Love A Rebel...Love A Rogue (Blackthorne Trilogy)

by Henke, Shirl

  Barbara shuddered. ”I don't want to be here in this hellish conflict. When will it end?” She could feel him shrug in that smooth, careless way he had about him. He always moved like a big tawny cat, sleek and dangerous for all his flirtations and teasing ways.

  “The way the rebels hang on in the back country, it may take a decade to subdue them.” He did not voice his private fears that without more reinforcements from Lord Germain's government, the British cause might be lost in these colonies.

  Just then the sounds of rushing water filled the silence as they rode. They came upon a thick stand of willows, whose weeping branches trailed into the rapidly moving current. “Heavy rains last week must have filled this stream.” He cursed as he reined in and surveyed the roiling water.

  Pig Sticker conferred with him, then pointed to a spot where the river curved sharply. Devon turned his bay in that direction and splashed into the rapidly deepening water.

  “You aren't going to ford this without testing the depth? Surely there must be a bridge—”

  His laughter cut her off. ”A bridge?” His chest rumbled. “I doubt there are a dozen bridges in Georgia since the rebels burned what few lay between Savannah and Augusta. Here there never were any to burn.”

  She seized hold of the saddle with renewed strength. “I'll get soaking wet.”

  “Good. You smell like a bear pit after winter hibernation,” he said pleasantly as the bay began to swim.

  The rocking motion of the horse caused Barbara to slip. Devon's arm tightened around her waist, just below her breasts. His eyes traveled over her shoulder to view the tantalizing mounds of creamy flesh. The ripped gown accentuated more than it concealed of her lush curves. The sunburn oil he'd spread over her skin was beaded with tiny pearls of perspiration now, glistening in the heat.

  Devon could feel his body respond and cursed to himself. Why had he been saddled with an English noblewoman—and a beauty at that—while on such an important mission? So involved was he with the sweet curves of Barbara's flesh that he almost didn't hear Pig Sticker's shouted warning. A large piece of driftwood was headed directly toward them!

  He quickly turned the bay, but the horse stumbled and pitched to one side as it scrambled for footing on the uneven stream bottom. Devon struggled to hold on, but as the current washed over him, Barbara was wrenched away into the muddy, swirling water.

  She screamed as she felt herself slipping, clawing at Devon's solid body. Her wet fingers could get no purchase. ”I can't swim!”

  Devon saw her blond hair bob beneath the water, then resurface several yards farther downstream. Throwing his pistols and knife onto the bank, he hurled free of his stirrups and dove into the water after her.

  Barbara knew she was going to die. So this is what it is like. She went beneath the dark water again, sinking lower, lower. Then suddenly a strong arm wrapped around her waist and she was slammed into Devon's body. He kicked them to the surface and began to swim for the shallows. Holding her tightly, he finally succeeded in reaching waist-deep water, where he scooped her into his arms and walked slowly to the bank.

  Barbara clung tightly to Devon, her head nestled against his throat as she let the steady pounding beat of his heart reassure her that she was indeed still alive. He laid her on the mossy ground beneath the spreading branches of a willow. When Pig Sticker called out for him, he yelled back in Muskogee, then knelt beside her and turned her over.

  “Cough up the water. You probably swallowed half that river.” He held her up by placing one arm beneath her breasts, then leaned her forward and pounded gently on her back until she choked up a gush of water. After that he let her recline on her back, gasping great gulps of air into her lungs.

  Devon watched the rise and fall of her breasts as the wet linen clung to them. Her gown had been all but shredded during the shipwreck. Now she was down to only a linen chemise and part of one petticoat. Every ripe curve of her body was revealed to him.

  ”I planned a bath for you, but not this way,” he murmured.

  ”I—” She coughed. “—never...bathe...outdoors.”

  He chuckled. “Well, you just did—and since you're already soaked, I suggest you remove these clothes and let me build a fire to dry them. You can't afford to lose any more.” As he spoke he began to peel off his buckskin shirt.

  Barbara watched the corded muscles play beneath the bronzed skin of his arms and chest, which was furred with coarse gold hair. Without realizing she had done it, she reached out and splayed her fingers in the mat of hair. His heartbeat accelerated.

  He cocked one eyebrow quizzically and grinned. “Feeling grateful?”

  She stiffened and pushed him away. “Grateful for what?”

  “For saving your life!”

  “Saving my life? If it weren't for you and your idiotic pursuit of some petty thief, I'd be safe in Savannah now!”

  “You spoiled little bitch! I should’ve let you drown.” He stood up, staring down at her, an insolent smile playing at his lips. “Well, it was almost worth it, just to get that stinking salt and sweat washed off you!” He inspected her body through the translucent wet linen. “You clean up very nicely, your ladyship.”

  Barbara cursed and bolted upright, then searched frantically around her for a weapon. Finding none, she clawed up a clump of mossy mud and hurled it at him. “Leave me alone!’’

  Sketching a mock bow, he backed off. “Whatever your ladyship wishes, but the fire and the food will be over there.” He picked up his shirt and slung it over one shoulder, then sauntered from beneath the willow to where Pig Sticker waited with both horses.

  Barbara huddled, glowering, beneath the tree, wet and miserable, for nearly an hour. Then she walked to the bank of the river and washed her hands. Devon had been right about her needing to dry her clothes, yet how could she? The sun was rapidly setting in the west, and she began to shiver as she sat finger-combing the damp, tangled mass of pale blond hair. Knowing nothing of how to dress her own hair, she simply let it hang in a long straight cascade which fell to her hips. If only Kate were here to tend to her as she always had. Poor Kate, dead of a fever—all because of Marianne Caruthers's vindictive jealousy. “I won't let her defeat me,” she whispered with steel in her voice.

  She stood up and did what she could to straighten her pitifully torn clothes. God above, she was half naked! It was a wonder that half-caste and his cousin hadn't raped her! Perhaps Devon Blackthorne finds you so ugly he doesn't want you. She dismissed the oddly distressing thought and squared her shoulders, then walked defiantly toward the campfire.

  Devon was kneeling on the ground, dumping several small rabbits from his game pouch. He scowled up at her, reading her mind from her haughty expression. Damn, what other woman alive could be left half naked, bruised, exhausted and twice nearly drowned, alone in the wilderness with two savage strangers, yet possess such stubborn spirit?

  He smiled in spite of himself. ”I see you've finally gotten over your pique. Now you can help us with supper. I snared these rabbits while Pig Sticker built the fire. He'll stand watch tonight and scout the area for signs of McGilvey. You can clean and cook the rabbits.”

  “Surely you're making a poor jest.” She knew he was not.

  “You watched me skin and gut the possum. These are a lot smaller and easier to dress.” He tossed a small, sharp skinning knife onto the ground by her side. Then, reading the murderous look in her eyes, he added, “And don't think to sink that blade anywhere but into those rabbits, your ladyship.” He patted the big, wicked-looking blade strapped at his thigh. “I'd hate to mar that lovely skin.”

  ”I refuse to touch those...furry creatures,” she said between clenched teeth.

  “Then you don't eat,” he replied levelly. “Not that I'd expect a spoiled stupid chit from London to be able to do a single useful thing.”

  Her stomach picked that most inopportune time to growl. He smiled and turned toward the western bend in the river, along which a thick stand of willows grew.
“I'm going to investigate what Pig Sticker's found. We may be within a day of catching McGilvey, and he's not a man to take lightly. But then, neither am I, Lady Barbara.” He walked off without a backward glance.

  She resisted the urge to do just as he'd threatened her not to and plant the skinning knife squarely between those broad shoulders. She settled for piercing his back with her eyes, then looked down at the rabbits after he disappeared from view. Barbara kicked one small brown furball with her bare foot, sending it flying across the dusty ground. Stamping her foot in frustration, she muttered, “He thinks to come back after dark and find me huddled sobbing and cold at that fire, pleading for his help. Well, I'll show him!”

  Her resolve was far easier spoken than accomplished. She almost cut off her finger on the first try at skinning one rabbit, but once she made the incision across its back, she grasped the skin on each side and yanked. It gave, and the meaty backbone was revealed. Forcing down her nausea, she continued to pull on the skin until she'd worked it free from the torso. She tried to remember how Devon had freed the legs, then began to pull and twist each half until she had extracted a reasonably intact carcass.

  Throwing the bloody fur into the brush, she gritted her teeth for the worst. She must gut the creature next. By the time she'd cleaned out the body cavity, her roiling stomach had subsided. The trick, she concluded, was not to breathe through one's nose and smell the fetid stench of hot intestines. By the time she'd washed the rabbit in the river and spitted it over the fire, she felt a considerable sense of accomplishment—until she looked down at her blood-and-entrails-smeared body. And the other rabbit.

  Slowly a smile spread across her face. She checked the perimeters of their camp. Neither Devon nor Pig Sticker was within sight or sound. If she were quick about it… She lowered the rabbit almost onto the coals to hasten its cooking time, then took the other one and threw it in the river along with the guts and fur.

  By the time she'd washed the mess from her body and searched Devon's saddlebags for a clean shirt to wear, the rabbit was done enough to eat. She devoured more than half of it, tearing into the stringy meat as if it were the rarest delicacy ever set before her. Looking down at the meager remnants of meat and pile of bones, she burped, then broke into a peal of giggles, giddy with her success.

  She tidied up the campsite, washed her greasy hands, then changed into Devon's shirt. It hung almost to her knees, and the cuffs fell below her fingertips, but she tied the tails of it about her waist, letting it blouse decently, then rolled up the sleeves. Once fed, cleaned up, and dressed, she sat back and began to lose her sense of triumph. What would those two savages do to her when they returned hungry and found no food? Nervously she eyed the remaining leg and piece of breastbone next to the pile of scraps. “It serves them right,” she said with a resolution she was far from feeling.

  Needing something to occupy her mind, she returned to Devon's saddlebags and rummaged through them. Yes, just as she had recalled in her earlier haste, a book! A half-caste Indian, a backwoodsman, carried a volume of Jonathan Swift! Surely he could not read, could he?

  What kind of an enigma was Devon Blackthorne, who had the book inscribed with his name, written in a bold scrawl across the title page. His speech, if not his etiquette, bespoke a man of education in spite of rude colonial dress. He was an officer in a colonial militia. Even though Barbara knew from Monty's letters how he regarded the loyalist militiamen, she grudgingly admitted that Devon possessed survival skills peculiarly fitted for success in the wilderness.

  Putting aside her disturbing ruminations about Devon, she immersed herself in the outrageous satire of the scandalous Mr. Swift, who had long ago fallen from political favor. The adventures of Gulliver, however, were still entertaining.

  Devon and Pig Sticker returned together, talking animatedly in Muskogee. They had found the trail of McGilvey's mule, not even two days ahead of them. Tomorrow would bring the reckoning. The smell of roasting rabbit remained faint on the air. Devon broke into a surprised smile. By God, she'd done it! He stepped into the light of the campfire and gazed down at Barbara's pale hair, spilling down her back like corn silk as she sat clutching a book.

  He scanned the campfire area. “Where's the rest of the rabbits?”

  “I ate my fill,” she said, then returned to Swift.

  “Two whole rabbits?”

  She shrugged, mimicking his casual and infuriating gesture rather well.

  Devon advanced toward her and yanked her to her feet. “You did not eat two whole rabbits.”

  She pulled free of his grasp. “You're hurting my arm!”

  “I'll do more than hurt your arm. I'll tan your backside with the flat of my hand if you don't tell me what—”

  The deafening report of a Brown Bess musket echoed across the campsite, the ball narrowly brushing by Devon's shoulder. “McGilvey,” he swore as he dove on top of Barbara, throwing them both to the ground. Then he shoved her from the circle of light around the campfire and kicked dust into it, snuffing it out.

  At the first report of the gun, Pig Sticker had vanished into the willows from which they'd just emerged. Devon dragged Barbara into the tall grass, and they both dropped to their hands and knees. Devon's hand landed on the sharp rabbit bones and greasy leftovers she'd discarded earlier.

  “So that's what you did with the rest,” he whispered, then shoved her flat onto the ground and handed her the skinning knife, which he'd managed to grab before rolling away from the fire. “Move farther back into that heavy brush and hide yourself. Keep this knife and use it if you have to.”

  Before she could question him, Devon vanished through the grass. She could see nothing but dark shadows surrounding her. Out there among the whispering branches of the willows and jagged arms of the pines, the renegade McGilvey waited. She shivered, thinking of what a hunted thief like him would do if he caught her. But to do that he'd have to kill Devon. Devon. She could see him, lying bleeding, silent in death, that infuriating smile forever erased from his handsome face. No, it couldn't happen! She clutched the knife tightly and listened.

  Devon worked his way in a circle and met Pig Sticker in the willow thicket. “He doubled back on us, damn his crafty soul,” Devon whispered. “How many men do you think he's brought with him? We counted three riding with the mules.”

  “One would wait with the prize, the others come to kill us,” the Muskogee said.

  “That shot came from behind me.”

  Pig Sticker's lips curved grimly. “The one who fired it will not do so again.” He showed Devon a Brown Bess musket. “Here is his weapon. I have spiked it.”

  Devon grinned and nodded. “We'll use knives in the darkness. I'm going to circle around the marsh grasses toward those trees to the east. You see if you can find where his mules are hidden. I imagine they're not all that far from here, probably due west by the riverbank.”

  “If I can set the mules to braying, that will flush our quarry quickly. He will not endanger his prize,” Pig Sticker said, and was gone in an instant.

  Devon moved stealthily through the darkness, listening. After a few moments he heard it. The soft squish of a man's large, moccasined foot stealing across the marshy ground. Devon drew closer until he sighted his prey, a big brutish man in buckskins with another Brown Bess clutched, primed and ready to fire, in his meaty fists.

  What does the fool think he can hit in this darkness? He moved closer again, getting behind the renegade's back. Then he sprang up, but McGilvey's accomplice was as fast as a striking rattler and turned just as Devon jumped toward him. His gun was too cumbersome to use in such close quarters. When he tried to raise it, Devon kicked it away, then slashed wickedly across his foe's arm.

  Instantly, the renegade produced a knife of his own and the two adversaries circled each other in a dance of death. They thrust and parried, each scoring minor nicks on the other. Just as Devon feinted to the left and moved in to the right for the final blow, McGilvey's voice thundered out, distracting
his concentration.

  ”I got yer woman, Blackthorne!”

  McGilvey's man took advantage of the split second's distraction and sent his blade plunging into Devon's side, but Devon, too, was very fast. He managed to twist to the left just enough so the blow did not disembowel him, yet the tear in his side was agonizing. Not wasting an instant, Devon doubled over as if mortally wounded, but then brought home his blade in a killing zig-zag up the man's belly beneath his ribs.

  “I'll kill 'er real slow, Blackthorne, then scalp all this yeller hair.”

  As the second renegade crumpled lifelessly to the ground, Devon turned and moved through the trees toward the sound of McGilvey's taunting voice. “I'm coming, you son of a bitch! Best you look to your own scalp.”

  Barbara struggled in the renegade's grasp, but he only laughed and shook her like a rag doll. She still had the skinning knife hidden in her skirt, but instinctively knew that if she tried to use it now, he would quickly overpower her. She had been a fool to leave the brush where Devon had told her to hide. Wait, wait for Devon, she repeated to herself as she heard his voice echo in the night. When he entered the clearing by the campfire, she gasped in horror. He was covered with blood!

  Devon gritted his teeth against the pain and fought off waves of dizziness. He had bled a lot running to reach Barbara. “You've lost all your men, McGilvey. Now that Pig Sticker and I've dealt with them, I'll do for you.”

  The big, red-haired brute spat in the dust, revealing blackened teeth. One front tooth was missing. His yellow eyes narrowed with malice as he took in Blackthorne's injured side. With a grating laugh, he shoved Barbara roughly to the ground. ”I can finish you real easy, half-breed. Then I'll have yer woman. Think on it while you die.”

  He lunged at Devon with his big knife gleaming in an arc of death. It narrowly missed the wounded man, whose reflexes were greatly slowed. The two men closed, and each seized the knife hand of the other, locking themselves in a wrestling contest that could end only one way. Devon felt his strength ebbing, his grip loosening on McGilvey's hand.