The Kidnapped Bride (Redcakes Book 4) by Heather Hiestand Read Free Book Online Page B

when you did.”
    He saw a flash of teeth and then she was off like a gazelle, no longer winded after her rest. His gaze tracked her into a wynd, then he remembered her warning about a bullet wound. He ran to catch up with the cart.
    “Where should I go?” Beth Cross asked from the driver’s seat.
    “Head to Morningside.”
    “That’s almost five miles from here,” she protested.
    “We’ll be safe there,” he replied, climbing into the back. “And I can get us medical assistance.”
    By the time they reached Queen Street, Dougal had his bearings again. At first, he couldn’t find where the now unconscious girl was bleeding, what with the rain and the chill of her unconscious body, though he did find a lump on her head, probably the source of her original dizziness.
    When he cut away her dress, he found a wound in her belly. It had already all but stopped bleeding, but he knew it was too late for the girl.
    He lit a match in his cupped palm and attempted to hold it close to her face. His fingers were too numb from cold rain to find her pulse even if it had been beating. Was this Lady Elizabeth Shield? Had she ever even claimed to be such, or had he been led gently astray?
    “How is she?” Beth Cross asked.
    On this wealthy street, gas lamps were placed at regular intervals for the benefit of shops and tenement dwellers. On the north side were gardens. He was able to get a good look at the dying woman’s face, or rather, the girl’s.
    Her hair did appear to be black, though of course the rain could disguise just about any color. He traced her features, so delicate. She looked as if she were asleep, but when he put his cheek to her mouth there was no breath. He let his match fall to the street, wondering if he would bear terrible tidings to the Marquess of Hatbrook and Lord Judah Shield.
    His hand touched bare flesh. He picked up the girl’s hand. A large mole marred the back of the work-roughened skin. Cross’s housemaid had had such work-damaged hands, but her fingers had been long and tapered, with slender wrists poking from a too-short sleeve. And there had been no mole. He’d have catalogued such a distinguishing feature. Her pale death-mask face might not give away the game, but he was certain the hands did. Which meant that his quarry was not this false Lady Elizabeth, but more likely the driver, the self-proclaimed Beth Cross, who had stayed behind in the warehouse when he’d gone in to rescue her, tempting fate in myriad ways. He couldn’t help but feel a grudging admiration for a girl who so consistently chose her own path.
     
    Beth’s head pain flared with every turn of the wheels against the uneven cobbles of the road. She had turned the horse onto a more heavily trafficked street now, and they were joined by other carts and early morning delivery boys. Muddy water from puddles sprayed at her, but she was already too wet to care very much. Edinburgh had not quite come to life yet. She wanted to jump off the cart like that other woman had, leaving her passengers to fend for themselves, but wouldn’t the men just come for her again? This stranger who’d attempted to help them, the one who had known her name, had shot two of them, but she didn’t know if those were the two who knew where she lived, had come looking for her specifically. She was anything but anonymous to the men on either side of this gambit, and she had to trust this man, who’d asked her to lead them to Morningside. If only she could run, but with her head injury she was better off remaining on the cart.
    He hadn’t responded when she’d asked him how the other woman was. She suspected that meant the answer was sad, but she couldn’t press him, not when there were others about who might ask questions. This was not the time to come to the attention of constables, not when it had become obvious that Freddie had gotten into some very bad trouble, and that runaway girl had said the police in Leith were involved with the white