Chapter Four #2
Again, she complied without hesitation, even as she winced as she did so, putting her back and hair into filth beneath her.
The man scooped more leaves over her torso before he dropped down beside her, half on top of her.
“More,” he said, turning and swiping at leaves to cover his legs.
One arm was pinned beneath him, but she used her free hand to scoop leaves onto his back, a frantic part of her mind screaming that such a fragile screen could never conceal them from the terror that grew louder by the second.
“Cover yer face.”
He shifted closer, far closer than was comfortable, until his chest was wedged against her shoulder and breast, and all the while he continued to gather wet leaves around and over them.
Anna did the same, and when he lowered his cheek next to hers, burying his head, as it were, she instinctively assembled more leaves around his head with one hand while she grimaced and dropped leaves onto her own face with the other.
“Hold,” he whispered then, his voice and breath warm against her ear.
Anna held her breath.
Until now, the strange noise had seemed distant enough that she could almost convince herself she’d imagined it, but hidden beneath the blanket of cold leaves, and not running, she heard it plainly.
The ground quivered ever so slightly, the vibration faint but unmistakable, and she strained to identify the noise.
Her first thought was machinery, something enormous lumbering through the woods, like a tank, but she heard no engines, no mechanical growl, only that strange, pounding cadence accompanied now by the occasional metallic clatter, as though iron struck against iron somewhere beyond the trees.
The sounds came unevenly, some nearer than others, overlapping until they blended into a single, terrifying roar that grew steadily closer.
Above the noise, and over her own pulse-pounding fright, rose awareness of something else—of him.
He was not heavy atop her, but solid and strangely warm.
His arm was draped across her stomach, the weight of it surprisingly comforting.
He smelled of wet wool and damp earth, and, unmistakably, of a man who had gone far too long without the luxury of soap or clean clothes.
His breathing was quick but controlled, in complete contrast to her own erratic heartbeat, and when his cheek brushed against the skin of her ear, Anna instinctively drew a sharp breath.
And it dawned on her, that dreams did not feel like this.
In dreams, she didn’t realize warmth or scent or the feel of rain, and certainly she’d never recalled detecting a heartbeat, hers or any other. Yet she could feel his, strong and steady where his chest rested partly against her shoulder, beating with less urgency than her own.
The realization settled over her with startling clarity—she didn’t think she really was asleep and dreaming.
But that confounding comprehension was abandoned as the sound of pursuit became thunderous—whatever was coming was almost upon them. Instinctively, she curled her fingers into her palms but otherwise held perfectly still, except for the hammering of her heart.
“Easy,” said the man, apparently trying to soothe her.
—And probably hoping her fright didn’t get him caught.
The leaves blanketing her face laid in a fortunate position, leaving one eye uncovered, and she could see the gray sky above.
The first shape came so suddenly that Anna thought at first that a motorcycle had leapt across the ravine above them.
She caught only a blur of dark movement against the gray sky before it vanished beyond the opposite bank, followed immediately by a tremendous thud that shook damp earth loose from the walls of the gully.
A second followed almost immediately, and this time she saw more. Four powerful legs tucked tightly beneath a massive body, a tail streaming behind it, and above it, a man. Horse and rider sailed over the ravine together before disappearing into the forest beyond.
She had only just wrapped her brain around this—Monte Cristo man and she were being chased by a horse-riding posse?
—before another followed, and then another.
They didn’t come in a neat line, but in scattered groups, each rider choosing his own place to cross the ravine, some beyond her feet, some straight above, and others somewhere out of sight, heard and felt but not seen.
They soared overhead in a flash, too quickly to notice any detail, but so close and so unexpected that she began to shiver with renewed fright.
She didn’t realize how violently she shook until the arm resting across her middle tightened.
The man slid his hand from where it had lain against her stomach, moving it down to her hip, his fingers curling firmly around it, not painfully, but with enough pressure to still the instinctive urge she suddenly had to curl into herself.
She felt him turn his head ever so slightly, his beard brushing her ear.
“Shh,” he whispered softly, less a command than reassurance.
Anna swallowed hard, forcing herself to remain perfectly still despite the tears now gathering in her eyes.
She had no idea who this man was, why armed riders pursued him through a forest, or how she had become tangled in this nightmare, but she understood one thing: the man holding her was flesh and blood.
His hand was warm against her hip, his heartbeat was real against her shoulder, and if he believed she would suffer as greatly as him if discovered, then she believed him.
***
Bram counted the riders as they crossed overhead, expecting there should be at least a dozen in pursuit but perhaps as many as twenty. He knew by the sounds that followed their leaps that they scattered more widely after clearing the ravine.
His attention, however, was hopelessly divided.
Most of it remained on the English, but a growing, infuriating part of it was fixed on the woman beneath him.
She was an unwanted burden, a complication his escape could not afford.
Common sense demanded he should have left her where he’d found her, yet some foolish weakness had seized him.
Now, he might pay for it, for she trembled so violently that he felt it through every place their bodies touched, surely shivering the very leaves that hid them.
The hand upon her hip had settled there without thought, his grip tightening instinctively as though his hand alone and the firmness of his grip should resolve her fright.
But awareness had damnably poor timing. Despite his one chance at freedom—which at the moment seemed likely to succeed—he found himself thinking less of danger and more of her.
She smelled...not of perfume, though there was something faintly sweet about her, unlike anything he’d encountered before, but of clean linen dried beneath sunshine, of fresh rain, and something else he could neither name nor place.
It struck him then, absurdly, that she carried the scent of a life devoid of hardship, of a lord’s pampered daughter who’d until this moment never encountered adversity or fear.
He set that meaninglessness aside, attuned suddenly to her, the feel of her.
Through the soaked wool of his sleeve and the layers of wet leaves between them, he was aware of how slight she was.
Her shoulder beneath his chest seemed impossibly delicate, her waist so narrow that his hand nearly spanned it, and when another horse thundered overhead and she startled despite every effort to remain still, the instinct to draw her closer came over him with such force that he squeezed his fingers on her hip at the same time he pressed his shoulder against hers.
Even as he did so, and she did settle fractionally, he wondered why. The question echoed through his mind for what seemed the hundredth time since she’d appeared in the forest. Why did he feel so innate a notion that he must protect her?
He didn’t even know her name—had literally witnessed her come to life before his eyes. He knew nothing of her save that she had come from nowhere, spoke strangely, dressed more strangely still, and possessed eyes so filled with confusion that no deception could account for them.