Calhoun Chronicles Bundle (46 page)

“And what life is that?”

“The isolation of this island. The company of the wild things here. But then you touched me—made love to me. I don’t care if they were tricks. You made me feel warm and alive and filled with wanting. If that’s a sin, then I’m the worst of sinners. I’m not sorry, and I’d do it again at the slightest opportunity.”

“Well, it’s not going to happen,” he said, a cruel edge sharpening his voice. “What if we made a baby?”

“What if we did?” she said wryly.

“I’d never marry you, and you’d be saddled with a child all alone out here.”

His harsh statement kept her silent for much longer this time. He had told her the truth, which was the honorable thing to do. So why did he feel as if he had stepped on a kitten? The silence drew out with unbearable tension, and finally he went to the door, pausing before he left.

“Eliza?”

“I think I understand,” she said slowly. “Making love is a lot more complicated than it seemed last night.”

“You do understand,” he said, not unkindly. “It was a momentary lapse.”

She picked up her book and opened it to the black grosgrain ribbon marker. “A momentary lapse, then.”

“Good night, Eliza.”

She raised her face to him, and he noticed that she still wore that soft, make-love-to-me look he had seen in her eyes last night. The invitation lingered there, dangling in front of him like an apple in the garden of Eden.

“Good night, Hunter,” she said.

“I never meant to hurt you,” he said in a rush.

“You didn’t hurt me.”

“Yes, I did.” He opened the door. “You just don’t know it yet.”

E
liza caught a fat hogfish for supper and tried to give all her concentration to preparing it. Instead, she kept thinking about Hunter. The memory of his touch kept her under a strange enchantment all day, yet he appeared to have forgotten their passion. He had spent the day working with both Finn and the scow, coaxing the horse to enter and exit the stall without fear. She had gone to check on them once, found them both wet, muddy, and ill-tempered, and so she had left them alone.

But she knew what was happening. Hunter was preparing to leave.

She shut her eyes and swayed with hurt. How could she have known it would feel this way to lose the man who had made love to her? If she’d known, she might have resisted him, protected herself from him. But that night, she had acted with a will not entirely her own. After seeing him help the runaway slave and learning that he’d set his own slaves free, she had given her whole trust to him, and it felt so wonderful to be able to do that at last. Trust was everything. She loved that she could trust him. She hated that she was losing him.

Hunter had tried to persuade her that their lovemaking had been wrong, a sin, something to atone for. A mistake.

I’d never marry you….

She wouldn’t argue with him. He was a man with a dark soul who planned to marry a proper lady for his poor, motherless children. She knew better than to try to change his intentions. But privately, she would forever treasure the night she had spent with Hunter Calhoun. They had made love under the stars, and in those few magical hours, her life had been transformed.

But change was inevitable. A force of nature. Her father and her life on the island had taught her that nothing lasted, nothing was permanent. The waves eroded the island itself; the seasons changed; the years brought a shifting of the landscape. Everything was fleeting, nothing lasted forever. Not even love.

As melancholy as that thought was, she knew she would always be grateful for the few stolen moments of searing sweetness she had found in Hunter’s arms. But she also had the sense to realize that those secret hours were all she would ever get. To dream of more was foolish.

Yet that night, he challenged her hard-won wisdom with a sidelong look that made her heart skip a beat, a silky invitation in his voice: “Come away with me, Eliza. It’s not safe for you here.”

Part of her yearned to respond the way he wanted her to, but she shoved that hopelessly romantic dreamer aside and said, “Don’t be absurd. No one will bother me.”

“Is that what your father believed on the night they killed him?” he asked, abandoning his charm for ruthless persistence.

A shiver raced across her shoulders. Dark waves of memory surged up inside her, and because they were inside her, she couldn’t escape them. A tingle of awareness tried to break through the dark, but she battled the memories. She didn’t want to remember.

“Didn’t you ever fear the men who attacked your father would come for you?” Hunter asked.

“Not until I agreed to work with your horse.”

“You father’s killers weren’t witch-hunters,” he said. “He was killed because of what he did for the slaves.”

“What?” She nearly choked on the word.

“The men who killed your father must have found out about the fugitives.”

She froze. “No. It was because of the horses. He was regarded with superstition and—”

“Eliza. They stopped burning witches two hundred years ago. But for the sake of keeping their slaves in shackles, some men would smother their own grandmothers.”

The terrible logic of his claim shook her, but she could not deny it. Everything she had believed about her father’s death was shifting. She felt the pain of losing him all over again. By bringing his suspicion about her father’s killers to light, Hunter had turned her world inside out. She had thought, as long as she kept her gift with horses a secret, she would be safe. But Hunter had shattered that illusion.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” she accused him, desperate to cling to her old beliefs.

“Oh, but I do. All too well. He was killed by slave-catchers.”

“No.” She pressed her arms to her middle, trying to protect herself. “That can’t be.”

“They’re a brutal bunch,” Hunter pointed out. “They hunt slaves for the bounty, and damn anyone who stands in their way.”

“Slavery is that important, then,” she said. “That men would kill to protect it.”

“It’s not just the slavery. It’s a way of life. It’s brought men everything they’ve ever dreamed of. They’ll do anything to protect it. People don’t want their lives to change, honey. That’s a fact.”

Eliza fled to the porch, letting the door snap shut behind her. When she heard him follow her out, she kept her gaze on the long purple shadows over the marsh. She couldn’t imagine ever actually leaving this place. Flyte Island was the only world she had ever known. “Even if you’re right,” she said without looking back at him, “I’m not worried. They can’t know about me.”

“They will. This sort of news has a life of its own. When people—fugitives—learn that there is hope or possibility, that cannot stay hidden. Before long, slaves who want their freedom will know of you. Maybe not your name, but they’ll learn where to find you, just as they once learned to find your father. You’re hope, Eliza. Hope and possibility. It’s only a matter of time before word gets out.”

She thought of the wounded runaway they’d helped, and she remembered the look in his eyes when he had finally left the shore. Terror and exultation and triumph—if escaping bondage was his last act on earth, he would consider it worth the risk. And if he survived his journey, he would want others to follow.

Now, watching the cover of night settle over the far dunes, she swallowed hard, painfully. Living as she did, far from the world, she never considered that the island would be thought of as a place of hope. “That’s why I have to stay,” she said, the decision hardening her will. “Otherwise, who will help those poor people?”

“You won’t help another soul if you suffer the same fate as your father,” he said harshly. “The location of the rendezvous will change. My brother will see to that.”

She whirled to face him. “You have no right to interfere.”

His smile held no humor, only sarcasm. “Too late. Ryan and I already discussed it.”

“Well, if the rendezvous changes, then I won’t be in any danger.”

“Wrong. The slave-catchers knew of your father. Before long, they’ll know you’re cut from the same cloth. You have to leave the island.” He was brusque and impatient with her, as if she were a slow-learning child.

Furious, she went back into the house. Yet despite his harsh words, she couldn’t help thinking how empty this house, this island—her life—would be without him. Why hadn’t she noticed that before? Why hadn’t she known her life was barren? Had Hunter Calhoun done her any favor by showing her how lonely her existence was?

She should have known he wouldn’t stay outside, content with his hammock and his flask of rum. He followed her boldly into the house and she felt his presence even though she refused to look at him. It was a phantom warmth, something she craved and needed as much as air.

He touched her shoulder and turned her. She wanted that touch too, the one that cast a veil of heat all over her body, made her lips tingle and reason fly out the window as if she had never had a lick of sense. When he caught her against him, everything inside her seemed to turn to warm liquid, and the response shamed her. It shamed her that in the midst of learning the true meaning of her father’s death and the risk she herself entertained, she could not stop thinking about Hunter.

“Let go of me,” she said, and wrenched away from him. But she couldn’t escape the yearning. There was an ache deep inside her that had not been there before. Hunter Calhoun had put it there.

“You’re forcing me to abandon my father’s work and dishonor his memory,” she stated.

“There’s no honor in getting yourself killed.”

“He tried to tell me,” she said, thinking back to something her father had said. “He used to read me the letters of Lydia Child published in the
Abolitionists Gazette.
When she wrote of a slave who had died while trying to escape, he told me not to cry. Because some things are worse than dying.”

Hunter cupped her chin in his hand. “I know that, Eliza. Lord, don’t I know that.”

She saw the pity in his eyes, the reluctance to be here with her. Jerking her head away, she retreated a few steps. “What would you do with me if I agreed to come away with you?” she demanded.

“What do you mean,
do
with you?”

The pity in his eyes turned to panic, and she almost laughed. “Would I fit into your tidewater aristocracy? Or would I be like the Irish Thoroughbred? Will you drag me somewhere against my will and try to tame me?”

He didn’t exactly squirm, but she sensed his discomfiture. “Eliza—”

“You haven’t thought that far ahead, have you?” she said. “I know you felt you had to ask, but the truth is, you have no idea what you would do with me.”

“I’m sure as hell not leaving you here. Look, I’ll hire you.”

“
Hire
me?”

“To train my horses.”

“Oh, there’s a tempting offer,” she scoffed.

“Think about it. You once told me you longed to go to California, like the Spanish bride. You could earn the price of your passage.” He folded his arms across his chest. “Or was that just idle talk?”

He knew her too well, this harsh, angry man. He knew she had a dream, but he also knew the outside world frightened her. She never should have confessed her private wishes to a stranger. She had inadvertently given him power over her, and now he was using that power to push her into taking a step she feared. Dreams were safe, but they turned dangerous when you started to believe in them.

“Of course it was idle talk,” she said, hoping he didn’t notice that her voice trembled. “California is half a world away.”

E
liza didn’t want to see Hunter the next day, so she rose early and didn’t bother with breakfast or coffee. She tiptoed out, sneaking a peek at him as she crossed the porch.

He resembled a warrior at rest, sun-gold hair tumbling over his brow, several days’ growth of beard carving shadows along his cheeks and jaw. Did he look so enchanting to her because she had seen so few men? Or because of the way he made her heart sing when he touched her?

She had to stop thinking of him in this manner, she told herself brusquely. She had to stop thinking of him in any manner at all. She had to convince him to leave. Because if he lingered on the island any longer, she would beg him to stay.

Perhaps it is too late for that already,
her heart whispered. She could not bear the thought of being without him. She would learn, then. She had learned to do without her father, hadn’t she? The conversation last night had been absurd. She would not—could not—follow Hunter back to his world. He should have known better than to suggest it.

She walked fast along the path. No point getting all moon-eyed over this man. Today she would work the stallion into weary obedience, and at evening tide she would put him aboard the drover’s scow and send Hunter Calhoun on his way. For good.

In the training arena her father had built, she lost herself in the work. It was the only thing that saved her. Finn occupied her entirely. Like Prince Ferdinand’s flirtation with Miranda in
The Tempest,
she and the stallion were powerless to resist each other. The bond she felt with the stallion, the challenge and the affinity filled her. She drove him around and around the ring and when he was practically begging her for it, she mounted.

She rode bareback for a time, then reintroduced him to the bit. Sliding it between his velvety soft lips and up along his teeth, she murmured softly that this was something he knew, something he accepted, and with a quiet shock of recognition she realized that she sounded the way Hunter had sounded that night on the roof: tender, persuasive, sincere.

The horse didn’t fight her, and when Eliza mounted again, he was beautifully and sweetly responsive. She worked him all day, and took him to the longest part of the beach where the sand had been pounded hard by the surf. There she discovered why he was considered a champion. He ran like the wind. Perhaps there were other equally fast horses, but she had never known an animal to have such heart, such joy in the act of running.

She bent low over the pumping neck, pressed her cheek to the huge throbbing artery of the stallion, and she too felt the joy. She let the speed steal her breath, and heard herself laugh with the pure clean pleasure of it.

Hunter Calhoun would be pleased; this much she knew. He had brought her a deranged animal. She would send him home with a champion.

Today.

Hours passed. The sun peaked, sank past noon and was headed toward sunset. Judging by the action of the waves, she knew the tide was coming in and that soon the scow would be afloat.

Sadness haunted her as she walked the stallion back to the settlement, stopping to put him in his pen for the night. This was not the raging, soul-tearing grief she had felt for her father. This hurt held the dull ache of eternity.

When she came upon the clearing, the first thing that struck her was the quiet. Had someone taken the chickens? Frowning, she went inside. At first glance she saw nothing amiss. Then her eyes widened as she noticed the empty shelves.

The books were gone. Shakespeare. Charlotte Brontë. The damaged Bible. The collection of illustrations. Every last one of them—gone. Two other items had been stolen as well—the locker containing the Spanish bride’s trousseau and the crate with her father’s mementos of his career in England.

She was so stunned by this turn of events that she sank to the old driftwood bench and stared at the puncheon floor in a terrible daze. She felt as she had one time when she had swum a pony out into the surf. The animal had panicked and had kicked her in a dozen places before she escaped him. The agony had consumed her, sucked all the air from her lungs.

It was like that now. Hunter Calhoun had removed from her house the only things that meant anything to her, and it was as if he had ripped her heart out.

She felt like an old, old woman as she made herself get up and go outside, down the path to the paddock area.

She got there in time to see him leading the stallion away.

That sight was like a slap of ice water, waking her up. She fairly flew along the path at him.

“What the hell are you doing, Calhoun?” she demanded.

His look was blurry and bemused. She instantly knew that he had been drinking.

“Oh, good,” he said. “You’re just in time to help me get the stallion aboard.”

That had been her plan exactly, to put the stallion on the scow and send him on his way. But Hunter Calhoun wasn’t satisfied merely to leave her be. He had to wreak havoc on her life as well. Dear God, and she had
trusted
this man? What sort of fool did that make her?

“I’ve brought a blindfold in case he gets balky. He’s ready, isn’t he?” Without waiting for an answer, he led the horse across to the mooring. “It’s a calm sea this evening. We’ll be at Albion before nightfall.”

Peering into the box on the scow, she felt a jolt of white-hot rage. The scow resembled Noah’s ark in miniature, with the Three Nymphs perched nervously on a rail, and Claribel tethered to the base of the tiller. Caliban paced up and down the beach, giving an occasional sharp bark of impatience.

“You’ve put my animals aboard,” she sputtered.

“I couldn’t very well leave them. They seem attached to you.”

“I’m taking them back at once,” she said, starting up the ramp.

“Don’t do that.”

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t want to have to stop you. But I will if you don’t cooperate.”

“What?”

“It’s my job to save you,” he said, slurring his words. “It’s the least I can do.”

“I don’t need saving.”

He stopped, stock-still, and gave her a long, lazy look. “Oh, honey. Yes, you do.” He stepped up on the ramp. “I didn’t expect you to surrender easily. You want your things? Your animals? Fine, come aboard and get them.”

She regarded him resentfully. “I’m staying.” She pivoted away from him and strode back toward her house. If it was a battle of wills he wanted, she was determined to prevail. If he called her bluff and stole her things, perhaps she would pursue him to the place called Albion and reclaim her animals, bringing them home with her where they belonged.

She turned to give him a chance to call her back. Instead, she saw him easing the blindfolded stallion up the ramp as the sun settled low on the water. The sight hit her like a blow, but she refused to let herself feel the pain.

After they’d made love, he had accused himself of violating her. Now she realized it was true. He
had
violated her, though not in the way he thought. He had taken something much more valuable than her virginity. Now he expected her to follow him like a brainless gosling wherever he went. Did he think her belongings meant so much to her that she would follow them to a strange place? Then he didn’t know her at all. Nothing was permanent. Nothing was worth hanging on to. She would learn to do without the things he had stolen from her.

Back at the house, she tried to go through the motions of her evening routine, but there were no eggs to gather, there was no cow to milk.

Night fell with its usual sudden hush. A blanket of dark hid the marsh and the dunes, muffling the sounds of the sea. Her loneliness burned deep. He had taken her books. How dare he? The absence of the books left her alone with herself, truly alone, for the first time in her life. She didn’t like it. It was a shock to realize she wasn’t happy in her own company.

She couldn’t sleep. Restless as a wild thing, she paced the floor. Then, finally, she left her bed and went out to the porch, settling into the hammock that hung empty in the shadows. Sleep came more easily than it should have, but it was a restless unsatisfying sleep plagued by confusing dreams.

Of him. She was transported up onto the lookout platform again, to that night filled with stars, and he was making love to her, and the feelings rising in her made her feel as if she would burst into flames. Hot, she was so hot, on fire for him, and the sweat raced down her temples and between her breasts until she nearly cried out aloud in pleasure and in pain.

The sensations were so real that, when she awoke in the middle of the night, she smelled smoke. A second or two of disorientation lingered, and then reality slammed into her.

Fire.

The roof was on fire.

Even before she could scramble out of the hammock, she heard shouts from the marsh and saw a flaming brand arc through the air. The bomb was a bottle filled with clear liquid—kerosene, she guessed—and stoppered with a rag set aflame.

“That’ll smoke out the vermin,” someone said.

Eliza slithered out of the hammock.
Slave-catchers.
The men who had killed her father. They had come back, this time for her. They must have pursued the runaway slave to the island.

Dear God, she should have listened to Hunter.

The flaming roof turned night to day. She was certain they would see her, but she had no choice. She could either stay and burn, or run and risk being caught. Her mind filled with terrible images of the marauders, she bent low and dropped over the railing of the porch. Behind her, the roof caved in with a hiss and a groan of ancient, wind-dried timber. On hands and knees she crawled toward the marsh, where the cordgrass rose in tall clumps through the mudflats.

She could hear the men talking. They hunted down fugitives in order to collect a bounty. Now she understood the icy fear of a slave on the run. She had no care for comfort, did not worry when she entered a hot pocket of hungry mosquitoes, did not heed the fact that she was drenched in mud. Her only thought was to get away. She moved deeper and deeper into the marsh, reaching the opposite edge, her feet finding firmer ground.

A rough-throated baying filled the air, and she nearly sobbed with terror. They had dogs, and Hunter Calhoun—damn him to the eternal fires—had sailed away with Caliban, who would have driven off the most ferocious of hounds. She had a vague notion of hiding in the deepest part of the woods, and made for the leeward side of the island. The hounds had scented her by now, she could tell, for their baying grew louder and more frenzied. She heard the rasp and crash of low shrubs being trampled. Casting a glance over her shoulder, she saw that the fire made a bowl of light in the night sky. A man with a long gun angled across his body ran toward her. She could see his bulk backlit by the flames.

Was this what her father had seen, just before he died?

She sucked air between teeth clenched in terror. Closer and closer the dogs came. She imagined she could hear the snap and snarl of them as they closed in on her. In front of her, the water lay like a pool of ink.

Her foot caught the upthrust knee of a cypress and she stumbled and fell, careening to a stop at the base of the tree. She tried to resist the impulse to climb, for the dogs would only keep her there until their masters found her. She felt the hot flow of blood from her foot and cursed, knowing the strong rusty scent of fresh blood would bring on the hounds that much faster. She scrambled across the dunes, making for the open water where she could throw them off the scent.

Her only hope was to plunge into the murk of the night waters, to endure the sting of saltwater in her wound, to lie low and pray she would not be found. It was a feeble plan, but it was better than staying around waiting to be captured.

She took a step toward the water, then another. The scarp of the dune was a high one. It was a long drop into the sea below, but she had to chance it. Another step, then another.

A swift shadow streaked out from the brush at the edge of the cliff. A hand clapped over her mouth. A strong arm clamped around her waist. And then the cliff gave way, and she was falling, falling, with the wind racing through her hair.

She didn’t even have time to scream.