by Deborah Hale
“Ye’re right.” Harris cursed himself for even suggesting it. “I’m sorry I asked. I’ll have to come up with another way.”
“There is no other way, Harris.” She shook her head. “The banns have been read. Jenny’s as good as wed to Rod Douglas.”
Three months ago, if he’d been faced with the same situation, Harris would have cut his losses and admitted defeat. Not now. His ordeals with Jenny had strengthened his powers of endurance and resilience like fire-tempered steel.
“Banns!” he cried. “That’s it, Morag. Hand me my shirt. I have to be on my way.”
She stared at him as though he’d taken leave of his senses. “Where do ye mean to go, Harris, and how? Ye can barely sit up, let alone stand or walk. What good is it going to do Miss Lennox if ye kill yerself on some fool’s errand trying to save her from her ain folly?”
Setting his teeth, Harris pulled himself erect. To his surprise, he did not immediately keel over. “My legs took the least of the beating, Morag. And ye can save yer breath, for there’s nothing ye can say to keep me from going. I may well fail, but I can’t let that stop me from trying.”
“Well, go ahead then.” She threw the shirt at him. “But I won’t see ye leave here the way ye came, with nothing but the clothes on yer back.”
He flashed her a smile of gratitude as he pulled on his shirt. “I’ll take whatever supplies ye can round up for me, and be grateful.”
Morag made to leave without a further word, but at the door she hesitated. As she stood silhouetted against the sunlight, Harris saw a tremor go through her. On the late summer breeze he heard a catch in her breath. “I always wished a man would love me the way ye love her.”
Harris lurched the few steps toward her—his legs were far sounder than his balance. He put his arms around Morag to keep from collapsing on the floor, as much as to offer her a crumb of comfort.
“One will, lass. Maybe there’s one who does already. Have ye looked outside yerself long enough to see?”
She let herself surrender to his embrace for just a moment before pulling free. “Don’t talk nonsense, Harris. I’ll go collect ye what gear I can.”
In her curt admonition, it heartened him to hear a degree of thawing.
He set off a half hour later, gamely, if not very steadily, muttering to himself a list of Alec McGregor’s directions. By his reckoning, he had five days to reach the Richibucto and get back again. A tall order, but possible. Or was it?
From her expensively glazed bedroom window, Jenny stared off into the distant woods.
“Where are ye now, Harris?” she murmured. “And why did ye pick this time to heed me when I told ye to go away?”
The blame rested squarely on her own shoulders—Jenny knew that. It did not improve her humor.
She had been pushing Harris away or fleeing from him ever since she’d realized what a threat he posed to her plans and her peace of mind. Sooner or later he’d been bound to take her at her word.
Why, then, did his going feel like abandonment?
Desertion.
Apart from her mother’s death, Jenny had never experienced it before. Now she understood, at least in part, how his own abandonment had shaped Harris’s character. She understood, at least in part, the pain it had caused him. What she could not fathom was why he had courted a revival of that pain by pursuing her—a woman destined to desert him.
Apparently he had come to his senses, at last, and that vindicated all her cherished beliefs about romantic love. Harris had protested deep feelings for her. They’d quickly withered when it became obvious she was committed to wedding Roderick. Better to have learned that harsh lesson now than to have succumbed to the attraction between them and discovered the truth only when it was too late.
Off in the distance, a tiny figure detached itself from the forest background. It moved closer, then stopped and retreated again.
A woman. That much Jenny could make out.
A black shawl billowed up in the dry west wind. Something in that movement sparked Jenny’s memory. There’d been a woman with a black shawl at the mass wedding she and Harris had attended. Perhaps he had heeded Alec McGregor’s invitation and gone back there to settle.
Suddenly Jenny was possessed by an overwhelming compulsion to glean one scrap of news about Harris—to hear his name spoken and to taste it aloud again on her own tongue.
Mrs. Lyons had gone off a short while ago to do the marketing. Ever since Harris left town, her strict warden-ship of the house had eased. If Jenny wanted to slip out for a breath of air, now was her chance.
As she descended the stairs, Jenny heard the hired girls sanding the parlor floor for Roderick’s party. Slipping unnoticed out the kitchen door, she set off across the meadow, toward the woods where she had seen the woman lurking. Her heart sank when she found the spot deserted. Perhaps she’d only imagined that hesitant figure, out of her longing for word of Harris. Or out of her need to escape the stifling atmosphere of Roderick’s house.
With a deep sigh, Jenny turned to go.
A faint rustling sound made her look back.
The black-shawled woman cowered in the shadow of a dark spruce tree, casting a feverish glance around the meadow, like a doe wary of predators. Hesitantly she beckoned.
“Who are ye and what do ye want?” The woman’s behavior made her nervous. What if the creature was a lunatic?
The woman pulled back the shawl from her face. Before she could stop herself, Jenny gasped.
“I’m Morag McGregor and I’ve something to say that ye must hear.”
Her face was more frightening in its marred beauty than plain ugliness. The intensity of the woman’s voice did nothing to reassure Jenny. Slowly she began to back away.
“If ye ever cared for Harris Chisholm, ye’ll hear me out, for his sake.”
Every instinct in Jenny screamed at her to turn and run. Instead, she planted her feet and challenged Morag McGregor, “Speak then.”
Chapter Nineteen
Harris cursed the fading light.
He had pushed on through the two previous nights, taking his bearings by the stars and stopping to snatch an hour of sleep only when exhaustion threatened. Now he feared he might have strayed off course on either of those nights. His time was running out. Even if he managed to reach Richibucto by morning and do his business immediately, how could he hope to turn around and make it back to Chatham in time to stop Jenny’s wedding?
Morag had been right. This was a fool’s errand. Another man might have accomplished it. A man in better condition. One with greater powers of endurance. One with a decent sense of direction.
Goaded by desperation, Harris picked up his pace. He must cover as much ground as possible while daylight lasted. His stride quickened to a trot and finally to a dead run. He’d stop and rest when he could no longer see the trees in his path.
This was perhaps the quietest hour of the day—when songbirds found a perch and folded their wings to sleep. Before owls and other night creatures began to stir. The only sounds Harris heard were the crunch of pine needles under his tread, the pounding of his pulse and the hiss of his labored breath.
His body ached from this heightened exertion when it yearned to rest. Harris pushed himself on. His weary mind teetered on the brink of sleep. He willed himself not to surrender. When the physical and mental effort grew too great for him to sustain, he began to strike bargains with himself.
Just twenty more strides. Just past that tall fir tree, up ahead. Just beyond this rise.
As Harris crested the rise, his legs continued pumping even after his mind had given them leave to stop. He lost his footing on the uneven ground. Down he fell, tumbling over and over. At last he hit bottom, catching all his weight on his left leg. A jolt of pain surged from his ankle, making him cry out.
Night and despair dropped on Harris like a giant slab of black granite.
“You look pensive tonight, Janet. Are you still fretting about arrangements for the party?”
>
Jenny glanced up from her supper. Roderick’s deep voice sounded so solicitous. His smile looked so charming. Surely the ravings of that madwoman couldn’t be true.
“I beg your pardon, Roderick. I don’t mean to be such disagreeable company for ye.”
“Quiet, yes. Disagreeable, never. Why, if all I did was look on you I could be contented, Janet. I’ll wager you’re the handsomest woman in the colony. Speaking of which, did you try on the gown I had sent over from the seamstress?”
A stinging blush rose in Jenny’s cheeks. “Aye. Do ye mean me to wear it for our wedding?”
It was an exquisite creation of jonquil-yellow in the finest muslin Jenny had ever seen. So fine, in fact, that it was all but transparent. The neckline hung lower than on any dress Jenny had ever seen, let alone worn. Did Roderick really want her breasts on such brazen display?
“The wedding?” He chuckled. “Janet, you are a caution. The poor vicar’s eyes would pop clean from his head. No. The seamstress is refurbishing the gown you brought from Scotland. Hard to credit it’s still in one piece after your journey overland from Richibucto. The new dress is for our wedding eve party. Billings and Pruitt can stare all they like.”
The thought of Roderick’s business colleagues gaping at her in that immodest costume made Jenny squirm in her seat. Desperate to distract herself, she groped for a new topic of conversation. Only one readily presented itself. Roderick seemed in a very cordial humor tonight—perhaps she might dare broach the matter and set her mind at rest.
“Do ye ken a lass named Morag McGregor—bides in the Highland settlement on the way to Richibucto?”
Roderick’s fork stopped halfway to his mouth. After the slightest hesitation, it continued its course. When he had chewed and swallowed that bite of food, he replied, “A sad case. How do you come to know of Mad Morag, and what made you mention her now?”
Jenny’s breath shifted a little easier. So, she’d been right after all. The pathetic creature was a madwoman.
“I saw her when Har…when I came through the settlement on my way to Chatham. There was a big wedding going on then, too. Talking about our wedding must have made me think of her. Does anyone know how she came by the scars on her face?”
“Indian attack.” Roderick shook his head. “A terrible thing—vicious savages. I led the militia in a retaliatory strike on their encampment at Eel River. Taught them a lesson, I hope, about molesting innocent white women. I’d still prefer you not to go out alone, my dear Janet.”
Jenny tried to reconcile Roderick’s explanation with her own experience of the local Mi’kmaq people. She could not imagine Levi Augustine or any of his family committing such a brutal outrage. Yet, she could not afford to entertain doubts about her husband-to-be.
“The whole ordeal overset the poor woman’s mind,” Roderick continued. “She deluded herself into thinking she was still a great beauty and that she was going to marry me. When I declined to go along with her ridiculous fancy, she began spreading the vilest stories about me. Of course, no one with any sense believed the poor wretch.”
Those dark, mysterious eyes, whose merest glance had once thrilled Jenny, now held her—an unspoken question in their disquieting depths.
Did she believe him, or did she believe Mad Morag?
“Of course,” she murmured. Ducking her head to avoid his gaze, Jenny concentrated fiercely upon eating her dinner. Each mouthful dropped into her stomach like a lump of lead.
The world still lay wrapped in darkness when Harris pulled himself to foggy consciousness. His ankle throbbed. The crushing weight of his failure oppressed him. Little by little, though, he became aware of a beckoning, hopeful sound. The sound of running water not too far distant.
Gathering all his waning strength, he tried to pull himself erect. His injured ankle buckled under the weight with a searing burst of pain. Driven to his knees, Harris began to crawl forward. He had come too far and endured too much to give up now, no matter how futile his undertaking might seem.
By the time he reached the riverbank, the palms of his hands stung with blisters and his whole body pleaded for sleep. Songbirds had begun to serenade the rising sun. Their cheery warbling mocked Harris’s anguish.
Too tired even to pry off his boots, he sat on the bank and thrust his feet into the swift-flowing water. Gradually the cold leeched his pain, allowing him to escape once again into sleep.
He woke later with a start, to the touch of a wet nose sniffing his hand. His first thought was of foxes or a wolf, seeking easy prey in a wounded creature. Then, as his exhausted mind began to clear, he realized the wet nose belonged to a dog—the kind of dog he’d seen running with shrieking brown children around Levi Augustine’s encampment.
Suddenly the children were there, surrounding him, all talking at once in their own language. From their excitement, he gathered they recognized him, even without the red beard. All Harris could do was smile and tousle their dark heads, to show that he remembered them as well.
Levi Augustine edged his canoe to the riverbank.
“Barbe-rouge?” He looked Harris over, shaking his head. “Did you lose a fight with a bear, friend? A she-bear, maybe?”
Harris replied with a weak grin. “I need your help,” he said in French. “Someone has stolen my woman and I must get her back. Have you heard of a man from Chatham who builds ships? Black Douglas, they call him.”
He got his reply in the grim scowl that darkened Levi’s face. “He is an evildoer, who blames my people for his own treachery. Tell how we can help get your woman back and we will do it.”
“Can ye take me to Richibucto in your canoe?”
“Why there? Is your woman not in Chatham?”
“Oui, she is. But there’s an important paper I must get to set her free from Douglas. I can only get it in Richibucto.”
Levi paused in their conversation to call out to the younger men of his family. Then he spoke to Harris again. “I do not understand this store you white men set by bits of paper. They are not living things with spirits, like an eagle, or a river, or the wind. Yet they have strong magic for you.”
A wider, sturdier canoe beached nearby, paddled by Levi’s widowed brother and the young man who wanted to marry Levi’s daughter. Together, the three men helped Harris into the canoe. Levi called out to his wife on the opposite bank, perhaps to tell her where he was going and why.
As the streamlined birchbark craft swept downriver, Harris yearned to heft an oar, but he knew he’d be more hindrance than help. So he rested his injured ankle and let the reviving sun and sea air soak into him. In vain he tried to quench the foolish bubble of hope that swelled within his heart.
“Levi, do ye know what day this is?” Harris could no longer be sure.
“The third day of the new moon,” came the confident but unhelpful reply.
Harris fretted. He couldn’t hope to get back to Chatham in time, on foot. Not on an ankle that might well be broken. Desperate as he was, he couldn’t ask Levi and the others to risk their lives by delivering him to Chatham. Once he saw to the paperwork, though, he might be able to send a messenger to deliver his announcement and fetch Jenny back to Richibucto.
Would she come with a stranger? Harris wasn’t certain he’d be able to convince her face-to-face, let alone by proxy.
If only he had enough time.
Jenny glanced at the pedestal clock in the corner of the parlor. The time had gone eleven—would their guests never leave?
Her head felt like a raw egg squeezed in a man’s fist—ready to shatter into a thousand brittle white shards. For all the pains taken with cleaning and decorating, for all the expensive food and drink imported, for all the affluent, socially superior company, the party had been a disaster.
Eager to return to Boston after a month’s sojourn in Quebec, Mrs. Billings and Mrs. Pruitt had made not the slightest effort to be agreeable. The former had started a vicious hissing argument with her husband about the extent of his drinking. The latter
gave Jenny several spiteful little digs about the immodest design of her dress.
The heavy, florid Mr. Billings complained incessantly about the stifling atmosphere, asking several times if more windows could be opened. Jenny suspected he was using the unseasonable heat as an excuse to drink great quantities of Roderick’s rum punch.
For all that, Jenny preferred him to the loathsome Mr. Pruitt, who’d scarcely taken his eyes off the cleavage of her bosom all evening. She had done her best to reply politely to several lewd compliments.
Roderick appeared to be the only member of the party truly enjoying himself. There could be no question that he looked well in a new suit of clothes, complemented by a very fashionable waistcoat. He made a point to impress everyone by telling how much he had paid for each item.
He talked of his record profits for the year, told of the much larger and grander house he planned to build. And all the while, Jenny kept a covert eye on the clock, wishing the time would magically disappear.
Finally Mr. Billings stretched, yawned and said he and his wife should return to sleep on the ship that night to escape the oppressive heat. Jenny could scarcely restrain herself from throwing her arms around his stout midsection.
“I suppose we all must get our rest,” Roderick replied. “I don’t want my bride oversleeping and missing the ceremony tomorrow.” He sent Mrs. Lyons to dispatch the carriage around for their guests.
When the Billings and the Pruitts had gone, he lounged on the settee, patting a place for Jenny beside him. She lowered herself gingerly, fearful, as she had been all evening, that her bosom might burst clean out of her brief bodice.
Roderick heaved a self-satisfied sigh. “I thought it all went off quite well, don’t you? Have a word with the cook, though. The poached pears might have been firmer and the sauce a little sweeter. I saw Mrs. Pruitt pucker up when she tasted it.”