To Taste Temptation (Legend of the Four Soldiers #1)(93)

The carriage had been somewhere on Fleet Street when it had stopped, but Sam had cut off the busy thoroughfare. He ran parallel to the Thames now, the river out of sight somewhere to his right.

He felt the stretch in the muscles of his legs as he fought for even more speed. He hadn’t run like this—full out, in desperation and hope—since Spinner’s Falls. Then, no matter how he’d strained, he’d still arrived too late. Reynaud had died.

He swerved to avoid a young girl carrying a baby and crashed into a bulky man in a leather apron. The man swore and tried to strike him, but Sam was already past him. His feet hurt, sharp shards of pain working their way up his shins. He wondered if he’d reopened the wounds on his soles.

And then the smell hit him.

Whether it was from the leather-aproned man or someone he passed now, or maybe it was just a product of his fevered imagination, he didn’t know, but he smelled sweat. Male sweat. Oh, God, not now. He kept his eyes open and his legs pumping, though he wanted to cover his face and slump to the ground. The dead of Spinner’s Falls seemed to follow him. Invisible bodies that reeked of sweat and blood. Ghostly hands that caught at his sleeves and implored him to wait. He’d felt these wraiths in the forest after Spinner’s Falls. They’d followed him all the way to Fort Edward. Sometimes he’d even seen them, a boy’s eyes hollowed by fear, the old soldier with his scalp cut away. He’d never known if he’d been dreaming—running while only half awake—or if the dead of Spinner’s Falls had leaked into his living body. Perhaps he carried them everywhere and only knew it when he was in distress. Perhaps he’d always carry them, the way some men carried shrapnel beneath their skin, a silent ache, an invisible reminder of what he’d survived.

He ran through a wash of water, the splashes hitting him in the thighs. Not that it mattered; his clothes had long since soaked through. He was running closer to the wharves now, and he could smell the decay of the river. Tall warehouses rose up on either side of the lane he ran down. His breath came in gasps, and there was a scorching pain in his side. He’d lost track of time, couldn’t tell how long or how far he’d been running. What if they were already at the ship? What if Thornton had already killed them?

His mind suddenly flashed a horrific image: Emeline sprawled, naked and bloody, her face white and still. No! He squeezed his eyes shut against the sight and stumbled, slamming to his hands and knees on the cobblestones.

“Watch it!” a gruff male voice shouted.

Sam opened his eyes to see horse hooves inches from his face. He scrambled clumsily away, still on his knees, as the cart driver cursed his ancestry. His knees ached, especially his right one, which must’ve taken the brunt of the fall, but Sam stood.

Ignoring the driver, ignoring the breath rasping in his lungs, ignoring his pain, he started running again.

Emeline.

THE CARRIAGE MADE a wide turn, and Emeline could see the docks outside the window. The rain was still sheeting down, veiling tall ships out in the middle of the Thames. Smaller vessels crowded between the ships, ferrying goods and sometimes people between ship and shore. Normally, the docks would be full of laborers, prostitutes, and the gangs of thieves that made their livings off filching from the ships’ cargos. But because of the rain, the wharf was sparsely populated.

The carriage shuddered to a stop.

Mr. Thornton dug his pistol into Rebecca’s side. “Time to get out, Miss Hartley.”

Rebecca didn’t move. She turned a heartbreakingly brave face to their kidnapper. “What are you going to do with us?”

Mr. Thornton cocked his head and gave his gruesome grin and wink. “Nothing terrible, I assure you. Why, I have a mind to show you the world. Come and see.”

Oddly, his mundane pleasantry confirmed all of Emeline’s worst fears. She looked out the carriage door at the rain-grayed waters of the Thames. If they got onto a ship with Thornton, they weren’t likely to survive the journey. But at the moment they had no choice. Thornton nodded to the men on either side of her.

“Move on,” the scarlet-coated henchman to Emeline’s right grunted. He wrapped sausagelike fingers about her upper arm, no doubt leaving grease marks. He was slightly the shorter of the two and sported a frayed tricorne. Mr. Thornton must not pay him well, because his boots were nearly all holes and a grimy big toe poked through the leather on one.

Emeline smiled tightly at Rebecca, trying to give her a bit of courage, before gathering her skirts. She stepped out of the carriage and into the rain, the thug’s hand still on her. The second thug followed. He was a tall, stringy man with enormously long arms and thinning gray hair. He hunched his shoulders and stood mute as Mr. Thornton descended with Rebecca.

“Now,” Thornton said, smiling. He smiled at everything. “Let’s hurry. There should be a boat waiting to take us to The Sea Tiger. I’m sure you ladies will want to get out of the rain. If we—”

But he didn’t finish the sentence. Rebecca pulled abruptly from his grasp, ducking to the side and behind the tall, balding henchman. For a fraction of a second, Mr. Thornton didn’t know where to point the gun, and it wavered. Then he grinned that horrible grin and brought the barrel around, pointing it at Emeline’s belly.

She froze. There was a long moment in time as she watched him wink and steady his aim, knowing that she was about to be killed.

And then she wasn’t.