Page 38 of Highland Jewel
“Help me!” she shrieked, reaching for them.
They gaped, seemingly frozen in place.
“Please… help me!” She grabbed for one, catching hold of his coat, but he pulled out of her grasp and scurried out of her line of vision, his companion behind him.
Her attacker’s arm snaked around Maisie’s neck, and he wrenched her arm behind her. She had only flashes of his face, but the smell of sour beer and fish and wet wool enveloped her. The screams caught in her chest as he tightened the grip on her throat, choking her and lifting her off the ground. He swung her around, and she kicked out desperately with her legs.
She heard a man curse and then Fiona was screaming close to her.
“Maisie, help me! Where are you taking me? No!”
She caught sight of her friend and tried to reach for her, twisting away. She couldn’t get free.
People were all around, gawking at what was happening as they hurried by, but making no move to help them.
She saw Fiona. The attacker was dragging her toward the carriage, her heels leaving tracks across the flagstones. Fiona’s arms stretched out to her.
“Let go!” she shrieked. “Let go of me.”
A man hurried by, circling around them, looking straight ahead as if nothing were amiss.
Beneath the streetlamp, Fiona was fighting as they tried to force her into the carriage. The man holding Maisie dragged her back a few steps and flung her savagely to the ground. Rage flooded into her brain as she slid across the flagstones.
As she came to a stop, she caught a glimpse of her friend, still thrashing, being shoved bodily into the carriage.
She tried to scramble to her feet, but the attacker shoved her with a booted foot, sending her rolling toward the Guild House.
No, this couldn’t be happening.
“My girls!” Fiona’s hoarse cry rang out from the carriage. “Maisie, get Niall.”
She leaped up, screaming at bystanders as she ran toward the street. “Help us! They’re taking her!”
As the driver whipped up the horses, Maisie’s assailant jumped onto the back.
She didn’t stop but raced after them. At the curb she stumbled, landing on her knees in the street.
Anguish squeezed the breath from her lungs, and tears ran down her face. The world around her blurred. Her friend was gone, carried off to God knows where, and no one was going to help her.
No one.
CHAPTER14
Outside the door of his lodgings on Milne’s Court, Niall stomped the slush from his boots. In spite of the foul weather, two burly pimps were standing on the front step of a bawdy house several doors down and gave him a neighborly wave. From the sound of lively fiddle music, business was not suffering from the chill wind or the snow. Going inside his building, he took off his hat and coat, and shook them before closing the door.
Niall felt good. The meeting with the clerk from Watt’s company had answered all of his questions. He was getting very good return on his investment. And they were being particularly generous with the terms, he thought, even improving on his earlier discussions by offering to pay the expenses for Niall to relocate on a permanent basis to either Aberdeen or Inverness.
The only thing left was for him to sign the contracts. But, to the clerk’s disappointment, he’d chosen to wait a day or two until he spoke to Maisie.
There were conversations that they still needed to have. Hewantedto move. He’d insist on it. He wishedfor a life free of the tensions of politics and protests in Edinburgh and the peril that went with them. But she had to agree to it. He hoped she would, because she was in love with him, just as he was in love with her. And she knew that he had no issues with her beliefs and what she stood for. It was the danger to them that unsettled him. He had to save her, save both women before it was too late.
He’d already mentioned the possibility of moving to his sister. At least, Fiona was considering it, for the sake of her daughters, she’d said.
Niall planned to tell Maisie they needed to do it for the sake of their own future children. Of course, before that conversation could take place, they had to have her family’s blessing.
She simply hadn’t had the opportunity to speak to them about his proposal. He’d told her again that he could handle it and speak to them himself. But she begged him to wait. She wanted a little more time.
As he started up the stairs, his landlady’s door opened, and she peered out, holding a candle.
