Heather Graham - [Camerons Saga - North American Woman 02] (34 page)

That way. She twirled around very slowly and repeated the words out loud. “That way. The road to Williamsburg is that way.” She started to walk, tripping over fallen branches, feeling the slight sob in her each and every breath come just a little bit louder. The road was not that way at all. She was going deeper and deeper into the forest. An owl screeched over her shoulder suddenly and she screamed aloud, falling to her knees, breaking into sobs. She simply could not bear the awful darkness, not alone.

She fought for control and listened to the night. What, besides the horrible owl, lurked in the forest? The Indians were all gone—oh, God, please, it was true, they were gone, they were all gone!—but perhaps there were bears. Brown bears with long claws and a deadly hatred for men and women.…

What had ever caused the Camerons to come to such a godforsaken place! She hated it. She would never leave the city of Williamsburg again once she found it, she would never, never leave it again. But she had to find it first; she had to find it.

She stumbled to her feet. Her hand came to her throat as she heard movement behind her. She went dead still, the blood draining from her face, and listened. A bear. It had to
be a bear, moving slowly but certainly, and with stealth. She opened her mouth to scream, but no sound would come from her. She turned blindly and started to run again.

Something was after her. Something in the darkness. It was stalking her, quietly, slowly, seeking her out.…

Then there was nothing.

Silence …

There was silence, but no, the forest wasn’t silent at all, it was just that the rustling was drowned out by the rush of fear in her ears, by the awful pounding of her heart. The forest was not silent at all; it was alive with sound. She was being pursued. She was no longer quietly stalked, she was being pursued.

She lost her bearing and spun in a circle. She started to run again and realized then that the sounds were growing louder. She was racing toward the beast that was pursuing her in the night.

Suddenly she screamed, throwing up her arms to cover her face as she dashed from the trees and straight into the path of a running horse.

The horse reared as its rider jerked back with ferocity. The animal went up high on its hind legs and then crashed over backward into the brush. Someone swore furiously as the animal stumbled up. Skye screamed again as the horse went thrashing by her into the woods. She turned to run again herself.

It was not over; it had not ended. Blindly she turned to run, aware that the forest was still alive, that she was still being pursued. Recklessly, desperately she ran. The branches touched upon her hair like spidery fingers, pulling it. Tree roots seemed to come alive beneath her feet, reaching out to trip her.

And clouds fell over the moon. As if the very heavens laughed at her, dark clouds covered the moon and cast her into deeper, greener darkness.

Then a shrill cry to split the very earth burst from her as hands seized upon her. She was falling, falling hard upon the earth in the darkness, fighting wildly and desperately against the thing that stalked her in the night.

“Skye!”

She couldn’t register her own name, nor did the man above her mean anything to her at all. She beat out and kicked at him vigorously, unaware that he swore softly, irritated and alarmed. She knew only that she was losing the battle. He straddled her hips, pinning her to the earth, and then he captured her flailing hands, and they were pinned down to the earth, too.

She screamed in terror and frustration, thrashing even as she was held.

“Skye!”

The clouds drifted away from the moon just as he said her name again. Spiderwebs seemed to fall away from her vision, and reason came slowly back to her.

Roc Cameron, taut and solid, straddled her. She stared at him, and slowly, slowly exhaled. It was no beast, just the man who claimed to be her husband. She might have been better off with a tusked boar, she thought briefly, but that thought quickly faded. She might fear his temper upon occasion, but it was so different than her absolute terror of the darkness.

“Skye!” he repeated, and she went very still, swallowing tightly, staring at him.

“What in God’s name were you doing?” he demanded.

“Me!” she cried. “You stalked me, you scared me to death, you—”

“You, madame, nearly killed yourself running into my mare. After not only having deserted me, but having stolen my finest mount in the process.”

“I didn’t mean to steal him. I would have returned him.”

“And yourself?”

“I am not yours.”

“You are.”

“That’s debatable.”

“I say that it is not,” he told her softly.

She opened her mouth to argue with him anew, but at that very second another treacherous cloud chose to close over the moon. Darkness fell upon them and all that she could see was the startling silver flame of his eyes. She started to shiver.

He lifted away from her and she was stunned to find herself
clinging to him. He freed himself from her grasp. “Hold, my love. I will build a fire.”

He was true to his word, and prepared with a striker and flint. She sat shivering by a tree while he gathered up tinder and logs and arranged them to his satisfaction. He struck hard with his flint upon the striker and drew sparks, and in seconds his tinder had caught, and soft flames began to rise, higher and higher. His face was caught in those flames, and then the glow fell over them both and lit up the darkness of the forest.

He had changed to come for her, she noted. He looked like a woodsman. Gone was the elegance of his customary attire, and even the more casual garb he sometimes wore upon his ship. Tonight he was clad in simple buckskin and cotton with a homespun cotton shirt beneath his jacket. His hair was still queued, but he had eschewed his wig. Despite his clean-shaven cheeks, she had never seen him look more like the Silver Hawk than he did that night, alone with her in the forest.

She started to shiver all over again, but then it had little or nothing to do with fear. She hugged her knees to her chin and watched him, her eyes wide with the night.

He came over to her and drew her gently close. She protested his touch, then gave in to it, leaning against him.

“Why did you come after me?” she asked him. “I would have been all right—”

“All right? Like hell, madame! I found you because Storm came tearing out of the woods. You’re not even heading in the right general direction!”

“That’s because I got lost. I would have found—”

“You were in sheer terror before you ever came thrashing into my horse. And now we’re both stuck out here because that stupid mare will run like the blazes home and Storm will break his tether to follow her back. Leave it to a fool stallion to go racing after a female.”

“Just as you run after me?”

He gazed at her sharply. She was too weary, and still trembling too fiercely, to seek a fight. He smiled slowly. “Just as I race after you, milady.” He paused, finding a tousled tendril of her hair to smooth back. “Why did you run?”

“I had to,” she murmured simply.

He left her standing, finding another log to set upon the fire. For the longest time he was still, tall before her. She had tried to escape him, but now he was her barrier against the night, and she was glad of him there. She spoke softly. “I—I needed to find my father.”

He cocked his head for a moment, listening to something. Then he came back beside her. “I am worried about your father myself. I would have taken you first thing tomorrow morning to Williamsburg by carriage.”

“Tomorrow morning,” she murmured uneasily.

He reached out, touching her cheek. “You were in such horror of me that you were willing to brave the darkness rather than my touch?”

A flush came to her features. She drew her face from his finger, lowered her eyes. “No … I … no.”

“Then?”

“I—I—”

“You’re lying.”

“I’m not. I don’t know what to say to make you understand. I—I don’t hate you.”

“Well, we’ve nothing here,” he murmured, drawing to his feet once again. “I brought food in my saddlebags, but that is gone now. We can snare something if you like. And there is water nearby. I can hear the brook.”

“You can?” She tilted her head, listening. She could hear nothing.

He nodded. “Trust me, madame. I was not bred to the city. I can hear the water plainly.”

“How close?”

“Very close.”

He reached down to her. “Come on. I’ll show you.”

She rose as he helped her. Despite herself, she looked longingly to the fire. “Don’t worry,” he told her. “We will not let the flames get too far behind us. You will see the light.”

She cocked her head with disbelief, a rueful smile tugging at her lips. “Couldn’t we … walk toward Williamsburg?” she asked him.

He shook his head. “It would take us hours and hours afoot, and with these clouds, it is a dark night indeed.”

“You intend that we should stay here—in the forest?”

“We will be safe. The fire will burn throughout the night.”

They had left the fire behind then, but he was right, she could still see its glow. He wouldn’t leave it too far, she thought; he would not risk the forest in flames. He knew his way here, just as he did upon the sea.

“Hold up,” he told her softly, stopping before her. He had her hand. She came around beside him and saw that the flames and the moonglow just touched upon the water. It made a slight bubbling sound as it ran toward the river.

“Oh!” she murmured, thinking that it looked delicious. She knelt down by the water’s edge and cupped handfuls of the clean clear liquid to drink. He came to his knees beside her, throwing it over his face, drinking as deeply as she. When Skye was done, she fell away from it, lying upon the mossy slope. It was all right. The moon was freed from the clouds. Stars shone. She could feel the coolness of the brook, and the warmth of the fire.

And he was with her. She was not alone.

Not alone at all. He lay at her side upon an elbow and idly chewed upon a blade of grass. He watched her intently, she knew. He dropped the blade of grass and touched her cheek. She did not draw away.

“Why the darkness?” he asked her softly.

She flushed. “No one knew of it at all,” she murmured. “Except for Father and Mattie, and Gretel, my housemaid at school.”

“Why?” he persisted.

She shook her head, lowering her lashes and flushing. “It’s so silly really. Not silly, but frustrating that I cannot get over it. It isn’t a reasonable fear. It closes in upon me and I begin to panic, and then I have no control at all.”

“Why are you so afraid?”

She hesitated a moment longer and then sighed. After all that she had brought upon him, she probably owed him something so simple as an explanation. “Father owns a lot of land,” she said. “He had property up in the northern country.”

“Iroquois country?” he asked her.

She nodded. “I was very young then. No more than five. My mother was supposed to have been very beautiful. She was no great lady, but a colonial tavern wench, and my father defied his own parents and tradition to marry her, she swore that she would love him all her life, and follow him to the ends of the earth.” She hesitated a moment. “She was warmth and beauty and energy. I will never forget her.”

“You loved her very much.”

“Yes. Yes … well, she followed Father when he came to see this northern land in Iroquois country. Father was out with his surveyor; Mother and I were in a little cabin alone. We had only one servant with us, and Mother was singing and humming, as happy as a sparrow not to have to remember her manners and that she was a lady. Then suddenly she quit humming, and she shoved me into a little trapdoor where they stored wine and ale in the summer to chill it. It was very small, and it was black, and it was made of earth, and the smell of dirt was stifling.”

She hesitated, gasping for breath, finding it difficult to breathe all over again. She hated the weakness, hated to betray it to anyone, but he knew about it. Her father had married her to him without her consent. He had surely warned him about the darkness, and had Theo not told him, she knew that this man would have discovered it on his own.

“What happened?” he persisted.

She shook her head. “She warned me not to make a sound. Then I heard noises as if the whole place had caved in, and then I heard her screaming. I peeked out. I saw the Indians coming for her. Perhaps they wouldn’t have hurt her; perhaps she fought too desperately. I fell back against the earth, terrified at the sight of them. They were painted; a war party. I didn’t see anymore. I just kept hearing the screams. Then they found the trapdoor. One of them was looking in at me, laughing. He was bald and painted with a thatch of hair, and his hands were covered with blood when he reached for me. Father came back and shot him. He fell on top of me, and the door closed and we were locked in the darkness together with his blood streaming over the both of us. I suppose that it
wasn’t that long before Father dragged us out, but it seemed like forever.”

“And they killed your mother?”

She shook her head. “She took her own life rather than let them capture her,” she whispered. “She—she loved Father. That’s why I cannot understand why—” She broke off, not wanting to say anything bitter when he was being so decent to her, and when she was pouring out her heart to him.

“You can’t understand why he forced you to marry me?”

“I can’t understand why he would force me to marry anyone.” She stared up at him hopefully. She had never really spoken to him before, not with any sincerity. Not as a possible friend. “Roc, please tell me, this thing cannot be legal!”

He shook his head. He seemed almost sad, as if she had his sympathy. “It is legal,” he said. She fell back against the earth. “Why is it so horrid. I am not a monster.”

“I did not say that you were. I just—” She hesitated. “I cannot make you understand.”

He was quiet for long moments. She heard the brook as it gently danced alongside them. She felt the fire, warm against the flesh on her face. She was absurdly comfortable, and not at all afraid of the night anymore. He was there, beside her.