Fortune's Flame

by French, Judith E.

  Joan gestured toward a keg on a three-legged stool in the corner of the brick-floored room. “Ye know where I keep it.”

  “There’s no need for ye to go to the trouble of dressin’ for me, lass,” he teased. “I like ye well enough without—”

  “Mind yer tongue,” she chided, picking up the cat and stroking her. “Have ye no decency at all? And the sun high as it is?”

  Kincaid grinned at her. “Don’t play games with me, Joan Pollott. How many weeks was it we bedded up together here last winter before ye turned me in for the reward?” He deliberately kept his tone light.

  She put the cat down and wiped her hands on her skirt. “No such thing. I never give ye over to the sheriff. ‘Twas the law what come to me, askin’ questions I had no right answer fer. Didn’t I tend yer wound—and ye near to dyin’? Didn’t I give ye the hospitality of me house? And ye eatin’ fer three men?”

  “Aye. But I paid ye with that fine red mare—a horse whose worth would buy this house three times over.”

  “Well . . .” Joan pursed her full lips. “I suppose it wasn’t so bad . . . havin’ ye here, for all ye near ruined my trade by drivin’ my gentlemen friends away.” She smiled so that her small, pointed teeth gleamed white. “Ye are a man fer the ladies, certain.”

  Kincaid chuckled. Joan Pollott was much like her cat. Stroke her properly and she’d purr; ruffle her and she was all claws and bristle. “Nay, lass. ‘Tis your charms what bring out the rakehell in me. I was an innocent when I came to seek shelter in your—”

  She giggled. “Go on wi’ ye, ye lyin’ rogue! A man with a percy the size and stamina of yours? Ye’d compromise the morals of a holy nun.”

  Kincaid carried the Dutch oven full of biscuits to the scarred wooden table. Joan brought the bacon and a kettle of corn mush, wrapping the hem of her skirt around the kettle handle to protect her hand from the heat. She took tin plates and cups from a Welsh cupboard and set them out along with spoons and eating knives. A crock held honey, and a second, strawberry jam.

  “I’ve no butter,” she apologized. “I used the last of it two days ago and haven’t walked over to Widow Bell’s to fetch more.”

  “This is fine,” Kincaid assured her, spreading a biscuit with jam and handing it to her. “Your jam and bread would bring a man farther than I’ve come.”

  “So it’s my sweets ye crave?” she teased.

  Kincaid grinned. “Ye are a lass for sweets, and that’s God’s truth.” He covered her hand with his and rubbed her fingers suggestively. “I have missed ye, Joan, and that’s more than idle talk. But what I came for was that red mare.”

  “Ye know they asked me about her.” Joan pouted prettily. “I told them all I’d never seen the animal.”

  “So ye did, and clever it was of ye, lass. But now I need to know where ye sold her.”

  “ ‘Twas mine. Ye gave her to me for payment. I came by the horse honest. I’m no thief, and I’ll not put my neck in a noose by admitting—”

  “Nor do I expect ye to,” he said. “Ye were innocent. I stole the mare, and I paid dearly for it.” He lifted the tail of his shirt to show the whip marks on his back. “What I must do is find the mare. Mistress Bennett of Fortune’s Gift has offered a great reward for the animal,” he lied smoothly.

  “More than the horse is worth?”

  “Enough to keep you in silk petticoats for a long time.”

  “ ‘Tis a trick,” she answered. “Ye’ve returned to cause me trouble. I know nothing of the mare ye speak of—I never set eyes on the beast. So I will swear before the court. I’m an ign’rant whore, and I keeps to me own trade.”

  Kincaid shook his head. “Ye are a shrewd businesswoman, Joan. Too canny to let good silver coin go to another. Sooner or later, the mare will be found. No questions will be asked, but the one who sends word of the horse’s whereabouts to Fortune’s Gift will earn the reward.”

  “If I was to know, the law would hang me fer—”

  “Ye kenned nothing. Ye did nothing but take payment for board and lodging from a strange gentleman.”

  Joan chuckled. “And who would believe ye to be a gentleman?”

  He pulled her onto his knee and kissed her soundly. “Why, a lady such as yourself,” he murmured, tugging at the kerchief that covered her bosom.

  “I thought ye was hungry,” she said, giggling.

  “And so I am, bonny Joan,” he answered, kissing her throat and the rise of her rosy breasts. For all her rough manners, Joan was clean enough about her person, and the smell of her excited him.

  “Then ye ha’ come to the right place.” She moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue and laughed provocatively. “But I give nothin’ away for free. ‘Twill cost ye dear.”

  “So I thought, darling,” he answered gruffly. “So I thought.”

  Chapter 5

  Bess opened her eyes and listened, wondering what had awakened her. It was not yet dawn, and she knew that the light, when it did come, would be faint and distorted by the heavy fog that had moved in at dusk. She rose and went to the window.

  The world outside was an impenetrable wall of dampness and muffled sound. She couldn’t even see the poplar tree that grew only a few feet from the house. She yawned and raised the window. Silence.

  She had no idea of the time. It could be three or four; it was too early to get up, especially since she’d been assisting in the birth of a calf in the barn until midnight.

  “Kutii?” she whispered. “Are you here?” She didn’t think he was. This feeling was not the same as the one she experienced when the Indian was near. Kutii never made her uneasy; his presence was comforting.

  She sniffed. Was this what she had come to? Talking to ghosts in the night? Jumping at the normal creaking of a house in the fog? Spinsters did such things. Didn’t everyone say so?

  If she’d married at seventeen or eighteen, like most of her friends, she would have had a husband and children to keep her company. Her life would have been so full of responsibilities that she’d have no time for such flights of fancy.

  If she’d married . . . She shook her head, banishing such thoughts. She’d never marry. She had a life and she was content with it. Fortune’s Gift was all she needed.

  She closed the window and turned back toward the bed. A candle and a wooden box containing flint and steel and cedar shavings stood on her night table, but she didn’t trouble herself to strike a spark. She knew every inch of the house. Mama had always said she could see better in the dark than most people in broad daylight. A smile played across her lips. What did a witch’s hatchling need with a light?

  Bess wondered if she’d been dreaming. Lord knew she had enough to be uneasy about. Her creditors were demanding money, she was still without an overseer, and she’d let Kincaid steal a second horse from her and vanish like smoke.

  She hadn’t thought he would run. She really hadn’t. Her own stupidity was harder to take than his betrayal. Three weeks he’d been missing . . . and now the sheriff was threatening to collect on the bond she’d posted to guarantee Kincaid’s good behavior.

  By now the rogue was probably in Carolina, drunk as a bishop, and laughing at her. She could see him in her mind’s eye, chest thrown out, arms akimbo, boasting arrogantly of his escape.

  She glanced toward the window, and it seemed to her as though she saw a flash and at the same instant heard a muffled boom. Hurriedly, she threw on an old shirt of her father’s and a riding skirt. She didn’t take the time to don a corset; instead, she covered the loose shirt with an oversized vest for modesty’s sake. She stepped into low moccasins and took her grandfather’s pistols from the mantel. They were always kept loaded, and it was an easy task to load the frizzen pans with fine black powder.

  Again the darkness was no obstacle. Mama had insisted that she learn to handle firearms in the pitch black. The devil rarely lashes his tail and causes mischief in broad daylight, her grandmother had admonished. Look for trouble in darkness, and you’ll seldom be dis
appointed.

  Bess left the room and went downstairs. As she passed through the kitchen wing, she paused long enough to shake the cook from his sleep. “Wake the servants,” she ordered. “Arm yourselves and look sharp. Something’s amiss.”

  “You’ll not go out—” the cook began.

  “Do as I say,” Bess whispered sharply. “It may be nothing, but I want you all ready.”

  Seeny, the brindle hound bitch, was whining at the kitchen door when Bess threw the iron bar aside. “Tan!” she called to the male dog stretched out before the hearth. “Go get ’em.” She opened the door a crack and the female shot out. “Tan!” Bess repeated. The dog followed his mate, ears pricked, tail stiff, keen nose sniffing the air.

  Bess was halfway down the outside steps when Seeny struck up a cry. Tan began to bark and vanished into the thick fog. The bitch’s deep, resounding bellow brought similar responses from a dozen other dogs. The fog muffled the sound and played tricks on Bess’s hearing, but instinct made her turn toward the river landing.

  Her heart was in her. throat. Her mouth was dry, and she clenched her teeth to keep them from chattering. There was no question of running in the murky gray vapor. She shoved one pistol into her waistband, took a firm grip on the second, and walked with one hand out in front of her to keep from striking something head-on.

  Still not knowing if she’d alerted the servants and loosed the hounds for nothing, Bess forced herself to take one step after another. Fear coiled inside her. She was perspiring, despite the clammy, damp mist. She felt like a child wandering through a nightmare, waiting for some creature to leap out at her, almost wishing it would. Nothing could be worse than this nameless dread, or the overwhelming sense that something unclean walked Fortune’s Gift tonight.

  Suddenly she stopped and felt the space in front of her. She couldn’t see her own hand in front of her face. Everything was lost in an enveloping cloud. Her breath came in quick, short gasps; her blood was racing. She wanted to turn and run, but she couldn’t. If she gave in to her fears, where would she stop?

  She moved her hand back and forth. Nothing. Hesitantly, she took a step and stifled a cry as her foot struck something. Shaking, she dropped to her knees and reached out with trembling fingers. She touched something still warm and fur-covered. Something that no longer held life.

  She ran her hand along the animal’s belly and up over a front leg, stopping when she came to a wet, sticky ooze. It was a dog, a big one, and his throat was cut. She felt for a collar and found braided rawhide. Lafe Johnson’s mastiff. Dead not more than a few minutes, unless she missed her guess.

  Bess rose and tried to get her directions. Was the dock straight ahead, she wondered, or was it more to the right? The dead dog had frightened her half out of her wits. But it wasn’t just the dog. It was—

  Without warning, the night exploded into pandemonium. A volley of shots rang out behind her. She heard a woman scream, followed by the roar of a flintlock pistol. The dogs no longer bayed; their snarls nearly drowned out the sounds of the gunfire.

  Bess turned and ran toward the commotion. Just ahead of her, a straw stack went up in flames. In the flickering light, she made out a bulky form struggling with a slighter one.

  “Help me!”

  She recognized the twang of Yorkshire in the terrified woman’s voice, followed by the rip of tearing cloth and the sickening thud of a man’s fist striking soft flesh. Mariah Carey, Joe Carey’s bride of four months, was newly come from England. Mariah’s shriek of pain turned to subdued weeping as her assailant threw her to the ground and pinned her with his body.

  “No. No,” the girl sobbed.

  Bess rushed at the man, put the barrel of her pistol against his side, and pulled the trigger. He jerked backward and fell facedown, clutching at the gaping hole in his rib cage.

  Mariah covered her face with her hands and cried hysterically. She was naked from the waist up, and blood trickled from one corner of her mouth.

  “Get up!” Bess hissed. “There’s no time for this.”

  Mariah lowered her hands and stared wide-eyed at Bess. “They killed Joe,” she moaned. “They cut off his head.”

  “Who? Who are they?” Bess demanded. She rolled the dying man over and stared into his ugly face. He was a total stranger.

  “Pirates, Joe said,” Mariah babbled. “Run, he said. It’s pirates.” She began to weep again. “They murdered him. They murdered my Joe.”

  “How many of them did you see?” Bess asked. She could smell smoke. Screams of women blended now with the panicked whinnying of trapped horses. Two barns were on fire, and it sounded to her as though skirmishes were going on in at least three different spots. More shots rang out through the fog, and off to her left, beyond the pound, Bess saw two men on horseback driving the cattle toward the river.

  “I don’t know . . . I don’t know,” Mariah wailed. “He tried to . . .” She pointed at the dead man. “He said he was goin’ to . . .”

  “Are you hurt?” Bess asked her.

  Mariah began to shake.

  “Stop that!” Bess said. “Can you fire a pistol?”

  “No. I never held no pistol. I’d be feared of a—”

  Bess stuck the empty flintlock into her waistband and retrieved the loaded one. “Run and hide in the woods,” she said, pointing away from the fires. “Go that way. No one will see you in the fog.”

  “I’m feared,” Mariah whimpered. “They’ll come back and get me.”

  “Do as I say,” Bess commanded. “Run into the woods and hide until morning.” She turned away toward the pound.

  “Don’t leave me,” Mariah cried.

  “Go! Quick, before someone sees us,” Bess replied.

  “I’m afraid. I can’t.”

  “Get to the woods, you buffle-headed jade, before I shoot you.” Bess raised her pistol menacingly. Mariah gave a muffled shriek and dashed off in the direction of the woods. Bess looked around, heard the brindle bitch’s bark, and ran toward the sound.

  At the corner of the barn, Clyde, one of her grooms, was using a pitchfork to hold off two men with cutlasses. The hound, hackles raised, was snarling at the intruders. Seeny’s mouth was stained dark, and she had sustained a deep gash down one side, but she was gamely trying to assist the boy.

  As Bess approached, the man closest to Clyde stepped back, lowered his cutlass, and drew a pistol, taking aim at the groom. Bess raised her own weapon and fired. The light was poor, and he was a moving target. With only one shot, she knew she’d not have a second chance. To her delight, the ball tore into his hip. Emitting a yelp of pain, he dropped the pistol.

  The second man, a husky seaman with his hair braided into a single tarred pigtail, whirled toward Bess and slashed at her with his cutlass. She sidestepped the blade. “Seeny, kill!” she ordered.

  The hound had never hunted men. The order was one given to attack a bear or a crazed steer, but the bitch never hesitated. She flung herself at the sailor’s throat. The man toppled over, and Clyde drove the pitchfork through his chest.

  For a moment, the boy stared down in shock at the twitching man; then he blinked and passed his arm in front of his face. “Me mam,” he croaked. “Me mam is alone. I got to go to her.”

  “Arm yourself,” Bess said, pointing to the marauder’s pistol. Clyde nodded, snatched up the flintlock, and ran back along the side of the burning barn. The pitchfork stood upright in the fallen man’s chest.

  Bess’s stomach turned over and she shut her eyes for a second, trying to regain her nerve. Whining, the dog crept close to her leg and licked her hand. “Good Seeny, good girl,” she said. She was tired, so tired. The sickly-sweet smell of blood was thick in the air; cinders and burning hay fell around her.

  Her head hurt, and the sight of the man with the pitchfork in his chest made her want to be sick. The urge to give in to her fears-to run and hide—was very strong. But she couldn’t. This was her home, her people, and if she must meet violence with violence to protect what
she loved, then she must find the courage or at least pretend she possessed it.

  A deep baying resounded from across the yard, a sound that brought Seeny instantly alert. She leaped away from Bess and hurled herself into the fog as the baying rose to an agonized yelp. Bess recognized the sound as Seeny’s mate, Tan. He was obviously hurt, and judging from the fierce growl that came seconds later, it was clear that the hound bitch had gone to Tan’s aid. Seeny’s enraged snarling was pierced by a man’s high-pitched scream and then a musket shot.

  Bess knew that she’d fired both pistols and hadn’t had time to reload, but she was afraid that if she didn’t act at once, it would be too late to save her dogs. Heedless of her own safety, she rushed toward the confrontation.

  She’d not gone a half-dozen steps into the blinding fog when someone grabbed her. Bess struck out wildly at her assailant, but a sinewy hand clamped over her mouth so tightly that she wasn’t even able to scream.

  Terror-stricken, she kicked and punched, trying to break free. She twisted and attempted to scratch the man’s eyes, but he was too strong for her. Despite her struggles, he dragged her off deeper into the all-encompassing fog.

  “What have ye there?” a rough voice called from the darkness.

  “Find your own slut. This’n’s mine.”

  The faceless outlaw answered with a slash of his cutlass. Bess caught sight of it before she was thrown hard against the ground. She rolled away as a pistol spit fire and lead. There was a muffled thud and then silence.

  Bess listened. The fighting still raged around the barns and dependencies. But here, in this circle of gray, there was an unnatural quiet. One man had fallen; one waited for her to move. She knew it. But she also knew that if she didn’t move, he’d catch her.

  Stealthily, she began to crawl away. She’d lost both pistols and had nothing to defend herself with but her wits. She wasn’t even certain where she was. Her sense of direction was confused by the fog and by her fright of being seized by a man she couldn’t see. She thought there was a split-rail fence a few hundred feet ahead. If she could just reach that line of—