Page 87 of Foolish Bride
She ducked her head down and pulled on her cap.
He hallooed, and she nodded and mumbled while hurrying past him. She resisted the urge to look back and see if he recognized her.
Elinor climbed up and down stairs and halls until the final stretch of her escape. The walls shook with a loud boom. She covered her ears. Bits of the castle crashed in on her. Covering her head with her arms, she tried to run, but tripped over the hem of her borrowed dress.
She lurched toward the ground. The stupid castle had waited hundreds of years in order to collapse on her head. Pain seared her arm and shoulder an instant before everything went black and silent.
* * * *
The explosion opened up a large hole in the back side of the castle. Michael and Middleton raced through and up the stairs toward the central keep. The others rushed to the outer walls to deal with the guards patrolling up there.
Even in the chaos, Michael noted the castle was outdated and damp.
To the right of the first landing, a man roared. A guard as tall as the doorframe raced toward them.
Michael threw the giant over the railing.
“Not exactly subtle,” Middleton said.
Michael shrugged. “I am a soldier. To let a man of that size get the better of you, for even an instant, could be fatal.”
Middleton looked over the railing. “I suppose that is true. What now?”
Feminine screams echoed down against the stone walls.
They bolted down an adjoining hallway.
The screaming woman was behind the first door. Middleton tried the knob, but it was locked.
“Keep trying.” Michael rushed down the hall.
“Where are you going?” Middleton rammed his shoulder against the door, but it did not give.
Silently, Michael slipped through a door down the hall.
“Open the door this instant! I demand you open this door!” Middleton shouted, pounding on the door.
It was a good distraction.
Michael slipped into a dressing room, then ran and burst through the door on the opposite side.
Roxton seemed to be wrestling with a writhing curtain.
“Get your filthy hands off of her!” Michael shouted.
A writing desk and chair had been overturned near the window. On the other side of the room, another chair lay in ruins. Near the bed, the side table was shattered. Glass shards and liquid littered the floor. The bedding was tossed in every direction, and the curtains had been ripped from around the bed.
Against the far wall, the screaming woman was using the drapes to shield herself from Roxton, who was bare-assed and groping at his prey like a swine going after a full troth. A leg kicked out from the cloth and caught the pig in the chin. His bulbous head snapped back, and he cried out.
Michael grabbed a handful of red hair and propelled Roxton across the room.
Middleton appeared in dressing room door just in time to see Roxton crash to the floor in a heap.
Roxton shook his head and blinked. Then he smiled. “Rollins, you are interrupting our wedding night. You will have to call another time. My wife and I are not receiving guests at this delicate point in our marriage.”
Michael lifted Roxton with one hand and punched him in the stomach with the other. Then he tossed the pretend duke across the room.
Roxton landed in front of the windows, curled into a ball holding his bloody face and crying. “Guards? Where are my guards?”
