The Captured Bride

by Griep, Michelle;

  Mercy emerged from the cleft of the overturned tree, the girl trailing. He handed her the reins of the larger horse.

  She stared into the darkness behind him. “Where are the rest of the horses?”

  “We only need two. The girl rides with you. Mount up.”

  A frown darkened her pale skin. “But we’ll never haul the gold with only two horses.”

  “We are not taking all of it.”

  “But you said—”

  “There is no time. We ride hard. Now.” Using the tree as a stepping block, he mounted. Horseflesh warmed his backside. Riding bareback would leave an ache in a few more muscles than he expected.

  “Fine,” Mercy huffed, then narrowed her eyes up at him. “But you will tell me all when we stop.”

  He yanked the horse around, leaving space for Mercy and the girl to mount as he had. Would that he could yank an easy answer out for her as well, for the harshness of her whisper screamed determination. How much should he tell her? How much could he? Thankfully he had a hard ride ahead to mull this over, for of only two things was he certain.

  Mercy would not be put off.

  He couldn’t continue keeping the truth from her.

  This was exactly why, in all his training, the one thing his commander in Boston had drilled on most frequently was the warning never to drop his guard around a woman.

  Now he understood why.

  After endless hours of riding, Mercy was spent. In the hollow of a ravine, beneath an overhanging slab of moss-covered rock, she sank onto a patch of ferns barely unfurled. The peppery-sweet scent conjured memories of happier times, of romps through the woods with her brother and of lazy missions scouting for nothing but a place to camp for the night with Matthew. Times when the threat of tomahawks or arrows wasn’t just a wild ride behind her.

  At her side, Livvy had already curled into a ball on the ground, asleep. It took everything in Mercy’s power not to fling herself down and do the same. An all-night ride picking their way through darkness, the morning of speed and distance, and now an afternoon sky draped with clouds like a thick blanket all beckoned her to stretch out. But she pulled up her knees and wrapped her arms about them, refusing to bed down—not until Elias returned from seeing to the horses.

  The tchuk-tchuk of a blackbird’s call drifted down from the treetops, haunting, simple…grievous. A sound that tightened her throat and caused her eyes to burn. Oh Matthew. She blinked back tears. Tchuk-tchuk had been her friend’s trademark call, announcing his approach or alerting her to danger. She’d never hear it again from his mouth. The image of Matthew’s crumpled body fallen over the wagon seat flashed like a nightmare, and a single fat drip ran hot down her cheek. She’d not even gotten to say goodbye, just like her father. Just like her mother.

  She drew in a shaky breath. Was all of life to be like this? Losing those she loved without a farewell? Was Onontio out there somewhere, even now lying cold and stiff?

  Footsteps drew near, and she scrubbed away the dampness on her face with the back of her hand.

  Opposite Livvy, Elias lowered beside her. “You should sleep. We will not be here long.”

  His low voice, strong and sure and very much alive, was a balm to her melancholy. Bundling up her sorrow and packing it away into a corner of her heart, she speared him with a sideways glance. “Long enough for me to get an answer.”

  He snorted. “If nothing else, you are persistent.”

  Without another word, he eased flat and slung his forearm over his eyes, blocking out the gruel-thin daylight—and her.

  She smirked. Did he seriously think she’d be put off so easily? She leaned over and lifted his arm. “Well?”

  Only one of his eyes popped open. “Sleep.”

  “You promised, Elias.” She let his arm drop and leaned back on her elbows. “Unless you’re the type of man who doesn’t keep his word.”

  She hid a smile at the sigh that ripped out of him. It had been an unfair jab—but it worked, as she’d suspected.

  Turning, he crooked his arm and propped his chin on the heel of his hand. “What is it you want to know?”

  She narrowed her eyes to keep from rolling them. He knew exactly what she wanted to know. A question for a question was a ploy she’d used herself earlier in the day when Livvy kept asking when they’d stop.

  “Tell me what you’re really after, Elias Dubois.”

  “That should be apparent.” The blue in his eyes burned brilliant, full of promises and intrigue, altogether dangerous…and far too alluring. “I am on the same mission as you.”

  “Are you?” She flicked away a bug hovering in front of her face and studied him, from the lines of his unshaven jaw to the curve of his cheekbones, landing on the slight lift to one of his brows. How was she ever to know when he spoke truth? “I wonder.”

  “You know as well as I we can no longer expect to get that load of gold to Fort Edward. Even had we taken four horses and tried to hitch up one wagon, we never would have made it. As it is, we will barely keep abreast of those men, even covering our trail and doubling back. The way I see it, by scattering the horses, we bought us some time as they try to figure out which way we went.”

  “You don’t think they will go straight for the gold like we are?”

  “They do not know where the gold is, now do they?”

  She pulled her gaze from him and stared straight ahead, the green of the ravine blurring into a smear. He was right of course, and that rankled. Matthew had always been right too, but something was different in the way Elias answered her, always turning things back into a question. Like something tethered the words behind his lips from flying free.

  “Then why go back at all?” She spoke as much to herself as to him, trying to work out the logic of why they should bother returning to the cache of gold, especially now that they had Livvy to see to. She swung her gaze back to Elias. “Maybe we should make for Fort Edward and come back with a squad of soldiers.”

  “If I go to Fort Edward, I will not be coming back.”

  If? Her eyes widened. “You don’t intend to go?”

  She drew in a breath, the truth hooking into her like a stickle-burr. She was the only one stopping him from escaping—and after the way she’d seen him fight, she was naught but a gnat to be swatted aside. Not that she blamed him. She might do the same were she faced with years locked in a damp, dark cell. But not paying the debt for a crime he didn’t deny wasn’t honorable…was it? How could she ever reconcile this man’s acts of integrity against such a defilement of justice?

  He pushed up to sit, a groan rumbling in his throat. That slash on his chest had to hurt something fierce, for the sting on her shoulder from the arrow yet raged when she moved too quickly.

  Shifting, he leaned over her. “Regardless of what I intend, know this…I will see you and Livvy to safety. I vow it.”

  Safety? With a pack of angry natives likely even now on their trail? She shook her head. “But we’ll never be safe from Red Bear, not after what you did.”

  “That is a burden not meant for you.” He tapped her lightly on the nose. “Sleep now, for we will not rest long.”

  She frowned. She’d been the cause of that burden, had she not? This man with the purple near his eye and cut on his cheekbone had fought for her to his own detriment.

  “I don’t understand you,” she murmured.

  A grin broke white and wide in his dark beard, sinking deep and wrapping around her like a warm embrace. “Would you have it any other way?”

  Without waiting for an answer, he eased himself back to the ground, arm once again slung across his eyes. In no time, his breathing evened, chest rising and falling in a deep cadence, sound asleep.

  She lay down as well, but her eyes blinked long and hard, his question riding along with the continued tchuk-tchuks of the blackbird. Would she want a man she could predict? One who wasn’t full of surprises?

  She forced her eyes shut, desperate to escape the answer to that and an even mor
e hideous question that crouched, waiting to pounce at some point in the near future.

  What were his intentions?

  Elias squatted, studying the base of a tall maple. Morning dew hung like a string of beads along the almost invisible line of a spiderweb. This thick in the woods and with an overcast sky, it was hard to tell exactly where the sun rose, but spiders generally chose the south side of a tree to build their homes because it was the warmest. And a ways back he’d spied a woodpecker hole halfway up a dying hemlock, which was more than likely east. Mind made up, he straightened and grabbed hold of his horse. If they veered just a hair to the left, they ought to hit the ravine by early afternoon.

  Using a rock as a mounting block, he swung up onto the animal. Two days and a hard ride without aid of even a blanket as a cushion ached in his backside and legs—but not nearly as nettling as the throbbing of his conscience. The torment of not having told Mercy the full truth yesterday competed with the necessity of his orders to keep silent. Both plagued him every time he looked in her eyes.

  He nudged the horse with his heels and trotted back to where he’d left Mercy, refusing to meet her gaze. With a silent jerk of his head, he indicated for her and the girl to follow.

  Hours later, the trees thinned somewhat. Ground growth thickened. The heaviness weighting his shoulders lightened a bit as they neared the drop before the glade. Once he retrieved that weapon, he’d see Mercy and Livvy to the shelter of the nearest town—Schoharie, if he calculated correctly—then ride like the wind for Boston. A good plan. A solid one.

  As long as Red Bear and his men held off.

  He guided his mount down the route at the side of the rock face, and with his first full glance at the clearing, he kicked the horse into a run.

  No! God, no!

  The broken crates lay in the open air like so many bones. But only one wagon sat at the center of the glade. Weeds lay flattened in two ruts where the wheels of the other one had turned in an arc and headed back out to the road.

  And the dirt where they had buried the gold yawned open like an empty grave.

  He yanked the horse to a stop and slid to the ground, trying hard to ignore the searing pain of the slice on his chest. How could this be?

  Stomping the length of the trench, he scoured the area for clues. Here a shovel cut. There a heel imprint—several, actually. All precisely where they had toiled to hide the gold—and nowhere else.

  A skirt rustled close. Mercy’s voice followed, pinched and strangled. “Matthew’s body is…” She sucked in a shaky breath. “It is still there. What happened here?”

  He shook his head, wishing with everything in him his suspicions were dead wrong. “You tell me.”

  She padded along the roughed-up dirt, her keen eye touching on the same signs he’d detected. Then she whirled, torn skirts swirling about her legs, her slim fingers curling into fists. Red patches of rage darkened her cheeks. “Besides us, only Rufus knew we hid the gold here.”

  “Are you surprised?”

  “Blast!” The word shot from her mouth like a cannonball.

  He coughed into his hand to keep from smiling.

  “You all right, ma’am?” Livvy asked from behind.

  Mercy bit her lip, then hollered to the girl, “I’m fine.” Her gaze drifted back to Elias. “I apologize.”

  He worked his jaw, stifling a chuckle. “No need to apologize. I feel the same. I should have known something was off, seeing as only four horses were taken and Rufus was not held captive along with you.”

  Mercy shrugged. “Like I said earlier, I assumed he’d been killed along with Matthew.”

  “Well, there is naught to be done for it now.” He pulled off his hat and ran his hand through his hair, a vain attempt to straighten out his thoughts as well. No wonder Rufus not only suggested this clearing, but insisted on their reaching it…and put up a fuss at their burying the gold. Likely he’d worked it out with Red Bear to kill off whoever accompanied him, then split the riches with him. A sour taste filled his mouth, and he swallowed. Sweet suffering cats but he’d been wrong about the whelp! He should have known there’d been far more depth to Rufus’s deviousness. But where was the man now? And with whom?

  He jammed his hat back onto his head and faced Mercy. “Mount up. The trail ought to be easy enough to follow, especially if they turned onto any side trails.”

  “They?”

  “You really think Rufus could do this alone?”

  Mercy kicked at the dirt, and though she did not say it, he had no doubt a few more angry words exploded in her head. In the dreary light of a cloudy afternoon and with anger simmering inside, she radiated a fierce beauty.

  “Elias.” Her brown eyes sought his. “We can’t go up against Rufus and who knows how many others with nothing but two knives and a young girl.”

  A storm was coming. He felt it deep in his bones. One that would blow clear away the secrecy of his mission. He should have run far and fast that first time he’d gripped her hand and the charge had run through him, for he could deny her no more.

  “You are right.” He spoke slowly, biding time. But for what? The longer they stayed here, the closer Red Bear’s men drew. He pierced her with a stare. “And that is why you and Livvy will stay hidden while I get what I came for.”

  “No.”

  The word floated somewhere overhead, like a tuft of cottonwood blown by the breeze. No? She’d dig in her heels just like that, without nary a by-your-leave?

  She folded her arms and tipped her chin, a rock-hard gleam in her eye. “I’m not going one more step with you until you tell me what you’re after and why.”

  And there it was. The fork in the road. The one where he either held tight to his course of silence alone or ran toward her and told all…unless he appealed to her sense of fear and avoided the whole thing altogether.

  He threw out his hands. It was either that or grab her close and kiss the defiance from her face. “We do not have time for this. I will tell you later—”

  “Livvy, get yourself down,” she called to the girl and whumped to the ground herself. “We rest here.”

  “Mercy, please.” He gritted his teeth. “You know the longer we stay here, the closer those warriors get.”

  She peered up at him. “Then you had better talk fast.”

  Thunder and turf! The woman was as inflexible as a steel-edged tomahawk.

  “Stubborn woman.” He dropped down beside her and pressed the heel of his hand against his brow, fighting off a killer of a headache. He’d been in tight spaces before, faced death and torture, but never had he felt the need to expose who he was, what he was about, until now.

  “What I am about to tell you goes against my orders and endangers your life. You cannot breathe a word of this, not even on pain of death.” He measured the words out slowly, methodically, all the while looking for an opportunity to turn the subject on to a side route. “No one would believe you anyway.”

  How well he knew that. He scrubbed a hand at the base of his neck, right where a rope would bite.

  “If you’re thinking to scare me, it is not working.”

  Aye, he should have known better. He lowered his hand, and a smile tugged his lips. “You really will be the death of me, Mercy Lytton.”

  He sucked in a big breath and let it all leak out. There’d be no turning back now, not unless he jumped up and rode off, leaving the temptation behind. Leaving Mercy behind—and that was not an option.

  He turned to her and grabbed one of her hands. A totally irrational move, but needful. A warm reminder she was skin and breath and worth the risk of everything he had to give.

  “Elias?” Creases marred her fine brow…creases put there by him and his deceit.

  He rubbed his thumb along the back of her hand, watching the movement for a while, admiring the way her fine skin yielded to his touch—anything to distract, to keep him from thinking on what he was about to say.

  “The truth is,” he murmured, “I am not a traito
r, leastwise not to the English.”

  She shook her head. “Then who are you? What are you?”

  A disappointment. A hellion. A failure.

  He shoved back his grandfather’s words and looked her straight in the eyes. “I am a spy, sent to infiltrate the French under the guise of a turncoat.”

  A spy for the English. Not the French. Not a turncoat. Just a guise.” Mercy nattered with an unhinged jaw, knowing all the while it wasn’t helping. She could no more understand the words coming from her own mouth than she could from Elias’s.

  She stared deep into his blue eyes, trying—needing—to sift truth from deception. He didn’t blink. He didn’t flinch. He stared back, gaze clear and candid as if he looked upon the face of God.

  Stunning, truly. All her life she’d prided herself on reading people. Sorting them out like a basket of berries, good in one pile, bad in the other. Had she been wrong about this man just as she had been wrong about her mother all these years? How had she, the one of keen sight, been so blind? And how had he been so cunning as to let her—and everyone else—believe such a thing?

  She yanked back her hand from his hold. “You were nearly hanged! Why would you do that? Why did you not tell General Bragg?”

  A shadow crossed his face, though not a cloud dotted the sky. He pulled his gaze from her and reached for a pebble, tossing the thing back and forth, palm to palm. “As I said, no one would believe me. The truth of my mission is known only to a major in Boston, and in order to make my role believable, even he would deny me.”

  Toss. Toss. The stone dropped lazily from one hand to the other, as restless as the information she tried to line up in a neat row. He could be lying, but why invent such a fanciful story?

  “Miss Mercy?” Livvy drew close, blond hair as wild and loose as Mercy’s own.

  She’d have to braid that, as soon as she finished combing through Elias’s tale. Mercy smiled at the girl; at least she hoped it came off as a grin instead of a grimace. “I need a moment with Mr. Dubois. Here”—she shrugged off the food pouch strapped over her shoulder—“get yourself something to eat and close your eyes for a few minutes.”