Are there marks on your belly?”

Her heart was near to bursting with fear, gut-wrenching fear that made her want to vomit again, only there was nothing to vomit. “Please,” she whispered.

“Please what?” His gloved hand still cupped her breast. His fingers squeezed.

“No, please stop. Listen to me. I don’t know about any map. Indeed, I have very few items that belonged to George. I will give them to you.”

He frowned at that and sat back, wrapping his arms around his knees. “What items?”

“There are several books—George was a great scholar. I know he loved maps of all sorts, but there weren’t any.” She pictured the small locket he had once given her that she had kept. No, it was too small to hold anything, much too small, and she didn’t want to give it up. It was the only gift he had ever given her. As for her wedding ring, it had been but three small rubies set in gold. She had sold it some six months before, when it had been low ebb with her father.

“What else?”

He was looking at her breasts. She tried to hold perfectly still, but it was difficult. “There are a few letters. No maps there. And a waistcoat he left at Mulberry House. There is nothing else.”

He said very slowly, his eyes still on her breasts, “I don’t know if I believe you. No, I rather believe that I don’t, at least for the moment.” He came forward on his knees above her. He ripped the nightgown to its hem and pulled it open.

She froze with shock.

“No marks on your belly. Aren’t I the lucky lad?”

She began to fight. She raised her legs and kicked him, catching him in his arm and hurling him sideways. Then she rolled away from him, coming up on her knees. She needed a weapon, please, God, something, anything.

She saw the hay rake leaning against the wall. She staggered to her feet and grabbed it between her bound wrists. She had only time to turn before he was on her.

“You damned bitch!” He was panting, he was so angry. He grabbed at her, but she wrenched free. Her nightgown ripped under her arm, hanging off her now. She turned on him, rage filling her, overflowing, and she rammed the handle end of the rake into his chest.

He yelled, falling back, flailing the air until he lost his balance and, groaning, fell onto his back in the straw. She had but a moment. She could take only short, mincing steps. She made the door and flung it open. She wanted to yell her relief. She slammed the door shut and turned the key in the lock just as his fists struck hard against the wooden door. Then his booted foot kicked the door and it shuddered in its frame. She knew it wouldn’t hold long.

She whirled about. She had to escape. She would untie her ankles after she’d escaped him. There was no time now.

She heard a splinter

ing sound. Oh, God, he would be on her in a moment.

Rohan and three neighbors, all on horseback, were fanning through the east meadow. He reined in Gulliver for a moment at the top of a rise and looked at the sprawl of land beyond. Suddenly there was a flicker of a memory. Over to the west, in the maple forest, hadn’t there been a small shack in a clearing that had been abandoned years before? He’d been only a boy when the gypsies had camped there, using the shack not for themselves but for their horses. He remembered how strange he had thought that was. They had piles of hay in the shack. No, surely it had crumbled to the ground and been consumed by the forest by now. There had been no gypsies in years.