Judith E. French Read Online Free PDF

turned her stomach.
    Nigel caught her chin cruelly between his fingers. “No need to be so standoffish,” he said salaciously. “Before spring comes, we’re gonna get to know each other real well.”
    “I’ll kill you if you touch me,” she threatened.
    He laughed. “Once ye see what I got, ye won’t be backin’ off, ye’ll be beggin’ fer it.”
    “Rot in hell,” she retorted.
    His fingers dug into Fiona’s face, and he shoved her roughly away from him. “That’s what my last woman said,” he taunted her, “and she ended up as wolf bait.”
    White-hot anger drove back the smothering fear as Fiona sank to her knees on the dirt floor and tried to think clearly. Nigel and Karl believed she was helpless. Well and good, let the English bastards think so! She was no longer bound hand and foot, and both trappers carried weapons.
    If only she could just stall their sexual assault long enough to get her hands on a gun . . .

Chapter 3

    F iona rubbed her ankles, trying to restore the flow of blood to her feet. The pain was still severe, but hurting was better than feeling nothing.
    It was no warmer inside the cabin, but at least the wind had stopped. The earth beneath her was damp and smelled of stale rodent droppings and mold. Ahead and to her left, she could hear Karl swearing, but it was too black in the hut to see her own hand.
    Suddenly a spark flared, followed by another, and she realized Karl was trying to start a fire. She heard one of the animals bray and glanced over her shoulder toward the open door, where the white wall of falling snow was broken by the outline of a mule.
    Nigel led the animals inside, one by one, and tied them along a wall. Karl’s fire had caught, and he soon had a small blaze starting in a crude mud and stick fireplace. Fiona was drawn to the flames.
    “Let the woman tend the fire,” Nigel said. “She can cook us up some vittles.”
    “I ain’t lettin’ her near no damned fire,” Karl replied. “She near burned me t’ death.” He leered at Fiona and rubbed his crotch. “Don’t think I fergot what ye done t’ me, bitch. I’m gettin’ first turn at ye.”
    “Food first, then futterin’,” Nigel snapped. “I don’t know ’bout you, Karl, but I needs my strength fer what I got in mind.”
    Her cheeks burning with shame, Fiona forced herself up onto her tingling feet and shook the snow off her blanket. She knew what kind of men these were; she’d seen them in the back alleys of Galway and Dublin and Philadelphia. They were like hungry dogs—if she showed her fear, they’d be on her in seconds.
    Stiffening her spine, she folded the scarlet woolen blanket and glanced around the drafty hovel with contempt. “This be where you live?”
    Nigel grunted, then grinned. “Sassy, ain’t she, Karl. I likes ’em with spirit. I likes a woman what bites and scratches.”
    Fiona suppressed a shudder. She was light-headed with terror. This couldn’t be happening to her. She put her hands behind her back and clenched her fists until her nails cut into the palms of her hands. These filthy men, this terrible place, surpassed belief.
    At home in Ireland, she’d seen horrible poverty in the slums. And later, after she’d gone to live with her grandfather, she’d traveled with him to tend the sick in isolated country cottages. Many times, they’d spent the night waiting for a baby to be born, or for a critically ill patient to either get better or die. She’d shared a single room with a dozen crying children, and occasionally a goat or a litter of pigs. Never had she seen living quarters as vile as this.
    Mule droppings littered the floor on one side of the windowless cabin; the other half of the room was empty except for a table made of uneven logs and a wide sleeping pallet of moth-eaten skins. As Fiona stared around the hut in disgust, Nigel dropped a bundle on the pallet and two rats ran out. Instantly Nigel brought his boot heel down on one rodent’s head and kept