Heather Graham - [Camerons Saga - North American Woman 02] (33 page)

“I can’t!” she said suddenly, certainly.

“Can’t?”

She leaped up from the chair, walking about the room in a state of agitation. Could she say what she intended about the Silver Hawk? What difference would it make? If the Hawk were ever captured, he would hang pure and simple, and her words could not make him die any more or less thoroughly.

For a moment, though, it seemed as if her heart itself sizzled, for she was betraying something. It was love, she thought, for indeed, despite her later anger, the tenderness and care of the pirate had drawn upon her every emotion. She had, indeed, loved him with care as well as passion. Now she betrayed that very love, but it seemed she had little choice.

“I cannot be your wife because …”

He sat back. “Because …?” he prompted.

She turned her back to him, looking to the windows. If she was going to die, she might as well do it dramatically, wholeheartedly.

She dropped her head in abject shame. “I cannot come to you as your wife. Ever. I am not what I appear to be. I—”

She broke off.

“He—he raped me!” she claimed.

“He what?”

The chair fell back as Lord Cameron jumped to his feet in indignity. He came behind her, grabbing her shoulders, spinning her around. “He—what?”

She kept her head lowered, willing a glaze of tears to her eyes. Slowly she let her head fall back. “He is a pirate, you know! Scourge of the seas. A deadly, horrible rogue.”

“And he—raped you?” Lord Cameron repeated.

“Yes!” she cried, breaking away. He allowed her to go. She sat upon the edge of his desk.

“My God,” he whispered in what she was certain to be raw fury. “He used horrific force against you? He dragged you—my very wife!—beneath him. Horribly and cruelly against your will?”

“Of course!”

“My God!”

She kept her head lowered. She brushed her cheek as if to take away tears of shame.

“You did not tell me!”

“I could not—I could not speak of it at first. But now you have to know so that you need not be saddled with me, or with this farce of a marriage. Lord Cameron! I free you to find a proper and innocent bride.”

“How ghastly!”

“Yes!”

“How very deplorable!”

“Yes!” She dared to turn, looking up at him at last. Shadows seemed to have fallen over the room, and she felt the silver probe of his eyes deeply upon her. She leaped up, lowering her head once again. “I shall see my things are moved. I will sign anything necessary to free you—”

“No, my love,” he said very softly.

“What?” she gasped. He came toward her, taking her shoulders. Her head fell back. His eyes sizzled, and she wondered at his thoughts. “Your—honesty—is commendable, my love. But can you truly think so poorly of me? You are my wife, sworn to me before God. I will not cast you from my side, no matter what your generosity. So, go, my love, back to our room. When my business is done, I will join you there, and most gladly still!”

In disbelief she stared at him. His eyes danced in lamplight and shadow. He lowered his head slowly to hers, and she was too amazed to move. His mouth covered hers with passion and fire, his lips molding tight to hers, his tongue probing and ravaging past all barriers with fervent demand. Warmth filled her, as shocking as the invasion that seemed to fill the whole of her body. Laps of flame seemed to lick within her stomach and all along her spine, and spin and swirl to the very heart of her desire at the juncture of her thighs.

She wrenched away from him, gasping and desperate, despising herself, despising the very passion he could elicit and evoke within her. He watched her, his hands on his hips, his eyes knowing.

She backed away from him, trembling.

He smiled, and she felt as if she faced the very devil.

“Go to our room, love. To our bed. I will follow you swiftly, I swear it.”

She wanted to deny him; she wanted to rage and tell him that she despised him completely.

But it wasn’t the truth, and so she said nothing.

She no longer wished to fight; only to run.

And escape.

XII

S
kye turned swiftly and fled.

Outside Lord Cameron’s door she knew that she had little choice left but to run. Where in God’s name was her father?

She fled up the stairs and back to his room, frantically digging through her belongings until she found a skirt and jacket more serviceable than the gown she wore. She changed nervously, ever watching the door lest he should appear. He did not. Leaving all of her belonging behind, she left the room. She sped down the stairway, then backed against the wall, certain that she heard Roc Cameron talking with Peter. She ducked into the dining room, her heart thundering. Footsteps passed by on the hardwood floors. Their echo dimmed. Skye thrust open the door and checked out the hallway, then tore through the hallway and out to the porch.

The outbuildings stretched before her.

She had no difficulty locating the stables, for the building was large and impressive and the painted doors were open to the afternoon sun. She hurried along the path until she came
there. A young groom, raking up hay, paused and bobbed her way.

“I need a mount, please, Reggie, is it?”

He smiled his vast pleasure and quickly nodded. “We’ve Lady Love, she mild and sweet—”

“Oh, no!” Skye allowed her eyes to flash with laughter. “I ride very well, Reggie, and would have a fleet mount to show me much of the property while it is still daylight.”

“There’s Storm then, milady. But he’s Lord Cameron’s stallion, and a wild one at that.” His gaze was skeptical, and she felt sorry for the lad. He had long obeyed one master, but now he had a mistress, too, and he didn’t seem to know if he should bow to the wishes of the one or worry about the other.

“Storm!” Skye said sweetly. “Wonderful. Reggie, fetch him for me, please, he sounds perfect for what I have in mind!”

Her smile convinced him. Reggie quickly returned with the animal in question. He was gray, and huge, prancing with his every movement and watching her with deep, dark wide-set eyes. He was one of the most handsome horses she had ever seen.

Except for the white, she thought. The great white animal she had seen upon Bone Cay. The Hawk’s horse.

She bit her lip, unwilling to think further. She glanced nervously to the house, hoping that Lord Cameron’s correspondence was holding his attention. She smiled a dazzling smile to young Reggie. “Thank you. Reggie, you are swift and sweet, and I promise that my husband will know how kind and helpful you have been.”

Reggie, blushing furiously, brought the horse around to the mounting block and Skye quickly mounted upon him. She glanced around uneasily, getting her bearings. Northeastward along the river, and she would reach Williamsburg. Three hours, he had said.

Skye glanced anxiously toward the powder blue sky. She prayed briefly that the daylight would hold for her, then she gathered up the reins and nodded to young Reggie. “Thank you!” she cried swiftly, then she turned the huge horse about and swiftly nudged him. It was not difficult now, for a great sweeping drive beneath trails of oak led toward the main road.

She leaned against the stallion’s neck, whispering to him. “Storm! Go! Race as you like, it cannot be too fast for me!”

The animal could race, she discovered. Earth thundered and tore beneath her, the trees and the world spun by. On the main road she loosened her rein and gave him his lead, ducking low against him and becoming as much one with him as she could. He was wonderfully powerful, and his muscles tautened and relaxed, tautened and relaxed. The wind whipped her face, and she loved it, for it was cool and fresh and it seemed to cry to her of freedom. She was nearly home. To her home. Away from the pirate, and away from the lord.

She let the stallion run for a good twenty minutes, then she pulled him in, afraid that she would injure such a noble beast. She still passed small wooden and thatch-roofed houses, farmhouses, and acre after acre of rich and verdant fields. Cows and horses grazed upon fields on the one side, and the forest stretched out on the other, deep and green and dark. Once, these had been the lands of the great Powhatan Confederacy. Now, there were few Indians left. War and disease had ravaged them, and the white man had pushed them ever further west.

Skye shivered anyway. Like the darkness, the thought of Indians never failed to bring new terror to her soul. She longed for courage but it was not to be hers.

She looked upward. Shadows were beginning to fall. She closed her eyes for a moment, beginning to feel dizzy. The daylight was fading fast, far more quickly than she had expected. When night came, it would come completely. She would be here, in the forest, with the darkness all around her.…

But she would not be caged, she assured herself. She would not be contained with the darkness in close quarters. A moon would rise, and stars would rise, and it would not be so awful.

“And I will have you!” she told Storm. His ears pricked as she spoke. “You handsome thing, you, I will not be alone. I will be free, and I will be fine.…”

Her voice faded away as she heard a rustling from the foliage. She looked toward the river and assured herself that there were other manors there, that Tidewater Virginia was
coming to be very well populated. Indeed, her father’s friend from Daniel Dridle’s tavern, Lord Lumley, lived out here somewhere. She was not alone.

Shadows came deeper. She reined in, watching as the sun sank quickly to the west. There were no glorious colors of night, not that evening. Twilight came, shadowland, and then darkness.

Something rustled behind her in the brush. Panic seized upon her, pure and simple, and Skye dug her heels into the stallion’s flanks. The animal took flight.

Skye’s hair whipped before her, the stallion’s mane flew back. Suddenly, a branch slapped against her, and she realized that they were no longer on the road, that the horse had raced into the thick and never-ending green darkness of the forest.

“No!” she shrilled, pulling back. And then she realized Reggie’s hesitation in giving her the huge stallion, for she quickly discovered that the horse was more powerful than she. Desperately she tried to rein him in. She was a good rider, more than competent, she had ridden her entire life. It was just that the horse was stronger than she, and at the moment, every bit as panicked as she by the darkness.

“Storm!” she cried in dismay. The foliage tugged and tore at her clothing and scratched at her hands and face. She ducked lower, wondering when the horse would plow straight into an oak and kill them both. “Whoa, boy, whoa …”

There was another rustling sound. The horse reared straight up. Skye tried to hold her seat, but it was impossible. She screamed, letting go, frightened that he would fall and roll upon her. She hit the ground hard herself, and though stunned, she rolled into the brush, anxious to avoid the huge thrashing hooves of the stallion.

He fell to earth, rose and flailed the air, and fell back to the earth again.

Then he took flight, leaving her breathless and defenseless and totally alone in the darkness of the forest.

For several long moments she just lay there, paralyzed with fear. She heard the crashing sounds as the stallion rode away, far, far away from her. She began to hear the little rustlings all around her.

“Damn you, horse, oh, damn you!” she cried out softly. Her hands lay over her heart and she stared up at the sky, willing the moon to become more apparent.

There were insects all about her, she told herself. There could be snakes. She lay in the brush. She needed to move.

Carefully she stretched out her limbs. None was broken, and she closed her eyes and breathed quickly, then opened them to the night once again. She could not give way to fear. She could not!

She stumbled up and dusted the fragments of leaves and trees and dirt from her bodice and skirt.

The road! She needed to reach the main road, and walk swiftly, and not think of the darkness or the forest. She whirled around and looked up. There was a moon out. It offered a gentle glow. It was not so horribly dark. And there were stars in the heavens, too. She would be all right, she would be all right.