My Bratty Wife
Chapter 229 - Two Hundred And Twenty Nine

Chapter 229: Chapter Two Hundred And Twenty Nine

The familiar dressed footman was gone. The reassuring presence of Noah was horrifyingly absent, left behind on the cobblestones. Suzy’s heart hammered against her ribs as the carriage, her own ducal carriage, dashed through the city streets at a reckless, unfamiliar pace.

She twisted around, peering through the small rear window. Noah was a diminishing figure, running desperately, his face a mask of alarm and effort, shouting something she couldn’t hear over the clatter of hooves and wheels. But the carriage was too fast, expertly maneuvered through the thinning post-auction traffic by a driver whose face she hadn’t seen, whose commands were harsh and unfamiliar. Soon, Noah was lost to sight.

Panic, cold and sharp, clawed at her. She poked her head out of the side window, the wind whipping her stray hair across her face. "Aaron!" she cried, using the name of their trusted coachman. "Aaron, could you slow down a bit, please? You seem to have forgotten Noah!"

There was no response from the driver’s seat, only the relentless crack of the whip and the straining of the horses as they were urged to an even greater speed. The voice that had barked the command to start was not Aaron’s gentle baritone; it was rough, gruff, and utterly strange.

It was then, with a sickening lurch in her stomach, that Suzy truly understood. This wasn’t a mistake. Aaron wasn’t driving. She was being kidnapped.

Her first instinct was raw terror. Her breath came in short, sharp gasps. Her mind raced. Open the door! Jump! But a glance out the window at the blurred scenery, the rapidly passing buildings, told her it was madness. At this speed, leaping from the carriage would mean severe injury, most likely death.

"Calm down, Suzy," she whispered to herself, her fingers tapping a frantic rhythm on her lap. "Panicking won’t solve anything. Think. You have to think." She took a series of deep, deliberate breaths, forcing the terror back, pushing for clarity. Ryan. Noah. They would be searching for her. She had to help them.

A thought, desperate but clear, sparked in her mind. A trail. She had to leave a trail.

Her gloved hands flew to her head. She untied the ribbons of her stylish pastel colored hat, the one she’d worn to the auction, and without a second thought, tossed it out the window. It fluttered for a moment before landing on the dusty roadside. One glove followed, then the other, dropped a short distance apart. Her delicate lace fan, the one she’d fiddled with nervously before the auction, was next. She unclasped her dainty heeled shoes, her auction finery, and sent them tumbling out one after the other. Then her silk stockings, peeled off with trembling fingers. The small, glittering hair ornaments Irene had so carefully pinned into her low bun that morning were scattered onto the road. The matching pastel color bow from her dress. Her pearl necklace, a gift from Ryan, was unclasped with a pang of regret and sacrificed to the wind.

Her hands fumbled at her bodice, reaching for the fine gold chain around her neck. Suspended from it was a heavy, dark ring – the Blackwood signet ring, an heirloom of Ryan’s family, which he had given her to wear as a pendant, a symbol of their bond, of her place in his heart. Her fingers closed around it. For a moment, she hesitated. "No," she whispered fiercely, clutching it tightly. "Not Ryan’s ring. Not this." It was too precious, too much a part of him, of them.

She looked around the carriage frantically for anything else, anything at all, to discard. But there was nothing. She was left in her pastel colored silk gown, her feet bare, her hair coming undone. She clasped her hands tightly in her lap, her knuckles white, and offered a silent, fervent prayer – a prayer for protection, for strength, and for the swift arrival of rescue. For Ryan to find her.

The carriage finally began to slow, turning off the main thoroughfare onto a rough, unpaved track that led towards a dilapidated, isolated-looking small house nestled amongst overgrown trees, far from the respectable parts of the city. This was it.

As the carriage shuddered to a halt before the dreary building, Suzy didn’t wait. Her mind, though terrified, was sharp. The driver would expect her to be cowed, perhaps hysterical.

Before he could even dismount, she wrenched open the carriage door on the side opposite to where he would alight and scrambled out. Her bare feet hit the rough, stony ground, and she ran. She ran towards the rickety wooden gate that offered the only visible exit from the overgrown yard.

Freedom was just a few desperate strides away when a deafening gunshot cracked through the air, fired into the sky above her. She froze in her tracks, her heart leaping into her throat, the acrid smell of gunpowder stinging her nostrils.

"If you take one more step, missy," a harsh voice snarled from behind her, the same unrecognized voice from the driver’s box, "I’ll put the next bullet right through your pretty head. Don’t think I won’t."

She turned slowly. The man, burly and grim-faced, with cruel, assessing eyes, was walking towards her, a smoking pistol in his hand. He closed the distance quickly, his boots crunching on the gravel, and grabbed her arm in a bruising grip.

"Let me go!" Suzy cried, twisting and struggling, hitting out at him with her free hand. "Who are you? What do you want?"

The man grunted, clearly fed up with her resistance. With a swift, brutal movement, he brought the heavy barrel of the pistol across her face. The impact sent a blinding flash of pain through her cheek and jaw. She cried out, tasting the metallic tang of blood in her mouth as she coughed.

"Don’t make me ruin that pretty face of yours before the boss even sees ya," he growled, his breath hot and unpleasant. "Now, be a good girl and come along quietly."

He began to drag her, stumbling and still resisting weakly, towards the grim little house. Inside, the air was stale and damp. She saw at once that there were other men – five of them, rough-looking, dressed in coarse, ill-fitting clothes. They looked up with leering interest as she was hauled in. They had the hard, wary eyes of men who lived outside the law. From their hushed, guttural language and the scattered crates and bundles in the main room, she quickly, terrifyingly, deduced their trade: smugglers. And not just of mundane goods. The way they looked at her, like a piece of valuable cargo, sent a fresh wave of dread through her. They dealt in anything that turned a profit – food, drugs, or even people. Women and children, to be precise.

Fear, cold and absolute, gripped Suzy. What did they intend to do with her?

Her captor, the driver, shoved her roughly towards a narrow, planked door at the back of the main room. "In there, Your Highness," he sneered, yanking it open to reveal a small, dark storage room. It was little more than a closet, with one tiny, grimy window set high in the wall, offering almost no light.

"No, please!" Suzy cried, her voice rising in panic as the oppressive smallness of the space hit her. "Please, don’t put me in there! I... I’m claustrophobic! I can’t breathe in tight spaces! Please!"

The man who had hit her just looked at the other men, a brutish incomprehension on his face. "What in blazes is this woman talking about? Claw-stro-fobik?"

One of the other smugglers, a lanky man with a scar across his cheek, shrugged dismissively. "Rich lady nonsense. Probably just tryin’ to get out. Shove her in, Jem." To Jem, he said, "Come on, you earned a drink. Let’s toast to another successful job, eh?"

Jem, the driver, grunted and, despite her pleas and struggles, forced Suzy into the tiny, musty room. The heavy door slammed shut behind her, the sound of a bolt scraping into place echoing her despair. Darkness enveloped her.

She sank to the dusty floor, curling herself into a tight ball, her breath coming in ragged sobs. The walls felt like they were closing in. "I’ll be fine, Suzy, you will be fine," she chanted under her breath, rocking back and forth, trying to ward off the suffocating panic. "I’ll be fine. Ryan is coming. Ryan is on his way. He’ll find the trail."

Through the thin wooden door, she could hear the muffled sounds of the men’s coarse laughter and the clinking of glasses. Then, their voices became clearer as they discussed their plans.

"...ship will be at the Aldridge port by nightfall," one voice slurred. "Cap’n Jago is expecting a prime bit o’ cargo this time."

"Aye," another voice agreed. "But we gotta wait for the boss to get here first. He’ll want to inspect the goods himself, make sure she’s worth the price that will be fetched."

Inspect the goods. Worth the price. Ship at the port.

The chilling words slammed into Suzy with the force of another physical blow. She wasn’t just being held for ransom. She was going to be sold. Like an animal. Like property. Sold and shipped away, to where, to whom, she couldn’t even begin to imagine.