Judith E French (21 page)

Brandon would welcome them, Anne was certain of it. She had been a guest at his mother’s home before, and he had stayed with her family. “Would there be room for us—”

Leah laughed. “Aye, elder sister. Brandon builds a palace by the bay. There would be room for half my tribe to sleep. He may not even be there. Brandon’s father has plantations in Virginia also, and Brandon travels to see that they are well cared for. Ye and Ross maun go and make our home your own. Our father lives only a mile away.”

“I think I would like that,” Anne replied honestly. “And I will wait for you to come. I want my marriage with Ross to work . . . but there are still problems between us. I need a sister.”

“It is good to need,” Leah said. “But remember that ye have much to give. Ye be a strong woman, Anne. It makes my heart glad that my children will know ye and come to love ye also.” She rose to her feet. “I do not like good-byes. I will say to ye, safe journey. May the Creator guide your footsteps and keep ye until we meet again.” She unwrapped a small roll of rabbit skin and handed a tiny pair of beaded moccasins to Anne.

“Ohhh,” Anne gasped. They were exact miniatures of the moccasins Leah had given her when they reached the Shawnee village, the ones she was wearing now. “They’re beautiful. But why . . . these are for a baby. I’m not with child.” I wish I was, she thought. She cradled the exquisite white leather shoes in her hand.

Leah laughed. “Watch the moon, sister. It may be that ye will need these before ye think.” She hugged Anne tightly and hurried out into the night.

Puzzled, Anne stared after her. True, she had never had a child, but surely she would be the first to know if she were to have a baby. She’d not missed a showing of blood. In the last few weeks, her stomach had troubled her and she’d had periods of dizziness, but women who were with child lost their appetites. It certainly hadn’t happened to her—if anything, she was hungry all the time. Even the strange foods of the Indians had tasted delicious. Leah might be a wise woman among the Shawnee, but she didn’t know everything. Perhaps, Anne decided, her sister had given her the baby shoes in the hopes that she would get with child.

The thought that she might be barren chilled her. How terrible it would be in old age to have no one. If she gave Ross children, it would be more reason for him to want to keep her. In time, she told herself. They had only been wed since early spring. Many women took a year or two to swell with the first child.

Her musing was broken by the high, poignant notes of an eagle-bone flute. She started to rise, but the unearthly music held her transfixed. Tears filled her eyes as she listened, knowing that it could only be Ross courting her according to the Shawnee custom.

At last, when the flute was silent, she went to the entrance of the wigwam. There, on a white deerskin, lay her pearl earrings—the ones Ross had given to the captain for the price of their passage.

“I dinna think I’ll be able to find Johnny Faa’s band of gypsies and recover your rings or your other earrings,” Ross said from the darkness. “Will these do for an apology? Leah’s right. I haven’t treated you like a man should treat the woman he loves.”

Anne dashed away her tears with the back of her hand. Too full of emotion to talk, she grabbed his hand and held it.

“I feared they’d been lost in the river,” he said sheepishly. “I’d sewn them inside a pocket in my bonnet. Lucky for me the Shawnee found it washed up on the shore.”

She sniffed. “How . . . how did you get them back from Captain Gordon?”

“I promised him double our passage fee the next time he docks in Annapolis.”

“And where was this money to come from?”

Rosa grinned. “I did marry a rich wife.”

She laughed with him as she fastened the pearls in her ears.

“Come with me, hinney.”

Without question, she followed him through the darkened village to a secluded spot on the riverbank a few hundred yards from camp. There they slipped out of their clothing and swam together in the cool, fast-flowing water.

The night was very dark. Heavy clouds covered the moon and hung so low they brushed the treetops. Not a single star pierced the velvet heavens with flickering radiance. A single drum sounded from the camp, and with it came the low, repetitive reverberation of joined voices rising and falling with an ancient tribal chant.

Neither Ross nor Anne spoke. It was enough to hold each other and let the current carry away their differences. At last when the rumble of thunder broke through their shared enchantment with the night, they waded from the river and walked naked through the fog back to their wigwam.

The warmth of the coals in the fire pit drew Anne and freed her from her self-imposed silence. “Are we really going to Annapolis in the morning?” she asked, holding out her hands to the tiny flame. “Truly?” She folded her deerskin gown and laid it aside. Ross’s gaze burned her naked skin, but she felt no shame—only pride. She smiled at him with her eyes.

“Aye, sweeting, we are. If ye want to see your father, I’ll take ye.” His deep voice was husky. “I have wronged ye, Anne. I ken that now. Moonfeather told me what ye did for me by the falls. She said ye called upon your amulet to save my life.”

Thunder rolled across the sky, and Anne sensed a change in the wind. A puff of damp air rippled the deerskin at the entrance to the wigwam. The fire sparked. “You don’t believe in magic,” Anne answered breathlessly. She could smell the rain coming. Her skin prickled.

“Nay, Anne, I dinna, but I believe in you. It matters not if the magic be real or not. What matters is that despite what I’ve done to you, ye love me.” He held out his arms, and she went to him. His kiss was long and sweet and tender. “Ye mean the world to me, hinney, but if ye want to go back to England, I’ll help you.”

She clung to him as lightning arced across the heavens. “You’d do that for me?”

“Aye. Do ye wish it?”

“And if I want to stay here in the Colonies—if I want to be your true wife?”

The first drops of rain pelted against the wigwam. The flames in the fire pit hissed as smoke spiraled upward toward the hole in the ceiling.

“Oh, God, woman.” He kissed her again, harder.

Her knees went weak as she melted against him. The rain assaulted the wigwam in sheets, and the wind tore at the bark covering as the storm grew closer. Anne’s head was filled with the musty odor of wet leaves and the virile man-scent of Ross’s skin and hair.

He kissed her again, letting his tongue brush her teasingly—not demanding but asking.

She trembled in his arms. “Stop kissing me,” she protested weakly. “I can’t think.” She pushed herself to arm’s length. “If I stay,” she warned him, “you must treat me differently. I’ll not be dragged about like a sack of raw wool. I want respect from you, Ross. I want you to treat me like you do Leah.”

He crushed her against him and nuzzled her neck. “Not exactly as I do Moonfeather, I hope.” He cupped her chin in his hand and tilted her face up so that he could stare into her eyes. “I love ye, Anne,” he whispered. “Can ye ever forgive me for the way I’ve treated ye?”

A crash of thunder nearly deafened her. Lightning flashed so brightly she could see it through the walls. “Forgiving is easy,” she said above the rain. “It’s the forgetting that comes hard. Give me time.”

“I don’t want to lose ye, but I can’t give up Wanishish-eyun. Do ye think ye could learn to love it as I do? I’m nay a man for towns and tight breeches. Maybe I expected too much of you—that ye should do all the giving—but I won’t lie to you to keep ye. I canna live in England, and I canna live a gentleman’s life along the coast either.”

He does love me, she thought—he really loves me. Is it enough? Can we be happy together? Can I forget the past? Her heart was beating so hard she thought it would break, and her chest felt tight. “I don’t expect you to go back to England,” she whispered. “I think I could learn to love this new land as you do . . . but . . .”

“But what?” he pulled her down gently, and they knelt, facing each other on the bearskin rug.

“I’m not sure I can live at Fort Campbell. I . . .” She covered her face with her hands. “I can’t tell you what I want, Ross, because I’m not sure myself. After I’ve seen my father . . . after I’ve thought all this out . . . maybe then . . .”

He planted soft kisses in her hair. “If it’s time ye want, it’s time ye shall have. So long as ye love me, darling, we’ll work things out. It will be all right, I promise ye.”

“I never knew what love was until I met you,” she said shyly. His hands were warm against her bare skin, and delicious sensations ran up and down her spine. She smiled up at him in the firelight. “I want you now,” she admitted. “Love me, Ross. Push away the doubts and the shadows.”

“Ah, hinney,” he murmured.

Anne gazed at him wide-eyed. He was so beautiful, this great man of hers. Trembling, she laid her hand on his bare thigh. The muscles were taut under her exploring fingers. Excitement made her light-headed.

“I want to touch you . . . all of you.”

They kissed again, a long, slow kiss that made Anne’s blood race. She took his hand in hers and brought it to her breast, shivering with delight when he caressed her.

“I do love you so much,” she said. The storm tore at the wigwam, but here with Ross she was safe from the wind and the rain . . . safe as she had never felt before.

“And I you.” He trailed hot, damp kisses down her bare shoulder, and leaned close to whisper in her ear, telling her what wonderful, wicked ways he meant to make love to her.

She laughed and arched against him, catching a bit of skin on his chest between her teeth and nipping gently, letting her tongue graze his slightly salty skin, savoring the taste and texture of him. “If you do that,” she dared, “I may—” Then she squealed as he growled and rolled her over, seizing her wrists and pinning her down against the thick, soft rug.

“Ye be my prisoner,” he teased, “and I shall take my pleasure of ye, English wench.”

She struggled against him, playfully raising her knee to rub against his swollen shaft. He groaned. “Two can play this game,” she said.

Ross lowered his weight onto her, bracing himself with one arm to keep from hurting her, and their mouths met. Anne strained against him, reveling in the sensation of his body pressed against hers.

“When do we have to leave for Annapolis?” she murmured innocently as she stroked his tumescent member. He was hard and ready.

“At dawn.” He drew in a deep breath and moaned with pleasure. “Witch.” He kissed her again deeply, filling her mouth with his tongue, moving his body over hers until she whimpered with desire. “Or the next day,” he whispered. “Or the next.”

“Mmm.” Anne sighed, wrapping her arms around his neck and pulling him closer. “Then let’s not waste a moment.”

He threaded his fingers through her hair and stared into her eyes. “Nay,” he agreed hoarsely. “Not a minute. For once, hinney, ye share my thoughts exactly.”

Then they were kissing again, and his hands were doing wonderful things to the most intimate parts of her body. The sensations of his skin rubbing hers, of the delicious heat growing in her loins, of soft, silky bearskin beneath her were heightened by the awesome power of the storm that raged around them.

“Now,” she murmured. “Now.”

“Aye, darling,” he answered, “for it would kill me to wait longer.”

And then he thrust into her, and she cried out with intense pleasure. Stroke for stroke she met him, giving and receiving, until their naked bodies glistened in the firelight with a light film of moisture and their breath came in ragged gasps. Anne felt her spirit spiraling upward like the smoke from their fire pit climbing toward the sky. She clung to Ross as their shared passion peaked and then exploded in a climax of soul-shattering rapture.

Slowly, Anne became aware of the rain and the wind and the now-distant sounds of thunder. Ross leaned over her and nibbled her lips, then cradled her against his chest, whispering sweet words of love.

Her fingers brushed her amulet, and she wondered again at the magic that had brought her so far to this unexpected happiness.

And then their mouths were locked together again, and nothing mattered to Anne but Ross and their precious night of love.

 

F
itzhugh Murrane cleared his throat for the second time. He’d been standing in the Royal Governor’s private parlor for the better part of an hour, and no one had brought him a chair or offered him refreshment. His patience was fast fading, and one side of his jaw throbbed from a broken tooth. “Governor Calvert—”

Charles Calvert frowned and reached for a quill pen. “This is distasteful business, Lord Murrane, and it couldn’t have come at a more inconvenient time.” The governor pushed Murrane’s warrant and letter from Anne’s father aside. He dipped his quill in ink and scrawled his signature across a document bearing his own seal. He pursed his lips. “You are unknown to us, and Ross Campbell—one should properly say the Master of Strathmar, according to these papers—is a citizen of standing in the colony. Your allegations of a runaway wife—”

“Kidnapped!” Murrane interrupted. “My wife was kidnapped.”

Governor Calvert spread his raised fingers. “Whichever.” The Black Forest clock on the mantel chimed twelve noon, and Calvert stood up. “We will issue orders that the Master of Strathmar be summoned for questioning, and that inquiries be made about Lady Anne.” The governor stroked his chin thoughtfully. He was a pleasant-looking man of medium height and even features, and his soft voice conveyed the authority of a man born to unquestioned power. “These charges of murder and”—he sniffed—“kidnapping are quite serious. We will certainly give your petition sincere consideration, but London and these alleged events are many months and a great distance away.”

Murrane leaned over the front of the governor’s desk. “I have a warrant for Campbell’s arrest for murder and kidnapping,” he rasped. “I have a letter from my wife’s father, the Earl of Langstone, stating that Lady Anne was taken against her will. What more do you need?”

Charles Calvert yawned politely, covering his mouth with a lace handkerchief. “Pardon me, Lord Murrane, but this has been a dreadfully long day, and I have the customs agent waiting in my antechamber. I’ve been here since seven, and I want my dinner.”

Murrane scowled. “This was a courtesy visit. I have the legal authority, and I have the men to arrest Campbell myself.”

The governor’s expression hardened. “Indeed you do not, sir. You have exactly the authority here that I permit you to exercise. I am His Majesty’s Royal Governor, and I answer to no one but King George. You will do well to remember that.” He lifted a silver bell from the desk and rang it twice. Immediately, a door opened on the left, and the governor’s secretary, James Crew, appeared.

“Governor Calvert. You rang, sir?” The secretary wore a wine coat and vest, and buff breeches. His wig was neatly styled and tied in the back with a wine-colored silk ribbon.

“Crew.” The governor smiled politely. “Kindly show the baron out.” He glanced at Murrane. “On the evening of Tuesday next, there will be a ball in honor of my birthday. Tell Crew where you are staying, and he will arrange for my carriage to pick you up at eight. Most people of consequence in Annapolis will be present, and it may be that we can hear word of your missing lady.” He offered a curt nod of dismissal. “Do nothing without my leave, sir, or you shall rue the day you first set foot on Maryland soil.”

Murrane’s face swelled with engorged blood as he walked stiffly from the parlor and descended the wide staircase. “I’m at the White Swan,” he muttered to the governor’s secretary.

“Very good, sir.” Crew waved to a male servant to open the door for the baron.

Swearing under his breath, Murrane shouldered past the liveried footmen and hurried out onto the crowded street. John Brown was leaning against the brick building, arms folded over his chest, eyes nearly closed. He leaped to attention and fell into step behind his employer.

Murrane ignored Brown and stalked across the dusty square in the direction of the White Swan Inn. An oxcart lumbered past, bearing two hogsheads of tobacco to the harbor. The near ox raised its tail and dropped a wet glob of greenish-black manure into the street, splattering Murrane’s shoe. Murrane cursed and shook his fist at the driver.

The farmer made a rude gesture and offered a comment on the lineage of Murrane’s mother. A woman selling dippers of milk from an open bucket laughed. The oxen kept walking.

Murrane cast a scornful glance around the square. “Annapolis,” he scoffed. The capital of the Maryland Colony was little more than a village of sweaty plowmen who didn’t know how to show respect for their betters. “Weeks we’ve cooled our heels waiting, and now this puffed-up governor says he will give my petition serious consideration!”

“Trouble is, sir, nobody knows exactly where Campbell’s fort is. West, they say. There ain’t no roads, an’ it’s all wild Indian territory. One man wasn’t certain Fort Campbell was in the Maryland Territory. He thought it might be on Pennsylvania land, or even Virginia.”

“To hell with them. I don’t care where it is. Find me someone who can guide us there. I’ll deal with Ross Campbell and my dear wife when I catch up with them.”

A shaggy cur with golden eyes growled at Murrane, and he kicked it in the ribs. The dog yipped, ducked under a farm wagon, and fled down an alley.

The rutted street was thick with horsemen, carts, and wagons. Merchants and Indians vied for position as they dodged sedan chairs and boisterous sailors with seabags over their shoulders. Men called to each other across the thoroughfare, and dogs barked above the clang of a blacksmith’s hammer on steel.

Red and gold autumn leaves swirled on the salt-tinged breeze; everywhere tramping feet stirred the dust and blackened the faces of the passersby. Three British soldiers in uniform swaggered by—one reeking of rum, although it was only midday. The wind caught the skirts of a half-grown girl herding a flock of sheep uphill away from the harbor and lifted her petticoats to show a glimpse of bare knee. The soldiers hooted, and the girl blushed and waved her shepherd’s staff to hurry the docile animals.

“Capital of the colony,” Murrane grumbled. “The futterin’ town smells like a cattle fair,”

A broad-faced black woman in a mobcap and golden hoop earrings was doing a brisk business selling fresh baked gingerbread from a tray suspended by a strap around her neck. “Hot gingercakes!” she cried. “Hot and spicy. Just from the oven. Gingercakes!” A bearded man in buckskins tossed her a penny and began to stuff the sweet into his mouth. Seagulls swooped down to snatch up the fallen crumbs.

“Soft crabs!” cried a street vendor, pushing a wheelbarrow full of fish and crabs so fresh that they were still wiggling. “Buy my fish,” he cried. “Fresh fish! Soft crabs! This morning’s catch!”

Murrane reached the far side of the square and glared at his lieutenant. “Hire a guide to take us into the wilderness no later than Thursday. I’m tired of your excuses. I’ll not be made a fool of by these colonials. Anne is my property. I’ll have her back and Campbell dead before snow flies.”

John Brown kept silent.

Murrane spat out a mouthful of dust. Brown better have the sense to hold his tongue, he thought. Whether Anne was his legal wife or his betrothed was a fine point. The marriage contract had been signed, the church service that Ross Campbell had interrupted was only a formality.

The sign of the White Swan loomed ahead. Murrane wondered if the innkeeper would have fresh beef for dinner. He could have sworn the stringy duck that was served last night had died of old age. “I’ll take my meal in the private room,” he said to Brown. “See to it that the men are served peas and salt pork. I’ll not pay for them to eat like gentlemen.” The cost of keeping English mercenaries in Annapolis was staggering. “Oh, and Brown . . .”

“Sir?”

“See to it that someone brushes my brown coat and smooths the wrinkles out of it. I’ve been invited to the governor’s birthday ball.”

 

Cameron Stewart, Earl of Dunnkell, led the way to the plantation stables. “You’ll appreciate this mare, Ross,” he said. “She has Turk blood. I’ve bred her to one of Brandon’s stallions. If I get a filly out of her, I mean to have it trained for Leah’s daughter, Cami. By the time the filly has been properly schooled, the girl will be old enough to ride her.”

Anne stood in the shade of a beech tree and watched as her father and Ross admired the chestnut mare. To her surprise, the two men had struck up an instant friendship. They shared a love of horses, horse racing, and good whiskey.

In the days since she and Ross had arrived on the coast, all her apprehensions about meeting Cameron again had proved formless. As Leah had promised, their father had been overjoyed to see her and Ross.

They had gone to King’s Gift as Leah had told them. Brandon had been leaving on important business for his father when they’d arrived. He’d made them welcome and instructed the servants to give them anything they asked for during their stay. “I’ll be back in a few weeks,” he’d said. “I’d give a hundred pounds to glimpse Cameron’s face when he sees Anne.”

She had been delighted with Leah and Brandon’s palatial home, and had altered some of her opinions about the primitive living conditions in the Maryland Colony.

The homes of the gentry were smaller than the great mansions of England, but the lifestyles of the people here—rich and commonfolk alike—seemed infinitely better. Even the black slaves were better dressed and healthier-looking than London’s poor. The water was clean and fit to drink. There were no open sewers full of dead animals and stagnant water in Annapolis. Everywhere Anne looked, she saw prosperous, hard-working citizens and rich fields full of fat cattle.

Cameron’s nearby manor house, Gentleman’s Folly, would do credit to any earl in England. The furnishings were beautifully crafted; the walls were hung with fine paintings and the paper in his hall parlor was handpainted in France. Silver and china graced his tables—tables that groaned under a remarkable variety of excellent meats and fruits and vegetables. Venison and goose, roast beef and ham, were cooked as well as any Anne had been served at the best tables in London. Gentleman’s Folly was hardly a backwater farm—it was a magnificent home.

“I’ve wronged you, Anne,” Cameron had said on the first night they’d come to see him. “You suffered for the fleshly pleasures I shared with your mother. I can’t give you back your lost years of childhood, but whatever I can do for you now, I will. God knows I’m rich enough.”

“It’s not money I want of you,” Anne replied. For months she had wondered what she would say to her father when she saw him. She’d rehearsed conversations in her mind and had lain awake nights thinking of the right words. But now that she was actually here, the words didn’t matter. She and her father fitted together as naturally as a hand and glove.

I can see Leah in him, she thought. They both have the ability to make me feel good about myself just by being near me. Her father had a wonderful sense of humor and an easy manner.

“I wish I’d known who you were when I was a child,” she admitted to him. “Barbara always . . .” She trailed off awkwardly, not willing to reveal her mother’s faults to him.

Genuine regret filled Cameron’s blue eyes. “I know Barbara as well as anyone,” he said. “I didn’t want to leave you with her, but she laughed when I suggested that you come to live with me. ‘Utterly preposterous,’ I believe that was her reaction. And of course my idea
was
impossible. I was wed to Margaret then, and Barbara was married to Langstone.” His eyes clouded with moisture. “I gave her money,” he said. “I’m certain she never told you, but I always made an allowance for your expenses.”

“Would you have married her if you’d been free?” Anne asked.

He shrugged. “Honestly? I can’t say. At one time your mother was . . .” Cameron sighed. “Probably not.”

“Are you two of a kind?” Anne demanded. “Barbara was never content with one man. And you, obviously . . .”

The barb struck home, and Cameron flinched. “You have a little of your mother in you,” he said. “It’s no secret that I’ve loved many women, but . . . Had I had a real marriage, Anne, it might have been different.”

Cameron Stewart was finally free of the marriage of convenience his parents had made for him when he was sixteen and the lady was thirty.

He indicated the portrait of a richly gowned, plain-faced woman hanging in the hall parlor of his manor house. “Margaret’s gone, God rest her soul. She fell off a horse and broke her neck only weeks after I sailed from England. A pity. She was a good woman. There was never love between us, but we were always friends. Margaret had health problems. She wanted a child desperately, but our bairns were stillborn. Once it became clear that she couldn’t bear living children and that trying would kill her, we went our separate ways. She had her own interests, and she closed her eyes to mine.”

“And now you are a rich widower,” Anne said.

“Aye. I am.” Cameron flashed a charming grin. “And the lassies of Annapolis—young and old—are buzzing around me like flies around a cherry tart.”

Anne wasn’t able to suppress her amusement. Lord Dunnkell—her father—was an extremely handsome man. His russet hair was tinged with gray, but his blue eyes glowed with youthful vigor. He was tanned and lithe, with a lean belly and a spring to his step. “You are impossible, Cameron,” she teased. He’d asked her to call him by his Christian name.

“I’d not soil your reputation, Anne,” he explained. “Are ye any less my flesh and blood if the world knows you as Langstone’s heir? You’ll inherit his fortune as well as your mother’s. Ross made a canny choice—even for a Scot—when he took you to wife.”

“It was a mistake,” Anne said. “He took the wrong bride.”

“And I’m certain that will make for a good tale to tell your grandchildren,” Cameron flung back. Then he said seriously, “I never thought to have both my girls near me in my old age. All my life I’ve enjoyed the finer things in life. Now, all I want is to play at being a farmer. I want to see crops grow, and I want to be part of my children’s and grandchildren’s lives.” He took her hand. “Can you forgive me, Anne? Can you give me a second chance at being a father?”