“The midwife said . . .” Brandon’s eyes glazed with pain as he repeated the careless words. “The midwife said the baby was too big—it tore her apart.”
“And that’s all?” Leah asked. “That is why ye didna want me to have your bairn?”
His lips thinned to a hard line, and he stiffened.
“Nay,” Leah soothed. “I dinna wish to make light of your agony, but ye must learn to accept that women do die in childbed. They also die of drowning, or of swallowing peach pits.”
“You don’t understand. I was responsible. It was my child—at least I think it was.”
“And hers. Did ye force her?”
“God, no! But—”
“Shhh. Brandon, this be a woman’s matter. Why didna ye go to your mother with this hurt? She could have told ye. Yes, we face death when we give life—but it is a burden of love. It is a risk women must take if life—all life—is to go on.”
“Cecily wasn’t a woman—she was only a frightened girl.”
“And ye were nay a man, Brandon. Ye were both children. Ye meant Cecily no ill, and the Great Good Spirit, Wishemenetoo, would never punish you so long for such a boy’s recklessness.”
“Charles loved her—more than I did, I think. He’s never forgiven me for her death.”
“Your cousin is twisted . . . nay, he is rotten inside like a worm-eaten tree. Ye canna judge yourself by his rules.”
Relief flooded his features. “You believe me?”
“Aye, Brandon mine, I believe ye. Who else would be so foolish?” She smiled. “I may die in childbirth—who can know?—but you or any other man canna deny me the right to follow my own destiny. We canna hide from living, lest we would never drink for fear of drowning or never sleep for fear we wouldna wake.”
“You forgive me, then? You’ll give us another chance?”
“Brandon, I—” Her resolve slipped away, drowned in a sudden wave of joyous giddiness.
He pulled her into his arms, heedlessly crushing the fragile fabric of her costly gown. Before she knew what was happening, Leah found herself kissing him back, twining her fingers in his hair as he embraced her with all his strength.
“Leah, Leah,” he murmured between kisses. “I’m so sorry . . . so sorry.”
His mouth was hot and wet and demanding. Their tongues met and caressed, awakening deep longings that Leah had thought lost. The velvet sweetness of his mouth, the familiar man scent of Brandon, flooded her senses and drove everything but her desire for him from her mind.
His shoulders trembled as he pushed her back against the grass. “I want you,” he said thickly, “here and now.”
Hot desire stabbed through her as she gazed up into his beautiful eyes, as blue as the sky over his head . . . English eyes, heavy-lidded with passion.
“K’daholel,”
she whispered huskily, I love you. They kissed again, and she touched his cheek and his throat, letting her fingertips caress his fair skin as the heat of his hard body permeated her own through the thin silk of her gown.
He lowered his head and deliberately kissed the sensitive hollow of her throat with tantalizing, slow, sweet kisses. “Leah,” he murmured. “My woman . . . my wife.”
She buried her face in his yellow hair and filled her head with the clean male scent of him as her hands stroked the contours of his neck and the top of his superbly muscled shoulders. The throbbing ache in her veins had become an insistent hunger, and she whimpered with pleasure as she felt the heat of his callused palm against her breast.
Brandon pulled her upright, and they kissed again as he fumbled with the laces at the back of her gown. His hot, wet tongue flicked against her bare shoulder, and then, as the laces came apart and her gown slipped down, he freed one breast from her garments and closed his mouth over her waiting nipple. She arched against him, wanting to feel him—all of him—against her. The yearning, the pounding in her veins grew to fever pitch. All that mattered was Brandon and the fulfillment of their love.
She rose to her knees, and he pulled her gown down. Her shift and petticoats followed, and then his breeches, and in minutes both of them lay bare in each other’s arms. The thick, green lawn made a marriage bed as soft as any Leah had ever hoped for, and neither of them cared that garden hedges were the walls of their bedchamber and the open sky the only ceiling.
They kissed and touched and laughed. They shared caress for caress, giving pleasure and receiving it with utter abandon. And finally, when their passion reached its apex, Leah lay back against the sweet-smelling grass and opened her body to him. Eagerly, he entered her, filling her with the swollen proof of his love. Breathlessly, they strained against each other.
Whimpering with need, Leah lifted herself to receive each long, powerful thrust. She clung to him, feeling her body and soul swirling up and up in a whirlwind of sweet passion. And when they reached the crest of the mountain together, she cried out his name as he spilled his seed into her. Dark eyes bright and luminous, she fell back against the cushion of grass and pulled his golden head down to rest against her naked breasts.
“My darling Leah,” he whispered. “My life began on the day I met you.”
She lay motionless, savoring the aftermath of their rapture. So great was her joy that she was afraid to close her eyes for fear that when she opened them, this would all be a dream and they would be apart again.
After long moments of quiet happiness, Brandon broke the spell. He rolled over and sat up, smiling at her in the way that only he could, with that lazy, crooked smile that tugged at her heart. “You’ve done it now, witch,” he teased. “You’ll never be rid of me.”
Leah sighed as all her doubts came winging back. “How can it succeed,
dah-quel-e-mah?
No matter how we love each other, ye wouldna be happy in my village, and I be not an English lady.”
He lowered his head to kiss her lips gently. “I’ll think of something, I promise you. Will you let me come with you? I want to be a part of your life—a part of Kitate’s and our child’s lives. I don’t want to be just a name without a face.”
“What would ye do in the Colonies?” She sat up and tugged the torn shift over her head.
Brandon recovered his breeches and reluctantly pulled them on. “I’d try some of my ideas on Father’s plantations. The economy of Maryland is built on tobacco, and one-crop farming can’t last. Tobacco robs the topsoil of its richness. I have enough plans to last a lifetime, and the land there is untouched. Maybe I could do some good.”
“What of your duty to your family?”
He grabbed her shoulders and pulled her against him, kissing her mouth hard. “To hell with them,” he said. “You and the children are my family. Either I can manage the title and responsibilities from America or someone else can have it.”
She sighed and wrapped her arms around his neck. “’Tis a great sacrifice ye would make for us, Brandon mine,” she managed between kisses, “but I fear I’d be nay happier as a planter’s wife than as a countess. Our child would be half—nay, three-quarters—white, but I canna see Kitate following a plow. He is born to the forest and the wild ways.”
“I’ll think of a way, Leah. Just give me a chance. Let me come with you.” He released her and stepped back, his eyes serious. “You know you still love me.”
Leah smiled back at him. She forced herself to appear calm, wondering how he could not hear the beating of her heart. Joy bubbled up inside her and made her voice tremble. “I canna stop ye from taking ship to Maryland if ye wish.”
“Tell me you want me to come.”
Her lower lip trembled. “Ye know the answer to that. Ye’ve always known . . . since that first night I took ye from the torture stake.”
“Say the words.”
“Aye,” she admitted, surrendering her heart to him once more. “Aye, my darling
Englishmanake
. I want ye to come with me to America. If ye can truly find a way—I want us to be mon and wife.”
“Ah, love, you’ll be the making of me.” He grinned. “I will think of a solution.”
“No more of your tricks,” she warned. “I can leave ye as easily in Maryland as here.”
“More so, I should think,” he teased. He gathered up her shoes and stockings. “I think perhaps I need to get you up to your room. It would make a great scandal if the servants caught us here like this.”
She smiled saucily at him. “And what would they say? Ye be my husband. To the English hell with servants, I say. It be what ye and I desire that matters.”
An hour later, once more properly dressed, they found Cameron in the library. He looked up and smiled as he saw them standing hand in hand.
“From the glow on my daughter’s face, I’d say you have news for me,” he said.
Leah smiled up at Brandon. “He be coming with us, Father. We have gathered the scattered pieces of our peace pipe and mended it with tears and promises.”
Cameron studied Leah’s eyes and then turned his attention to Brandon. “Are you both certain? I ken something of the troubles the two of you face. You come from vastly different worlds. There are some differences that love cannot cross, and there will be people both red and white who will never accept your marriage.”
“Aye,” Leah agreed. “That we ken all too well. The details be nay yet worked out, but I have faith in my husband. Some Englishmen be quite clever.” She smiled mischievously. “For barbarians,” she added.
“You have my blessings, then,” Cameron said. He rose from his chair. “If you are attempting to reconcile your marriage, you may not want me coming with you to America.”
Leah exchanged glances with Brandon, then tucked her hand into Cameron’s. “Did ye believe our hearts so small that there wouldna be room in them for a father’s love? Ye have given your word as a Scotsman, and we shall hold ye to it. Someone must teach Kitate and our daughter the proper way to speak the English tongue.”
“Who says it will be a daughter?” Brandon asked.
“Never argue with a Shawnee peace woman,” Cameron advised. “The odds are stacked against ye.”
Leah’s eyes grew troubled as her composure faltered. “I be nay a peace woman. I be unworthy of the honor.”
Her father chuckled softly, and he smiled boyishly. “Your denial is the final proof. So Sh’kotia, your mother, spoke when Mo-na Mskee-yaik-wee, her grandmother, declared her future. You have suffered, child, and you have proved your heart is pure. You have traveled far on a quest to bring wisdom to your people, and you have brought another human back from the claws of the Dark Warrior whom the English know as the Angel of Death.”
Leah shook her head. “Nay, I didna.”
Cameron’s gaze held her. His native burr grew thick as his deep voice touched her soul. “You called upon the power of the Eye of Mist, and your wish was granted.”
“Nay,” she protested. She looked from one to the other in confusion. “I asked the spirits of the necklace, but it didna work.”
Cameron was relentless. “You asked that Brandon’s life be saved, didn’t you?”
“I’m not sure what the two of you are fencing about,” Brandon said, “but unless I’m sadly mistaken, I am alive.”
“It wasna that way,” Leah protested. “I did ask, but nothing—”
“Is Brandon alive?” Cameron caught her wrists and turned her to face him. “You must accept, Leah. When Dr. McCloud first examined him, he told me privately that there was no chance. Brandon was a breathing dead man.” He released her hands. “The amulet was real, child.”
A curious whirling began in Leah’s head. She felt dizzy, unable to breathe, but the sensation was not frightening—rather, it imparted the thrill of running the rapids in a light birchbark canoe . . . of seeing boulders looming up ahead and steering around them with the thrust of a paddle . . . of lying on her back in the damp grass and watching the majestic play of lightning across the sky. She sighed as she sensed the weight of a feathered mantle settle around her shoulders. And, from somewhere far off beyond the salt sea, she heard the piercing notes of an ancient melody played on an eagle-bone flute.
Brandon is casting off his responsibilities to this land, she thought with a curious detachment, but I am taking on a burden of love that I can never forget.
Gradually, the light-headedness subsided, and she became aware of the silk skirt twisted in her fingers, of the scent of tobacco and brandy coming from her father’s clothing, and the faintest hint of rosebuds. She sighed and opened her eyes to find Brandon’s intense blue ones staring into them.
“I should have been warned I was wedding a witch,” he teased gently. “An Indian witch must be the worst kind of all.”
“And the best,” Cameron said. He patted Leah’s arm. “You’ll adjust to it, both of you. Her mother and I did.” He chuckled. “After a fashion.” His expression grew thoughtful and he leaned forward, giving his full attention to Brandon. “I was just about to come and find you. My messenger returned from Westover an hour ago. Your parents were overjoyed to find out you were still alive.”
“What?” Leah asked. “No one told me of a letter to Westover.”
“Once my fever went down enough for me to think straight, I realized Mother could never be in on the plot to kill either of us,” Brandon explained. “No matter what I ever did, Mother supported me, even against my father’s wishes. It was cruel to let them go on believing I was dead.”
“We didn’t send a letter,” Cameron said. “There are too many ways a letter can be intercepted. I sent my trusted servant with instructions to speak only to Lord Kentington or, if he was too ill, to Lady Kathryn. No one else in the household was to know that Brandon was still alive.”
Brandon leaned forward. “Did your man say if my cousin Charles is at Westover?”
“Aye, he’s there, but he was about to travel to London to retrieve your body. Your battered corpse has been discovered in Lambeth Marsh. Highwaymen crushed your skull so badly that a closed casket will be necessary.” Cameron grinned. “Fortunately for your family, the authorities were able to identify your corpse by your ring, your sword, and your pistol.”