Page 54 of A Lyon’s Lesson

Chapter 29

Rick groaned. His head was splitting, and his mouth was stuffed with a foul-tasting cloth. He took a breath through his nose and sneezed and coughed on the dusty air choking his lungs and opened his eyes in panic as he tried to get more air. He couldn’t see anything because his head was enclosed in a sackcloth bag, and his attempt to move his hands up to remove it and the gag was stopped by the tight ropes binding them behind his back. His feet were likewise bound, and both hands and feet were numb from the restriction of the ropes. Someone had removed his boots. He was lying on his side, and by the rustling sound as he attempted to move, the prickling against his neck, and the smell coming through the bag, he was lying on hay.

How he had got here came back to him in vivid detail. Sovereign had been making good time in the murky pre-dawn light as he headed toward Church End Road past St, Mary’s Church, when out of the bushes on either side of the long straight road bisecting the fields of the home farm emerged a posse of men, masked and armed.

Rick’s pulse had kicked up in excitement at the sniff of danger. His natural thirst for adventure, that had gone unslaked since his marriage, had jerked him out of his melancholy state and spurred his body to quick action. He’d pulled Sovereign up sharply and reached instantly for his own pistol, but one of the blackguards must have hit him on the back of the head before he could withdraw it and fire. Pain had exploded behind his eyes, and he felt himself falling from the saddle. His last thought had been of Cecelia, alone in the house. I should never have left her . . .

Now, he stifled his first instinct to cry out for help and instead pulled fruitlessly on his bonds and tried to think through the pain in his head. It would seem the danger to his person was not over. Was this related to the other attempts on his life? If they even had truly been attempts to kill him, which he was still not fully convinced of. Was this an attempt at ransom? It seemed the most likely explanation. But who would do such a thing, and where the hell was he?

In a stable or barn by the smell of it. But there was no odor of horses or any sounds suggesting horses were present; so, a barn then. How long had he been unconscious for?

Was Cecey in any danger? The notion made his gut clench. He should never have left her! Was this God’s way of punishing him for being a coward? For he was, he knew it, and it made him feel sick to his stomach.

He stopped struggling with his ropes for a moment as he fought a wave of nausea and self-disgust. He couldn’t vomit with a gag in his mouth—he’d choke to death—and Cecey needed him. He needed to apologize to her for running away like a rat deserting a sinking ship. He was the worst kind of cur. He winced as he thought of what Robert would say. What had possessed him to run yet again?

He mastered the nausea by sheer force of will and tried to twist his wrists, but the ropes were tied too tightly and just bit into the skin. The pain from the abrading of the skin made him stop and try to breathe and think.

It was then that he heard voices, muffled, as if from outside the building he was in, one he was convinced now was a barn or some kind of storage shed. He thought they were male voices, but he couldn’t understand what they were saying. However, the tenor was one of excitement or perhaps anger. An argument of some kind? Over him?

In the next moment, he heard the scrape of a door opening, and light came through the chinks in the sackcloth weave. Not enough to see anything, but enough to tell him it was full daylight outside.

Booted feet approached him and then hands seized him and shook him. “Wakey, wakey, Your Lordship,” came a deep masculine voice. It seemed familiar but he couldn’t for the moment place it.

He wanted to speak, to reason with his captor, to ask questions, but the gag prevented him from doing more than making noises in his throat, which he did to indicate he was awake.

The big hands pulled him to his feet roughly, and Rick swayed, unable to stand or walk due to the ropes tying his ankles together that had made his feet go numb. He would have fallen if the man hadn’t held him upright. He was half dragged across the room and pushed up against a square wooden column. A second man then proceeded to lash him to the upright with another rope, while the first kept him in place with a forearm across his chest and a hand in a chokehold across his throat. Swiftly the other man then slashed the ropes on his wrists, and before Rick could pull them up to defend himself, the second man had pulled his arms back behind the pole and clamped a pair of manacles on his wrists. Then he felt a rope drop around his neck and he panicked at the notion they were going to hang him and cried out. It came out a muffled grunt, and the first man soothed sinisterly, “Steady, Your Lordship, steady. You don’t want to us to have to do you harm you can’t come back from, do you?” That voice! He knew it, who . . . Then the threat in the words sank in.

Why the hell would they do that? I’m worth more alive than dead.

This must all be related to the events of the past few weeks, and someone must indeed want him dead after all. The notion landed like a cold stone in his stomach.

He stilled and waited to see what they would do next, his hot breath filling up the inside of the bag enclosing his head.

The first man then lifted him bodily under his arms while the second shoved something under his feet, a small footstool he thought. It wobbled a bit on the uneven floorboards and felt very unstable beneath his numb, bare feet. If he tried to step off the stool, would the rope around his neck actually hang him?

Finally, they removed the tight rope around his ankles to his profound relief, but his feet we so numb they wouldn’t obey his instructions to move, and he was helpless to stop the men putting manacles on his ankles the same way they put them on his wrists.

Then he felt the rope tied around his neck pulled tighter, as if it had been lashed to something.

“There now,” said the first man. “Nicely trussed up like a turkey, Your Lordship. You just stay still, and you’ll be fine. But if you move around too much—” Rick felt another tug of the noose around his neck tighten and comprehended that he would hang himself if he moved incautiously. The feeling was coming back into his hands and feet, but while it made him feel slightly steadier on the rickety stool beneath his feet, it didn’t appreciably help his situation.

He tried to speak around the wretched gag. “Oot o oo ont!”

His captors didn’t reply to his question, as they moved away from him toward the door, but the second man muttered, “Have to take out the gag to feed and water him before the transport gets here.”

“Yes, but it will dark by then, and some of the fight will be taken out of him,” said the first man. “Be a bit more biddable by then, I expect.”

Transport? Where were they taking him?

“Ere oo aching ee!” But his attempts to communicate elicited no response, and he heard the scrape and bolt of the door to his prison sliding into place.

He closed his eyes and tried to get comfortable. Steadying his heart rate and breathing, he pushed down the flare of frustration and breathed through his panic. Yes, he was exceedingly uncomfortable, but dwelling on it would only make it worse. He was alive; that was the main thing. And he would get out of this somehow and get back to Cecey and grovel on his knees for her forgiveness. A niggle of fear that whatever this was about posed some threat to her poked its head into his thoughts and refused to be completely banished. I will get out of this and return to her. I will.

His opportunity would come when they came back to feed and water him or to move him. That was proof they didn’t mean for him to die, which was reassuring. And to move him they would have to unshackle him, and he would be ready for them then.

Chapter 30

Four days later