Torn between the overwhelming need to quit this place and the intangible force that bade him stay, Kingston turned reluctantly back to the black bulk of the hunter’s lodge. The least he could do was to ascertain if the woman inside was injured or alone—and it was a woman who’d sought shelter within the decaying structure. A man would have answered his summons in some fashion. With words or with musket fire.
But a woman, even one who was armed, would not be so hasty. She would watch and wait, weighing her chances, judging her adversary, hoping to avoid a bloodletting, keeping silent in the hope of hiding her vulnerability.
And she is vulnerable. Just as Caroline had been.
If only there had been someone to help Caroline, she would be in his arms, in his life, instead of lying in a lonely wilderness grave.
For Caroline’s sake, he could not just walk away and leave the occupant of the lodge to the return of the wolves. He had to force the woman out of hiding—or find a way of getting in. “Very well, then,” he said in a clear and ringing voice. “It is plain that my presence is unwanted, and so I shall leave you to the wolves.”
Turning his back to the cabin, he mimicked the chilling howl of a wolf, projecting the cry in such a way that it seemed to come from the woods at the rear of the cabin.
It was a trick he had learned as a youth, employed to deceive the enemy, and in this instance, it proved very effective, for a gasp issued clearly through the cracks in the cabin walls, followed by the sound of furtive movement. Pressing his momentary advantage, Kingston sprinted forward, kicking in the door.
The tactic caught Sarah off guard. The door came crashing in, and she spun, uttering a cry of dismay as she raised her makeshift bludgeon to ward off this unwarranted attack.
Her adversary was faster, and before she could beg for quarter, he seized her, easily plucking the stick from her grasp, imprisoning her in a rough embrace.
She wriggled in his grasp, trying desperately to avoid the warm hard masculine form pressed intimately against the soft curves of her buttocks and back. She had never been this close to a man, outside her marriage bed, and even then, the physical contact, the closeness, had been brief. Timothy’s health, which had always been frail, allowed nothing more.
Her captor was anything but frail. The arms encircling her waist were hard as iron, the hand placed high on her ribs, just grazing the full lower curve of her breast, strong. He exuded an animal heat that Sarah found at once strangely attractive, yet terrifying, a heat she wanted badly to escape. “Please,” she said in a soft, trembling voice. “Let me go. I meant you no harm.”
“In good time,” he replied, close to her ear. “Why did you say nothing when I called out to you a moment ago?”
Sarah wet her lips. When she answered, her voice trembled, yet she couldn’t be certain if her fright, or his nearness caused the reaction. “I was too frightened to answer. There was the ambush—and then the wolves—and I could not tell if you were friend or foe, or if you belonged to the Frenchman’s band, and then there was Kathryn—”
Sarah would have rattled on had he not turned her in his embrace and placed the tips of his fingers over her lips. “You are raving, Madame. Quietly now. Calmly. Tell me about the ambush, and the Frenchman, and how you came to be here with this—”
“Kathryn,” Sarah said, when he removed his hand. She forced herself to be calm. Perhaps if she did exactly as he said, he would let her go. Perhaps he would allow her to step back, to regain some small semblance of control over her beleaguered senses. “Kathryn and I were en route to Harris’ Ferry—well, at least Kathryn was. I was going on, to the Ohio country—the Muskingum River, to be precise—”
Sarah saw him frown. “The Muskingum lies deep in the Ohio country. What possible reason could a fine Quaker lady like yourself have for traveling there?”
“I am Moravian, not Quaker,” Sarah corrected. “And I have business there.”
“Business?” he said, his frown growing more pronounced. “What business?”
“Business of a personal nature,” Sarah said, blushing. “Business which, at the moment, I would prefer not to discuss.” It took all of her inner strength to deny him, yet it hardly seemed proper to speak of Brother John Liebermann while she was in the arms of this handsome stranger. And he was handsome.
His features had a Gallic cast—the fine, strong nose, the high, prominent cheekbones and squared chin. It hinted at an obstinate streak, that chin, a willful, determined nature. It was odd to see a man with silk tassels dangling from his ear lobes, and odder still that they should suit him so perfectly, lending a splash of color, a touch of the flamboyant to an already terrifyingly dashing figure of a man.
She could see that he was not satisfied with her evasive replies, but he let her have her head, pursuing a different course instead. “I believe you mentioned an ambush.”
Sarah nodded. “They caught the men of our party unawares. By the time Kathryn and I reached the summit of the hillock, it was too late to help them, so we hid in a hollow log. It was nearly dark when we left the log and walked to this place.”
“‘They,’” he said, “who is ‘they’?”
“Savages,” Sarah blurted out. “Like—”
“Like me?” he supplied with a quirk of a dark arched brow.
Sarah was mortified. “How perfectly rude of me,” she whispered miserably. “I did not mean to say that you—” She blushed furiously.
He laughed at her discomfiture. “You did indeed, but not to worry, Madame. I have been called worse. Besides, what you say is true—at least in part. My mother was half-French, half-Delaware; my father a French trader from Quebec. Now, suppose you tell me about these savages?”
“They were painted, and armed to the teeth, and their hair was shorn, with a tuft sticking up on top.”
He grunted. “Scalp locks and paint. A war party.”
“There was a man with them. Kathryn called him ‘Bear’.”
His head came up. “La Bruin?”
“Yes. He was with someone called Tall Trees.”
“Damn,” he said, releasing her. He stepped away, then swung around to face her again. “Where did this attack take place?”
“Three miles, perhaps four, west of here.”
“When?”
“This afternoon,” she said. “We had just stopped to sup. But I cannot see what difference that makes now.”
“It makes a great deal of difference to me,” he shot back. “If I leave now, I can find them before they break camp before dawn.”
“Leave?” Sarah’s newfound courage deserted her, and a surge of panic flooded in. He had found them, had forced his presence upon them, had exuded calm and competency, raising her hopes, and then, with that one little word he dashed those hopes to bits. “Leave? But you cannot leave! You have found us, and now you must rescue us! It is the gentlemanly thing to do!”
He chuckled in the face of Sarah’s horror and outrage, spreading his hands wide. “Therein lies the crux of your difficulty, Madame. I fear, I am no gentleman.”
He picked up his rifle, which he’d dropped during their brief struggle, and turned his broad fringed back upon her.
“But you cannot leave!” Sarah said, following after him. “Kathryn is wounded! She needs your help! Wait! Oh, please wait!” In complete desperation, she folded her hands, squeezed her eyes shut and beseeched God to intervene with this stubborn individual on her behalf. “Father, please! You must convince him! Reveal to him the error of his ways!”
It was not God who answered, but a thin and wavering voice from the rear of the structure. “Damn you, Sauvage. If you turn your back on that child, you turn your back on decency.”
To Sarah’s amazement, he stopped in midstride, turning slowly, disbelievingly toward the woman who had spoken so unkindly. “Kate? Kate Seaton, is that you?”
“Come closer, damn you,” Kathryn said. “I’d like to look you in the eye when I curse you for a pitiless bastard.”
Sa
uvage propped his rifle by the door, moving closer to the pallet, while Sarah continued to gape. When he reached the pallet where the wounded woman lay, he knelt and took her hand. “I had no idea,” he said gently, his voice tinged with regret. “I’m sorry.”
“Sorry that I am dying?” she demanded. “Or sorry that you were about to abandon that poor girl?” She shifted on her bed, groaning low in her throat. “Oh, never mind! I don’t have the time to listen to you try and justify your actions! I don’t have time for anything, except perhaps for setting this situation to rights, and by all that’s holy, whether you like it or not, you are going to help me.”
“Kate, for pity’s sake,” Sauvage began. “La Bruin and his men are but four miles from here. Four damnable miles. Do you know what this means?”
“I do,” Kathryn replied. “It means you are likely to go off and get yourself killed, leaving Sarah alone and defenseless!” Sauvage’s mouth hardened, as did Kathryn’s voice. “I was there, Kingston! There are too many of them; one man doesn’t have a prayer against them. Not even a man like you. They killed Joshua and the others, and then they tortured Ben Bones.”
Kingston raised his head and looked intensely at her. “They got Ben?”
Standing a short distance away, Madame shifted her weight restlessly, seemingly uneasy with the topic of conversation, or perhaps with Sauvage’s presence. The soft rasp of linen against lawn, skirts against numerous layers of undergarments, lightly abraded his senses. It was a pleasant sound, so terribly feminine and so out of place here in this ramshackle wilderness cabin, as indeed Madame was herself.
Kathryn gave a barely perceptible nod. “He took a very long time to die, Sauvage. I would rather my last thought on this earth not be of you, sharing Ben’s fate.”
“Then, do not think of it,” he said. “I know that you are concerned, Kate. For her, perhaps for me. It’s admirable; but it changes nothing. I must go. You know that. For Caroline’s sake.”
“It is for Caroline’s sake that you must stay. She was good and kind, Kingston, and she loved you—”
“Dammit, woman! Do not!”
His thunderous reply fairly shook the rafters, yet had little effect on Kathryn, who went doggedly on. “She was a gentle spirit! And the truest friend I ever knew!”
Sauvage cursed, turning away, but he could not escape her. She was relentless. Determined to have her way.
“She loved you, Sauvage! Worshipped you!” She paused to catch a breath, and her voice lost some of its sting. “What would she say if she were here with us now? Would Caroline want you to turn away from me in my hour of greatest need? Would she approve of you abandoning Sarah so that you can have your pound of flesh?”
Coming on the heels of Caroline’s strange visitation, Kate’s blistering diatribe was almost more than Sauvage could bear. The idea that Caroline had been there to prevent his leaving had occurred to him already. Yet, he could not abandon his quest. “What would you have me do?” he demanded. “Bless the bastard who stole my life from me?”
He made to fling himself away from the pallet, but Kathryn wouldn’t let him go. Struggling half-upright, she caught the hem of his hunting frock with one hand. It was enough to hold him rigidly by her bed. “There is talk of you in the settlements. Wild talk. They say you’ve killed twenty men. That your bitterness and hatred has become a canker, that they have eaten away at you until there is not a speck of humanity left inside of you. Until this moment, I refused to listen.” Her voice broke, and she glared up at him, her face a mask of desperation and pity, and he knew that the tears in her eyes were for him, and not for her own plight. “May God forgive me for this, but I am glad she is dead. I am glad she is not here to see what you’ve become.”
The statement shocked Sarah, who looked first to Kathryn, and then to this man called Kingston Sauvage. The look on his face was murderous; his strong hands were clenched by his sides. For an instant, Sarah feared he might strike the invalid; then, the storm passed, and he sighed his defeat.
“I cannot fight you both and hope to win.” He passed a hand over his face, and Sarah had the odd impression that he had been referring to Kathryn and the dead Caroline. “Very well,” he said. “I’ll help you.”
It had been a fierce, pitched battle, but Kathryn had won. As Sarah watched, the tension drained from the older woman, who sank back on the pallet with a groan. “Perhaps after all, I was right in defending you. Perhaps you are not as hard as they claim.”
Sauvage snorted derisively, kneeling again to examine the wound in Kathryn’s side. “Do not try to placate me, Kate. I am everything they claim, and more, as you well know.” He took the cloth band from his head and placed it inside Kathryn’s bodice, directly against the wound. “The effort to change my mind has cost you. I hope to hell it was worth it.”
He smiled, but there was irony in it. “I’ll get some wood for a fire. You will be more comfortable, and I will need light if I am to tend you properly.” Then, to Sarah. “You are needed.”
Sarah crossed to Kate’s side. He drew her down to kneel beside him, guiding her hand to the scrap of cloth employed as a makeshift bandage and momentarily covering it with his. “You hold it just like this, eh?” he said. “Keep the pressure constant.”
Sarah wished she weren’t so aware of his nearness, wished she could ignore the warmth that radiated from him, the fresh tang of the forest that clung to his hair, his clothing, his skin. But she could not ignore him, no matter how hard she tried. His warmth conjured up memories of her marriage bed, the feeling of security that she had known only in Timothy’s arms.
“Madame?”
“Y-yes. Yes, of course. I can manage just fine.”
He released her fingers, and the impression of warmth receded as he moved away. Sarah watched him go, wondering if he would ever return. A promise was all that bound him to them, and everyone knew that promises were easily broken. It seemed an extremely tenuous thread to bind a man like Sauvage.
As if she read Sarah’s thoughts, Kathryn smiled. “He’ll be back, Sarah. It may not seem so now, but you can put your faith in him. He will not betray your trust.”
Chapter 2
Sauvage reentered the cabin a few minutes later with an armful of wood and kindled a small, smokeless fire. Madame, still seated by Kate’s side, watched his every move. He rose, wiping his hands on his leggings and Madame started slightly. Leather satchel in hand, he walked toward the pallet beside which she sat and she shrank back.
Another time, he might have found her fear of him amusing. Now, it was an irritant. “Come away from there,” he said.
Madame came instantly to her feet, neatly skirting him as he knelt by the pallet. Kingston turned his back to her, trying to ignore her. He slit the now unconscious Kate’s linsey-woolsey bodice up the side with his scalping knife, baring the wound, then, reached into his leather pouch as a shadow edged across his field of vision.
A sidelong glance revealed Madame, peering over his shoulder. When she saw that she’d been caught, she swallowed hard, yet did not retreat.
“You wish to help?” Sauvage asked, as gently as he could.
She nodded vigorously, her prayer cap slipping askew.
“Then, collect the cobwebs from the corners,” he said. “And when you have finished, bring them here to me.”
“Cobwebs?” She looked properly horrified.
“Oui, Madame. Cobwebs. To stop the bleeding.”
She looked at her shoes. “What shall I do with the spiders?”
Sauvage sighed. “If you blow on the spiders, they will retreat, and you can take their web in relative safety.” He turned back to his task as Madame moved away, cleansing and examining Kate’s wound. By the time he had finished, Madame had finished and returned in triumph. Sauvage pulled the fine, sticky filaments from her fingers and carefully placed them over Kate’s wound.
Madame continued to linger by his left shoulder. Concern for Kate had seemingly taken precedence over her fear of him, at
least for the moment. “Will she recover, monsieur?”
“I am afraid that her chances are slim,” Kingston answered. “The ball has lodged in her vitals.”
“Have you known Kathryn long?”
“Yes, a very long time. She has been a good friend to me.” Having done all that he could do for Kate, Sauvage made his way to the fire where he sank down. “Come and sit, Madame. There is much for us to discuss.”
She left Kate’s side reluctantly, primly seating herself on the other side of the blaze. For a moment or two, Sauvage watched her fidget, pleating and unpleating the folds of her gray skirt with nervous fingers, pressing it flat again.
He watched her intently, the way an indolent cat might watch a church mouse, with little more than a passing disinterest. And she did resemble a church mouse, with her great sapphire eyes and lush black lashes, and little prayer cap, a cap to which bits of twigs and rotting leaves still clung. It listed to one side of her soft brown head. “Do I frighten you?”
His question was sudden and seemed to have caught her off guard. For a moment, she was speechless, the nervous pleating of her fingers stilled as she searched for an appropriate reply.
Would she lie to try and spare his feelings? She looked grave, was reticent to answer—he couldn’t resist taunting her the smallest bit. “Remember your lily-white soul, Madame,” he cautioned softly. “I would not wish you to stain it on my account.”
Her softly rounded chin came up a notch, and though Sauvage could have sworn he saw it quiver, she met his gaze unflinchingly. “In truth, I do not know what to make of you. Kathryn says you are trustworthy, yet—-”
“Yet, you are not so certain,” Kingston finished for her. “After all, I’ve savage blood running through these veins.”
“It is most unkind of you to remind me of my unfortunate blunder,” she said. “Especially when I have already apologized. Most men of my acquaintance would strive to overlook such an incident. But then, you are very unlike most men of my acquaintance.”
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