“Can I have Mary please?” she demanded, her voice shaking but sharp.
“I-I didn’t-” Duncan stammered, but he could hardly remember how to speak. He didn’t think that he had ever seen a woman’s beautiful face bloody and bruised before. The knowledge that it was because of him made him physically ill. He wanted to kill Sean Connelly, but his own sense of self-loathing had paralyzed his limbs.
“Please?” Ciaran begged, holding out her arms for the baby. She took the child from Duncan’s unresisting grip and called Aidan closer to her. “Go now,” she said to Duncan, not able to meet his eyes. “You can’t be here.”
“But-”
Duncan still didn’t have full control over himself. He couldn’t believe any man could raise a hand against this defenseless woman. He knew there were men out there who considered it their right, but he had never imagined such a small thing might stir a man to such mindless anger. How could he leave Ciaran, knowing her husband was liable to come back and do the same again?
“Please?” Ciaran implored him, and Mary started to cry. She held the baby close, cradling her in trembling arms. “Please go? Before you make it worse?” she begged breathlessly.
“I didn’t know I’d done wrong,” Duncan said regretfully, his soul aching for the pain he had unwittingly caused her.
“Go,” Ciaran sighed. “And please don’t say anything to anyone?” she asked quietly. “Sean-Sean isn’t-he isn’t a bad man,” she added, although she didn’t sound terribly convincing. “It was my own fault.” Duncan was too affected by that claim to even find his voice. “Now please, you must go!”
“I’m sorry.”
“Go,” Ciaran repeated, raising a hand to her forehead in despair.
The Scotsman hesitated a moment longer, but she refused to meet his eyes, ignoring him completely in the hopes he would take a hint. Her entire body sagged in relief when he finally turned and walked away. A wave of humiliation crashed around her in his wake, the pain of it was almost harder to bear than the physical punishment Sean had rained down on her body. Tears pricked the back of her eyes. What must MacRae think of her? That she was peasant trash? That she was the whore Sean accused her of playing? That she had gotten what she deserved?
No!
The denial rose instantly in her mind.
Whatever he might think of her, the disgust MacRae felt for her husband’s behavior had been clear.
It was his fault another voice argued, struggling against the desire to think well of the Scot. That much was true. Why hadn’t Duncan simply sent Liam on his way? The boy wasn’t really hurt badly after all.
Ciaran knew the answer to that question too. At least, she thought she did. What she couldn’t understand is why the thought of Duncan MacRae lusting after her body didn’t fill her with disgust the same as when other men leered at her chest and propositioned her with their eyes.
Duncan was different.
Ciaran was ashamed of the thought, but she couldn’t quite dismiss it. There was a kindness in his eyes she wanted so desperately to believe was genuine. He was a man - therefore, not to be trusted - but it was still true some men were better than others, and she felt, intuitively, that Duncan was better than most.
All men wanted the same thing. Ciaran shuddered as she replayed the too-recent memories of Sean’s hands groping her as he used her body, but even the thought of satisfying Duncan MacRae’s carnal lust (she was a wicked, unchristian woman to even have the thought!) sounded bearable in return for his good qualities.
He was handsome. That was a shallow consideration, but still true. Sean had been a fine looking man once, but time and drink had aged his face. By the time he dragged Ciaran into his bed, he was already haggard and worn.
Mr. MacRae didn’t have a problem with drink, at least not that she’d heard. The group was cohabitating so closely she thought she knew almost everyone’s foibles by now. That was another mark in his favor. How wonderful it would be not to deal with a mercurial temper, or to spend every night sitting up, wondering when your husband would make it home from the pub, and secretly praying he didn’t.
Duncan MacRae was a kind man, or at least he had been kind to the children. Liam was afraid of most men. His father had taught him that, but Duncan slipped through his defenses and made him smile. Ciaran had to like him for that, even if he was using the children to get to her, he seemed to genuinely care.
It was no wonder that the MacRae’s respected Duncan so much. They revered him as their leader, even now, and Ciaran had to admit, she was attracted to his power. Even in his prime, Sean Connelly had never been the sort of man others would follow. She liked the idea of the control the Scottish Laird could wield. She thought it would make her feel safe. It had been so long since she’d felt that way.
Ciaran shuddered as she pulled her head back out of the clouds, back to the harsh reality of what her life actually was, rather than what she wanted it to be. She had to finish the washing, and then get supper on. Sean was in such a foul mood. His temper was like black powder, the tiniest spark of inconvenience might set him off again. She didn’t fancy another beating, and she’d especially hate to risk his lighting in to one of the kids! He’d been so hard on them lately, Ryan especially. She was afraid of what he might do. So, pushing Duncan MacRae firmly out of her mind, Ciaran got back to work.
..ooOOoo..
Duncan was still shaking with unspent rage when he wandered back to camp. His eyes darted around the camp, and he was grateful he didn’t see Sean. He was afraid of what he might do if he did.
The sun was beginning to set. A party of men who had gone hunting returned with their afternoon catch. They had taken a fine twelve-point buck that they set to dressing and preparing for the evening meal.
This was the last night they would all sleep easy. In the morning, when they forded the river, they were truly in the frontier. Indian country lay on the other side, conjuring up stories and visions which made even the most dauntless man wary, Duncan included.
One of the Irishmen took out a fiddle, and Frasure Cameron found his pipes. Together, the musicians picked out a lively jig, and a few of the couples began to dance. Laughter and the smell of food filled the air, creating an atmosphere of merriment Duncan couldn’t join. He couldn’t stop thinking about Ciaran.
There had to be some way to show her how sorry he was, to make her understand that he hadn’t meant any harm. It would be easiest simply to apologize, but he didn’t dare go near her again.
He tried once again to push her out of his mind - but that was far easier said than done. He wanted to protect her, to save her, even if it wasn’t his place.
Duncan sat on a fallen log and put his head in his hands, trying to devise a plan. He wasn’t left alone long enough to find success. He was seated for less than a moment before Ross hailed him and invited him to join them all for supper.
“In a moment,” Duncan called back. He wasn’t hungry, but he knew better than to skip a meal. The daily travel was grueling, even from the back of a horse, and he needed to keep up his strength. He stood and walked to his saddlebag, then reached inside to retrieve his plate and spoon and paused when his fingers brushed a little burlap bag.
It was a gift of lemon suckets, presented to him by his little nephew, Samuel, who was horrified by the notion that there would be no sweetmeats in Ken-tuh-keh. Duncan didn’t care much for the sugary fruits, but he was too touched by the gift (he knew with so many mouths to feed, his younger brother didn’t afford his children much of an allowance) he hadn’t been able to turn it down. Perhaps Ciaran’s children would like to have them? It wasn’t exactly an apology, but it was a start.
Deciding on this course of action, Duncan glanced across the clearing at the Connelly wagon. Ciaran hadn’t returned from the riverbank, and Sean was sitting by the fire, drinking and laughing with some of his friends. Duncan decided to seize his chance. Hiding the bag in the palm of his hand, he hurried to the wagon and, using its bulk to hide his frame, peeke
d beneath its oilcloth cover. It didn’t take long to spy what he was after. Four rambunctious boys left Ciaran with a mountain of mending. Almost every night she took out her little basket and worked as she sat by the fire. It was the only place Duncan could think of to leave the gift where only she would find it. He lifted the lid, slipped the candy inside, and then hurried back to his own side of the camp, half hidden behind a wagon wheel so he could watch and wait unseen.
Evening was drawing in when Ciaran returned to camp. Mary was slung across her hip and Aidan clung to her skirts while Ryan carried the washing and Avery and Liam walked beside the others. In his observations, Duncan had witnessed a similar scene two dozen times. Tonight, however, the entire family seemed muted. He wondered if something had happened to the boys as well.
Ciaran’s hair was still unbound. He wondered if she’d washed it in the river, because it hung around her hair in long heavy streamers that looked dark now that the sun was nearly gone.
The dimness hid most of the woman’s injuries, though she was walking with a faint limp. Duncan pursed his lips in concern and kept watching as she draped the clean laundry over the edge of the wagon to dry, and then went to stir the pot of stew she’d set on for supper before she left.
The boys gathered around their mother, tucking into their bowls of food. Duncan continued watching, unashamedly, as she unbuttoned the front of her dress and loosened her stays. Desire swirled in Duncan’s gut at the sight of her creamy breast. She lifted the plump swell with one hand, and used the other to guide the baby’s mouth to her nipple, where it latched on hungrily and began to feed while Ciaran rocked her back and forth.
Ryan brought his stepmother her own dish of food. Duncan frowned at the meager portion, apparent even from far away, but Ciaran didn’t seem to mind. She ate it in quick, efficient bites, and then finished Mary’s feeding, burped the baby, and laid her down to sleep.
At last came the moment Duncan was waiting for. Ciaran reached inside the wagon and pulled out her sewing supplies. She carried a pile of clothes to her seat by the fire, and then reached inside the willow basket that held her thread and thimble and pulled out Duncan’s offering instead.
He watched her expression carefully as she turned the bag over in her hand, and then peeked inside, astonishment written on her face. Her delicate fingers slipped inside, and she pulled out a sugared fruit. Duncan couldn’t hear what the children were saying, but he could see the excitement on their faces when they noticed the candy. They reminded him of baby birds as they crowded around their stepmother, clamoring for a bite to eat. She passed out the sweets. They were smiling again. Duncan took a bit of comfort from that fact, and a bit more from what happened next. Ciaran put the bag away, and then she cast her gaze around the camp. Duncan held his breath, waiting to see if he’d be spotted. Ciaran’s eyes drifted past his hiding spot to the fire, and then back again, but didn’t seem to find what she was looking for.
“Thank you,” she mouthed silently, although she wasn’t facing anyone in particular. Duncan knew she meant it for him.
“You’re kindly welcome Ciaran,” he mouthed back, glad that he’d repaid a tiny morsel of happiness, and wanting to give her so much more.
..ooOOoo..
“Stay close Aidan - Liam, you too! Ryan, Avery, you have to help me mind your brothers. There can’t be any wandering off. It isn’t safe. We have to be more careful now.”
“We’re in injun country!” Avery announced with a great deal of authority.
Liam looked frightened. “Are they going to get us, Mama?” he asked in a wary whisper.
“No, darling,” Ciaran tried to reassure him, but her voice was drowned out by Ryan’s gleeful:
“They’ll catch you and they’ll cut off your scalp!”
“Ryan!” Ciaran snapped, “Don’t you go winding him up!” And don’t frighten me any worse than I am. She added on in her mind, glancing warily over her shoulder, half-convinced that the natives were going to descend any moment as it was.
The day hadn’t started off well. After a week of rain, the river was deeper and faster than they’d expected and it had been difficult getting across. Two of the sheep that had been brought along were swept away down the stream, and the wheel fell off the Cartee’s wagon again, forcing them all to stop and make repairs.
LaSoeur, their guide, had been annoyed by the delays, and took every opportunity he could to remind them that Indian eyes were probably watching every move they made.
“They’re waiting for a moment of weakness!” he exclaimed, waving his arms in agitation. “When we drop our guard, that is when they strike!”
By the time they started moving again, Ciaran was half-sick with fear. She didn’t know how she could bear to live this way every moment for the rest of her life.
Ciaran got the impression that quite a few of the other women felt the same way she did, and maybe even some of the men too. When they made camp that night everyone was at least slightly muted. The jolly, positive energy of the party had vanished, and any infrequent laugher that broke out now sounded high and nervous. People were just too busy watching their backs to have time to do much else.
Ciaran couldn’t help being aware of where Duncan and his group had decided to make camp. They seemed so much more organized and better prepared than everyone else. Ciaran wished Sean had allowed their wagon to be closer to the Scots. She would have felt just a little bit safer if he had, but, of course, they were about as far away as was possible.
It was hard to fall asleep that night. Sean had managed to drink himself into a stupor - possibly the only way that Ciaran liked her husband - so at least she didn’t have to deal with his unwelcome attention, but every rustle and creak sounded like Indians approaching to Ciaran. She lay absolutely still and prayed for morning, when at least she would be able to see what was going to kill her.
Dawn came and the camp seemed to relax a little in comparison to the night before. It was hard to sustain a constant feeling of abject terror. Even Ciaran was too tired to feel quite as scared as she had the day before.
“Avery, where’s your brother?” Ciaran sighed. She was serving up their meager breakfast and was left with Aidan’s bowl.
“I don’t know,” The oldest boy shrugged and continued gobbling down his porridge in ravenous bites. “But I’ll have his breakfast if he doesn’t want it!”
“Hey!” Ryan cried. “That’s not fair! I’m smaller than you, I should get it!”
“Neither of you are having it!” Ciaran said impatiently. “Now please go and find Aidan while I see to Liam and Mary.”
The older children sighed, but they did as they were asked. Ciaran looked around anxiously, wishing she could curb Aidan of this habit. If her husband had been around she might even have asked for his help to find their son, but Sean wasn’t around. He had taken, by far, the largest serving of porridge and then gone off to speak to some of the other men - some of the other men who could be found with a bottle in their hand almost as often as Sean himself.
“Ma, Aidan shouldn’t wander off, should he?” Liam asked, managing to take tiny little bits of his food to make it last as long as possible.
“No, Liam. He-”
“Indians! INDIANS!!!”
Ciaran’s heart just about stopped beating, she clutched Mary to her breast and almost sank to her knees. They were going to die.
Pandemonium erupted around the campsite. People were screaming and running all over the place, but - but there were no Indian’s charging through the wagons lopping people’s scalps off. Ciaran had managed to get a little bit of a grip on her fear when Sean came thundering over to her, barking orders to pack everything up as fast as possible. He even helped!
“What-what’s going on?” Ciaran asked.
“Owen says he spotted an Indian scout. They’ll be on us in no time. We have to leave.”
Ciaran looked around frantically for the boys. “We can’t leave without Aidan!”
“Aidan? You let him
wander off again?” Sean roared.
“I-I didn’t let him wander off,” Ciaran cried. She was too scared to watch what she was saying at the moment. “I only took my eyes off him for a second,” she whimpered, wringing her hands fearfully.
Sean looked like he wanted to slap his wife for her idiocy, but luckily for her he had both of his hands full. “Look Ciaran, just help me pack everything into the bloody wagon before the Indian’s kill us!” he snapped. “Aidan will turn up. He always does!”
Ciaran had to admit that much was true. Avery and Ryan were looking for their brother, and Aidan had never got really and truly lost before. Surely this wouldn’t be the first time they wouldn’t be able to find him?
“Ma! Pa!”
Avery and Ryan appeared just a minute or so later, but without their little brother. They were both out of breath and looked absolutely terrified.
“Where’s Aidan?” Ciaran demanded, rushing towards them. She was sick with fear. They could be attacked at any second and she had lost one of her sons.
“We couldn’t find him,” Avery panted. “Everyone’s saying-saying the injuns are coming to kill us!”
“That’s right,” Sean interjected without any sympathy. “So can you two help your father? Your mother isn’t capable of doing anything,” he snarled.
“Aidan!” Ciaran shouted, ignoring her husband as her mothering instincts overrode even her own desire for survival. “Aidan!” She darted frantically between the different wagons calling out her son’s name.
“What is going on here?”
Ciaran looked up into LaSoeur’s frowning face. The Frenchman was perched atop his horse looking down at her with displeasure.
“My son! I can’t find my son!” Ciaran sobbed, twisting her head this way and that as she tried to catch sight of Aidan. “Have you seen him? Please! We can’t leave without him!” she cried, seeing that everyone else was just about ready to leave. A few people glanced at her in concern, but no one seemed to be able to tell her the whereabouts of her son.
“Non! We cannot wait!” LaSoeur scoffed. “We must leave now! Immédiatement!”
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