The Captive Heart (35 page)

Holding hands with failure was never one of his favorite sensations. It needled. It chilled. But pressing her any further would be a dead giveaway—and he’d be the carcass. At the very least, he could inform his contacts that there was a shipment of firearms ready to deliver. Somewhere.

He pivoted. “Goodnight, Miss Browndell.”

“Wait.”

Her voice turned him back around. Torchlight licked over her face, creating harsh shadows beneath her eyes. “The timing of it could work, I suppose. How long will it take me to travel to Chota?”

“You?” He hadn’t expected that—and he didn’t like to be caught off guard. Stepping closer, he looked for signs of deceit. “What makes you think Attakullakulla will take you and your manservant along?”

“I have my ways, Mr. Heath.” Her returning confidence gleamed in the white of her smile.

“A few weeks, maybe.” His words came out slow, but his thoughts galloped. What did the woman have brewing in that sharp-toothed trap of a mind?

“Perfect!” Her feral grin grew.

“For what?”

Fumbling with the torch, she pulled a ring from her pinky finger and handed it to him. “This is your ticket into Fort McCaffrey. A man like you ought to be able to make it there and get to Chota by the time we arrive, hmm?”

Oh, how he longed to yank back on the line and set the hook deeper into her pert little jaw. But timing, whether hunting for deer or answers, required patience and resolve. He refused to wrap his fingers around the silver band. Not yet. Not too soon.

He looked from the ring to the brown of her gaze. “What makes you think you can trust me, Miss Browndell?”

She threw back her shoulders like a general about to go into battle with an unflinching determination to win. “Because, Mr. Heath, unlike you, I pride myself on certainty.”

He allowed a half smile, just the right amount to please her, and tucked the ring away inside a pouch at his waist. Though it galled him, let her think he was standing side by side with her in principal.
Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall
—and he sure wouldn’t mind seeing that pretty face hit the dirt.

A stick cracked behind Eleanor. Dried grass rustled beneath a footstep. Eleanor fumed. Now? Samuel came to escort her now that she’d already walked alone in the dark to a hut as foreign to her as a manor home would be to him? Words sat like thistles on the tip of her tongue, to tell him to run back to Miss Browndell. That she didn’t care a fig where he spent his night. She’d be fine without him.

She whirled. Then stiffened.

The native woman from the council meeting stood a breath away. Though the moon lent spare light and the torch nearly flickered out, this close, her beauty mesmerized. Skin rich as honey heated over a flame. Eyes large and wide and keenly intelligent. Lips full. Cheeks high. Sculptors from artists’ row back in Shoreditch would bloody knuckles for the chance to immortalize this exquisite woman in Italian marble.

Their gazes locked, and Eleanor swallowed. What did the woman want from her? What was she to say? What
could
she say?

Slowly, the woman circled. Eleanor bristled, for surely this was what it felt like to be a mouse in a cat’s paw.

“You?” The woman’s voice was resonant as chamber music, her English accented but understandable. She finished her circle and spread her arms. “You are what Ya’nu has nearly lost his life over? Who he chooses to cover with his blanket?”

For a second, the name
Ya’nu
swirled in Eleanor’s mind, and finally landed when she realized it was what Inoli called Samuel. But then the rest of the woman’s words hit home. Heat flared on her cheeks, the blunt insinuation shocking.

“Ahh.” The woman leaned closer, gaze poking, prodding, delving into parts of Eleanor that ought not be exposed, especially by a stranger. A smirk twitched her lips. “You have not known him yet. You are frigid as a January moon.”

The accusation slapped, sharp and loud. Eleanor fought to remain frozen as charged, for to recoil would lend credence to the woman’s allegation.

“And where is the child? The one you were to mother?” The woman peered past Eleanor’s shoulder, searching the darkened lodge behind, then shot back to her. “You fail at that, too, I think.”

The torch spluttered out. Something deep inside her fizzled as well. In nothing but a few murmured sentiments, this woman—a complete stranger—bludgeoned Eleanor’s resolve to be the finest mother to Grace and most efficient wife to Samuel.

The woman narrowed her eyes. “You do not speak?”

Enough. More than enough, actually. Eleanor drew herself up, posture perfect, and looked down her nose at the woman, a stance she’d mastered when facing the duke himself. “Of course I do. How absurd.”

Then she wilted a little. She sounded absurd, even to herself.

And wilted further when the woman sneered, clearly not impressed. “You will not please him. You cannot.” The woman shoved her face into hers, voice lowering. “You will be the death of him. For Ya’nu’s sake, go back to your people, white woman, and leave him to me.”

S
amuel sauntered across the field, steps as light as when he’d taken down his first buffalo on a long hunt. Timing might be tricky, but if he and Red Bird left tomorrow and rode hard, he could leave her at Newcastle and bust a trail to Charles Towne, inform his contacts of the munitions, then hightail it to Chota. Good weather, clear paths, and Miss Browndell would be none the wiser that he’d ridden anywhere other than Fort McCaffrey. Why, he might even beat them to the Cherokee Middle Town.

And once the promised firearms and ammo moved out the gates of the fort, an ambush would already be in place.

He lifted his face to the night sky, thankful for God’s handiwork on display in the heavens—and right here at Keowee.

But his stride faltered as Grandmother rose like a specter from where she sat outside her lodge door. Her old bones loved a soft fur and a long sleep—neither of which were traded without good reason.

He rushed forward. “
Elisi?
What has happened?”

Her face lifted to his, lines creasing her brow. “Red Bird is sick.”

“Sick?” How was he to understand that? She’d been fine … wait … she hadn’t. Her cheeks had burned earlier, and she’d been fatigued all evening. He sucked in a breath and strode toward the door. “Has she a fever?”

“No, my son.” Grandmother’s arm shot out, catching him in the belly and stopping him flat. The strength of her hold belied her sixty winters. “Your wife is sick of heart, not body.”

He turned to her, a scowl begging to be released—but such impertinence might very well still earn him a swat. “Speak plain, Grandmother.”

“Running Doe left the council meeting early. She passed me on my return. Your woman weeps inside.”

His hands clenched, as did his stomach. He knew this was coming—but he still shouldn’t have let it happen. “What did Running Doe tell her?”

“I do not know.” Grandmother’s head wagged. “But words are not needed to know what ails your wife. When a woman hides her tears, the pain is unspeakable.”

Yanking off his hat, he ran a hand through his hair. Blast! Jealousy ran thick in Running Doe’s blood. He should’ve known she’d take this opportunity to spear Red Bird like a carp on a pike. What kind of man did not protect his own wife from an expected attack? He jammed his hat back on. Suddenly his victory with Miss Browndell lost all its sweetness.

“Tell me, Ya’nu.” Grandmother peered up at him, starlight painting her eyes with a milky sheen. “Why do you not make your wife your own? Why do you wait? Had your woman been well loved, Running Doe’s barbs would not have torn as deeply.”

He swallowed, the bitterness of her words scraping his throat. He hated that even without being told, she knew exactly what was going on—but mostly he hated that she was right. His fists clenched tighter. There was nothing to be done for it now. “I will not force myself on a woman, not even my wife.”

The lines on Grandmother’s face folded into great sorrow. “One of you must bend, my son, or you will both break.”

A sigh drained his anger, and he turned from her. Tossing aside the door flap, he crossed to the dark shape huddled on a woven mat and crouched next to it. Red Bird lay facing the wall, a thin piece of deerskin covering her body. She did not stir.

Waiting for his eyes to adjust to the darkness, he listened, keen to detect if she yet wept. No sniffles. No shaky breaths. No sound at all, really, besides the sizzle of Grandmother’s torch outside, the shush of river beyond, and the muted voices of those returning from Council.

Beneath the covering, Red Bird’s shoulders rose and fell as if she slept. Did she? Had Grandmother been mistaken?

He rocked forward on his toes, bending closer. Her breathing was too quiet. If she slumbered, he’d hear relaxed inhales and exhales, not forced silence.

“Tatsu’hwa, I know you do not sleep.”

She didn’t move.

“Come.” He brushed his fingers down her arm. “We will talk.”

Nothing. No shiver. No flinch. Not a word.

Standing, he rolled his shoulders, fighting the urge to sweep her up and give her a sound kissing. “You can leave this lodge on your own two feet or slung over my shoulder. Makes no matter to me.”

The blanket hit his feet. Her small frame shot upward, fully dressed. There was no way this woman had been sleeping, for she was tense as a riled polecat—and about to drop a raincloud of polite expletives over his head.

He tried not to smile.

Before she could launch an assault, he grabbed her hand and pulled her from the lodge. No doubt Grandmother’s eyes lit with approval, but he moved past her so fast, he couldn’t be sure. He led his wife beyond the last line of lodges, along a trail he knew so well he didn’t need a torch to light his way. The stiffness of Red Bird’s fingers censured his every step.

Ducking beneath a bower of sumac, he tugged her along until they entered a small clearing—a favorite haunt leftover from his days as a lad.

He stopped and turned, catching her other hand so that he held both in a firm grip. She glowered, her gaze stringing him up and hanging him high. What on earth had Running Doe said?

“What ails you?” he asked.

She ripped her hands from his. Whirling, she wrapped her arms around herself, her back a rigid shield, holding him at bay. “Why have you dragged me out here? I am well.”

Well!
This
was well?

“That’s a lie, and we both know it.” His harsh tone boxed his own ears. He sighed, and tried again. “What did Running Doe say to you?”

Moonlight burned along the loose braid hanging down her back, matching the scorch of her words. “I do not know what you are talking about.”

Women. Must it always be so difficult? The rustle of a small animal in the undergrowth at his back seemed to swish a
yes, yes, yes.
He sighed, unwilling to fight against nature, and stepped toward his wife.

She stepped forward, too.

A mad dance. One that needed to stop. “Do you deny a woman spoke to you at the lodge before Grandmother arrived?”

Her silence gave her away. He advanced too fast for her to escape, grabbing her arms and turning her back before she bolted. “Listen, if I’d wanted Running Doe as a wife, I’d have taken her. But I didn’t. I took you.”

“Do not!” She wrenched away like a cornered badger, all claws and bristle. “Do not pretend you chose me like some gallant knight in a faerie tale. You purchased me for the care of your daughter, nothing more.”

“True. But things have changed.”

Her brows rose, mocking him in a way that cut sharper than a tomahawk to the skull. “Do you want to break the contract?”

The question circled overhead then dove straight to his gut. He staggered back a step, the realization nearly driving him to his knees.
God, help me.
He didn’t want absolution. He wanted consummation.

“No.” The word came out tied to the thread of a ragged whisper.

She threw her arms wide. “Then what is it you want?”

His chest heaved as he stared at her. So innocent did her eyes shine. So vulnerable the quiver in her voice.

“You.” His voice broke.

“Really?” She lifted her face and stared right back. “Have you tired of Running Doe and Miss Browndell?”

A growl rumbled in his chest, and in two steps, he grasped her shoulders. Was she really that blind? “Can’t you see what’s in front of your face, woman? Don’t you understand?”

“Understand what? That I am nothing but a servant, bought with a price? Someone to be ordered about as a child? That you feel you own me, body and soul?”

“No!” The word echoed from tree to tree, stunning them both by its ferocious veracity.

She blinked, her face paling to match the soft wash of moonlight—and prosecuting him more thoroughly than a jury bent on conviction.

How could he be such a beast? To frighten a woman who’d left everything she’d ever known to live with a man harsher than the wild land they inhabited? “I’m sorry. I …”

His throat clogged, stopped up by words he never expected to rise from the depth of his heart. He tried to swallow them back, force them down, but the strong beat of his heart pushed them out. “I want you, Tatsu’hwa. I want you as a real wife.”