Naomi Rawlings - Sanctuary for a Lady

She didn’t want to die. Not here. Not at the hands of those who’d already killed her family. She could die the moment she reached her destination. A carriage could run over her or an illness take her. She’d accept death by another means, but not at the hands of the armée.

Her bag caught on a branch. Leave it, her mind screamed, but she couldn’t let these beasts find, tear through and claim her belongings. They had no right to her bag, no right to her.

“Stop, you vixen, or we’ll make you pay.”

“Come here. We want to tittle-tattle, that’s all.”

The shouts rang closer. Her pursuers’ panting grew louder than her quick inhales. The men stumbled over rocks and saplings she evaded. They trampled the dead leaves across which she flitted. But still they gained.

She tripped on a rock, twisting her ankle. She cringed and bit back a cry as pain seared up her leg and her shoe gouged into a blister. Still, she pressed forward.

“Quit running, wench! We won’t hurt you.”

She veered to the right, following the thickest trees. Surely she could duck into some spot and let the beasts run past her. But the ground here was flat and barren beneath the trees. Not even a fallen log to hide her.

“Get her, fool.”

“Where’d she go? I can’t see her.”

“By the tree.”

Heavy footfalls from behind sounded as though they would trample her. Or was that her heart thumping its erratic rhythm? Hot breath teased her neck and ear. No. They couldn’t be so close. It must be the wind swirling her hair.

“Faster. If she escapes, I’ll send you all to the guillotine.”

Isabelle burst into an unexpected clearing. Moonlight illumined her movements as she raced toward the nearest trees.

“We have you now!”

Something pulled her bag. She turned to wrench it free, but one of the men gripped the handle. He sprawled on the ground, as though he had lunged for her, only to catch the bag instead.

“Come here, sweetheart,” he growled. His forearm, the size of a young tree trunk, rippled as he clenched the leather.

Let it go. They’ll find the money and be happy.

Defiance surged like a flood inside her. She’d not surrender so easily. She yanked the handle. The lock sprang, her bag yawned open and her clothes spewed upward, raining down like her shattered life.

“You get her?” a man called out.

Isabelle glimpsed the silhouettes of others running toward her. Releasing her bag, she screamed, though it sounded like little more than a gasp for want of air, and stumbled forward toward safety. If she made it to the stand of firs ahead, she could lose the men in the thick branches. Seven more steps. Then five, then four.

An arm, strong as an iron band, clamped across her waist and pulled her back against a hard chest. She screamed and fought and kicked. Her captor tightened his hold, pinning her arms against her breast so forcefully her necklace dug into her flesh.

“Let me go!” Waves of hair spilled across her face. She scratched and twisted, but the more she fought, the firmer her captor’s hold grew.

“That’s right, girl. Fight until you’re spent. We can wait.” A second man towered before her. He jerked his chin, his leadership of the band evident in the simple movement, and the five men formed a circle around her. The soldats all wore bloodred liberty caps and those horrid tricolor cockades.

The leader stepped closer and yanked a handful of her hair, forcing her head back and her teeth to grit against the pain.

“What do you think?” Her captor spoke from behind her. “Is she an aristocrat?”

Aristocrat. The word burned fear into her gut.

“Does it matter?” Someone sneered. “We got her. Only one thing to do with her now.”

The soldiers hooted in laughter, and gooseflesh rose on her arms.

The leader seized her wrist, ran his finger over her hand and grunted. “No calluses, but not smooth, either.”

Isabelle shrank away, but her back met the solid wall of her captor’s chest, leaving her no choice but to stare at the leader. The man possessed arms and hands so burly he could snap her in half. A thin scar twisted around his right eyebrow and bunched into an angry fist, and his powerful chest, clothed in an ill-fitting blue National Guard coat, rose and fell with each heavy breath.

The other soldiers crouched on the ground, searching her clothes and tattered bag.

Isabelle blinked back tears and lifted her chin. She’d been so close. One more day to the Channel. “Please, let me go. I’ve done nothing wrong.”

“Nothing wrong? Now, that depends on whether you’re an aristocrat. Where are you from?” Even in the gloom, malice shimmered in the leader’s eyes.

“Arras.” It wasn’t a lie. She and Marie had lived there since her family’s massacre five years earlier. “I’m a seamstress.”

“A seamstress?” The leader’s eyes ran slowly down her body, lingering so long her cheeks grew warm. “And what would a seamstress be doing alone? At night? So close to the shoreline?”

“I’m visiting my aunt. In Saint-Valery-sur-Somme.”

The leader laughed, a chilling timbre that sent fear into her heart. “Sure you are. Everyone travels in the dead of night when visiting an aunt.”

Isabelle licked her lips. “She suffered apoplexy, and we just received word. She needs someone to care for her. I’m traveling as quickly as possible, even at night.” She’d rehearsed the story a hundred times, even told it a time or two during the course of her journey. So why did her voice quaver?

“Hah. A likely story.” The leader’s gaze darkened. “She’s an aristocrat, men. Has to be.”

Isabelle dropped her gaze and clutched at the hard arm around her chest. “Non, please!” They had to believe her. It wasn’t a lie, not all of it. She was a seamstress. She was from Arras.

The leader smirked and took a strand of her hair between his fingers. Isabelle stiffened, bile churning in her stomach as he toyed with a curl.

“Pretty as you are, you’re not worth the trouble of dragging to a trial.” The leader separated her hair into little sections between his thumb and middle finger and stroked it. “We’ll take care of you here.”

The breath clogged in her throat. So they wouldn’t cart her to the nearest guillotine or to Paris. They’d kill her in the middle of the woods with only the trees as spectators. Better than the alternative. But if she could get free somehow and make it to the shrubs, she could still hide in the tall grass. All she needed was a distraction. Something to make her captor lose his hold. But what…?

The arm around her middle loosened. Her captor’s hand slid up, and he brushed his thumb along the base of her rib cage. “We got time to have this one before we kill her. She’d be worth it.”

The air left her lungs in one hard whoosh. Please, Father, don’t let them rape me. After five years of prayers falling on deaf ears, if there was any prayer God deemed fit to answer, surely this would be it. She didn’t move or even breathe as she focused her eyes on the man in front of her.

If You’ve any shred of mercy, Father, spare me. Her hands, still held against her chest, sought the familiar outline of the cross beneath her dress.

The leader’s eyes darkened, yet the fury embodied there shot past her and speared the man who held her. “You’ve a wife at home, Christophé.”

She tried to suck in a relieved breath, but her captor’s arm cut so tight she couldn’t inhale.

A low growl escaped from the throat behind her. “You never let us—”

“I said no!”

The arm around her vibrated with tension, though the man remained silent. But the leader’s attention slipped back to her.

“Who are you, wench? Truly?” The massive soldat pinned his eyes to hers, as though he already knew the truth.