Run Wild (Escape with a Scoundrel) - By Shelly Thacker Page 0,4

with one foot and kicked it experimentally. Solid wood. A good ten inches thick. No escape there.

Grimacing, he let himself fall back against the bars behind him, wiping blood from his face as he surveyed his surroundings more thoroughly. The gaol was half empty, his nearest neighbor two cells to the left. The man lay on the floor, sobbing drunkenly, telling the rambling tale of his sorry life to anyone who cared to listen.

Nicholas looked away. The gaol’s stale air made breathing about as pleasant as trying to inhale some reeking liquid, but beneath the sour smells of sweat and fear, he caught the lingering scent of horses. It seemed this place had once served as a barn. Or a stable. The heat only intensified the—

He stilled as a shudder rippled through him. A memory.

The stifling air. Couldn’t breathe. Darkness. Bodies crushed together in the hold. Father! Why did you kill my father? The lieutenant with a hot iron in his hand. Someone crying. An orphaned boy. Crying. Begging. “Please don’t. No! Please. Don’t—”

The scream. Agony. The smell of burning flesh...

Nicholas shook his head, blinking rapidly, caught off guard by the vivid, unwanted images. He steadied himself with a hand on the floor, sweat running down his face. The sting of it against the cut on his cheek made him reach up—and the roughness of his beard yanked him firmly back to reality.

He was thirty-eight, not ten.

He was in the custody of rural marshalmen, not the Royal Navy.

Jesus. He had thought those particular memories long ago exterminated. Wiped clean. Obliterated by blood and vengeance.

Almost without thinking, he touched his chest, finding his waistcoat, his cotton shirt buttoned to his throat. The mark concealed. As always.

Breathing hard, he forced his mind back to the problem at hand. His fingers closed around one of the iron bars that caged him, his grip tightening until the cool metal bit into his palm.

Escape.

It would be far too fitting, too ironic, for his notorious career to end this way—since this was how it had begun, twenty-eight years ago.

On the day he’d turned his back on God.

He shut his eyes. Perhaps this was the divine retribution he’d been expecting ever since. Perhaps it was fate that he should find himself here, mistaken for a common footpad, a nameless prisoner in the town of... bloody hell, he didn’t even know the name of this place.

A nameless prisoner in a nameless town, facing a noose for a crime not his own. An ignominious end to a nefarious life.

Fate.

He rejected the idea almost as quickly as it entered his head. Opening his good eye, he stared defiantly heavenward. He didn’t believe in fate.

If anyone was to blame for his current predicament, it was him. The knuckles of his right hand still throbbed and stung. He had managed to land a few solid blows and inflict a bit of damage with his blades before the four men had wrestled him to the ground.

If he hadn’t resisted, if he had answered their questions civilly, he might have talked his way out of it.

But some old habits died hard, he thought bitterly. When cornered, Nicholas Brogan fought. Instinctively. Viciously.

Had he thought he could change? It was clearly too late for that. Too many years of blood and violence had made him what he was. What he would always be.

Too late. Those two words seemed to sum up his entire life.

A metallic clatter of chains and a groan of old hinges sounded from the far end of the long, dark chamber as a door creaked open. A slash of light streaked across the stone floor. A man stepped inside, an oil lantern in one hand. A ring of keys jangled on his belt.

Ignoring the pleas, curses, and grasping hands that came at him, he moved slowly along the row of cells, heading straight for Nicholas.

Nicholas was about to get to his feet, but decided it would be better to give the impression that he was too injured to be much of a threat. He remained where he was, slouched against the bars at his back... ready to take advantage of any opportunity that might present itself.

Even before the man drew near, Nicholas could tell this wasn’t one of the marshalmen who’d ambushed him. This man waddled more than walked, puffing at the effort of moving his considerable bulk. He was either the gaoler, or the county magistrate coming to interrogate him.

He doubted the latter. County magistrates tended to be aristocratic popinjays who prized