Candace McCarthy (29 page)

Joanna stared at the woman with horror. She had come out of nowhere, sidling up to John as if they’d been lovers.

She approached Joanna to critically eye her from head to toe. “So you are Joseph’s little wife,” she purred, stroking her hand down Joanna’s cheek.

Appalled at her touch, Joanna jumped back. She flashed Joanna a smile. “Oh, Joseph, you didn’t tell me she’d be a frightened little thing.”

John eyed the two women with glee. “I didn’t realize it myself.” He went to Joanna and patted her shoulder. “You’ve nothing to worry about, love,” he said, pretending to soothe her when it was obvious he found her discomfort amusing. “Nan and I are going to instruct you on the finer points of making love. You’ll learn to enjoy it when we’ve finished our show for you.”

Joanna turned away. “I don’t want to watch!”

“Of course, you do, dear,” Nan said. “ ’Tis for your own good and that of your marriage.”

“We’re not—” She gasped when John grabbed her arm, then quickly secured the other hand before she had time to react. The next thing she knew he had tied her wrists. She struggled, kicking back at him with her feet until she felt the solid end of his gun barrel at her back. Forced to submit, she was helpless as he made her sit so he could bind her feet.

Ropes,
she thought, feeling dizzy,
he must have bought rope,
too. What else had he purchased that was in that sack? Why hadn’t she looked?

“Now, Joseph, why the bonds?” Nan asked.

“She’ll be too shy to stay if I don’t tie her.”

Nan pouted prettily. “Ah, too bad. I thought perhaps you had a taste for bondage.”

Joanna was horrified to see a spark light up John’s gaze, and to hear him murmur, “Hmmm, bondage?” as if he were giving it some serious thought.

Not on your life, bastard!
Joanna thought before she started to pray.

She saw John stand a moment to gaze down at her. She glared up at him, murdering him with her eyes, but he only chuckled.

“You’ll thank me for this, Joanna,” he said, sounding confident. “I’m only thinking of your pleasure.”

She grunted and looked away. Then she was foolish enough to glance back in time to see John reach for Nan’s bodice and rip it open to expose lush breasts, which he grabbed and kissed. When Nan swayed and moaned, clutching him to her, Joanna turned away.

She didn’t watch them. She couldn’t watch them, but she could envision what they were doing. They were making enough noise, moaning, whimpering, gasping obscenities to make Joanna’s heart race and her face burn.

Whatever John was doing, Nan sounded as if she loved it. She made mewling sounds like a newborn kitten, then keening sounds like a woman gasping in the throes of pain, or ecstasy.

Suddenly, the keening stopped and all was quiet. Joanna chanced a peek and wished she hadn’t. Looking away, she couldn’t forget the image she’d seen, Nan sprawled on the ground with John riding her. She shuddered, and vowed to get free before they decided to include her in their little games.

She prayed harder, and tried to rub the rope binding her wrists against the tree at her back, hoping to break it. She winced as the bark abraded her skin, but kept working at it. She had to get free.

“Joseph,” she heard Nan say. “She didn’t watch.

We did it for nothing.”

“Not nothing, love,” came John’s thick voice. He sounded satisfied.

“Make her watch.”

“I will.”

Dear Lord,
Joanna thought and continued to pray.

 

 

He made her watch. He had tied her head to the tree so that she had to face them. Then he’d threatened to shoot her if she closed her eyes.

Joanna watched, sickened, appalled by what she saw.

Then John did the unthinkable. He smiled at his lover, and rose to his feet to tug on his breeches. While Nan lay naked, her smile trying to seduce him to come back to her, he picked up his gun and shot her. It happened so fast and was so totally unexpected that Nan died with a smile on her lips.

Joanna screamed at the sound of the gun. When John turned to her with a look in his eyes that terrified her, she fainted into blessed oblivion.

 

 

Fireheart heard the shot and began to run toward the sound. His heart pounding, he knew instinctively that it was Burton, and that the man had killed again.

Joanna!
he cried silently as his feet flew over the uneven ground.

His men followed behind him easily as he raced toward the scene, his direction led by the new scent of wood-smoke.

 

 

She woke up to find that she’d been released from her ropes, and was lying flat with John bending over her. She shrank back in horror as she realized that John was touching her, fondling her breast through the gown. She slapped away his hand, and rolled over to scramble to her feet.

“Joanna.” John smiled. “You’re awake. I’m so glad.”

She gaped at him. He was the charming gentleman again. It was as if the lecherous murderer and he were not one and the same man. But they were. Joanna’s gaze flashed to Nan’s nude dead body.

Following her gaze, John studied the deceased woman with regret flickering in his blue eyes. “Unfortunate, but necessary. Nan was a wonderful woman, but she would have told. She would have told that I stole from Neville Manor.”

Joanna’s insides froze to ice. Nan wouldn’t have known about Neville Manor! The only thing she would have known is how to make John come.

“But she’s probably never been to England,” Joanna said in a husky voice. “You didn’t have to kill her.”

A blank look entered John’s expression, a look that clearly told her that she was observing the confusion of a madman, God help her.

“John, you must sit with her. She must be lonely lying there.”

The man was mad, Joanna thought. In his confusion he might turn his attention back to his lover to comfort her.

And Joanna could escape.

“Yes, I suppose,” John said.

“I’ll get help. Maybe there’s a physician at the settlement who can save her,” Joanna said, backing away.

He stared blankly for a moment, and Joanna saw her chance to leave. She started to run.

“No! Stop!” John’s cries preceded the sound of his footsteps crashing through the brush behind her.

He caught her when her skirts became tangled in a thorn bush. She tripped and fell to the ground with him on top of her.

He lay, winded for a long moment; then he grinned. But she saw anger not amusement in the curve of his lips.

“You are going to enjoy this,” he purred, fingering her collar. “Just like Nan did. You saw the way Nan liked it, didn’t you?”

She shook her head.

He looked annoyed. “Yes, yes, you did.”

“No. She didn’t enjoy it. I won’t enjoy it either. If you touch me, it will be against my will.”

He appeared upset by her words. Then his expression brightened. “I’ll make you change your mind.” He shifted, and his hand settled on her breast and squeezed.

Joanna struggled and screamed.

Suddenly the weight of John’s body was gone. Curling herself into a little ball, Joanna began to sob softly.

Shivering, sobbing, she lay there until she realized that someone had come to save her. Who? She opened her eyes; and cried out with mixed joy and horror.

“Fireheart.” She breathed as she watched the warrior ram his fist into John’s face, then toss him like a rag doll against a tree.

John lay without moving, and Joanna saw Fireheart turn to face her. Their gazes met, and Joanna’s heart fluttered. The man she loved was here. He had saved her.

“Fireheart,” she cried, more loudly this time.

He smiled, and the light of love in his eyes stunned her. He opened his arms to her, and she rushed to have him envelop her in a tight embrace.

“I love you,” she said, saying it with a rush.

“I know,” he answered, his face nestled in her hair.

“This man loves you, Autumn Wind. He will not let you go again.”

John Burton roused himself, and staggered to his feet, swaying. His gaze searched for the gun, and he found it lying on the ground within a few feet of him. Seeing the warrior and Joanna otherwise engaged, John picked up the pistol and aimed it at the warrior’s back. He pulled back the trigger. The sound of the gun going off startled Fireheart and Joanna who sprang apart, and spun around.

John Burton lay dead with an arrow through his heart, and a smoking gun in his hand. The gun must have gone off when he fell.

“He was going to kill you, Fireheart,” a brave said as he approached. Other warriors came out of the forest behind him.

Fireheart smiled at his friend, Moon Dove’s husband-to-be.
“Wa-neé-shih,
Black Fox.”

The young girl crossed the yard, drawing her parents’ attention. She was a lovely child with dark hair, light honey skin, and dark eyes. Her features were her mother’s although her coloring was Lenape.

“Already she draws the attention of the young braves,” Fireheart said darkly.

Joanna grasped her husband’s hand, squeezed it lovingly, and smiled. “I am not worried about her. She has you to protect her. As you did me.” She gazed longingly at his mouth, then looked up to see a flash of burning heat enter his dark eyes. “Fireheart.” She gasped, letting go of his hand.

He looked amused as he encircled her shoulders with his arm, and they turned back toward the yard.

Joanna. sighed, gloriously happy at her choice, her life. She’d never regretted not returning to England, not for one moment. She had more happiness than any one woman deserved, and she thanked the Creator every day for it.

With Mortimer Grace’s help, Joanna had arranged for someone to return in her place to oversee Neville Manor until her barrister could trace Kenneth Neville’s whereabouts.

After Mortimer’s assurance that he would find someone in Philadelphia capable of the job, she had promptly forgotten the unknown man, Neville Manor, and Kenneth Neville until a year later when Kenneth had actually been found.

Happy within the Lenni Lenape village, Joanna had married her beloved and bore him three children. It was their oldest child who currently caused Fireheart the most concern. But Joanna had meant what she’d said; she wasn’t worried about their only daughter. Fireheart was there to protect Morning Sun just as he was there to protect her, their other two children, and everyone else within Little River. He was the
sachem,
but he was her husband first, and Joanna had enjoyed every living breathing moment of their last twelve years together.

Joanna’s gaze continued to follow her daughter as the girl entered the wigwam of her best friend Water Flower. Water Flower, Little Blossom’s daughter, was four years older than Morning Sun, but the age difference didn’t seem to bother the older girl.

Seconds after her daughter went inside, Joanna watched as the door flap lifted, and Water Blossom exited the structure with her hair and face painted and wearing an abundance of jewelry. At fifteen, she was of an age when the braves within the village interested her. Joanna, with her husband by her side, studied the girl as she crossed the yard toward the community cook-fire to speak with Little Arrow, a young man Water Blossom had seemed particularly fond of lately.

Joanna and Fireheart stood outside of their wigwam, having just left the confines of their lodge. They had been inside kissing, making love. The children had gone out to play earlier, and the couple had been confident that none of their children would return soon.

Satisfied, feeling particularly happy at that moment with her husband’s arm around her shoulders, Joanna slipped her arm about his waist.

Minutes later, she saw the door flap across the way open. Her eyes widened as her daughter stepped outside, having painted herself like the older Water Blossom. Morning Sun, her eleven-year-old daughter, was dressed like a maiden in search of a warrior husband.

Fireheart, too, had seen his daughter. And he knew his wife was gaping at Morning Sun. He felt Autumn Wind tense at the exact moment she had seen what Morning Sun had done.

He smiled for he knew that Autumn Wind was no longer the calm one. She shared his concern.

Joanna looked up, saw the amusement in her husband’s dark gaze, and lightly pinched him. “I must have a talk with our young daughter,” she said.

“We
will have a talk with Morning Sun,” Fireheart replied, showing her with a look and a kiss that he understood her worry. “I love you, Autumn Wind.”

Her frown melted away. “I love you, husband.”

From another wigwam within the village, Mary Wife and Rising Sun watched the couple studying their daughter and exchanged smiles. They had once looked upon Autumn Wind and shared the same concern.

And look at the woman she had become. Autumn Wind was in love, happy, and able to put the past behind her.

“Morning Sun will be fine,” Rising Bird said.

Mary Wife nodded. “She is Lenape. She has her mother and father to watch over and protect her.”

And it was true. Like her mother before her, Morning Sun would find happiness living within the village. But unlike her mother before her, she would be allowed to stay within the village always, without the pain of having known another life.

Candace McCarthy is the author of twenty romance novels—eighteen historical and two contemporary. She won the National Reader’s Choice Award for her book,
White Bear’s Woman,
and has been voted one of
Affaire de Coeur’s
Top Ten Favorite Authors on many occasions. She lives in Delaware with her husband Kevin, whom she married over thirty-six years ago. Candace and Kevin have one son, who is now grown and married, and three granddaughters. The author is currently at work on new stories. Readers can find more information on Candace and her books at
www.candacemccarthy.com
.