Chapter 10 Running with the Wolf
A large hand grabbed her shoulder and hauled her off her feet. She should have been frightened but all she felt was annoyance.
"I have been treating you like a queen and this how you reciprocate? Every privilege is hereby revoked."
"What privileges?" Elizabeth muttered unwisely while she was carried back to the oak and dumped unceremoniously onto the tartan.
Her question was soon answered when he lay down behind her and pulled her close with an arm securely around her torso—the same torso that had suffered a beating through their ride, it certainly felt like she was being punished. Both the pain of her injuries and the pleasure of a little more warmth. The night air felt cold in comparison to the warmth of the summer day.
She was not defeated yet, an opportunity would arise and when it presented itself, she would grasp it.
#
Elizabeth had not thought she would be able to sleep but her waking up belied that conjecture. She was alone, at least, there was no heavy arm weighing her down and the warmth from the night was gone.
Her hair was tickling her nose but she could do nothing about it. Her hands were tied to the tree and she could do little else but sit up and rest her temple against the trunk of the ancient oak.
Mr Brute was nowhere to be seen. If she could just untie herself, she could escape before he was back. He had taken his horse which must signify a lengthy trip.
An eerie feeling travelled down her spine. What if he had tied her to the tree and left—leaving her to starve to death? She must free herself from the rope but the more she tugged, the deeper the rope dug into her wrists. For the first time, Elizabeth felt her courage trickle out to nothing. The bravery she had mustered to keep herself strong and unfeeling no longer sufficed. She missed her home after so long a visit, her father. She should not have brought him to mind as the dam broke and she turned her forehead against the coarse trunk and sobbed. What would her father believe if she did not return with the Gardiner's? What grief would she bring upon him if she could not free herself? Degraded to a slave, tied to a tree in an unfamiliar woodland. Never in her wildest imagination could she have conjectured such a surreal scenario.
Dearest Jane, she must be beside herself when she did not appear at breakfast, searching fruitlessly in Pemberley's gardens. Probably urging everyone to aid her.
What was Mr Brute's purpose? It made no sense to Elizabeth, that he had taken her from her friends. She was nothing to him!
#
Elizabeth stiffened, she felt something in her hair, an animal perhaps? Tugging at her ribbon, it was matted into her curls and some force was needed to release it.
Large, calloused hands untied the ropes on her wrists next while her heart sank into her stomach. He was back—he had not left her to die. She kept her face lowered to conceal her despair, her cheeks must be red and blotchy.
At the moment, she could not say if it was relief or annoyance she felt at his stealthy return. His ability to move without sound was as disturbing as his reluctance to speak. Mayhap she had gone about this the wrong way? If he was loath to speak, it might be more prudent to speak as much as possible until he grew tired of her and released her in sheer need for some peace and quiet.
"Why have you taken me?"
"Nothing you need to worry your pretty little head about."
"I am Miss Elizabeth Bennet of Longbourn in Hertfordshire. I am by no means without family or friends to protect me. I have no idea who you are and I can certainly be nothing to you. You should release me and let me get back to my friends."
"That I cannot do."
"Why not?"
The dastard offered her his hand to aid her to her feet but did not answer. Elizabeth huffed and rose on her own. He smirked at her and used her ribbon to tie his long hair into a queue.
"That is my ribbon, I need it to tie up my curls or it will tangle into knots."
"You have another one," the knave pointed out and handed her a fresh roll and a piece of cheese.
Begrudgingly, she took it. With only the apple and the roll she had eaten the previous day, she was ravenous.
"Why did you tie me to the tree?"
"I needed to find something to eat and you have proved to be undependable."
"Did you steal it?" Elizabeth looked sceptically at the half-eaten roll in her hand.
He answered with a steely glare that Elizabeth found ridiculous. It was a perfectly legit question as he had stolen her from her friends and family while he took offence at being accused of stealing food?
"Where are you taking me?"
"Home."
"I believe we are travelling in the wrong direction if you were to take me home. If I am not mistaken, and I am rarely wrong, we have ridden northwards and Hertfordshire is to the south. See the moss on that tree? It usually grows on the north side where it is shielded from the sun or it would dry out."
"Do you always talk so much?"
"Yes, it would feel odd to spend several days together without conversation. Although for the advantage of some it ought to be so arranged, that they may speak as little as possible."
"Are you consulting your own feelings on the matter or are you trying to gratify mine?"
"Both, I believe. We are each of us of a taciturn and unsociable disposition, reluctant to pollute this beautiful woodland with insipid conversation and polite inanities," Elizabeth replied archly. Her courage had risen yet again.
"What did you say your name was?"
"I did not."
"Come now, you must offer me something to call you or I shall have to make something up."
The blaggard clamped up and rose to tuck away his tartan and the rest of the food in his saddlebag.
"Well then... Mr Brute it is, fitting, do you not think although it does lack imagination?"
"Get up on the horse."
"I have to arrange my hair if I am ever to put a comb through it again. You have straight hair, you cannot possibly understand how one is to tend to such tresses as mine," she lamented.
She pulled out the last few pins from her tresses and tried to run her fingers through them but it was useless. She had slept with fragments of an elaborate style that had been matted together. She must look a fright with her hair standing in all directions. She managed to divide it into three sections and braid it. It would have to do, for now, she was of no mind to entice Mr Brute anyhow.
They rode for a few hours before the villain declared they would have to walk from here. Elizabeth was tied to a tree and left for about an hour before Mr Brute returned without his horse and the saddlebag strapped to his back.
#
"To traipse along this path with you is like pulling a mule with a broken leg that is afraid of heights."
"You may leave me behind at your leisure."
Elizabeth was struggling with the slick surface and the threat of falling; her progress was painstakingly slow. Mr Brute kneeled, offered her his hand and hauled her up like she weighed nothing.
"And have you running back to the village and have the hounds chasing me? No, thank you!"
Elizabeth was in no condition to run anywhere. Her legs were trembling to the point where they threatened to buckle underneath her. The muscles in the rest of her body were strung so tautly it was exhausting her last reserves. She cursed the day she had wished to explore rocks and mountains, what a fool she had been...
It had occurred to her that one needed to walk upwards to reach said rocks and mountains. The path was bad enough, only a foot wide at critical parts with a drop too high to contemplate grazing one side and the steep mountain on the other. The latter she had clung to, the first she had not dared to look upon.
What she had not envisioned was climbing slick, steep walls of stone that had barely an inch of a shelf to put your foot on and even less for your fingers to grab on to—dressed in a skirt! It was impossible to see where your feet were placed in the ridiculous garment. Not that she wanted to scandalize herself by donning breeches, she would prefer to leave the mountains alone, altogether. The horse was gone, sold she reckoned while realising the horse could not have managed the route they were taking but there were roads in this part of the country. Occasionally, they had crossed one although there were quite a few hours since they had last encountered anything resembling civilisation.
The awkward twosome had reached a raging river, this must be the end of their trail, surely. So far, they had ridden, walked and climbed. The latter had made Elizabeth surprised by the agility of the large man while Mr Brute had been less impressed with her accomplishment in the endeavour. She was scared witless of heights and had trembled, complained, cried and flatly refused to climb one hill that had forced them to take a longer route which had led them to their current predicament. A raging river to cross.
"Do you know how to swim?"
Mr Brute regarded her with a disbelief that was justified.
"No!"
"We will have to track up the river and see if there is a place to cross safely."
"You mean like a bridge?"
"No there is not a bridge across this river for miles. I am looking for a ford where the water is shallow or there are rocks to step on so that we can get over more or less dry footed."
"I am guessing but it would not surprise me if it is more of the less than the more."
"If you have nothing to say, I suggest you keep quiet."
"What would be the fun in that, Mr Brute?"
"We are not here traipsing these remote paths to have fun, Miss Bennet."
"You may not be but I dearly love to laugh. The ridiculous, follies, nonsense and inconsistencies of others do divert me, I own, I laugh at them whenever I can."
Mr Brute stepped closer—too close for comfort.
"The wisest and best of men can be ridiculed by someone whose object in life is a joke."
"It is a good thing then, that you can be classified as neither."
Elizabeth wondered if she had gone too far. He closed the gap between them until an inch was left. She stared right into his chest; he certainly was a tall man...
She let her eyes travel up his torso to his jaw, his muscles were flexing in anger. His steel-blue eyes bore into hers, smouldering. He turned abruptly and strode up the river. If she had any idea where she was, she could have turned and run in the opposite direction but the rocks and hills she had just climbed did not tempt her to try to descend them alone. Besides, they had been travelling for three days now and she had not seen a single house since she ascended the hill with the Hunting Tower at Pemberley. They had crossed quite a few roads of the poorly maintained kind that most likely led to a farm or a small village. They had crossed none of the turnpike roads, she would have recognised them as they were better maintained.
She had better follow or be left behind in this godforsaken wilderness—her love of nature waning by the minute.
She missed soap and water the most, even she could smell her odour. A clean change of clothes would be nice after hiking mostly uphill. It must be flattening or better yet, descend soon.
Her assumption was right, the terrain opened up as the trees shrunk into bushes and then; heather-covered moors. They must have reached Yorkshire, the landscape looked familiar from descriptions and sketches in her father's geography books. Rolling dales and windswept hills stretched out as far as the eye could see.
The terrain had the appearance of flat from a distance but the closer you came the clearer it became that get to the next hill, there was a valley to descend and ascend to reach it. It was a never-ending illusion that the next hill was the last.
As the sun set, Elizabeth had lost the joy of the open terrain. The winds tore through her day gown like she was wearing nothing at all. Her hair had escaped the ribbon and was whipping her countenance in the south wind. It could have been worse she supposed, it could have been the cold northern gale.
Elizabeth lagged behind, not even bothering to pester Mr Brute with insipid conversation. She was simply too tired to waste her breath on bland nothings. Her feet were still wet from crossing the river while her gown had dried in the wind after she had lost her footing on a slippery rock and tumbled into the chilling waters. One would think that would have washed away the odour but she had sweated many times since climbing up a hill then grown cold, going downhill. As that was not enough; her sturdy walking boots pinched her toes. They had shrunk after being soaked through. She was hungry and thirsty with no stream to drink from, they had left the river many hours ago and the brute in front of her obviously did not need any sustenance for hours on end.
She almost passed him, he called out, fortunately, or she would have continued into a gaping hole in the ground. It was massive! She shuddered at the thought because she could not see the bottom.
"We will sleep in this cave tonight."
"What is that?" Elizabeth pointed at the enormous crack.
"That is Gaping Gill, you do not want to fall into it."
"There is a stream at the other end, I will simply walk around it."
"There is no need, I have water." He handed her a leather flask which Elizabeth drank greedily from.
She removed her wet boots with no hope of them drying overnight in the cold Yorkshire air. Her misery was acute when she lay down on the hard ground and fell instantly asleep.