Their wedding night might have been a sham, but it had awakened something inside her she’d never known existed. By treating her as his bride, had Connor somehow roused in her a bride’s natural desire for her husband?
And your desire shall be for your husband.
Words from Genesis that her mother had so often made her read aloud came to mind, and she pondered them afresh, feeling for the first time that she had some notion of what desire was—a yearning, an ache, a hunger that was both precious and sweet.
But Connor wasn’t truly her husband, was he?
She lay back and rested her head on the bundle of Connor’s pack, looking up from between his feet as he rowed, her mind filling with questions.
He glanced down at her. “Sleep, lass. I’ll watch o’er you.”
For a time, she watched him. But rocked gently by the canoe, she soon found it impossible to keep her eyes open. And slowly she drifted to sleep.
Overhead, the silent stars wheeled.
C
onnor paddled through the darkness, timing his strokes with Joseph’s, ignoring his fatigue and the ache in his shoulders, his gaze drawn time and again to the woman who slept near his feet, her hair fanned across his pack.
Joseph spoke softly in Mahican. “She is Wentworth’s sister-daughter.”
Did the man have eyes in the back of his bloody head?
“I ken very well who she is.”
Joseph said nothing but kept paddling.
W
here were they?
Three days had gone by since William had sent Major MacKinnon and Captain Joseph after Sarah. Three days—and no sign of them.
He’d thought she’d be back the next morning. When that hadn’t occurred, he’d been certain he’d see her that evening and had even asked his cook to prepare dishes William knew were to her liking. He’d eaten those dishes alone.
He was not a man given to flights of fantasy, and yet he could not help but fear the worst. Perhaps they had not yet found her. Perhaps her captors had entirely eluded them. Or perhaps MacKinnon lay dead in the forest somewhere and all chance of finding and retrieving Sarah was now lost.
William was not accustomed to having worries he could not set aside. But he could not free his mind this time. His fears followed him through the night and through every waking hour of the day.
Was this what it was like to be a father?
Good heavens!
If so, then it had happened well that William had no children.
Of course, William still hadn’t dispatched a letter to her father. He’d felt it prudent not to inform his sister that her youngest child had been taken captive by Indians—not when Sarah was surely in safe hands and on her way back this very moment. He could inform them when he knew the ending to the story so as not to alarm them.
But what would he say to his sister if Sarah never came home?
S
arah was roused from a dreamless sleep by Connor, who lifted her out of the canoe, carried her through knee-deep water, and lowered her gently to her feet on the rocky shore. It was still dark, a thick fog hovering above the treetops. Still groggy, she waited in the shelter of some trees while Connor
and Joseph stripped to their skins, swam with the canoe into deep water, and sank it to conceal it from any passing enemy. Though Sarah meant to avert her gaze, she found herself watching as Connor waded ashore, some part of her disappointed that it was too dark for her to see his sex.
For shame, Sarah! Mother always said you were far too curious.
And yet wasn’t it natural for her to be curious? After all, that part of him had been joined to her, had been
inside
her, and she hadn’t yet seen it.
Connor turned in her direction, and Sarah quickly looked away.
But if he’d seen her watching him, he said nothing about it. The two men dressed quickly then began to set up camp, building the now familiar lean-to with its pallet of boughs and bearskin blanket. In no time, two muskets leaned up against the structure, their barrels stopped with carven bits of wood they called tompions, Connor’s claymore lying to one side. Their hair still wet, Joseph stretched out on the right, Connor on the left.
Then Connor motioned for her to lie down in the middle. “Come. Let’s take some rest. We’ve a long journey still ahead.”
She crawled between the two of them. Connor pulled the bearskin up to her chin, then drew her into his embrace, pillowing her head on his shoulder. Snuggled between the two men, with Connor’s arms around her, she drifted toward sleep once more. Her last thought ere dreams took her was that she’d gotten into bed with two men—one an Indian, the other a Ranger—and she hadn’t given it a second thought.
T
he next morning, Connor let Joseph do the scouting. They left camp early, though not as early as Connor might have liked, as Sarah had insisted on bathing ere they left the lake behind. And what an ordeal that had been. Standing watch with his back turned while she undressed and walked into the water. Promising himself he would not look over his shoulder. Looking over his shoulder to see her waist-deep in the water, her hair clinging to her skin in wet ropes, her breasts bared, her nipples tight from the cold. His reward had been a painful cock stand—and a slightly guilty conscience.
The guilty conscience had faded quickly. The ache in his cods had not.
After breaking their fast, they headed northeast toward Fort Edward. Though the possibility of attack was ever present, war seemed but a distant shadow on this morning. The sky was blue, the air sweet with the scent of coming spring, patches of lingering snow melting into streams of quicksilver that danced downhill. But there was more to Connor’s lightness of spirit than agreeable weather.
With one kiss, a great weight had been lifted from his shoulders. Discovering that Sarah’s skittishness was caused by desire and not disgust had felt like absolution. His heart was already too heavy with sins to bear the burden of her loathing.
They walked together, now conversing, now in companionable silence, Connor leading her by the safest paths, helping her when she had need. Still dressed in his shirt and the doeskin skirt and leggings, she looked like some kind of pagan forest nymph, her cheeks pink from exertion, her hair falling in gentle waves almost to her waist. And he found he could not look at her without feeling a fullness behind his breastbone, as if his heart had suddenly grown too large for his chest.
“Why are you not married?” she asked when they stopped to drink.
“I thought I was—to you, lass.” He grinned at the blush that stole over her cheeks, then raised the water skin to his mouth and drank deeply.
“Certainly you do not jest about that.” Her outrage was unconvincing. “Marriage was forced upon both of us. Besides, such marriages are surely not recognized beyond this forest.”
He handed her the water skin. “On the contrary, Sarah. Here, where there are more men than women and few churches, it is not uncommon for a man to take an Indian wife in just such a fashion or to make a woman his wife simply by buildin’ a cabin and movin’ in wi’ her. If a man claims a woman as his wife, folk here dinnae question it.”
She finished drinking, then handed the water skin back to him. “Does that mean there are some here who would consider us truly wed?”
Connor hung the water skin over his shoulder. “Aye, for certain.”
Sarah made a little “hmm” sound.
They moved on.
“How does one end such a marriage?”
Connor tried not to notice the way his spirits dropped a notch at her question. It was, after all, a natural one. She had not married him by choice, nor he her. “Amongst many tribes, a woman simply puts her husband’s belongings outside her lodge and tells him she is divorcing him and to be gone.”
She laughed. “You jest again.”
He knew how strange it must sound to her ears. Divorce was not taken lightly even amongst Protestants. “Nay, I speak the truth.”
“So until I tell you that I am divorcing you, the two of us could be held by some to be husband and wife?”
“Aye, I suppose some might see it that way.” He sought to reassure her. “But you ken I willna hold you to that, lass.”
When she looked up at him again, something in her beautiful blue eyes made him wonder what she was thinking.
“D
o you miss Scotland?”
“I’ve lived in this land for half my life now. ’Tis my home.” Connor’s warm hand closed over Sarah’s, holding her steady as she made her way down a slope of loose rock. “I scarce remember Skye.”
“Is that where you and your brothers were born—the Isle of Skye?” Sarah had never been to Scotland.
“Aye. ’Tis the seat of Clan MacKinnon.”
Sarah watched him as they moved across the mountainside, seeing the Scot in him and not just the Ranger. His height and broad shoulders, his proud bearing, the warrior braids at his temples, the claymore with its forbidden strip of tartan—all bespoke his heritage and were as much a part of him as the Indian markings on his arms. “Why did your family come here?”
“Watch your step. The stone is wet and loose.” He held more tightly to her hand. “My grandfather was Iain Og MacKinnon.”
Sarah had no idea who Iain Og MacKinnon was. “Should I have heard of him?”
Connor chuckled. “He was chieftain of our clan.”
So Connor was of noble birth—at least as it was reckoned in the Scottish Highlands.
Connor went on. “My grandfather gave our Bonnie Prince
Charlie passage in one of his ships after Culloden and was placed in chains on a prison barge. My father, his oldest son and heir, was sent into exile, and my mother, brothers, and I were sent wi’ him.”
And Sarah understood. “Your family are Jacobites.”
He did not try to deny it. “Aye, lass, that we are.”
How often she’d heard the term spoken with contempt, and yet now that she’d actually met a Jacobite, she felt no hatred, even though his grandfather had tried to oust her great-grandfather from the throne. “Our families have been at war with one another. Is it not strange to think that in
this
war, we should be drawn together?”
She glanced up to find him watching her, and something about the look in his eyes made her heart skip a beat. “Aye, so it is. What brought you to these shores, my lady?”
Sarah felt her step falter at his unexpected question, her fingers grasping his for balance, her mind racing for an answer. “I…I came to visit the governor, a friend of my father, the Marquess of Winchester.”
“Your father must be daft to send an unmarried lass to the colonies alone.” There was more than a hint of contempt in Connor’s voice.
“I was
not
alone, Major.”
They’d reached a patch of level ground. Connor stopped her, took his water skin from his shoulder, and passed it to her. “So you’re back to callin’ me ‘major’ again. I’ve upset you.”
“You speak ill of a man you do not know.” She drank, then handed the water skin back to him. “Mrs. Price escorted me on the ocean voyage, and Mrs. Price and Jane accompanied me from Albany but were…”
She couldn’t bring herself to say it.
“I am sorry for your loss.” He drank, stoppered it, then turned his back to her, looking out over the landscape below. “Still, I cannae fathom why a marquess would permit you to travel to Albany wi’ only a woman to watch o’er you. We are at war, and our enemies wait not far beyond our doorstep.”
“He…he does not know I left New York.” Sarah walked to a leaf-covered log and sat to rest her legs.
“Is that so?” But Connor didn’t sound surprised.
“I wanted to see Uncle William, to get away from…” She stopped herself.
Be careful, Sarah, or you’ll say too much.
“Did someone in the governor’s household threaten or mistreat you?” There was an edge to Connor’s voice now.
She stammered an explanation composed of half-truths. “Nay. I…I found life in the governor’s household dull and wanted to see my uncle. He has been gone for so long. I wrote him a letter and asked to see him ere the summer campaigns began and—”
“You traveled halfway around the world to visit the governor, only to find life beneath his roof dull. Then you left New York for the frontier and the company of your uncle wi’out your father’s consent.” Connor turned to face her. “There’s more to the story than that, Sarah. No marquess would send a gently bred daughter to this land wi’out him—unless he felt he had no choice.”
Sarah looked into Connor’s eyes and realized he already knew her visit to the colonies was not a social one.
“You ken you can trust me, aye?” His gaze pierced her. “I willna betray your secrets, nor will I suffer any man to mistreat or speak ill of you. Besides, whatever scandal it was that caused your father to send you here, it cannae ha’ been grave. You forget that I of all men ken just how innocent you are. You left England a virgin.”
Heart thudding, she fought to maintain her composure. Though she did not fully understand what she’d done to merit exile, she knew it was terrible in the eyes of society. She would not further shame her family by sharing the details of her disgrace—nor could she bear to think of Connor’s reaction should he uncover the truth. If her own father had beaten her and threatened to kill her, how would Connor respond?
She swallowed and looked straight into his eyes. “I thank you for your concern, Major, but I have no secrets.”
From somewhere very nearby came a strange rattling sound.
“Sarah, don’t move.”
Not daring to breathe and uncertain what danger was at hand, she watched, frozen, as Connor drew his sword, then squeezed her eyes shut as he raised it and brought it crashing down on the log beside her, the impact rocking the log, making her gasp. Then he reached for her, took her hand, and drew her away, his gaze fixed on the log.
She turned back to look, and there, not far from where she’d
been sitting, lay a snake, the color of its scales concealing it amongst the fallen leaves, its head severed from its body.
“Timber rattlesnake.” Connor jabbed the end of his sword into the dead snake, lifting its coiled body from its camouflage of leaves, the sight of it making Sarah shudder. “Its bite will kill a grown man, but its skin makes fine leather, and its roasted meat is tasty.”