Judith E French (22 page)

“How are you here in England?” he asked. “And your mother, Sh’kotai, does she yet draw breath?” he demanded in the formal Shawnee phrasing.

“Nay.” Leah shook her head. “It is a bad omen to speak her name. She has crossed over.”

“Dead? But she was—” He was interrupted by a footman.

“Lord Dunnkell, forgive me, sir, but the physician is here.”

“Send him in.”

A mature man dressed all in black entered with his two assistants. Leah found herself hastily escorted to another room and left alone there with her father.

“Now,” Cameron said, when she was seated near him. “Start at the beginning and tell me all.”

Leah looked back toward the door. “My husband is near to death. Canna this wait?”

“McCloud is the best, but he has his ways. ’Tis best we leave him alone with the patient. How did you find—” He looked up at her. “That was you with Lady Anne that day in the carriage, wasn’t it? I didn’t get a clear look at you, but—”

“Aye. I knew ye. Your hair isna the same, but—”

Cameron pulled off his wig. Underneath, his close-cropped auburn hair was streaked with gray. “Leah, my precious little Leah. Remember, child, that I was a man grown when you last saw me. You were naught but a bairn, and now you’ve grown into a beautiful woman. You’re the image of your mother.”

“She died giving birth to your child.”

His eyes clouded with pain. “I didn’t know. I wouldn’t have left her if—”

“No? That’s easy to say, isn’t it—here and now. I begged you not to go, Father.” Leah couldn’t hold back the tears. “You couldn’t stay with us . . . with me.”

He sank his head in his hands. “I’ve regretted it a hundred times.” He sighed. “The wilderness is a very different place than London. I thought this was where I’d be happy.”

“With Lady Dunnkell?”

Cameron’s head snapped up. “Margaret is a great lady, Leah. Your mother knew about her. I never tried to hide the fact that I was already married.”

“You were as faithful to Lady Dunnkell as you were to my mother.”

“More faithful perhaps.” Cameron’s features hardened. “I am a Stewart of Dunnkell. My blood is as blue as—hellfire and damnation—it’s bluer than that German George who sits on the English throne. We were poor, Leah. There were crofters who ate better than we did at Christmas. I had a mother and brothers to think of . . . as well as those who lived on our land. My mother and uncle arranged my marriage to a wealthy heiress, and I accepted. I was sixteen when I wed Margaret—she was thirty. There’s never been love between us, but there’s been friendship.”

“I told her that I was your daughter.”

“She told me.” He took Leah’s hand. “She’s a good woman. Maybe if we could have had a child between us—”

“Lady Dunnkell is not the mother of my English sister?”

“How did you know you had an—”

“It has been too long, Father. Ye told me so. You said you were returning to another daughter in England.”

He sighed. “So I did. No, Margaret isn’t her mother. None of my children was born legitimate.”

Leah stiffened. “I am Shawnee. I am my mother’s child. Your English laws canna make me—how is it ye say?—a bastard.”

“I never thought of you as being illegitimate. I loved you . . . I still do.”

“Aye, so ye say, Father. But ye left me easily enough—and because of you, I lost my mother too.”

“Sh’kotai and I . . . How can I make you understand? We loved each other, but it wasn’t enough. I stayed with her seven years. She couldn’t come back with me to my world, and I suppose I knew she’d only find unhappiness here if she did. And when I decided to return to England, I couldn’t take you. She loved you too much, Leah. How could I take you from a mother who bore you? Stop looking at your hurt like a five-year-old. I didn’t leave you because I didn’t love you—I left you because I loved both of you too much to separate ye.”

Leah shook her head. “I dinna know what to say to ye. All this time, I’ve hated . . . I used to wish ye dead.”

“But you kept the amulet I gave you. You still wear it.”

“Aye,” she admitted. “I do, but . . .” She got up and walked to a window, looking out at the manicured lawn. “There be so much to tell ye, my father.” She smiled. “I have a son. Kitate. He is three—no, nearly four now. He is beautiful.”

“So I’m a grandpapa and I never knew it. Is he Lord Brandon’s son?”

“Nay. I was married before I met Brandon, and then widowed.” She smiled through her tears. “But I carry Brandon’s bairn and heir now.” Her hand went to her belly protectively. “Things be not right between me and my husband, but that isna your fault. I ha’ wronged ye, I fear. In my stubborn clinging to a child’s heartbreak . . .” She shook her head. “Aiyee, Father, I dinna ken where to begin to—”

“Start at the beginning, Leah. That’s always best. Start from the day I left, and tell me everything.”

She nodded. “All right. Alex said that I—”

“My friend. Does he live still?”

She laughed. “Alex? Alex is immortal. He has . . .” She began hesitantly, but soon the words began to tumble out of her, rushing faster and faster. It was as if the years had never been, as if Cameron had always been her loving father. She’d never found it so easy to talk to any man—not even Brandon.

She had reached the part in her story where Brandon had tricked her into coming to the dock at Annapolis, when a servant came to call them back to the sickroom. Together, Leah and her father returned to Brandon’s side. She looked at him carefully and laid her hand on his head. She could see no difference.

“I will stay with him, of course,” the physician was saying, “but his condition is very grave. He could pass away at any time. The wound is infected, and he has lost a great deal of blood.”

“You are to spare no expense,” Cameron instructed.

“And ye are to tell no one that he is here,” Leah said. “No one. Lord Brandon commanded me to keep his presence a secret. Those who attempted his murder be still free.”

The physician inspected Leah with cool eyes.

“You will do as the lady requests,” Cameron said.

“You may count on my discretion,” Dr. McCloud assured them. “I will do my best, but I can promise nothing.”

Cameron turned to Leah. “You look as though you have not slept in days. Come, child, and let us see what we can do for you. If Margaret saw you in this . . . costume, ’tis a wonder she ever let you into the house.”

“She didna exactly
let
me in,” Leah admitted.

“I can’t wait to hear it all. Come along. Let’s get you properly attired for tea, and we’ll join her in the small drawing room.”

“No,” Leah said. “I must stay with Brandon. He may wake and—”

“When he wakes, Dr. McCloud will call us,” Cameron said.

“At once, Lord Dunnkell.
If
he wakes,” McCloud corrected.

“You see. Nothing will be gained by you making yourself ill,” Cameron said.

Outnumbered, Leah agreed. She was exhausted and starving. She knew she had to keep up her strength for the sake of her unborn child. Dutifully, she followed her father out of the room.

“You’ll like Margaret,” Cameron said. “She’s a woman of uncommon good sense.”

Leah yawned. Suddenly she was exhausted. Her eyelids felt as though they each weighed a pound. She rubbed at her eyes and suppressed another yawn. “The necklace is a fake, Father,” she said. “I called upon it.”

He stopped and looked down at her. “You what?” he asked.

“The Eye of Mist. You told me that it carried a blessing and a curse. I’ve had the curse. I’m here in England against my will. But when I called upon the amulet to save Brandon’s life, it failed me.”

Cameron nodded thoughtfully. “You asked for his life?”

“Aye, I did.”

“Is he lost to you?”

“Nay, not yet but—”

“Then dinna give up hope, child. If I can hold you in my arms after all these years, then anything is possible. It may be that your amulet can give you your heart’s desire as it gave me mine.”

L
eah sat beside Brandon’s bed and watched him draw one painful breath after another. He was hot to the touch, so hot she feared the fever would burn away his life force. He hadn’t opened his eyes or spoken for six days. And for six days she had hardly left his bedside. “Dinna die, Brandon, please,” she whispered. “Ye must fight.”

Anger rose in her as she remembered how the English physician had wanted to bleed Brandon and purge him. She’d returned to the bedchamber to find McCloud’s servant holding a bowl under Brandon’s wrist while the physician prepared to open a vein with a knife. “Are ye mad?” she’d railed at them. “Has he not lost enough blood? Would ye murder him with your ignorant, barbarian customs?” She had wrenched the knife from the physician’s hand and driven him from the sickroom.

McCloud had left the house in a cold fury, but she didn’t care. What was he except another English fool? Her father had stood by her, agreeing that further bleeding would make Brandon’s death certain, but her father’s wife, Lady Dunnkell, had been shocked.

Leah rubbed her eyes and reached for the cup of willowbark tea—a potion she’d prepared from ingredients her father’s servants had gathered. Willowbark had the power to conquer fever . . . if she could only get enough in him. “Drink,” she murmured, lifting the cup to his pale lips.

Her shoulders and back ached; her eyes burned from lack of sleep, but if she slept, he might drift away from her—and as long as she had breath in her body, she would not surrender him to the Dark Warrior. “He’s mine,” she whispered into the quiet room. “Mine.”

If she could break the fever, she would give him strong beef broth and honey water. Now all she could do was continue to try to get the willow tea down him and keep on washing the sword wound with salt water. In the night, when the fever was highest, she’d commanded her father’s servants to fill a copper tub with cool water, and they had put Brandon, naked, into it. At home, she had often seen children with a fever bathed in the river. Brandon thrashed and cried out, but the water did ease the heat of his tortured body.

Leah’s golden amulet felt warm against her throat. “If you have power, show it now,” she urged. “Make him live!”

Brandon choked, and some of the willow tea spilled down his chin, but most of it he swallowed. Leah sighed with satisfaction and kissed his forehead gently. “I do love ye,” she whispered, “in spite of all we have done to each other. I will always love ye.” She would not admit that he could still die, that even Brandon might not have the strength to survive that terrible wound.

Still, she could not forget that in all probability, her husband had hired those awful men to murder her. Can’t you see how much I want to believe in you? she cried silently. I want to believe in our love, but I do not want to close my eyes to the truth. Brandon had been in that alley with her kidnappers—and that had been no coincidence. To deny what she had seen with her own eyes made her a witless fool.

In spite of her lack of sleep and her worry over her husband, Leah’s own strength had returned in the past six days. When she’d allowed herself to rest that first night in her father’s house, she’d slept around the clock without waking. Physically she’d been exhausted, but she knew that her mental powers had been weak as well. She’d allowed the English surroundings to undermine her sense of self—she’d forgotten who and what she was. Now, those voids in her spirit had been refilled by meditation and prayer.

Day by day, her relationship with her father was growing stronger. Here at Brandon’s bedside, they’d shared laughter and tears, reliving old memories of time gone by. As Leah heard her mother’s name on Cameron’s lips and saw the love in his face when he spoke of her, she was engulfed with a sense of peace. More than one person was being healed in this house, she realized. Pain and regret that had haunted her for so many years were replaced with warmth of Cameron’s devotion.

Her father showed his caring in action as well as in speech. When he heard how much Maggie and Cal had done for Leah, he sent his coach to bring them to the house. To Leah’s disappointment, the bridge camp had been deserted. Cameron promised he would have his servants keep searching for them, but it was obvious to Leah that Cal and his people were hiding because of fear. In so large a city, she was afraid that her friends would vanish without a trace.

Cameron had also done as Leah had asked and kept Brandon’s whereabouts a secret. Her father had quarreled with his wife, Lady Dunnkell, over the necessity of hiding Brandon from his family, but he’d not weakened. “Brandon wouldna have urged Leah to hide him without good cause,” he’d insisted. “We’ll abide by those wishes until we’ve had the whole of this tale.” Lady Dunnkell had been so angry, she’d threatened to pack up and move to one of their other houses in the country.

Brandon sighed and stirred restlessly. Leah broke from her reverie and moistened a fresh cloth for his head. To her relief, she saw that he was perspiring.

“Feels good,” Brandon whispered. He opened his eyes and smiled weakly. “Afraid . . . I’d . . . dreamed you.”

“Nay,” she answered, breaking into a joyous smile. “I be real enough.” Her knees felt so weak that she knew she’d be unable to stand if she tried to. He was awake! The fever had broken! She covered her mouth with her hand and blinked back tears of happiness.

Brandon licked his cracked lips. “I thought I’d . . . lost you, Leah,” he murmured hoarsely.

“Who did this to ye?” she asked, trying to hide the lightness of her heart. Her reason fought with hope. Brandon was alive . . . He would not die. And she would not have to face a world in which he did not walk, and breathe, and laugh.

Still, it changed nothing between them, she reminded herself firmly. It would be foolish of her to expect more. They must still go their separate ways. She could forgive him, but she wasn’t fool enough to forget. She still loved him—she knew she would always love him. But there was nothing left of their marriage except memories of what had been and the babe she carried. Brandon had his life to live here in England, and she had another across the salt sea.

“Water . . .”

She poured more of the willowbark tea in a silver cup and held it carefully to his lips. “Drink this. ’Tis nay water, but it will make ye well.”

“That’s good.”

She looked into his eyes and repeated her earlier question. “Who stabbed ye, Brandon mine?”

He sipped more of the liquid gratefully. “Charles.”

“Your cousin?”

He nodded. “Charles.” His voice was low and raspy. “He brought along two . . . two ruffians . . . to help.” Brandon took another sip. “But Charles did . . . the bloody work . . . himself.”

A ray of hope rippled through Leah. “Charles hired them? What did they look like?”

Brandon shut his eyes. “Just common men,” he said weakly. “Rough looking. One . . . one never spoke.”

She began to tremble. “Why were you there in the night with Charles?”

“Mmm,” he murmured. “Sleepy.”

“Why, Brandon?” She grasped his shoulder. She had to know the truth. “Why?”

“To see . . .” He swallowed. “. . . see a sailor. Charles said . . . the man saw you.”

“Brandon!” Heart thudding, she leaned over him and cupped his face in her palms. “Please, tell me. Did you hire those men to kill me?”

His eyes snapped open. “What?”

She released him and sank back in her chair. There was no need to hear his frantic denials—she had read the truth in his eyes. Brandon was innocent. He hadn’t tried to murder her, and she’d misjudged him as badly as she’d misjudged her father.

“Leah! What . . . in God’s name . . . makes you say—”

“Shhh,” she soothed. “I know ye didna. It be all right now. I ken the truth of it all. Nay ye, but Charles . . .”

“You ran away . . . because you thought I—” He tried to rise, and she pushed him back.

“Nay, nay you’ll hurt your wound. It was him all along, Brandon. Charles wanted me dead as well.” She leaned over him again and kissed his damp forehead. “It’s all right,” she repeated. “I didna run from ye, Brandon. I was taken from your house by two men. And unless I be more stupid than I feel, by the same two who I caught standing over ye in that alley.”

“ ‘Winner takes all,’ Charles said. He left them . . . to finish me.”

“Aye, and they nearly did.”

Brandon’s eyelids closed again and he sighed. “Keep a secret,” he murmured. “Don’t let them know I’m alive. I . . . I’ll settle with cousin Charles.”

“In good time. Sleep now.” She squeezed his hand. “Sleep.”

Some time later, Cameron found her still sitting beside the bed. Leah looked up as the door opened and smiled when she saw who it was. She raised a finger to her lips, then got up and went to the door. “The fever’s broken,” she told her father. “He was talking, but he’s sleeping now.” She accompanied Cameron to the small sitting room off his own chambers.

“You tended him well, child. He’s a strong man, but he’d never have made it without your loving care,” Cameron said.

“Aye, I suppose, but I’d like to think it was his will to live that made the difference.”

Cameron’s eyes twinkled. “Or your amulet.”

She changed the subject. “Ye be early,” she replied, “I thought the dance was to last—”

“It does. Margaret will be the last one to leave. I left her with friends; they’ll see her safely home.” Cameron removed his scarlet coat and draped it over the back of the settee. His lace stock followed the coat. “The older I get, the tighter those damned things become,” he complained. He went to a sideboard and poured a glass of brandy. “Would you care for some, Leah?”

“Nay.” She chuckled. “Indian blood and firewater dinna blend well, Father.”

“You’re right, of course. I’d forgotten.” He sipped his drink. “Life was so much simpler in America.”

“I want to go home,” she said. “Will ye help me?”

He nodded. “I wanted to keep you with me as long as I could, but you’re unhappy here, aren’t you?”

“I miss my forest and my son.”

“And your husband, what would he say?”

Leah shrugged. “He loves me . . . and I him, but it be nay enough. He is a better man than I thought—probably better than I will ever know again. But I must go just the same. If I stay in this world, I will wither and die.”

“Have you told him so?”

“Aye and aye again. Brandon has promised to take me home, but Lord Kentington is no better. I canna wait until Kitate has grown so old that he’s forgotten me.”

“And the child you carry?”

She smiled. “The Shawnee will welcome it, no matter the color of its skin.”

Cameron drained the glass. “I should have stayed, child. Oh, not in the forest—I was never meant to be a Shawnee brave—but in the Colonies. Much of life here seems empty. I weary of the endless round of parties and balls. I weary of too tight fashions and men who think a new wig style the subject of an entire night’s conversation.”

“Father, I need to know. Will you send me home?”

“Aye.” He nodded. “I’ll take ye myself. Margaret will understand. I’ll come, and I’ll stay long enough to get to know that grandson of mine . . . and maybe to dandle this new babe on my knee.”

“Oh, thank you.” She threw herself into his arms.

“When shall I book passage for?”

“I must make certain Brandon is well enough to look after himself. And there are things I must . . . Next month,” she said. “Can we go at the next full moon?”

“Give me four to six weeks, Leah. I believe that will be time enough to settle my affairs here.”

She drew back and looked up into his eyes. “Brandon will be angry with you if you take me. He is very rich. A viscount . . . He has power. He may try to stop us.”

Cameron kissed the top of her head. “Don’t trouble yourself, child. The Earl of Dunnkell isn’t to be sneezed at.” He laughed. “Your Brandon’s family is rich enough, but Margaret can buy and sell them. If you want to go home to America, we’ll go, and if we can’t find passage to suit, I’ll—”

“Thank ye, Father,” she said sincerely.

He laughed again. “It’s good to hear you call me that. Don’t worry, I’ll tend to it all. Now, it’s best you get some sleep yourself. It’s late. You spend far too many hours in the sickroom, and you’ve the bairn to think of. Off to bed with you. I’ll send a servant to sit with your husband.”

“But I—” Leah smiled. “Ye be right, Father. It is late.” She caught the skirt of her blue-flowered silk and curtsied properly. “I must think of my child . . . and of others . . .” Still smiling, she left the room and returned to her own chambers.

 

The next week saw Brandon’s health improve by leaps and bounds. By the second day after his fever had broken, he was calling for solid food, and on the third, he was up on his feet and tottering unsteadily around the room.

Leah continued to supervise his care, insisting that he be bathed and his bandage changed twice each day. She went into the garden and came back with herbs to brew different medicinal teas, and she sent servants out to the countryside for plants that she couldn’t find near the house. She boiled fresh greens for him to eat and made flat Indian bread in the great kitchen. But as she tended her husband’s physical needs and he grew even stronger, she forced herself to withdraw from him emotionally.

I have committed myself to leave him, she thought. I will love him forever, but I will do what I must do. I will keep the promises I’ve made here in England . . . and I will go home for the sake of my own happiness and that of both my children.

At ten o’clock at night, nine days after Brandon’s fever had broken, Leah crept silently from the house. Unseen by the night watchmen, she climbed over the iron fence at the far corner of the yard and jumped down on the far side. She picked up the bow and arrows she’d pushed through the fence and slung the bow over her shoulder. A pistol and a knife were tucked into her belt. Her hooped gown had been discarded in favor of the man’s belted tunic she’d worn when she first arrived at her father’s house; her hair was braided into a single plait and secured around her head with a black silk ribbon. High on each cheekbone, Leah had placed a streak of red paint.