Free Madcap Miss by Claudy Conn Page B

was a young woman!
    Concerned but cautious, Felicia kept low, glad she was wearing black as she weaved between the thick evergreens.
    She came to a complete halt and could just make out the form of a burly man as he raised his hand and brought it down across the young woman’s face, slapping her viciously.
    Felicia started forward but then stopped herself. She hadn’t even her little ladies pistol with her. What a dolt, she thought herself, leaving without it yesterday.
    “See what yer crying gets ye! If ye fuss loikes that any longer, oi’ll ’ave no choice but to dim yer lights completely, and ye won’t be loiking that none, no, ye won’t.”
    She heard the sound of wheels hitting stone. Looking past the rough individual, she realized he wasn’t in just a clearing but a dirt road, and a wagon was being driven in his direction.
    What was going on here?
    The scoundrel took the arm of the young woman, and Felicia saw that while the woman’s clothes were now soiled, they had been quite fashionable before their ill use.
    She then saw the girl’s distressed face, the welt across her cheek, and closed her eyes. She had to do something. She simply had to do something to help the young woman.
    But what could she do? Keep them in her sights … follow them and then go for help. That’s what.
    “Well, it’s about toime!” the rough blackguard told the driver of the wagon.
    She heard a couple of other male voices, all of them sounding disgruntled as they spoke at once and apparently in accord before their apparent leader shouted for silence. “Enough! Oi’ll not have ye grumbling at me. We haven’t the toime for that.”
    Dreadful men, Felicia told herself. Something nefarious was going on here, but what? Who was that poor woman?
    She had to stay out of sight. She couldn’t see quite as much as she would have liked, for she kept hidden behind the brush.
    She parted the evergreen branches and peeked to see the big burly man wrap the poor young woman in a blanket, tie it in place around her, and throw her roughly into the back of the wagon. They couldn’t travel far, she thought, not with that old cob. So where were they going?
    “Right then, ye dimwits. Toike her to the cabin and get her inside. Don’t be dillydallying longer than need be.”
    Two men climbed into the wagon seat, and one took up the reins. The burly fellow and yet another she had not seen earlier saddled up and rode off.
    She took a step to follow the wagon, stopped, and rethought her plan. Instead, she hurriedly backtracked, took her horse’s reins, and quietly led him deeper into the woods.
    The wagon was already out of sight, but she stared down the dirt road and took note of the tracks the wheels had made. She mounted Whiley and followed the deeply etched tracks until she spied a weathered cottage in a small clearing.
    Quickly she jumped off her gelding and tethered him behind some evergreens where a nice patch of grass grew. He bent and nibbled happily. Good, he was out of sight. Slowly, she made her way towards the cottage, ducking low, very low as she approached closer.
    A skinny lad in a gray knit sweater over a gray cotton shirt stepped onto the cottage’s front and broken wood steps, turned back, and told his companion, “We’ll come out of this wit’ a pretty guinea or two, don’t ye think, Jackie-boy?”
    “Oi then,” said Jackie-boy, coming to join him on the steps.
    “Did ye do whot Styles told ye?”
    “Oi did. Left the letter at old man Wilson’s house, oi did. If he wants her back in one piece he’ll have to pay.”
    “Whot’s the mort doing now?” asked the skinny one in the gray sweater.
    “Why, Clemmy … do ye have it in mind to bump her one, eh?”
    Clemmy laughed, and Felicia grimaced. Horrid blackguards , she thought.
    She was in a pickle. How could she leave the girl here with those two? Yet, she must if she was going to get help. At least she knew a name. Wilson? No doubt it was this man Wilson’s daughter