The Highwayman's Hostage

Chapter 3

An iron leg hold trap sunk its bloodthirsty fangs into the soft flesh of her calf, hungrily clenching at her leg. A high pitched yelp escaped her paled lips. Initially, she panicked, sobbing tearlessly and trying to prize the metallic teeth from her body. Dick, Matthew and Felicity were out of sight, she only hoped that they would notice she was missing. If those teeth chewed on her much longer then she would die. Already, she felt woozy and light-headed. Black fuzzy spots began to appear in sides of her vision. A wave of immense nausea swept over her and slowly, ever ever so slowly, she began to lose her grip on conciousness and reality...

On awakening, she found herself lying in a cave, wrapped in a warm blanket and an even warmer coat. A look at her battered leg revealed a bandage soaked in scarlett and no chemise, just a large blouse.

"Where is my chemise?" She yelled indignantly, nestling into the blanket to cover herself up and to preserve what modesty she had left. Matt walked in with a bundle of kindling in his arms.

"Oh, you're awake. 'Bout time, if you ask me. You've been out for a few hours." He said, dumping the kindling in a pile at the back of the cave. It was a small cave, more of a stony dugout in a secluded area of the forest, not far from where they had made camp that night. It reached back only a few metres. Just enough to fit a few people plus any booty collected from raids and robberies. Something about Matt put her naturally at ease, but she scooted back regardless of this, he was, afterall, a highwayman and was not to be trusted. "Feelin' any better? I dressed the wound for you and all."

"Thank you." She mumbled. "Who... who changed my chemise?" She asked and immediately blushed. Matt chuckled.

"That would be Dick." Seeing Bess's horrified face he added. "He don't care about stuff like that. We would've got your friend to do it, but we didn't want you makin' any plans to escape or nought like that. Anyway, Dick was alright about it and he didn't consider any funny business." She breathed a sigh of relief, though her tomato coloured ears and cheeks did not lessen their outrageous colour.

"Where's Felicity?" Bess demanded, still not entirely comfortable around him, though he was better than the brooding presence of Dick.

"Oh, so that's her name. She'll be outside polishing off her supper. We've saved a bit for you if you're up to it." He said, gesturing towards the mouth of the cave where a fire crackled invitingly. Unfortunately, she wouldn't be able to walk for days.

"How's Richard's arm?" She enquired, shocked that the words came out of her mouth. She was the one who shot him in the first place! Immediatly, she wished that she could take them back. "Forget I said that. I honestly don't care how he fares. You know, I hope it gets infected." She spat a little too venemously and crossed her arms in a huff. Matt let out an amused laugh and left the cave shaking his head good-humouredly.

"Dick, that mort of yours has quite a mouth on her." Bess heard Matt tell Dick as they happily finished their supper. She heard Dick give an emotionless "yeah" in reply. She was going to escape, though it wasn't the clever thing to do — in fact it was downright stupid. With a severely injured leg and absolutely no sense of direction, she hardly stood a chance, but her pride had blinded her and she was determined to pull the wool over the eyes of the two infuriating highwaymen. Felicity obviously had no intentions of leaving. She was perhaps a lot more sensible than Bess, but Bess just couldn't understand why Felicity was fine with staying in the vicinity of two no-good criminals.

After a while, Matt ventured into the cave with two well-cooked, mouth watering sausages. He knelt kindly by Bess' side and offered the sausages to her. Patiently he waited for her to take them, though her pride made her slow to do so.

"How's the leg?" He asked, seeming genuinely interested.

"It's better." She mumbled almost unintelligable, crossing her arms and still refusing to take the succulent meat being offered to her. Matt sighed.