Lord of the Wolves (26 page)

PROLOGUE

Morgan’s Landing, the Mohawk Valley, New York
December 1, 1762

J
ames White Hawk
Morgan leaned over the smaller man crouched at the makeshift desk in the trading
post proper and watched as the quill’s tip glided over the sheet of ivory
foolscap. A flowing black line followed in its wake, a long succession of
incomprehensible dips and curls, dots, and short intersecting lines.

Incomprehensible.
That was the perfect
word for it, because James could not make head nor tail of it,
and the harder he tried the more befuddled his brain became, and the closer he
came to looming over the scribe’s shoulder... until for the tenth time that
evening Mr. Sean Finn paused in his labors to look at him with red-veined blue
eyes. “Mr. Morgan, sir, I beg of ye,” Finn said shakily. “If ye’re goin’ to
hover over my shoulder in such a fashion, then I must have a wee dram of
whiskey to steady my hand.”

“You’ll have your
pint when you’ve completed the letter to my satisfaction,” James replied. “And
not a moment sooner.”

Finn swallowed hard
as he dipped the quill into the India ink. “Very well, then. But, if I am to
continue to labor, I must ask that ye step back a pace and give me room to draw
breath. Ye’re making me deuced nervous, sir!”

“Your pardon,” James
said, stepping back a half-pace. “‘Twas not my intention to unsettle you. I was
merely trying to ascertain that all was progressing accordingly. I should like
very much to please the young lady in question—-the recipient of this
correspondence. Indeed, it is of the utmost importance that I do so.”

He left off hanging
over the little man’s shoulder and moved around to the front of the desk,
flinging his lean frame onto a bench. “Perhaps if you read aloud what has been
written thus far?”

Finn blanched
visibly. He was most uncomfortable in James’s presence, but James did not care
a whit for the former schoolmaster’s discomfort. His concern lay with his
trading business, first and foremost—-a business that was not doing as well as
he’d hoped—-and with a certain young Englishwoman whose dainty hand he was
striving to win.

Her name was
Elizabeth Gardener and, aside from possessing the most remarkable blue eyes he
had ever seen, she had wealth, connections, and a sister-in-law who despised
her and nagged Elizabeth’s brother Benjamin incessantly to dislodge her from
their household.

Elizabeth, it seemed,
was a freethinking woman who defied convention and had thus far had few offers
of marriage, a fact which continued to mystify James. Fortune hunters like
himself were seldom so choosy about the women they wooed and wed. And Elizabeth
Gardener was more comely than most.

Of course, there was
always the possibility that Benjamin Gardener, Elizabeth’s brother and
guardian, was holding back information—-like a mulish laugh, an unruly
temperament, or a snore which would rattle the rafters—in the hopes of ridding
his household of his sister and seeing her comfortably settled elsewhere.

Not that the possibility
of Elizabeth’s possessing a small imperfection or two was enough to frighten
James off. He was made of much sturdier stuff than that. Besides, both
Elizabeth and her brother had refrained from asking potentially embarrassing
questions about his own background, so he rather considered that they were on
even ground, and he was most willing to take his chances with the young lady in
question.

James had felt
Elizabeth’s gaze upon him the moment he’d entered Samuel Sayer’s London parlor
the previous February, and had felt the immediate stab of a mutual attraction.
When he had taken her hand, bowing gallantly over it, he’d felt something
powerful and electric spark between them.

Samuel had called
upon James the following afternoon, with Benjamin Gardener in tow. Gardener, in
typically crass English fashion, had put it to him bluntly that James’s suit
would be enthusiastically welcomed should he choose to court Elizabeth, despite
his less than desirable bloodline, and hinted broadly at the depth and breadth of
her dowry.

Despite the slight
against his Mohawk heritage, James had leapt at the bait. With Gardener’s
permission he called upon the young lady in question that same afternoon, and
was pleased to discover that she harbored none of her brother’s prejudice.

Matters might have
proceeded swiftly and smoothly had he not received word that his mother had
been stricken with smallpox.

Voicing his regrets,
and his wish that matters had come to a different conclusion, he left London,
the lovely Elizabeth, and her dowry behind, and headed home to the Mohawk
Valley.

A fortnight after his
arrival at Morgan’s Landing, James received a package containing a leather
glove he’d apparently left behind in the Gardeners’ parlor, accompanied by his
first communication from Elizabeth. Delivered by a long hunter headed west, the
missive was wrinkled and well worn, but an all
uring
perfume rose from the
wax-sealed pages, bringing to mind Elizabeth’s maidenly blush and posing a
definite dilemma.

James had never
learned to read or write.

He’d carried the
letter in his breast pocket—-close to his heart—-for nearly a week before
finally conquering his pride sufficiently to approach Finn, the only person in
Morgan’s Landing learned enough to decipher it and form a suitable reply.

“Ah, Elizabeth, my
lovely,” James said on a sigh.

“Yer pardon, Mr.
Morgan?” the Irishman said, dragging James from his musings. “Is there
something else ye wish to add?”

James bent close,
pretending to scan the text. The correspondence, while hardly a satisfying method
of courtship for a man with red blood in his veins, had provided him with the
opportunity he’d been seeking.

And that was where
Mr. Finn came in. Finn had an elegant hand, and for a price had agreed to put
James’s unorthodox courtship to paper.

James straightened
his leather doublet with an impatient jerk. “It looks well enough to me, Mr.
Finn. “Now, if you please, I should like to hear what you have written. If you
will proceed, I’ll pour the whiskey.”

Finn
sighed, pushing his spectacles higher on the bridge of his long, thin nose, and
began.

 
“My
dearest Elizabeth. I pray that this letter finds you in good health, as well as
good spirits, and prepared to undertake the journey which will bring you to my
side.
...”

S.
K. McClafferty is the author of 14 novels, and numerous articles and short
stories. She lives on the banks of Sauvage’s beautiful river, not far from the
town of Kittanning, once known as Kit-han-ee, largest Delaware village on the
East Coast during the mid-eighteen century. Ms. McClafferty, once known as
Selina MacPherson, and also as Sue McKay, continues to write about love, loss,
and the triumph of the human spirit over deep tragedy.