Silence met my ears.

Perhaps he is asleep. I’ll go find him.

Chills coursed over my skin without cause as I opened the confessional door and stepped back out into the sanctuary. Still, I was alone in the church. With slow and deliberate steps, I crept to the priest’s side of the confessional booth and gripped the handle. It sprang open at my touch, and something fell out with a sickening thud.

The priest’s gnarled hand hung lifelessly from his side of the confessional booth.

My fists were at my mouth in an instant. Backing up through the empty room, I started to scream. A thin trail of blood slid down the old hand and puddled around his knotted knuckles.

“Lady Bridget.”

I froze. The chills that ran rampant across my skin threatened to turn the blood in my very veins to ice.

Before I could see who greeted me by name, a bag was yanked down over my head. The rough material dug into my face and my attacker held it tight.

My arms flailed out, but met nothing. I lost my balance and tumbled to the ground. Still, someone held the bag that stayed tight on my head.

“I don’t want to have to kill you like I killed that priest—but I will. So you keep quiet, and keep still.”

My breath came faster in the damp darkness, and hysteria threatened to send my heart charging out of my chest like a stallion. “I—I cannot breathe.”

“Keep still, and I will loosen the bag. Perhaps. Or I may suffocate you and do England a favor.” A hint of familiarity in the hissing voice gave me pause.

“Who—who are you?” I asked in shaky tones.

The faceless attacker finagled with my hands until they were lashed together behind my back. “Lady Bridget, I’m returning you to England. It is high time you face your punishment for running out on your sovereign lord, King Henry VIII.”

All the blood in my body seemed to curdle at once. I opened my mouth to assure him he had the wrong person, to protest, to say anything—but a swift strike to the back of my head sent my thoughts and words flittering into nothingness like shards of broken glass into the night.

†††

The serene sound of water lapping near my head urged me awake. My head throbbed a righteous throb, and the world was still cloaked in darkness. I wiggled my fingers, which were numb and still lashed tight behind my back.

Grunt. Splash.

I listened and tried not to move.

Grunt. Splash.

Someone near me began to mumble. “Almost done now. All this time, almost done.”

Father, help me. Please. Not now. Not this way.

I cleared my throat. “Begging your pardon m’lord—”

“You! You hush you—you—you wretch.”

Grunt. Splash.

“I assure you, good sir, I’m no wretch. If I’ve offended you in some way, I am deeply sorry.”

Grunt. Splash.

“You transgressed against me when you ran out on the King, His Majesty.”

I blinked in the darkness of my burlap prison, but it did no good. I’d been laying down, so I struggled to sit up. The little boat lurched with my movement.

“Be still, damn you!”

“Is there still a bounty on my head?”

Grunt. But the splash didn’t follow. “How did you know about that?” He laughed a nasal, snorty laugh.

So familiar. “Please, I beg you—” At once, his face popped into my mind. The plumed English courtier! He’d dined at my home, directed us from Queen Catherine’s execution, and lorded over us at that wretched dinner façade. I recalled his fat belly and the way he favored his left leg—not as mightily as King Henry favored his—but he sported a definite limp. “You were so kind to me, sir. Surely you haven’t bred hatred in your heart for me since we last met.”

Splash. We were moving again.

“I know there was an invasion of French soldiers in England. I am glad you weren’t hurt.”

Something in his voice softened as he continued his struggle to row us across the water. “Aye, yes. Many were killed, including that bastard headsman. Jean St. Bromaine.”

I bit my tongue until I tasted blood. Still, I refused to take the bait and incriminate my beloved. “You know, Lady Bridget, I had my suspicions about the pair of you from the beginning. What with that display at Queen Catherine’s execution, and then the pair of you running out under the cover of night. However—”

Grunt. Splash.

“It was my pleasure to dispatch him. Venomous traitor that he was.”

Anger boiled up within me.

“M’lord, is it the King’s pleasure that I be returned to him blinded by his servant?”

“As a matter of fact, no. His Majesty says you are to come to him whole and alive.”

My heart picked up speed and slapped against the inside of my chest. “Then, might you be able to adjust the blindfold? The knot is in my eye.”

“Blindfold? There is no blindfold.”

“Something is pressing into my eye!” I feigned a growing hysteria. “Please! Help me! I cannot feel my hands!”

With a great grunt, he started my way across the wooden boat. Step-offstep. Step-offstep. My heart galloped within me, and I ignored the throbbing in my head.

It’s now or never.

“By Jove, you’re hands have gone black.” He slashed the tie that bound them, and they fell like dead weight against the wooden boards of the floor of the boat.

I tried to ignore the pain that seized them.

“Here now, let’s see your eye.” He leaned and began to tug at the bag. “Well, perhaps if I loosen it just a bit here—” The moment I saw a glint of daylight, I ducked my head from under the bag.