Rose awoke with a start, sitting up with a gasp. Vaguely she noted that she was in a carriage, bumping along an uneven road that made her stomach churn. Her mouth tasted of metal and it was so dry that her tongue stuck to the roof.
“Ah. You’re awake.”
She squinted and it took a moment for her eyes to focus on the gentleman on the seat across from her. Lysle. Her heart began to hammer and a sick fear crawled up her spine. She tried to look out the window of the carriage but it was covered with a thick, black cloth.
“Where are we?” Her words were slurred. “What have you done to me?” She felt her face and realized that it was numb.
“No need to panic, dear.” Lysle was leaning against the squabs, looking relaxed, with a tolerant expression that did nothing to ease her fears.
“Where are we going?”
He raised a brow. “You do not know?”
She glared at him. The carriage hit a bump and she almost bounced off the seat.
“We’re going to my estate,” Lysle said. “There is urgent business that I must attend to.”
Her mind tried to make sense of what he was saying but nothing was making sense right now. Everything was jumbled in her mind.
“Why am I going with you?”
“I see you don’t remember.”
Remember what?
“I think it’s best you let me out of the carriage,” she said, her stomach churning so badly that she feared she would be sick.
“Oh, I don’t think that is best right now.”
“Please,” she begged, holding a hand to her stomach.
His gaze turned hard, his expression mulish. “No.”
But it was too late. She leaned over and emptied her stomach on Lysle’s boots. He cursed and yanked his legs up, scooting to the far corner of the seat but it was too late. Vomit had splashed onto his velvet breeches and the carriage reeked of the sour stench.
Lysle banged on the roof, yelling for the driver to stop. Immediately the carriage slowed and pulled to the side. Lysle unlocked and opened the door and pushed Rose out. She landed on her hands and knees, crying out in pain, and vomited again. Her stomach heaved over and over until there was nothing left but yellow sludge. She sat back on her heels and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.
Lysle was speaking to the driver who looked none too pleased to have to clean the inside of the carriage.
Rose’s head was throbbing and her stomach roiled. She had to grab hold of the carriage wheel to pull herself up because her legs were shaking so much. Cursing under his breath, Lysle leaned against the carriage to take his boots off.
“I tried to warn you,” she said.
“Silence, woman!” He advanced on her, a boot in one hand, limping because he still wore the other, smelly, boot.
He slapped her, open palm across the face. The sting was nothing compared to the shock that reverberated through her. Automatically her hand went to her cheek and she looked at him, stunned. No one, not even her brothers, had ever hit her.
Fast on the heels of shock came a burning anger. Her brothers had taught her a thing or two about fighting back and she would not stand for this. She stepped up to him and the look of surprise on his face was worth it to see.
“Don’t you ever hit me again.” She punctuated her words with a finger jab to his chest. It wasn’t a hard stab by any means but shock had him taking a step back.
His cheeks turned pink and his lips trembled in rage.
She lifted her chin, ignoring his anger. “Take me back to the palace.”
He grabbed her upper arm and squeezed but she would not give him the satisfaction of crying out with the pain he inflicted. If she weren’t made of heartier stuff than this then she might as well give in now, and she was damned if she was going to give in to this man.
He gave her a little shake, rattling her already pounding head. “Let’s make one thing very clear. You do not make the rules. You do not tell me what to do. As long as I am your husband I rule over you and I will do so with an iron fist. It is obvious that your father coddled you too much and your mother did not teach you how to be a proper wife. I will teach you those things myself.”
She was so stunned that at first she couldn’t say anything but her silence did not last long. She yanked her arm out of his grasp and resisted the urge to rub her aching arm.
“What do you mean by wife?”
He smiled, a cold, evil grin that barely showed his teeth. His eyes danced with macabre amusement. “You don’t remember? Why, we’re to be wed as soon as we reach my estate. By decree of the queen.”
She gasped and stepped back. “No,” she whispered.
His grin turned into a full-blown smile. “Oh, yes. It seems Queen Mary believes that we suit very well, and she asked me to take you to my estate and wed you with all due haste.”
Rose’s fuzzy mind was working furiously. She remembered talking to Mary, telling her of the plot to kill Darnley and the queen’s curious non-reaction to the news. And then she remembered a guard bursting into her room, taking hold of her and then…
Then she remembered nothing until she awoke in Lysle’s carriage.
Lysle was attempting to pull off his other boot and cursing up a storm.
“Woman, take my boot off.” He held his foot out to her. Rose looked at it blankly, thoughts tumbling over each other.
Why would Mary demand that she wed Lysle after Rose just told the queen that Lysle was one of the conspirators plotting to murder Darnley?
“My boot,” Lysle said, wriggling his foot at her.
She looked down at the boot, covered in her vomit, the stench wafting up to her and turning her stomach.
“Mary knew,” she whispered more to herself. She looked at Lysle who was still offering her his foot.
“Of course she knew,” he said. “How else was she to get rid of that ijit of a husband of hers? He’s ruining Scotland’s reputation with his childish behavior and demands to be named king if anything were to happen to her. We can’t let that happen, can we?”
Mary had been in on the plot to kill her husband, and Rose had walked right into it. Naïve and foolish Rose.
But why force her to marry Lysle?
To keep her quiet. To keep her under control. What better way to control Rose than to marry her to a most trusted servant who had his own stake in the murder conspiracy.
Rose backed up a step, the full impact hitting her squarely in the chest. She continued backing up while Lysle scowled down at his boot.
The driver was cleaning up the inside of the carriage. Lysle was short a boot. Rose looked around. She had no idea how far they were from Edinburgh or how long they had been traveling. The sun told her it was getting on toward evening but the sun set early this time of year. They had another hour, maybe an hour and a quarter of sunlight left. She was dressed in a gown not meant for the cold outdoors. No cloak.
She didn’t care. She’d learned to survive in the wilderness at a young age, taught by her brothers. They’d spent countless nights under the stars. Granted it had always been in the summer but she would make do. She had to.
She spun on her heel, lifted her skirts and began to run.
Behind her Lysle yelled out, then cursed. She could hear him pursuing her, the uneven gate of one booted foot and one stockinged foot. Surely that would slow him down.
They were not even on a road, just a well-worn track with nothing between them but wide open land and a line of trees that seemed very far away. If she could get to the trees she had a good chance of evading him. She was a proficient tree climber and she knew how to fashion a weapon out of just about anything.
But her skirts were hampering her and whatever Lysle had given her to make her unconscious had weakened her. Her stomach threatened to lose its contents again, although there was nothing left to lose. Her legs felt heavy and loose at the same time, like she couldn’t control them. She glanced behind her to find Lysle easily keeping up, even with only one boot.
And she looked to her other side, down the path the carriage had just taken.
Her heart sank.
Her steps faltered.
A contingent of Mary’s guards had crested a small hill. There weren’t a lot, half a dozen maybe, but enough to run down one small lass trying to make an escape in the line of trees that was too far away.
She stopped, her breath hitching, a sob building, as she watched them approach.
Lysle grabbed her arm, wrenching her back toward the carriage, limping, his bare stocking ripped and shredded.
“Damn you, woman,” he snarled. “There will be no more of that. I’ll teach you not to run again.”
She shivered in the cold but was strangely numb as she watched the guards approach.
“Made me ruin a good pair of stockings, you did. Do you know how dear these are? Beyond repair now. I should shove them down your damn throat, make you choke on them.”
She shuddered as she stumbled behind Lysle, unable to believe that this was happening. How did Rose Turner, from a small border clan, become involved in a conspiracy to kill the king of Scotland and end up being chased by a madman who was threatening to kill her with his stocking?
When they reached the carriage Lysle backhanded her, causing her head to jerk to the side. She cried out. He backhanded her again.
“Don’t ever do that again!” His face was so close that spittle hit her in the eye and on her cheek. She flinched and lowered her gaze, the fight gone out of her.
Lysle picked her up and tossed her in the carriage. She landed between the two seats, banging her elbow and her head and scraping her knee. Lysle pulled himself in, stepping on the back of her leg and causing her to gasp in pain as he took his seat. She moved to pull herself up on the seat but Lysle placed a foot on her back and pushed her down until she was lying flat on her stomach.
“You stay there like the dog you are,” he said.
The carriage lurched forward and she could hear the hooves of the guards’ horses as they circled the carriage.
She drew her knees up to her stomach and curled into a ball.
Lysle rested his feet on her back as if she were an ottoman. Humiliation poured through her, and she fought to keep the tears from falling. He was treating her like furniture, purposefully degrading her and she was ashamed to admit that it was working.
Every time she moved he pressed his foot down harder, squeezing the air from her lungs. Eventually the humiliation gave way to anger and sharpened her mind until she was thinking with cool logic instead of heated emotion.
She came to appreciate each kick of Lysle’s boot as they bounced over the ruts in the crude road. It focused her and made her think rationally. Not for the first time she thanked her parents for giving her five brothers who taught her so much more than any other Scottish lass had probably been taught.
She played scenarios in her head of how she was going to kill Lord Richard Lysle.
Because she was going to kill him. It was only a matter of time.
It was either that or be killed herself and she would never give him that satisfaction.