Chapter 9
The sheriff had been smart to send Baron after me.
He didn’t trust me for a single second. Immediately after tying me up, he patted me down with the thoroughness of a man who knew and expected tricks.
He found the rock tucked in my waistband and tossed it away, and also threw away the short cord I’d used to bind back my hair.
“I don’t need to be choked like Dorian,” he said in response to my raised eyebrows.
“Was Dorian choked?” I gasped in an overly-shocked manner. “Who could have done such a thing?”
He rolled his eyes ever so slightly. “He’s not dead, if that’s what you were hoping for. But you don’t get any rope when I’m around unless you’re tied up with it. Now we need to pack up camp.” He took hold of my bound hands and pulled me along.
“Pack up what?”
He shot me a devious smile. “I need to break camp and pack everything up. It was good luck you came along when you did. I was about to go to sleep.”
“You still could.”
“Absolutely not.”
At least I had unsettled him, if nothing else. I hid my smile then watched him just as closely as he watched me as we walked the short distance to his campsite, broke camp, and saddled up his horse. He fed her a few sugar cubes. “Sorry you have to work again, girl.”
He shot me a mistrustful stare, waiting for me to say or do anything, but I simply chuckled to myself, glad that I was causing him so much disquiet, though I grudgingly admired his knack for predicting my movements.
I had been too cocky once again. Father and the Merry Men always said it was my fatal flaw and it seemed that they were right.
We set off for the sheriff’s camp without delay.
Baron made me ride in front of him with my bound hands secured to the horn of the saddle.
For a moment the position brought back a childhood memory of riding with Father, but the comfort ended there.
Seated behind me was a monstrously large man who could snap my neck with barely a flick of his wrist. Ahead of me was a camp filled with men who wanted nothing but to end my father’s life and would think nothing of ending mine either.
I prayed that Father would have the good sense to stay away.
He knew I could take care of myself. Most of all, I didn’t want him to come to camp and feel like he needed to trade himself for me, which was exactly what any good father would do. I couldn’t let that happen.
I reflected bitterly on my repeated captures, analyzing and reanalyzing every one of my actions, and harshly criticized myself for my them.
Conversation was sparse and blunt. “So, it’s Baron?” I asked, trying to coax details or slip him into talking.
“Right,” he said without any elaboration.
“Is that a title or a name?”
“Name,” he grunted. This was getting me nowhere.
“And where did you learn to track? Through hunting?”
He re-gripped the reins, arms stretched around me on either side. “Yes.”
“Is it difficult? Tracking and hunting, I mean.”
“I think you already know.”
“No, I don’t. I can’t do anything as difficult as that!”
He let out a humorless laugh. “My foot you can’t. I didn’t just get dropped like a sack of potatoes by a halfwit. Don’t insult my intelligence.”
He wasn’t falling for the fluttering-lass routine.
I fell silent, trying to think of another tactic that might work instead.
My teeth clenched. I hated that I had been bested.
I hated Baron, from his shaggy black hair to his dark black eyes, and the coarse black stubble on his chin. It probably matched his black heart.
He must have a weakness, and I would find it.
I could try to bolt. I pictured working my hands out of the ropes, dropping from the saddle, and sprinting into the trees, but I discarded the idea.
Baron was too good at knots for me to slip them, and I was tethered to the saddle horn.
He kept an arm on each side of me, reins between his fingers.
Even if I slipped free, he would track me by morning and overtake me.
No human could outrun a horse, and when he caught me…
I glared back at the sword at Baron’s hip.
I wanted a knife or bow or something. Could I wrest the sword from Baron?
Unlikely. I would probably get killed in the struggle if I tried.
After a few hours of slowly letting his horse pick its way back through the forest trail, Baron said that she had earned a break since she was carrying two people. Hope surged and I waited as he tethered the horse. Any moment, he would turn to make a fire or something, and I would be gone.
My momentary hope was quickly dashed. Baron didn’t give me any opportunity for escape. He whipped another knot around my bound wrists and tied the rope’s other end to a high branch so my hands were forced up over my head.
“It’s just for a few minutes,” he assured me when he saw my lethal glare. “I need to collect water to boil.”
“You could drink it straight from the stream,” I told him. “I do.”
He shook his head. “I don’t drink after all the animals who do who knows what in that water.”
I bristled. He tilted his head to the side and went on, “Not that you are an animal, of course. I meant the wolves and deer. I prefer clean water. Now just wait a few minutes, okay?”
“I don’t have much choice, do I?” I snapped, tugging at the ropes over my head.
“Ah, no. You don’t.” Baron grinned in an easy-going, good-natured way. “But I’m trying to be polite about it.”
“A polite captor. Lucky me.”
Baron actually was a polite captor. He fed and watered his horse while he boiled water for us. While he worked, my fingers fumbled with the rope over my head, but the knots were too well-done to undo.
“Do you promise not to run away if I untie you?” he asked me after he pulled the water off the fire.
“I promise.”
He chuckled and untied the rope from above my head.
“You’re a terrible liar. Here, are you hungry?
” He handed over a few strips of dried meat and some bread, which tempted me enough to raise the food enough to smell it, but when I saw how closely Baron was watching me, I met his gaze then slowly dumped it into the fire.
I’d hoped he would be angry, but instead he just laughed. “You’re a spiteful one, aren’t you?”
Once it had cooled, I did grudgingly accept some water since he was drinking from the same container.
At least if it was poisoned, we would both be affected.
Baron’s unhurried, patient manner troubled me much more than Dorian’s brash cruelty.
If Baron was quick to anger, he would be easy to manipulate.
This calm, rational man would be much more difficult to trick or distract than any of the previous men.
Since I had slept most of the previous day, I wasn’t tired. I knew Baron must be, but his apprehension about my unpredictable behavior was surely keeping his adrenaline up high enough that he dared not close his eyes for even a moment.
I tried for conversation again, but this time dropping the false girly quality to my voice. “Why’s your name Baron?”
He glanced once at me before answering, “My mother was very poor and came from nothing. She said she had no title to give me, so my name would be a powerful one to show that I was a noble in her eyes.”
Psh. What a sappy story cooked up to tug on the heartstrings of gullible girls. I sincerely hoped no one had ever been foolish enough to fall for such a transparently fake tale.
Baron continued, “And I know you’re Robin Hood’s daughter, but I don’t know your name.”
“You never asked.”
“Okay, what’s your name?”
I considered lying, but to what end? It would have been pointless. “Laurel. Laurel of Locksley.”
“That is a pretty name,” Baron said generously.
Nice try, I thought sourly. He was trying to be polite and friendly to lure me into trusting him so I would be an easier target. It was exactly what I would do in his position.
I was not so easily won over.