Judith E French (2 page)

Cautiously, Brandon accepted the potion and raised it to his lips.

“Drink,” she urged. “If I wished to kill ye, I’d find a cleaner way than poison.”

He took a tiny sip; the musty liquid tasted of bark and damp places. Grimacing, Brandon swallowed it in one gulp, and it burned a trail down his throat. “Arrhhh,” he sputtered. “’Twill never take the place of a good brandy.”

“It will bring healing sleep.” Leah motioned toward a low platform covered with skins. “Lay down there.”

“You’ve not asked who I am.” For some inexplicable reason, he wanted to hear her say his name in that peculiar accent of hers. “I’m Robert Wescott—Viscount Brandon. It goes without saying that I’m deeply in your debt . . . and if I get out of here in one piece, you’ll be suitably rewarded.” His words sounded slurred in his ears. Deliberately, he continued, speaking slowly and precisely as though to a backward child. “I’m a wealthy man of status . . . powerful . . . in the English colonies and across the sea. You do understand what wealth is, don’t you?”

“Viscount Brandon? Viscount is a title like earl. Much the same?”

Brandon lowered himself onto the bed. The dizziness was worse. Had she poisoned him? “Not quite,” he said. “An earl is greater than a viscount. My father . . .” He rested his head against a roll of fur. “My father is the Earl of Kentington. When he is dead, I will inherit the title. For now, I am called Brandon.”

She snorted. “Ha. So ye be not
so
important an Englishman. My father also is an earl, an earl of Scotland, and that is much better. Alex said so. He says English titles be for sale like hot cross buns, and English lords be weak and cowardly.”

Brandon blinked. The softness of the furs and the clean smell of pine and tobacco made his eyelids heavy. “English lords are not . . .” he began, then the absurdity of what he thought he’d heard sank through the layers of cotton batting that clouded his mind. “I’m sorry,” he murmured, chuckling. “I must be hurt worse than I realized. I thought you said that
you
were the daughter of an earl.”

“Aye. And he proved as faithless as most men.” Slowly she began to unbind her braids, shaking loose her heavy mass of silken black hair. Next she stood on one foot and tugged off a moccasin, then took off the other. Barefoot, she padded silently close to the bed.

Honeysuckle, he thought absently. She smells of honeysuckle. He breathed deep of the sweet scent and extended a hand to touch her, no longer certain if she were real or an illusion. “Why are you—”

In a single fluid motion, she slipped her deerskin dress over her head and stood before him stark naked.

Brandon’s breath caught in his throat as she let her only garment drop to the floor.

“I told you,” she said, “I have taken you for my husband.” With a low chuckle, she lay down beside him and nestled her bare bottom against his loins. Before he could utter another word, she caught his left hand in hers and pulled it over her shoulder to rest against a full breast.
“Tauwun,”
she cried out loudly. “Open the door.
Yu undachqui.
Come and witness that I have taken this captive as husband.”

“W
hy did you do such a thing?” Moonfeather’s round-cheeked aunt dipped stew from her cooking pot and ladled it into wooden bowls for her family. “Matiassu is angry with you. You shouldn’t have taken the prisoner to husband after you refused the war chief. The
Englishmanake
deserved to die for what his people did to the Delaware village beside the Sweet Water.”

Moonfeather raised a finger to her lips and glanced toward her chubby three-year-old son sitting cross-legged on a wolfskin. His round little face was only a shade darker than her own, and his glossy, chin-length hair was as black as a crow’s wing. “Not in front of Kitate,” she cautioned. She smiled at the boy, and he grinned back at her with an impish giggle that never failed to touch her heart.

Her aunt grunted her disapproval, and Moonfeather looked away to hide the amusement in her eyes. She’d expected her aunt’s tirade, even looked forward to it in a perverse way. She’s saying everything I should have said to myself before I claimed the sky-eyed stranger.

Her mother’s younger sister, Amookas, had given her a home when Moonfeather’s mother died in childbirth. Among the Shawnee, blood ties were strongest with the mother’s people; clan and tribal status came from the female line. Duty would have forced Amookas to adopt Moonfeather, but her aunt had always given more than what was required. She had been teacher and friend, instructing Moonfeather in the proper behavior for the only daughter of a deceased Shawnee peace woman. Amookas had loved the grieving, half-white child with a fierce passion, defending Moonfeather’s actions to the other women no matter how outlandish her behavior might sometimes seem.

A warm rush of emotion brought moisture to Moonfeather’s eyes. Dear Amookas, I do love her. She’s always opened her arms wide for me to run to, and this will be no exception. No matter how she fusses, she’ll stand with me. She always has.

Smiling, Moonfeather glanced around her aunt’s spacious wigwam. Baskets of dried fish, bags of pemmican, and bundles of herbs hung from the roof poles. Fur robes were neatly rolled and stacked on the sleeping platforms, and her aunt’s grinding stone and pestle were in their accustomed niche. Some wigwams seemed cluttered when the family gathered around the fire pit, but never her aunt’s home. Everything here was clean and orderly. Moonfeather inhaled deeply, savoring the sweet smells of wild mint and drying tobacco. My mother’s wigwam was the same, she remembered fondly. I’ll never smell drying mint without thinking of home.

“How do you expect to hide what you’ve done from him?” her aunt continued. “Is the boy deaf and blind that he does not hear what everyone is saying? You’ve insulted the war chief Matiassu and taken an enemy—perhaps even the slayer of your own husband—to bed.” Amookas Equiwa, Butterfly Woman, blew on her fingers and added a choice piece of meat to Alex’s portion. Usually the family ate outside the wigwam in summer, but today everyone had taken shelter from the rain.

“Don’t you agree with me, husband?” Amookas urged. Her tone softened as she handed Alex the heaped-up bowl and several corncakes.

Moonfeather shrugged. “Anyone who believes that is a fool. Kitate’s father has been dead for two winters. The scalp of the man who shot him is stretched on a Delaware hoop.” She nibbled at a sweetened corncake. “And I do have respect for Matiassu—he’s a brave man and an able leader. I just don’t want him as my husband. I have the right to choose a husband. Any Shawnee woman does.”

Alexander Mackenzie accepted the bowl from his grumbling wife and settled against the elkbone backrest, stretching his single leg out before him. His green belted kilt was faded and much mended, but the good wool of the great plaid covered his shrunken thigh to the knee. “Let there be an end tae bickerin’ in this house. Are we nay kin? I say the lassie be of age. Let her do a’ she wishes—she weel anyway.” He ignored Amookas’s frown and began to spoon the delicious stew into his mouth, taking care not to spill any on his full red beard.

“I’m only thinking of the child,” Amookas fussed in her native tongue. “It is not safe for him around such a barbarian.”

“The English are barely civilized, that much I give ye, wife,” Alexander replied in English. Chuckling good-naturedly, he reached out to ruffle Kitate’s hair. “But there’s nay guid reason the bairn can’t stay wi’ us ’til we see which wa’ the wind blows.”

“I gave him enough of the black drink to make him sleep for hours,” Moonfeather explained. “His wounds were not grave, but he lost a lot of blood. He had been injured by the English before he was captured by the war party.” She stopped to wipe a bit of gravy from her little son’s chin. “Slowly, slowly,” she admonished. “No need to gobble like a beaver. Auntie has plenty in the pot.”

Kitate licked his fingers and flashed a wide smile at his mother. “Uncle said I can go fishing with him tomorrow. I’m going to catch the biggest fish you’ve ever seen.”

“Don’t go far from the village,” Moonfeather cautioned in English. She usually spoke to the boy in Algonquian, the Shawnee tongue, when she was in her aunt’s home. Amookas understood English well enough, but she never used it. Uncle Alex was fluent in Shawnee as well as French, but he used English with his wife to tease her. The result was that Kitate and Moonfeather’s cousins, Amookas and Alex’s twin sons, were bilingual.

Alex wagged his balding head. “We’ll fish fra’ yonder bank, lass. I’d nay put the wee laddie at risk. Dinna trouble yer mind wi’ it. Besides”—he motioned toward his tall brawny sons, both silently eating—“my clan weel protect us.”

“I’ll keep Kitate with us again tonight,” Amookas said. “I’d not sleep a wink, thinking of him near that bloodthirsty Englishman.”

Moonfeather nodded her agreement. She’d feel better knowing that the child was safe with Butterfly Woman and her uncle. She was certain she could protect herself from the blue-eyed Englishman, but she’d take no chances with her only child.

Alex fixed Moonfeather with a hard gray stare. “It’s nay too late tae change yer mind,” he said. “Mayhap we could persuade the council tae trade him tae the French instead of killin’ him.”

“Nay, old friend,” Moonfeather replied in English. “’Twas too late when I called the warriors to witness our bedding.” She rose gracefully to her feet and offered formal thanks to her aunt for the meal. “I’d best see to him now.”

Moonfeather bent and hugged her son, nuzzling his soft neck until he giggled and squirmed free. “Mind Alex, love. If you’re not good, he’ll tell me.” She gave Kitate a final pat and glanced at her identical cousins, trying to decide which was Niipan and which was Liiuan. They were growing into manhood and already taller than any other man in the village. “I’ll have your scalp locks if Kitate falls into a deep spot in the river,” she threatened lightly. The twins were good-natured and fiercely protective of Kitate. If they were watching over her son, she knew she need not worry.

The nearer twin grinned. “The boy swims like an otter. If we fall in, he’d be the one to pull us out. Right, little warrior?”

“Aye,” Kitate proclaimed, puffing out his small chest. “I swim faster than an otter, faster than—”

“And brag like Uncle Alex,” Moonfeather teased.

She ducked her head and stepped out into the rain. Heads poked through the openings of wigwams, and low murmurs of women’s gossip followed her as she hurried through the village. Moonfeather ignored the comments and met the angry stares boldly.

The enormity of the step she had taken troubled her. Suppose the Englishman was dangerous? Had she put her tribe at risk as well as herself and her child by saving Brandon’s life? The thought was unnerving. Kitate’s smallest finger was worth more to her than the blue-eyed foreigner. And yet there was something about him . . . She sniffed. Common sense told her that she was being sentimental over him because of her father.

No, she decided firmly, it wasn’t that. Her father was a Scot and the prisoner was English. They were nothing alike. Hadn’t Uncle Alex pounded that fact into her head with his years of teaching?

The wind shifted direction, and the rain fell harder. Drops pelted her face, and she ducked her head against the downpour. As she rounded the last wigwam before reaching her own, Matiassu suddenly appeared in front of her.

Startled, she stared up at him, noting the smudges of yellow and red warpaint that still marred his stern countenance. The war chief ’s nose was broad and hawklike, his thick black hair streaked with premature gray. Even with his features taut with anger, with raindrops running down his face and soaking his hair, Matiassu was still a handsome man. She wondered if she’d been a fool to turn him down.

“Why did you do it?” he demanded loudly. “Everyone knows I asked you to become my wife.”

She tried to step around him, but he barred her way with an outthrust arm. “You have a wife,” she said. Her heartbeat quickened. I should have known he’d not give up so easily.

“I would have made you my first wife.” The hand at his side knotted into a tight fist. “You shame me by taking an enemy—a white man—in my place.”

She forced a thin smile. “You’re a good man, Matiassu,” she soothed, “but I don’t want you for husband. We’re not for each other.”

He seized her shoulder and yanked her close against his bare, muscular chest. “I will have you, Moonfeather. I will have you, and I will have his scalp. I swear it!”

Ripples of fear spread through her body; her breath caught in her throat.
Don’t struggle against him,
her inner voice cried. Knowing it was useless, she stood rigid. “You have the strength of a bear, Matiassu. I won’t fight you, but neither will I yield.”

His mouth descended on hers in a hard, demanding kiss. His fingers twisted in her hair as he crushed her against him. Anger rose from the pit of her stomach to beat back the fear.
Don’t let him best you,
her spirit voice insisted. Moonfeather concentrated on that small voice, offering no resistance to Matiassu’s kiss, giving him no more response than if she were a woman carved of cedar.

When he released her, his eyes were clouded with shame and remorse. “Moonfeather,” he managed, “I . . .” He trailed off and stepped back away from her. “You invade my dreams, woman. I cannot eat or sleep. By the blade of the Great Hunter! What do you want of me?”

She met his eyes for an instant, then let her gaze flicker past him to focus on the green rim of the encroaching forest. The boughs of the great hemlocks swayed in the wind. Water dripped from their dark green needles to soak the rich humus beneath. The air was heavy with the scent of the damp earth and the smoke of cooking fires.

“What do you want, Moonfeather?” he repeated. His deep voice cracked with emotion.

“To be left in peace.”

He shook his head. “You ask what I cannot give. Ask something else of me.”

Color stained her cheeks as she tore free of his grasp. “Take care, Matiassu,” she warned, “that I do not seek vengeance against you for slighting my honor. A woman is not game to be hunted.”

“What greater honor can I offer than to ask you to marry me?”

“I’ll be no man’s second wife.”

“Then I’ll put Cawasque aside. I’ll divorce her.”

“And your children? What will they say when you discard their mother for a younger woman? She’s a good woman and a loyal wife. She deserves better!”

“And what of your own son, Kitate? Doesn’t he deserve better?”

Her eyes darkened to glittering ebony stones. “It’s my right to choose,” she replied. “I’ve taken the Englishman for my husband, and you’ll never have me. Not today, not tomorrow—not so long as the spring sun melts the ice of winter.”

His answer grated like bone against bone, chilling her more than the cold rain. “You will,” he promised harshly. “You will lie beneath me, and you will bear my sons—if I must kill a hundred white men to accomplish it.”

“In your dreams, Matiassu!” She met his challenge without flinching and flung back her own. “The
Englishmanake
is mine now, and I will fight to keep him.”

 

Brandon woke to the sound of rain on the bark roof above his head. For an instant, he wondered where he was. Then everything that had happened since his capture by the Indians came flooding back in a rush of tumbled, frightening memory. Painfully, he raised his hand to his head, gingerly exploring his cuts and bruises, gauging their severity. His seeking fingers found the arrow wound on his neck; it was covered with a greasy substance. He sniffed the sticky ointment—it smelled strongly of mint.

Head spinning, he sat up slowly and looked around the hut. The open doorway and the coals glowing in the fire pit gave enough light to see the interior of the wigwam at a single glance. The woman was nowhere in sight.

He blinked, trying to focus with one swollen eye. He couldn’t tell what time of day it was. It had been dark when . . . “Damn.” He exhaled softly. It had been night when the woman had called the warriors into the hut. He’d seen a painted brave lift a war club over his head. The bloodstained club had plunged down, missing him by inches.

“Hours ago,” he murmured, rubbing his head again. “I must have passed out.” If the Indian had clubbed him, he would have been dead. What demented game were they all playing? And where was the woman?

As if in answer to his question, she ducked through the low doorway. “You’re awake,” she said in English. “How do ye feel?” She began to pull off her moccasins; they were soaked through by the rain.

Brandon stared at her. Dripping wet and dressed in animal skins, she was still a beauty. Her wide brown eyes were fringed with thick, dark lashes, and her nearly classic features were enhanced by a flawless complexion and perfect white teeth. Seen in the light of day, she was younger than he’d believed her to be before. Much younger, but definitely not a girl. No girl ever exhibited such a lush, womanly figure. “Is it . . . Leah?”