Run Wild (Escape with a Scoundrel) - By Shelly Thacker Page 0,30

eyes locked on a scar in the center of his chest.

“—Beelzebub.”

The word died on her lips, a shocked whisper, as she stared at that mark.

He’d been branded. With the symbol of a pitchfork. A three-pronged pitchfork, burned right into his chest, right over his heart.

Her legs went weak, threatened to crumple beneath her. She recognized that mark. Knew what it meant. Everyone in England had heard the horrible tales. Nannies still used them to frighten children into behaving.

He was a survivor of one of the prison hulks. Derelict navy vessels that had been anchored in the Thames, stuffed with the worst offenders to relieve prison overcrowding. The men aboard had been treated like animals by their Royal Navy overseers.

But that had been... Good Lord... more than two decades ago. Riots in 1720 had ended with most of the hulks at the bottom of the Channel. Scores of prisoners and guards dead. Dozens of the worst offenders on a rampage in London. The experiment had never been tried again.

Depending on how old the rogue was now...

He would’ve been only a boy.

By God’s sweet mercy. She slowly lifted her gaze to his face.

He remained utterly still, his hands frozen over a button in the middle of his shirt, his expression unreadable, his features pale and strained from the surgery.

But the eyes boring into hers blazed, hot with some emotion she could not name.

She blurted the question in a frightened whisper before she could stop herself.

“Who the devil are you?”

His lips thinned to a grim line. She thought he wouldn’t answer her.

But after a heartbeat he did.

“Someone you’re better off not knowing.”

His cool tone sent renewed fear sliding down her spine like a single drop of ice water.

He finished buttoning his shirt with studied casualness and put on his waistcoat.

Sam swallowed a gulp of air past her dry, tight throat. Someone you’re better off not knowing. It was an understatement. It was a warning. She didn’t dare ask any more questions. She already knew far more than she wanted to know about this man who was chained to her by eighteen iron links.

He would kill without conscience. He cared about no one but himself. And he had evidently learned those traits—and God only knew what else—in one of the most vile gaols in the history of England.

And for the moment, her life depended on him.

Her gaze still locked with his, she remembered a lesson she’d learned very early when she’d been forced to turn thief.

Keep their eyes busy, and your hands can get away with anything.

Kneeling, she picked up the scrap of her petticoat she had set aside earlier. “Can’t leave anything behind that might help the lawmen track us,” she said calmly.

Using the same hand, she picked up the knife from where she had dropped it in the leaves, slipping both the blade and the fabric into the deep pocket of her skirt.

He didn’t appear to notice, struggling to get to his feet. He studied the sun, a red streak just visible along the horizon through the trees.

“There’s still daylight left.” He braced one hand against a tree, breathing hard, and glanced down at her. “Might as well put it to good use.”

She still crouched in the leaves, her heart beating so hard she couldn’t speak for a moment. “Yes.”

“Then let’s keep moving.” A shadow of that cynical grin curving his mouth, he extended a hand to help her up. “After you, Miss Delafield.”

~ ~ ~

Like masts in a harbor, trees towered around them, tall and silent. Nicholas guessed that he and his newly quiet companion had been walking for another hour, perhaps more. He couldn’t be sure. He was losing track of time, his senses blunted by loss of blood, exhaustion, pain.

The bullet wound in his left shoulder throbbed and burned. He hoped he wasn’t getting blood poisoning, he thought with a flash of black humor. He didn’t want to die while he had a length of pretty lemon-colored silk stitched into his hide.

That was no way for a notorious ex-pirate to make his grand entrance into hell.

The entire forest seemed quieter as night approached. Or maybe it was just the incessant clanking of the accursed chain that made everything else seem muted by comparison. The dying sun cast lengthening shadows across the forest floor, the low light swathing everything in a smoky haze, including the slender figure walking a pace ahead of him.

Miss Delafield.

Nicholas stared at her back, not sure what bothered him most: the throbbing ache in his left