The King's Mercy

by Lori Benton

  “Don’t!” Mister Reeves warned Joanna when she made to go to him. “Let him lie.”

  From the corner of her eye, she caught movement at the doorway, but when she looked, thought she must be so far shattered in mind that delirium had overtaken her. A man crouched there—or seemed to in her dreaming—half-hidden in the shadows of the passage.

  Not until their gazes met did she realize he was real. Joy burst inside her before his name formed in her mind. Alex.

  At last. But how?

  Cutting through relief and bewilderment like a beam of light came the understanding of what he was there to do. And what he needed of her.

  “I will not just let him lie!” Ignoring the pistol, Joanna crouched beside her stepfather’s crumpled form.

  Mister Reeves lunged for her. She sprang up, forcing him to pursue.

  As she ran behind the desk, heavy footfalls crossed the room. Joanna turned in time to see Alex MacKinnon dive headlong into Mister Reeves, knocking him to the floor.

  * * *

  She’d done it perfectly. In a span of a blink, she’d come to grips with his presence, read his intention, and done what was needful as though they’d rehearsed it a hundred times. As Joanna rushed to her stepfather, Alex thrust the pistol into Moon’s hand—too many in that room for guns—hissed, “Get the lassie out,” then hurtled across the room and slammed into Reeves. The pistol flew from the overseer’s grip and spun across the floor, missing Edmund Carey’s prostrate form.

  Alex needed no weapon but his hands; those he needed at once, for Reeves was quick to assess the attack and retaliate. Alex caught a blow in the face but landed more before Reeves scrabbled an arm free, clutched the huge conch shell fallen to the floor, and crashed it against Alex’s head, stunning him long enough to scramble away.

  Alex lurched to his feet, expecting a counterattack, but Reeves had seen Moon scooping Charlotte off the bed with one strong arm.

  “No!” Reeves started after them.

  Joanna barred his way, brandishing a knife. Reeves shoved her from his path before Alex caught him and dragged him back.

  Moon shouted to Joanna to follow. Alex saw her shake her head. She wouldn’t leave her stepfather. Then he’d no attention to spare anything but Reeves. He got a leg around his knee, and they went down hard. Reeves was trying to crawl, to reach something near the desk.

  “My knife!” Joanna shouted. She’d dropped it when Reeves shoved her.

  He reached it and whipped around, kicking free of Alex’s hold.

  Alex grabbed for the only shield to hand, the conch shell that held the memory of the sea, smeared now with his blood. They were back on their feet, Reeves with the knife brandished.

  “Dinna make me kill ye,” Alex said. “Drop it and—”

  With a manic look of bloodlust, Reeves rushed him. Alex deflected the blade, catching Reeves’s arm with the shell’s spikey protrusion. He plowed his fist into Reeves’s ribs, then they were down again, grappling, Reeves in possession of the knife, Alex atop him with his hand around the man’s wrist. Their gazes locked.

  “Alex!” Joanna cried. “He’s going to—”

  The blow of a powerful fist, carefully measured, caught Alex aside the head. He lost his hold on Reeves. The room went dark, though he remained conscious, expecting to feel the stab of a blade, the tearing of a pistol’s ball.

  Instead he heard Reeves’s incredulous, “You?”

  Head spiking with pain, Alex pushed himself to his knees. Joanna hovered near, but she wasn’t looking at him. She gaped at Demas, who’d charged into the room, ablaze still with fever.

  Reeves was on his knees as well, clutching the knife, staring up at Demas as if at the sudden manifestation of a massive, glittering-eyed angel.

  “You came back,” he said.

  Demas took the knife from Reeves’s unresisting hand. For a terrible instant Alex thought Demas meant to turn on him, Joanna, the helpless Carey lying behind the desk.

  Demas hurled the knife across the room. He spoke at last, and though he never took his gaze off Reeves, it was Alex he addressed. “He’s mine. You know it.”

  Reeves’s face drained of blood, leaving him starkly white.

  “He is,” Alex said, and crawled to Edmund Carey, gathered the man, took a second to clear his own battered head, then pushed to his feet with Carey cradled in his arms. He turned to find Joanna staring still, horror stricken at the sight of Demas looming over Reeves. “Joanna. Go.”

  Shaking herself as if from a nightmare’s grip, she fled, racing ahead of him out of the room, out of the house, into the night.

  44

  “What happened to Phineas?” Charlotte asked between sobs, while Joanna held her on the straw-ticked bedstead in a cabin abandoned by their slaves.

  “Don’t think of it now. You’re safe.”

  Severn’s works had been tried, as if by fire, and proved stubble, but she, Charlotte, and Papa were alive, as those come through the flames. While she regretted the terrible cost to so many souls, she didn’t grieve the plantation’s loss, for lost it surely was.

  Perhaps she was still in shock. She’d reason enough to be.

  Alex. She’d seen him, heard him, yet could hardly believe it. The one person she’d wanted above all others, the one she hadn’t dared ask the Almighty to send, had come back to them.

  How had Elijah found him? Where had he been all this time?

  Questions spiraled endlessly as she comforted her sister. Charlotte finally calmed enough to be tucked into the strange bed, but Joanna waited until sleep claimed her before leaving her watched over by an elderly slave, one of the few who hadn’t run. She checked briefly on her stepfather, asleep in the neighboring cabin, Moses standing guard between them.

  Alex had carried Papa from the house to that borrowed bed. Where was he now?

  She headed for the kitchen, stopping short on the threshold at sight of Sybil minding a kettle at the hearth. Sybil looked up, seeming as dazed as Joanna felt, one eye darkened by a bruise.

  “Be an awful mess in the study.”

  Joanna crossed to Sybil and touched her face. “Did he do this?”

  Sybil dropped her gaze. “I tried not to tell him anything.”

  “Oh Sybil. That horrid man…”

  “He past ever hurting anyone now,” Sybil finished.

  So Phineas Reeves was dead. Joanna drew a breath clean of the fear of him for the first time in so many months it felt foreign to her lungs.

  “Don’t worry about the house. Go on to bed if you want.”

  Sybil shook her head. “I couldn’t sleep. You want I should go sit with Miss Charlotte? Maybe fetch one of her dolls?”

  “There’s someone with her, and Moses guarding, but if she wakes, you’d be a comfort. As would one of her dolls—not the Jemma doll.” Joanna gave a small shudder. “Thank you, Sybil. I’ll bank the fire.”

  Sybil went out, leaving her alone for the first time since the nightmare of the past few days began. The water in the kettle simmered. Fragile bubbles broke its surface and popped, hissing onto the fire below.

  Gone in an instant. Like so much else.

  Joanna clamped her arms across her belly, assaulted by that last glimpse of Mister Reeves, Demas looming over him like some dark avenging angel. Terror had washed the color from his face, until a different expression replaced it. Had it been relief?

  She’d fled into the night and gone about the business of caring for Papa and Charlotte, benumbed with shock.

  Shock was crumbling now, its pieces scattering, leaving her shaking, wracked with silent sobs.

  When footsteps halted on the threshold, she knew without looking who it was.

  “Joanna.”

  Breath catching, tears unabated, she straightened. Before she could turn, he was behind her, hands on her shoulders, warm and
encompassing. She drew away and faced him, jaw aching with the effort to cease crying, and looked at him, so tall, so real, his beloved features racked with concern.

  Alarm seized her. “Is Charlotte all right? Papa?”

  Alex reached for her again but aborted the gesture when she flinched. “They’re fine. Sleeping. I just looked in on them both.”

  “Why are you here?”

  Firelight showed his wincing at her half-choked words. “I had to find ye, see did ye need me.”

  “Of course I needed you. But why are you here?” This wasn’t coming out right. She couldn’t find the words. Her heart was at once flinging wide to him, joyous at his return, and curling tight for fear his presence meant nothing of what she wanted it to mean.

  “I heard things werena well with ye here and—”

  “How?” She stepped back, felt the fire’s heat, heard boiling droplets flinging themselves onto the flames, hissing, spitting. “How did you hear? Where have you been? No, don’t answer. I don’t want…I just…You…I needed you not to leave me! I needed to go with you—but I couldn’t have. Not like that. I…”

  Everything was in pieces. Her thoughts, her words, her heart.

  “Joanna.” He reached again for her, guilt twisting his features.

  Again she stepped back.

  “Joanna!”

  He lunged for her, clamping her arm and yanking her toward him. She yelped, half-falling against him as he bent and beat at her petticoat, furiously smacking the folds. She smelled the scorching muslin, realized what she’d done. Stepped too near the fire’s edge and caught herself aflame. She hadn’t time to panic before he’d extinguished the burning.

  He was standing close, clutching her, gazing at her with alarm, tenderness, regret. With her free hand she shoved him hard. He staggered, not expecting it, but caught the edge of the worktable.

  “You see? I need you, but I don’t want to!”

  She hurled herself at him, fists raised, and pounded them against his broad chest.

  He didn’t defend against her assault. She hit him again, knowing he’d already taken blows for her that night, worse than any she could deliver. But she couldn’t stop, nor the sobs rising up, bursting from her lips.

  A part of her—that calm, rational part so long in charge of her behavior —had gone mute. It stood back and eyed this unseemly display, shaking a disapproving head. What would anyone who came into that kitchen right now say? What would they think of her?

  “I don’t care!” she cried. “I loved you!”

  She heard those last words out of her mouth clear enough. Betraying words she wished she could take back. What was left to do after their speaking but cling to this man who’d given her a glimpse of what her soul longed for—given her a sip, then abandoned her thirsty—and sob while his arms went around her.

  His hand cupped her head, cradling it to his chest. Beneath her cheek his heart beat hard and fast. Against it she wailed.

  It was moments before she heard his voice lifted. Not in weeping. Nor in soothing murmurs. Not even addressing her. “Merciful God. Help us. Give us peace. We need it…need You.”

  The words coming out of his mouth, ragged with fervency, hushed her at last. She unclenched her fists, let her hands lie flat against his chest. He no longer wore the filthy coat she’d glimpsed earlier but was in his shirtsleeves.

  As she quieted, so did he.

  They stood thus for a time before he ventured tentatively, “Joanna?”

  Her mouth trembled so hard it took a moment to reply. “You were…praying?” The words were thick from weeping.

  “Aye. There’s a great deal I need to tell ye, but for now, the one thing.” His breath flowed warm across the top of her head as he held her. “Listen to me. I willna ever walk away from ye again. I promise. D’ye hear me, lass? I promise.”

  * * *

  She was unmoving in his arms, silent so long he began to think she’d fallen asleep on her feet. At one point Moon came to the door, lantern in hand. Alex read the question on the man’s scarred face. Had they need?

  Aye. Time. Healing—neither of which another man could give.

  When he shook his head, Moon looked tenderly at Joanna, oblivious to his presence, nodded, and left them.

  Alex waited, savoring the feel of her in his arms, slender, solid, warm, melting away the months apart as if they’d never passed. They had, though, and with them the trials and griefs and triumphs that changed a person. He was changed. She would be too. “I loved you.”

  “Joanna?”

  He felt her stir. Her hands slid around his waist. “Mmm?”

  “D’ye want to sit down?”

  She held him tighter. “Don’t move.”

  If he had his choice, he would never move again. “All right.”

  “I hit you. I’m sorry.”

  “Dinna be. Ye didna hurt me.”

  He felt her sigh. “Not even a little?”

  He conquered the urge to laugh, but risked a kiss against her hair. When she didn’t take offense or try to extricate herself, he said, “Not in any lasting way. Not as I’ve hurt ye.”

  It wasn’t a sigh she heaved this time, something nearer a sob. “You did hurt me. Very much.”

  Hearing a hiss, he glanced at the hearth, but the fire was dying, the water simmering down.

  So was he. The red of battle had faded, leaving him aware of its aftermath on his flesh. Bruises. Throbbing head. Throbbing face. A chunk of his hair stiff with blood.

  “Aye, I ken what I did. I’m sorry for it. I want to tell ye everything, and I will. I’m not leaving ye again. Unless ye want me to go?”

  The pause was long enough to fear she was considering it. Then she lifted her face, tear streaked, ravaged with the strain of months.

  “You’re different,” she said.

  “Aye. I am.”

  Her brow puckered as she searched his gaze. “You look much the same, browner maybe…What? Is it God who changed you?”

  “Aye, and Reverend Pauling. And a lad called Runs-Far.”

  “Runs-Far? Wait…You’ve seen Reverend Pauling?”

  “I have.” All that had happened over the summer and autumn among the Cherokees pressed in. He’d no notion where to begin. She seemed to understand. Instead of more questions about where he’d been, or why, she asked a question he found he was able to answer with ease.

  “Will you kiss me, Alex?”

  His heart, calmed from its frantic beating, gave a joyous leap. “Oh, aye, I will.”

  She lifted her face and he lowered his, letting their lips touch in the gentlest of meetings, afraid to ask more, forgetting she’d asked him. He wanted to lift her into his arms, to kiss her as he’d dreamed of doing since he walked away from her, but she stepped back, took hold of his hands, and spread them wide as if to get a look at him.

  Her eyes in the firelight were the deepest of seas at dawn before the sun crests the horizon to wash the world in gold. As her gaze swept the length of him, those sea-eyes widened, filling with the astonishment he minded well from their first sight of one another, by candlelight in the smithy.

  “My goodness,” she said.

  * * *

  They shut the kitchen door against the chill and talked into the night, tea brewed and forgotten, the rekindled fire warm on Joanna’s back. She hoped Alex felt it, too, seated across the worktable. The hand stretched out between them was big and warm in hers. Firelight illumined his features—broad brow and strong cheekbones, deep-set eyes, that mouth that tilted and tipped when he smiled. She’d cleaned the gash on his scalp, noting that his hair was longer now as well as sun-bleached. It had come down from its binding. He was disheveled, bruised, and beautiful.

  They talked of the Cherokees, his time among them, of Jemma and her son, and she was glad she was already sitting d
own by that time. Many puzzling pieces of her life were falling into place, those marked Jemma no exception. She wept again, this time for what she should have seen. Better, prevented.

  “Jemma’s where she wants to be,” Alex reassured her. “Protected by her clan. She’s loved and valued.”

  And free. “Thank you. For saving her.”

  What had remained of the Joanna who had fought so hard to control every aspect of her life had vanished this night, replaced briefly by the frightened, abandoned girl she’d once been. But it was coming clear that she’d never been in control of anything. Was never meant to be. She felt raw, exposed, and unmade, balanced on the fearful, exhilarating verge of becoming something, or someone, new.

  They talked of Reverend Pauling, found a captive among the Cherokees, of Hugh Cameron and Mountain Laurel. “Ye mind it was ye told me of Cameron?” Alex asked her. “That’s where I’ve left the reverend. He means to come to ye, soon as he’s able.”

  That dear man, carried into captivity and not only surviving it, thriving in it. She could hardly take it in.

  They hadn’t spoken of what happened in the house that night. After a time she asked, “Demas?”

  “Gone.”

  “You didn’t seem surprised to see him.”

  “I was, but maybe not as much as ye.” Alex laced their fingers across the table as he told her of his encounter with the slaves who’d taken refuge in the swamp. Of finding Elijah with them, and Demas, and all Demas had related of his history with Phineas Reeves. “He did the thing he promised to do should Reeves ever cross that line with a child. He never kent for sure about Jemma until I told him, but no mistaking Reeves had every intention of hurting Charlotte.”

  Joanna squeezed her eyes shut, willing memory of the past hours away. Perhaps one day she might pity Phineas Reeves, gone into darkness forever, but the destruction he’d wreaked was still a smoking ruin.