by Beth Trissel
She jerked at his restraint. “Don’t touch me.”
“Then go where I wish.”
He took the lead with no further attempt at conversation. And clearly, she wasn’t speaking to him. He saw her struggle to retrace her steps with lips sealed to any plea for assistance. She was trembling and breathless when they arrived at the stream. Part of him admired her resolve to continue until she dropped, the other part irked by her stubbornness.
Visibly exhausted, she sagged against a tree while he found a place where the stones formed a kind of bridge from one side of the rippling water to the other.
Surely, she’d accept his aid now. He held out his hand. “I will help you over.”
A mulish shake of her head signified her reply. The tilt of her chin and pouting lips made him burn to cover her mouth again with his. Before he succumbed to temptation, he left her to flounder and easily stepped across gaps in the stones.
She followed and lost her footing on a moss-slicked rock. Flailing her arms, she toppled backwards, yelping as water covered her head. She sat up in the streambed, gasping.
Shoka waded back to her. Too miserable to object, she remained silent apart from chattering teeth as he heaved her to her feet and carried her dripping to the bank. He wanted nothing more than to strip off that wretched corset and her shift and hold her naked in his arms. But he couldn’t keep this woman, no matter how achingly he desired her. He bore her to the campfire, wrapped her in the blanket Meshewa handed him, and laid her down in the circle of warmth.
Wrenching his eyes from Rebecca’s bewitching face, Shoka turned on his heels and strode out of camp. If only he could leave the tantalizing images of her behind.
Chapter Five
Rebecca twisted from beside the campfire to see dozens of warriors filing into camp. She gasped and sprang to her feet, clutching Shoka’s navy blanket around her shift. The mellow evening light played over the gathering hemming her in on every side. The elk roasting over the flames was their main focus, although many of them also appraised her curiously.
One warrior in particular caught her eye: iridescent feathers in his scalp lock, twin silver crosses dangling from his ears, red paint streaked across his nose and brow like a bird in flight. His breechclout, deerskin leggings, and moccasins covered in tiny tin cones made a bizarre contrast with his formal scarlet waistcoat. The pewter buttons he’d left open down the front revealed a tanned chest rather than the traditional white linen shirt.
No doubt this coat had once belonged to an unfortunate British soldier, as had the Scottish haversack slung over the warrior’s shoulder. His beaded, quilled shot pouch and the large powder horn, scraped to paper-thinness so the black powder showed through its walls, hung across his other shoulder. A fine French hunting sword and tomahawk swung from the leather sword carriage at his waist. His dress and weapons were an eclectic mix, but many of the warriors wore a unique blend of dress.
The outlandish brave grinned at her then grabbed the buck-skin wrapped handle of his tomahawk and raised it over her head as if to split her skull.
Rebecca lurched back with a cry, shrieking again as she bumped into the solid bulk of the warrior right behind her. “Get away!”
She staggered blindly through the men and hunched to one side of the assembly while the monster responsible for her terror leaned against his amused friend, shaking with mirth. Was this his idea of a joke, or was he just stark raving mad?
Swallowing shallow pants of air, she darted her eyes over the alien mob in search of Shoka. Strange faces, all. Then his intimidating brother strode into the crowd.
“God help me,” she whispered.
Wabete’s sharp stare bored into her and lines of disapproval deepened the scars marking his face. He wasn’t the only warrior focused on her. Everyone seemed to want a long look at Shoka’s captive. His name peppered the unintelligible exchanges among them.
None of their faces were easy to read, but she didn’t detect any open hostility except from Wabete. Admiration glinted in many of their probing eyes. Meshewa’s welcome features surfaced in the alien sea.
She fled to the brave and clung to his sleeve like a lifeline. “Don’t let him kill me.”
Clasping her shoulder with a protective stance, he swept his gaze over the assembly. “Who threatens you?”
“Your cousin.”
He scrutinized her, open-mouthed. “Shoka?”
“Not that one. That one.” She singled out Wabete with a trembling finger.
“Ah. He will not harm you.”
“Look at him.”
“He often looks like this.”
She pointed to the still grinning warrior. “That brave pretended to attack me then laughed his fool head off.”
Meshewa’s youthful good looks creased in amusement. “Skaki. It is his way.”
“Take me away from them all. Please.”
He shook his head, a newfound firmness at his mouth. “Wait for Shoka,” he said, and pushed her gently to the leafy ground. “Sit here. I get food.”
He left her huddled less than a stone’s throw away from Wabete and walked toward the campfire. Many of the braves jostled him good-naturedly, firing a steady stream of questions at him. His answers were genial but brief.
She crouched a little apart from the others while he sliced at the roast elk, wishing a gaping chasm would open up between her and Wabete.
The meat spitted on his knife, Meshewa passed back through the group charged with male energy. Dozens of eyes followed him, fixing on Rebecca as if she were the only woman alive in this heart-stopping world.
Meshewa sat beside her. “Will they leave us be?” she whispered to him.
“For now.” He tore a steaming piece from the speared portion, blew to cool it and offered it to her. “Here.”
Her stomach rumbled insistently, but she was too intent on his fearsome cousin to take the food.
“Wabete eats,” Meshewa pointed out.
Perhaps she was safe for the moment with that demon preoccupied. She accepted the meat Meshewa held out, then another piece. Remorse nagged at her as she chewed. She’d treated this brave shamefully, yet here he sat feeding her. He hadn’t reproached her. But she sensed a reserve in him not present before. Thanks to her, he’d never again be so naive.
Her cheeks warmed at the memory of her scandalous behavior. Besides that, she needed an ally. “Meshewa, I’m sorry. Please forgive me for what I did.”
The stiffness at his mouth eased and he nodded. “I have no anger with you.”
He cocked his head at her, warning in his dark eyes. His sternness made him look like Shoka, but with far less maturity. “Do not run again. You risk punishment.”
“You would never be harsh with me, would you?”
His eyes softened. “No. Not to strike you, even once. Yet some warriors will do this if you run.”
She kept her voice low. “But Shoka wants to sell me to a Frenchman. I’m trapped unless,” she gazed at him, “you sneak me away. Guide me closer to my people.”
He hesitated as though tempted to do as she asked, but only for a moment. “I cannot. Let none hear you speak this.”
She dropped her eyes to the black enamel ring on her middle finger. That was it, then. She had no one else to turn to and didn’t dare try to escape again.
Meshewa touched her shoulder. “Do not be sad. I would buy you if I could.”
She looked up into his wistfulness. “For a wife?”
“If you agree.”
“My consent matters? How refreshing. What does Shoka want for me?”
Meshewa seemed sobered by the steep price. “A rifle.”
“A rifle?” she sputtered, finding it a bitter joke when compared to what Lord Carlton had offered her father.
“Rifle fires better than musket. Takes many skins to trade for this,” Meshewa explained.
“You can’t be serious? Shoka would rather have a rifle than keep me for himself?”
“He wants no wife.”
“Why?”
Meshewa shifted his eyes from her gaze. “I cannot say.”
The cooling breeze lifted lengths of her hair, and she brushed them from her face. “Can’t you tell me anything?”
“Little.”
“I know Shoka had a wife, Meshewa.”
“He told me never speak her name. She is dead to him.”
It disturbed Rebecca to envision Shoka racked with longing for some other woman. “Is his grief terrible?”
Meshewa shook his head. “Not grief. Anger. Much.”
“What about?”
“I say enough.”
“You’ve scarcely said a thing. Did Shoka murder her?”
He darted his eyes at Rebecca. “No. She lives.”
Leaning in closer to him until the top of her head brushed his earlobe, Rebecca whispered, “Tell me of her. None will hear.”
He pressed his fingers to her mouth. “Speak to me of you.”
She smiled at his engaging effort to change the subject.
“When you smile, more fair you are.” He slid a tentative finger across her lips, and traced the small mole at her cheek. “Like blue smoke this mark is colored.”
“It’s a beauty mark. The only mark I have that’s beautiful,” she added.
He curled his fingers around her cheek. “Why speak so?”
“Will you touch all her face?”
The sudden query uttered in Shoka’s low hiss made Rebecca jump. Meshewa pulled his hand away as if it had caught fire. She turned to stare up at the tall warrior standing behind them, wondering how much he’d overheard.
The black hair blowing across his face and bare shoulders didn’t conceal the resentment in his eyes. Even radiating recrimination, he had an unsettling effect on her heart. The fluttering in her middle swept back. “How long have you been there?”
“Long enough for my young cousin to know. Yet, he has eyes and ears only for you.”
Meshewa shrugged sheepishly. “Becca has much beauty.”
“Beware of this woman. She is much trouble.”
“Why do you say this?” Rebecca demanded.
Shoka frowned down at her. “Did sleep take all thought from your head? You removed your gown before Meshewa—”
“I do not mind,” the brave interjected.
Shoka silenced him with a glance. “You ran from me, so I must seek for you. Is this not trouble?” Seizing her arm, he hauled her to her feet. “Come with me now.”
“Where?”
“Have you no wish for your clothes?”
Not awaiting a reply, Shoka walked her through curious onlookers, skirting his surly brother. “You have charmed my young cousin,” he fumed under his breath.
“Meshewa is sweet. Why shouldn’t I thank him?”
“You know how you make him feel? Like he wants only you.”
“Is that how you feel?”
Ignoring her question, he asked, “Shall I give him a devil cat?”
“Do you think I would scratch his eyes out? I’m fond of him, like a brother.”
Shoka snorted. “It is not as a sister he wants you.”
“I can’t help that.”
“No?” He sped her through the drifts of fern down the bank. “You know what you do.”
Rebecca stumbled and went down onto one knee on the moist earth. “For pity’s sake. I’m not trying to charm him.”
Shoka hooked his arm around her waist and righted her. “You have no need to try,” he said, towing her along.
“That’s not fair. I’m guilty either way.”
“Meshewa will do anything for you.”
“Not anything.”
Stopping abruptly, Shoka glared down at her. “Did you beg him to help you escape?”
“What if I did?”
“Never tempt him again.”
She wavered under his black anger. “I won’t. But you were nowhere to be seen, and I was frightened to death. Your brother wants my head.”
“Perhaps. Yet, Wabete will not take it.”
“He might. Any of them might. The one called Skaki is out of his mind.”
Shoka’s lips curved in the same faint amusement that had touched Meshewa’s. “No. Just a little crazy.”
“Shoka, I was terrified. Where were you?”
He swung her across a broad trunk that had snapped at its base and lay crookedly across their path. “After shooting the elk? I kept watch for Catawba, Cherokee warriors, and Long Knives. Enemy of Shawnee.”
“What about me? You promised your protection.”
“I will protect you while you dress.” He strode ahead to a cedar tree. Her cast-off gown, stomacher, and petticoats fluttered from its fragrant boughs. Plucking her clothes from the evergreen, he tossed them to her.
She drew herself up. “I am not accustomed to dressing in front of men.”
His mouth curved wryly. “No. Undressing.”
She lifted her chin in the defiance that had driven her for as long as she remembered. “I refuse to put on another stitch with your eyes on me.”
“You have no shame. What do you care if I see?”
“I am not without all modesty. Turn your head.”
“To see how swiftly you can move?” he scorned.
“I won’t run.”
“No. You will dress. Now.”
She dropped the bundle to the ground in a fluttery heap of linen and lace. “I loathe being ordered about.”
“Dress, Rebecca Elliot, or I will dress you myself.”
“Why bother? I’m only making it easy for you to find a buyer. Some Frenchman will be so eager to have me he’ll take me right in front of you.”
Disgust filled his eyes. “I have no wish to see this.”
Rebecca cast him a contemptuous glance and turned away. “No? Maybe he’ll wait until you are gone.”
****
Shoka had had enough of Rebecca’s disdainful obstinacy and her flaunting herself at him. She exuded feminine appeal, her every glance a torment, each seductive curve searing him. Grasping her shoulders, he spun her back around. “Hear me.”
She gulped in his tight hold and her defiance seemed to lessen. “I’m listening.”
He lightened his grip. “I want no man to molest you.”
She eyed him as though he’d taken leave of his senses. “What other purpose could a man possibly have for buying me?”
Shoka cast about for anything besides the obvious. There had to be something else a man would want from this beauty, even though all he desired was to lie with her, repeatedly. “To cook?” he suggested, doubtful he sounded convincing.
“I don’t know how.”
He stared at her. “I thought all women could cook.”
“Papa had servants for that. Even John managed a few.”
“What can you do?”
“You needn’t look at me like I’m hopelessly stupid. I can read and write. Perhaps you can find a man who wants me to read aloud to him?” she said with her usual insolence.
Shoka rolled his eyes.
“What of you? Would you like to hear me read?”
“Father Andrew taught me to read the scriptures.”
“Ah, well. I’ve nothing left to offer, unless my skill with an embroidery needle might be of some use? Or dance lessons?”
Shoka didn’t dignify her derision with a response.
Like a cloud darkening the sun, her face grew solemn. “You have no idea what my life was like before Captain Elliot.”
“I saw your back.”
A great heaviness seemed to weigh her. “That’s only a part of what I suffered.”
Pity stirred in him. “Tell me.”
She set her lips in bitter lines, parting them enough to ask, “So you can despise me even more?”
“I don’t.”
“Really?” She let the blanket wrapping her slip to the ground, leaving only her shift and corset.
He drank her in like the most intoxicating liquor and steeled himself.
>
“What would you say if I told you I wore gowns that covered little more of me than what I’m wearing now?” she asked, “and was driven to endless dinners and dances where I charmed men, as you call it, and made them greatly desire me?”
He clenched his jaw, fists already tight. “Why do this?”
“Because if I didn’t, I was beaten upon my return home.”
“What kind of father makes his daughter behave this way?”
“One who wants generous offers of marriage yet will give her no dowry…no money or land, to gain these proposals with. I had only myself to use as bait.”
“A dangerous game you played.”
She gazed beyond him to the stream. “Indeed it was. I’ve been handled in ways no man would have dared if I’d had a sober father or a brother skilled with a sword.”
Without another word, Shoka knew. “You were forced.”
“Once. That cruel lesson taught me to fight back and see in men’s eyes what lies in their hearts.”
“Warriors also must see this.”
She lifted her troubled gaze to his. “What can you tell of me?”
He searched eyes blinking against the glimmer of tears. “You speak the truth now.”
“Then you know I’m not shameless?”
“I know you have no wish to be. Yet, can one taught to behave as a fox become a dove?” he asked in turn.
“Can you not believe in my innocence?”
“I know not what to believe.”
Through trembling lips, she said, “Believe as you like then. I’ll not plead for your good opinion.”
“Does it matter so much to you?”
No answer. And she blinked harder.
Making no attempt to prevent her, he released Rebecca as she tore from him. She hurriedly picked her way across the stones to a large, flat rock and huddled on it, hugging herself for warmth.
He let her be for a moment then quietly followed and sat beside her. He gently pushed the blowing hair back from her face. “I only know you are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen.”
“But you trust me little more than the serpent you killed?” she sniffed.
He smiled slightly. “A little. What must I do with you?”
She stared at the tumbling water. “Sell me to a celibate priest.”
“Perhaps he would no longer be celibate. A French family might take you in.”