Run Wild (Escape with a Scoundrel) - By Shelly Thacker Page 0,19

underbrush.

He had counted on that.

He closed his eyes, let his muscles go lax. This would have been an excellent time for prayer. If he believed in that sort of thing.

Forcing all pain to the edge of his awareness, he used every ounce of control he possessed to hold his breath and keep absolutely still.

“Help me, lad! I think me arm’s broken!” Bickford’s voice drifted down from the top of the ravine. “Get this thing off me, blast ye!”

Tucker would be occupied above with the portly gaolkeeper. Good.

Swinton reached the bottom of the hill first, panting, cursing. “Leach...” he wheezed. “I think he’s dead!”

“Bloody hell. After we come all this way?”

“There goes our fifty quid.” Swinton kicked Nicholas in the side.

Nicholas didn’t make a sound. Remained absolutely lifeless.

“What about her?” Leach growled.

Just then the girl moaned softly.

Thank you, Nicholas thought warmly.

Their attention shifted to her—he heard the crackling of leaves as they moved around him. He opened one eye to a slit. Heard Leach’s voice grow closer as he bent down.

“Looks like her ladyship is still—”

Nicholas exploded into action.

He kicked out with his free foot and sent Leach’s pistol flying. Jumping to his feet, he attacked Swinton with a vicious right cross followed by a double-punch to the kidneys. Swinton went down before he knew what hit him, dropping his gun with a yowl of pain and surprise.

Nicholas lunged for the fallen pistol. But he couldn’t move fast enough—not chained to the dazed, unmoving girl. Leach grabbed him from behind before he could reach it.

A burly arm closed around his throat. The marshalman yanked backward and with his other hand landed an agonizing blow to the ribs, once, twice. He tried to wrestle Nicholas to the ground, snarling curses. Nicholas jammed his elbow backward, high and hard, catching his adversary in the chest.

Leach gurgled in pain but held on. His grip only tightened. “Tucker!” he screeched. “Get down here!”

The girl came fully awake and sat up with a moan. Blinking, she gasped at the scene before her.”

“Get...” Nicholas didn’t have enough breath to complete the command. He fastened his hands around Leach’s heavily muscled arm, pulled with all his strength. He could feel blood pumping hot through his veins. But he couldn’t break the choke hold. Couldn’t get any air. His tortured lungs burned.

And the girl only stared up at him with a look of panic.

Nicholas glared down at her, trying to say it with his eyes. Get Swinton’s pistol. He dropped it right there. The pistol! Get the blasted thing before he comes around!

Even with her arms tied behind her, she could keep it away from the marshalmen, kick it out of reach.

But she didn’t move. Remained frozen. A useless weight around his ankle.

Nicholas tried to hook his left foot behind Leach’s, knock him off balance. But the marshalmen kept his legs braced. Unmovable.

“Tucker!” Leach bellowed again. “Where the devil are ye?”

Swinton moved. Growling a curse, he lurched to his knees, to his feet, staggering.

Then he reached down and scooped up his gun.

Nicholas heard the gut-wrenching sound of the pistol being cocked. Felt his only chance to escape slipping away.

No, damn it.

“Shoot him,” Leach snarled.

Nicholas clenched his teeth and shut his eyes, drawing upon an arsenal of nefarious tricks learned in a lifetime of fighting at close quarters.

He used his opponent’s own grip against him.

Nicholas suddenly bent at the waist, roaring with the effort, lifting one shoulder to toss the marshalman over his head.

Flung through the air, Leach cried out—a wail cut abruptly short when he landed, hard.

Nicholas dove sideways the second he was free. Threw himself out of the path of the pistol aimed at him.

But he wasn’t fast enough.

The explosion of the shot at such close range sounded like a full broadside. The familiar, acrid stench of smoke and powder filled the air.

And he felt a blaze of hot metal rip through his left shoulder, felt the bullet burying deep.

He hit the ground with a hoarse exclamation, falling half atop the girl.

Before he could move, Swinton was on him, a gleaming knife in one hand, the empty pistol in the other, lifted to use as a club.

With a snarl of rage, Nicholas rose to meet him, in pain, cornered. The world dimmed to a blood-red haze of fury. All thought, all reason, all human feeling fell away and he knew only one thought, one need. One he had felt before. So many times.

Kill.

He knocked the knife away with a savage chop of his hand and attacked, pounding his