Chapter 19
Chapter
Nineteen
The arrows came from three directions at once.
Brodie had fought enough battles to recognize a coordinated ambush when he saw one. They’d been herded here—pushed toward this exact spot where the trail narrowed between two massive trees and the undergrowth grew thick enough to hide a dozen men.
“Stay down,” he hissed to Maddie, pressing her lower behind the fallen log as another arrow slammed into the wood above their heads.
But staying down meant waiting to die or be taken. And Brodie MacLeod had spent four years learning that sometimes the only way through was forward.
He pulled the knife from his belt. “When I move, ye run. North, toward the mountains. Dinna look back.”
“I’m not leaving you.”
“Maddie—”
“I said I’m not leaving you.” Her voice was steel underneath the fear. “We do this together or not at all.”
There was no time to argue. The voices were closer now, moving through the undergrowth with the practiced efficiency of men who’d done this before. Hunting escaped servants and enslaved workers was apparently a skill the overseer Williams had perfected over the years.
Brodie counted them by sound. Five men. Maybe six. All armed with bows or muskets, and he had a knife and a woman who could barely walk.
The odds had been worse in Edinburgh. On the slave ship. During that storm off the Carolina coast when the Corbeau had nearly gone down and half the crew with it.
He’d survived those. He’d survive this too.
He had to. Because Maddie was depending on him, and he’d be damned if he let her down the way he’d let down everyone else he’d ever loved.
“On three,” he whispered. “We break left, into the thicker jungle. They’ll have trouble tracking us in the undergrowth.”
“My ankle—”
“I’ll carry ye if I have to. One. Two—”
The widow’s man stepped out of the jungle directly in front of them.
Williams. The overseer. The same bastard who’d laid the whip across his back. He was grinning now, musket leveled at Brodie’s chest, close enough that even drunk he couldn’t miss.
“Well, well. The Scotsman and his whore.” Williams’s voice was pure Port Royal gutter—rough and mean and enjoying every second of this. “Widow’s been looking for you two. She’s not pleased.”
Brodie shifted his weight, calculating distance and angles. Ten feet between them. If he were fast enough, if Williams hesitated even a second—
“Don’t.” Williams’s grin widened. “You’re quick, MacLeod.
I’ll give you that. But you’re not faster than a musket ball.
And even if you were, there’s five more of us in these trees, all of them with arrows pointed at your pretty little governess.
You want her to die here? Because that’s what happens if you try something stupid. ”
Maddie’s hand found his, squeezed once. “Don’t, please. It’s not worth it.”
But it was worth it. She was worth everything.
More men emerged from the jungle—four of them, all armed, all grinning with the same cruel anticipation. They’d been waiting for this. Hunting them had been a sport.
“Drop the knife,” Williams said.
Brodie’s fingers tightened on the hilt.
“Drop it, or I put an arrow through her leg. Your choice.”
The knife fell from Brodie’s hand, landing in the dirt with a soft thud that sounded like surrender.
It tasted like Edinburgh all over again. Like Anne’s betrayal and the soldiers’ chains and the certainty that he’d trusted wrong, chosen wrong, loved wrong.
Except this time was different. This time, the woman beside him hadn’t betrayed him. She’d chosen to stay with him even when running would have been smarter. Had refused to leave him even when capture meant death or worse.
This time, the love was real.
Which made losing it so much more terrible.
They bound his wrists with rope that bit into scarred skin—the same wrists the English soldiers had chained four years ago, the same wrists that had bled raw on the slave ship.
Some men were born to wear chains, his father used to say.
Brodie had thought he’d proven that wrong by joining Renard’s crew, by earning his freedom through storms and blood.
But here he was. Bound again. Caught again. Helpless again.
Williams checked the knots with the practiced efficiency of someone who’d done this hundreds of times. “Tight enough? Good. Wouldn’t want you slipping away before the widow gets her turn with you.”
“What does she want?” Brodie kept his voice level, betraying none of the rage burning in his chest.
“You? She wants you to scream. That boy of hers, he’s got ideas about what happens to servants who run.
Thinks he should get to watch.” Williams leaned close enough that Brodie could smell rotting teeth and rum.
“The girl though? She’s got special plans for her.
Something about the old garden and settling accounts. ”
Cold fear cut through the rage. The garden. The forbidden place where servants disappeared and never returned.
He looked at Maddie. They had her on her knees, one of the men binding her wrists while another held her hair, forcing her head back. Her face was pale with pain—her ankle, probably screaming after the run and the fall—but her eyes were clear. Fierce.
She met his gaze across the small clearing.
I love you. He tried to pour it all into that look—everything he’d never said, everything he might never get the chance to say. I’m sorry. For all of this. For not being faster, stronger, better. For failing you like I’ve failed everyone else.
But she shook her head slightly, reading him like she’d been reading him since that first day in the courtyard. Don’t. This isn’t your fault. We tried. We fought. That’s enough.
Except it wasn’t enough. Not when trying meant she’d end up in that garden, screaming until she stopped.
“Get them up,” Williams ordered. “We’ve got a long walk back, and the widow’s waiting.”
They hauled Brodie to his feet. He tested the ropes immediately, looking for any give, any weakness. Found none. Whoever had tied these knots knew their business.
Two men grabbed Maddie, pulling her upright despite her cry of pain when weight hit her twisted ankle. She nearly collapsed, would have if they hadn’t been holding her.
“She can’t walk,” Brodie said. “Her ankle’s twisted. She needs—”
Williams’s fist caught him in the stomach, driving the air from his lungs. “She needs to learn the same lesson you’re about to learn, Scotsman. Running has consequences.”
They dragged Maddie forward. She tried to walk, to keep up, but her ankle gave out after three steps. The men holding her just laughed and kept dragging, letting her feet scrape through the dirt.
“Stop,” Brodie snarled. “Let me carry her. She’s no use to the widow if she’s crippled.”
Williams considered this, then shrugged. “Fine. You carry her. But if either of you tries anything, anything at all, I’ll put a bullet through your knee and make you watch while we take turns with her. Understand?”
Understanding was a stone in Brodie’s throat. He nodded.
They untied his wrists just long enough for him to lift Maddie into his arms—careful of her ankle, of her bruises, of everything that hurt. She wrapped her arms around his neck, pressed her face against his shoulder.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “This is my fault. If I’d run faster, if my ankle hadn’t—”
“Hush. This isna your fault. None of this is your fault.”
“But—”
“We’re not dead yet, lass. And while we’re breathing, we’re still fighting.”
They retied his wrists in front of him this time, the rope looped around both their bodies, binding them together. Clever. He couldn’t run with her weight and bound hands. Couldn’t fight with her in his arms.
The walk back was agony.
Not the physical pain, though his back screamed where the whip scars pulled with each step, and his wrists bled where the rope cut into his wrists. Not even the exhaustion, though they’d been running for three days with barely any rest and his legs shook with each mile.
No, the agony was knowing that every step took them closer to the widow. Closer to whatever “special plans” she had for Maddie. Closer to that garden where people screamed and then went silent.
Williams kept up a running commentary as they walked, describing in loving detail what the widow did to servants who defied her.
Brodie tried to block it out, tried to focus on anything else—the weight of Maddie in his arms, the rhythm of his breathing, the calculations of distance and guards and opportunities for escape.
But Williams’s words wormed their way in anyway.
“—last one lasted two days. Strong bastard, that Duncan. But they all break eventually. The stones in that garden do something to you. Make you age, make you rot from the inside out. Widow’s been using them for years. Keeps her young, she says. Though I think she just likes the screaming.”
Maddie’s arms tightened around Brodie’s neck.
“Don’t listen,” he murmured. “Whatever he’s saying, it’s lies meant to break ye before we even get there.”
“Is it though?” Her voice was small, frightened in a way he’d never heard from her. “The garden, the stones—I came through a stone, Brodie. What if she’s figured out how to use them? What if—”
“Then we’ll face it when we get there. Together.”
“How? We’re bound, unarmed, surrounded by men with guns. How do we fight our way out of this?”
He didn’t have an answer. For the first time since Edinburgh, since the soldiers dragged him into that rain-soaked street, Brodie MacLeod had no plan, no angle, no way forward that didn’t end with both of them dead or worse.
But he couldn’t tell her that. Couldn’t let her see the despair eating at him.
“We wait,” he said instead. “Watch for an opening. The widow will want to gloat, want to break us slowly. That gives us time. And time is all we need.”
It was a lie. They both knew it. But sometimes, lies were all you had.
They stopped once during the march, when the sun reached its peak and even Williams was sweating through his shirt.
The men tied Brodie to a tree, gave them both water that tasted of leather and mold, then sat in the shade passing around a jug of rum while they discussed what they’d spend their reward money on.
“Fifty pounds,” one of them said. “That’s what the widow offered for the Scotsman. Twenty for the girl.”
“Should be more for her,” another argued. “She’s prettier. Worth more in Port Royal if we—”
“Touch her and the widow will have your balls,” Williams cut in. “She’s got plans for that one. Specific plans. Anyone who interferes gets to watch from inside that garden.”
That shut them up.
Brodie used the time to test the ropes again, to look for weaknesses in their guard. Found the same thing he’d found before—nothing. These men knew what they were doing.
Maddie sat beside him, her bound hands in her lap, face pale with pain and exhaustion. But her eyes were dry. No tears. No panic. Just the same fierce determination he’d seen in her since the day they met.
“Tell me about Scotland again,” she said quietly. “About the cliffs and the sea.”
So he did. Talked about Bronmuir in autumn when the heather bloomed purple across the hills. The way the wind blew off the North Sea, cold enough to sting your face. About his mother’s garden, where she’d grown herbs that smelled of earth and rain.
And about the home he’d lost and might never see again.
When they started moving again, Williams pulled Brodie aside.
“The Maroon settlement,” he said conversationally. “Where is it?”
“I dinna ken.”
“Liar. You were heading straight for it. Had guides, supplies, everything. So where is it? Give me a location and maybe the widow goes easy on you.”
“I dinna ken,” Brodie repeated. “We were following directions from a dead man. Trail signs, nothing more.”
Williams’s fist caught him in the ribs—casual, almost lazy, but hard enough to crack something. “Try again.”
Brodie spat blood. “Even if I knew, I wouldna tell ye. Those people up there, they’re free. And they’re going to stay that way.”
“Loyal to people you’ve never met? That’s stupid, MacLeod.”
“Aye. It probably is.”
Williams hit him again. Then again. Professional, methodical beatings designed to hurt without disabling. Can’t deliver a broken prisoner to the widow. She wanted them conscious for whatever came next.
Maddie screamed for him to stop. Screamed until one of the men gagged her, muffling the sound to desperate, muffled pleas.
And Brodie said nothing. Gave them nothing. Because Ruth, and Jonah and Thomas and all the others who’d risked everything to help them deserved better than betrayal. Deserved to keep their freedom even if his was forfeit.
Some things were worth dying for.
By the time they saw the plantation in the distance, the sun was setting.
Golden light painted the great house in shades of amber and blood.
Smoke rose from the kitchen. Somewhere, a bell was ringing.
They’d taken a straight path back, with no worry about being unseen or quiet. It was a third of the time.
They’d made it back. Back to the place they’d risked everything to escape.
And the widow was waiting.
They dragged them through the kitchen entrance, and up the back stairs to the drawing room. The same room where Maddie had first been interrogated. Where Philippe had tested her, and the widow had given her one week to prove herself.
How long ago was that? Weeks? Months? It felt like a lifetime.
The widow sat in her chair like a queen on a throne. Crimson silk dress, perfect hair, that same cold smile. Philippe stood beside her, amber eyes bright with anticipation.
Williams shoved Brodie forward onto his knees. Another guard did the same to Maddie. They knelt before the widow like supplicants, bound and broken and out of options.
“Well,” the widow said, her voice pleasant, almost cheerful. “You’ve returned. How kind of you to save me the trouble of sending more men.”
Brodie said nothing. Kept his eyes on hers, refusing to look down, refusing to show weakness.
“I’m disappointed,” she continued. “I had such hopes for you, Mr. MacLeod. You were so promising. Educated, skilled, and damned attractive. I thought you might last years here. Become a permanent fixture in my household.”
“Ye mean a permanent slave.”
“Slave is such an ugly word. I prefer the term ‘indentured servant.’ It sounds so much more civilized.” She leaned forward, studying him like a jeweler examining a flawed stone. “But you ruined it. Threw away everything for this little fool of a governess. Was she really worth it?”
He looked at Maddie—kneeling beside him, gagged, tears streaming down her face, but still fierce, still fighting, still his.
“Aye,” he said. “She was worth everything.”
The widow’s smile vanished. “Very well. If that’s your choice.”
She stood, silk rustling. “Philippe. Fetch the lanterns. We’re going to the garden.”