Run Wild (17 page)

He looked in the other direction. A few feet away, cut into the rock, he could make out a crevasse. An opening of some sort. Less than two feet wide. It might be a trick of his vision. A shadow. Or another little joke being played by God.

Or it might be a cave.

It might save their lives.

But it was at least ten feet away. And ten feet had never looked so impossibly distant.

The girl was shaking, limp in his grasp. He squeezed her hard to get her attention, nodded desperately toward the crevasse.

“Can you make it?” he shouted.

She followed his gaze, shook her head weakly.

“Damn it, don’t you give up on me now, lady!”

His anger seemed to ignite whatever embers of grit she had left. She lifted her head. “Yes,” she choked out in a watery sputter.

It seemed the only word she was capable of. He took it as an assent. And didn’t bother counting to three this time.

In a headlong dive, he let go of the root and threw himself toward the crevasse. They struggled across the ten feet of water together, swimming, kicking, reaching for it in one long ungraceful splash. It felt like he would never get there.

But then he touched it with his right hand, grabbing the edge of the stone with some last reserve of stamina, pulling himself up. She grasped the opposite edge and hung there, breathless.

It took some maneuvering, but he made it out of the water, levering his body into the tight opening, helping her scramble up behind him. The fissure opened to a gap several feet wide.

Then it broadened into a cave.

They collapsed on the cool stone floor, gasping for breath, choking on all the water they had swallowed, spitting up mouthfuls of river. The cave was small, dark, clammy, and contained nothing but wet stone.

And it felt like heaven.

The closest to heaven he had ever been in his life and the closest he ever expected to get.

He lay flattened, on his stomach, his cheek resting against the cold granite, jaw slack, every muscle in his body shivering, weak, twitching spasmodically. He felt as waterlogged as a soaked sponge, wanted nothing so much as to have someone bunch him up and wring him out.

But breathing felt almost as good as that. Bloody hell, he had never appreciated breathing before. In, out, in, out, a smooth flow of air punctuated only by his frequent tortured coughs.

Over the roar of the rushing water, he could hear the faint barking of the dogs. Bloody damn accursed dogs. Yelping at the top of the falls. Probably a good thirty feet above, he guessed. Standing right over their heads.

Howling in outrage because their prey had abruptly disappeared.

A satisfied grin lifted one corner of Nicholas’s mouth. He opened his eyes. The only light came from the crevasse they had squeezed through, but he could see the girl sprawled on her back nearby. She lay utterly still, only her chest rising and falling as she breathed.

Pushing himself up to a seated position, he ignored the blaze of pain down his back and slid the soaked fishing creel from his shoulder. Most of the supplies in it were probably ruined. And his pistol was gone. Lost somewhere at the bottom of the river. He cursed. They were left with only one weapon. He found the knife still shoved deep in his boot. He took it out and dropped it beside the creel.

Then he studied the shackles, briefly hoping, just for a second...

Still intact. Of course. No force of man or nature seemed capable of breaking the blasted things.

He sank back down to the cool stone floor and lay there, too weak to do anything more at the moment.

The girl began sobbing.

Nicholas lifted his head. “What are you crying about?” he croaked in disbelief. “We’re alive.”

She didn’t respond, only crying harder, covering her face with both hands.

“A while ago you were
willing
to drown,” he reminded her lightly.

That didn’t seem to help at all. She only sobbed more desperately, her whole body shaking with the force of her tears.

He frowned at her, utterly perplexed. Somehow he always managed to say exactly the wrong thing in situations like this. “What the devil is wrong with you, woman?”

“I’m frightened!” she shouted, shooting the words at him like bullets. “Haven’t you ever been frightened?”

That struck him dumb. The way she said it, as if the words had been torn out, as if it were a deep admission she hadn’t wanted to make, brought that odd sensation back to his chest—the one he had experienced yesterday when she talked about being so hungry that she would steal. It was such an unfamiliar feeling, he couldn’t even name it.

All he knew was that he had felt the same way as her. Many times in his life.

Aye, he had been frightened.

“We’re safe now,” he said gruffly.

“No, we’re not.” She sat up, the expression on her face desperate, angry. “We’re not safe! We’re not safe at all. We’re going to
die!
”

The dogs kept up their incessant baying overhead, competing with the thunder of tons of water plunging into the lethally deep whirlpool outside. She pressed her hands over her ears, bending over and drawing her knees up to her chest, sobbing.

Seeing her so vulnerable made the unfamiliar sensation travel upward from his chest to his throat, tightening it. For all her bravado, all her toughness, she was still so damned... delicate. Sitting there dripping river water all over the floor, with her hair and gown a soaked mess and tears adding to the wetness on her pale cheeks, she looked fragile, lost.

Alone.

And that, too, was something he had felt before.

“There’s no need to be scared,” he said quietly, not allowing himself to move closer as some impulse urged him to do. “For now, we’re safe.”

“No, we’re not.” She kicked at the chain helplessly, furiously. “I can’t run anymore. I can’t
fight
anymore. There’s nothing left in me. Don’t you understand? Nothing! I’m not strong enough. I’m sick of running and being shot at and chased and drowned, and I’m sick of these damned shackles, and I’m sick of
you
. I just want to be safe and I’m never going to be and I’m going to
die
.”

“No.” Nicholas reached for her, taking her by the shoulders. “No, you’re not,” he told her flatly. “You may be a lot of things, lady, but a quitter isn’t one of them.”

He drew her close, holding her against his chest—and only realized he was doing it a moment later.

But against his better judgment, against all his instincts, he didn’t let her go.

He tightened his arms around her and hung on.

For once, she didn’t fight his touch. She went slack in his embrace, sobbing out all her fear.

“Shhh,” he whispered, letting her cry into his shirt. “You’re going to be all right, Miss Delafield.”

After a moment, he moved his right hand, rubbing it up and down her back. “We’ve thrown the law off our trail. The cave entrance is hidden—we never would’ve seen it ourselves if we hadn’t been right on top of it. And the dogs won’t be able to follow our scent in the water. The lawmen will think we either drowned or were carried downriver. They’ll start looking for us downstream.”

None of this sounded particularly reassuring, even to him, as the dogs continued to bay overhead.

She shook her head, clearly not believing him, shivering in his arms. “We’re not going to get out of this alive, are we?” she whispered tearfully.

“We have so far. We just have to stick together and...”

When he didn’t finish, she raised her head.

He looked down into her eyes, into those golden pools he could so easily drown in. “Trust one another.”

The words came out in a whisper. He could barely believe he’d thought them, much less spoken them aloud.

A second later she seemed to realize—at the same moment he did—that they were locked in an intimate embrace, her breasts pressed against his chest, their bodies radiating warmth, his fingers tangled in her wet hair, their lips an inch apart.

He also realized he was holding her not with sexual intent, but with gentle reassurance. And he had been freely using the word “we” for some time. That wasn’t part of the bargain. He only had to keep her alive. Not comforted, just alive.

But he couldn’t seem to make himself let her go. And an instant later, without thinking, he lowered his mouth toward hers.

She suddenly broke the embrace, lurching backward out of his arms. “Yes... well...” she cleared her throat, hurriedly wiping her damp cheeks. “I suppose you’re right. I... I should be glad we’ve at least confused the law for now.” She brushed at her wet sleeves, as if dusting away some invisible lint. Or ridding herself of his touch.

The law weren’t the only ones confused, Nicholas thought dazedly, shaking not from pain or cold, but from the force of something more powerful that seemed to keep robbing him of his senses.

“And I thought I asked you to keep your hands to yourself,” she added frostily.

He replied with a glower, unable to summon words at the moment. He had liked having her in his arms. Not merely because of the sexual hunger he felt for her, or because of any joy or relief he felt at finding himself still alive. The effect she had on him was more complicated than that.

And it made him uneasy.

“But I... I suppose I should thank you for saving me,” she continued quietly, wringing some of the water out of her skirt. “I would’ve drowned out there.”

“If you die, I die, remember?” he tossed back.

“Yes, of course,” she replied, meeting his eyes and matching his sharp tone. “And that brings up another question. Now that we’re in here...” She looked around the dark cave. “How on earth are we going to get out?”

T
heir cautious footsteps sounded louder than a hundred pairs of shoes dancing across a marble floor. Sam stared ahead, eyes wide, afraid that her next step might carry them straight down some bottomless pit. Or into an impassable wall of solid rock.

The rogue followed behind her, silent but for his labored breathing.

They had yet to find the rear of the cave. Or a way out. Even though they had been walking for over an hour.

The damp, confined space seemed to play tricks with every sound, every drip of water, every skittering of pebbles beneath their feet. Sam practically jumped out of her slippers each time the chain caught on a rock or stalagmite. She had thought herself used to the metallic jangling of the shackles by now, but in here it seemed eerie, ghostlike.

Ominous.

Leading the way, she held her torch high—if a whiskey-soaked petticoat stuffed into an empty biscuit tin dangling on a hastily woven net of fishing wire could be called a torch. The flame cast a glimmer of light that barely penetrated the crush of darkness around them.

She kept coughing, felt as if she had inhaled so much of the river that she must’ve grown gills. She edged forward, feeling her way across the uneven ground, her slippers encountering rocks, sand, sticky mud, sharp pebbles.

She shifted the heavy fishing creel on her shoulder, her bruised muscles protesting at the motion. Cuts and scrapes on her arms and legs stung like the devil, adding to her misery. The waterfall and the rocks had left their mark on her... in more ways than one.

The passage narrowed so tightly in some spots that they could barely squeeze past. In others it became more like a tunnel, forcing them to stoop down or crawl through on their hands and knees. For the last several yards, it had broadened into what felt like a vast cavern.

But it didn’t end.

Now and then she could feel a gust of wind, a hint of fresh air that made her feel certain there must be an opening somewhere ahead. She strained her eyes for any speck of daylight. Prayed that they would find an exit that would spare them another encounter with the falls and the whirlpool. Neither of them wanted to risk that again.

So they kept going, deeper and deeper. Didn’t dare stop. They’d lost their pursuers for the moment. But for how long? When the lawmen didn’t find them downstream, they would double back to search the forest above. She didn’t relish the idea of exiting the cave only to find themselves in the middle of a swarm of hounds and marshalmen.

The sooner they found a way out of here, the better. Time was not on their side.

Please
, she thought, looking around her as the flames painted flickering orange shadows on the craggy walls of rock.
Please, there must be a way out. Please, God, help me find it
.

“Let’s take a rest.”

Startled by the rogue’s deep voice, Sam almost dropped the biscuit tin. She stopped and looked behind her. It was the first time he had asked to stop. Ever. She was usually the one who didn’t want to go on.

Then again, he had given her a number of surprises today. Including his request that she take the lead as they explored. And the fact that he hadn’t protested or made any mocking comment when she offered to carry the heavy pack of supplies.

“Are you all right?” she asked, wishing her heart would stop pounding so hard.

He sank down to the cave floor, leaned his good shoulder against the rough wall, nodded. But he was breathing hard, as if they’d been running for an hour instead of walking at a snail’s pace.