Gray eyes bore into hers, eyes that darkened and hardened to steel as they fell upon her. Kendall stood transfixed in horror as she watched the man’s strong features grow tense, his lips compress into a grim white line. His jaw went rigid with hard anger, and she could see the ripple of curling muscles beneath his butternut shirt.
“You . . .” she whispered with incredulous dismay. Dear God, she had hoped to never see him again. In her worst dreams, he had appeared as a prisoner in a Yankee barracks. Dear God, dear God, dear God . . .
She remembered him all too well. The voice that could quietly command, the fingers with their brush of steel . . . and his tenderness . . .
Tenderness. Hah! He would kill her! The tense explosiveness within him didn’t fade a hair as he doffed his cap and bowed low with gallant ease. “Yes, Mrs. Moore. Captain Brent McClain, madam, Confederate States Navy. Better known in these parts as the Night Hawk.”
She wanted to scream; the sound caught in her throat. Terror greater than any she had ever known rose to smother her breath and wind her stomach into knots. No, never had she been so frightened. Not facing John, not facing Red Fox when he had attacked the Michelle . . .
McClain. Brent McClain. Oh, God. She had never forgotten the look in his eyes that night. The look that was still in his eyes, seeming to pierce through her and impale her on a burning stake of raw fury.
His compressed lips curved into a sneering, determined smile that left his eyes as heatedly furious. He took a step toward her, and Kendall at last managed to scream out her raw panic. She spun around to flee with a speed born of sheer terror.
Her flying run took her back past the laundry rock, and toward the beached dugouts. But, fast as she moved, she heard relentless footfalls following close behind. Her heartbeat took up a thunder that sounded as explosive to her ears as gunshot. He was coming after her, of course; he was pursuing her, and his strength and stamina were far greater than hers.
“No!” she gasped as she ran, not daring to look back. The odds were ridiculously against her. She was like a hunted fox; she had to run until she fell.
Moss and branches slapped against her face as she reached the river’s edge and the dugouts. But as she leaned low, grunting as she attempted to move the vessel from its mudbank into the water, she quickly realized the futility of such an action. The bow of the dugout was firmly grounded; she hadn’t the strength to push it into the river.
Glancing quickly over her shoulder, Kendall saw that the steel-eyed Rebel captain was almost upon her, slowing his gait as he smiled with ruthless satisfaction. In panic she heaved the dugout again as he approached her like a Florida panther. She was prey, being calmly stalked, while the beast luxuriated in the ritual moments that preceded the kill . . .
The dugout refused to budge. Looking back Kendall saw that McClain, his handsome features tense despite the sardonic smile that curled his hard mouth, was less than twenty feet away. She could almost feel the heat and tension bombarding her from his still distant body, the coil of sinewed muscle ready to strike.
“No!” she cried again. Spinning about, she gathered her skirts into her hands, leapt over the dugout, and stared about in desperation for a place to hide. In back of her was the river; to her right loomed the Indian camp. Ahead of her was a thicket of moss-encrusted trees that rose in a tangle so dense they might have been spiderwebs. Desperately Kendall tore along the riverbank.
“Come back you fool woman!”
Kendall didn’t sense the warning in his irritated command; she only knew that he was after her, and that he looked like he would enjoy throttling her, slowly.
Her breath came in ragged sobs as she ran, and she muttered incoherent prayers as the muck of the bank sucked at her shoes. The riverbank was changing; the ground had no firmness here. Tall grass suddenly loomed before her, and she couldn’t tell where the land ended and the river began. Mangroves dotted the area, their myriad roots reaching out like grotesque tentacles.
“Kendall, stop!”
A desperate sob escaped her as her foot caught on a grass-hidden root. The impact cost her her balance, and suddenly she was wavering, careening toward the mucky ground. The saw grass cut the bare flesh of her arms and face like an army of miniature razors.
“Oh, God!” she gasped, reaching for the trunk of a mangrove. She touched something that felt more like leather than bark, and in horror she looked up quickly, recoiling and screaming as she saw that she had been about to grasp a colorful snake.
She pitched into the muck and saw grass, her terror increasing as she wondered with frenzied horror what other creatures lurked nearby, ready to strike.
“No! No, no, no . . .” Heedless of the sharp saw grass, she clutched at it and stumbled to her feet. Ahead was another mangrove—a patch of sure footing, she was certain.
“Kendall!”
She glanced hurriedly over her shoulder. Brent McClain, eyes now as dark and stormy as a thundercloud, was gaining on her. He hadn’t changed, she thought stupidly as she sobbed again and staggered through the grass and muck. He hadn’t changed at all since that December night.
Oh, God! Why hadn’t she guessed that he was the Night Hawk? She had known he was a Floridian; she had known he harried the Union Navy all along the coasts, both east and west...
He was the only man who had reason to want to harm her. He believed she had deliberately lured him into an ambush that December night. Why hadn’t she remembered the vengeance in those steel eyes as they had hardened above her, and the promise of retaliation in the granite features that hadn’t eased even as blackness had overwhelmed him?
“Stop, you fool!” he shouted.
She reached for a hold on the mangrove, checking hastily to see that she didn’t grab another snake. Finding an insecure footing on a gnarled root, Kendall turned back again.
He was standing in the muck, hands on his hips as he stared at her coldly. His butternut frock coat was open, as was his shirt. She could see his pulse beating against the strong cords of his neck, and beneath it the hint of the tawny curls that grew in profusion on his well-muscled chest. His legs were spread apart in a challenging stance, their sinewed strength straining against his form-fitting breeches. His fingers were tense over his hips—wire tense. And his mouth was so tightly compressed that she could barely see his lips against the twist of his jaw.
Kendall closed her eyes for a dizzying moment.
“Don’t be a fool,” he warned her, his biting, mocking tone deathly quiet. “There’s nowhere to go.”
Kendall opened her eyes and stared at the danger in his explosive form and features. She twisted to look beyond the mangrove. The river had all but disappeared. All that loomed before her was grass, as high as her waist.
“Stay where you are,” he drawled with soft menace. “I’ll come for you.”
Kendall heard him take a footstep; the muck seemed to groan as it released its hold on his boot. She glanced his way wildly, then sobbed, choosing the danger of the saw grass over that of his deadly steel eyes.
But she had barely taken a step before she discovered with horror that she could go no farther. The muck refused to release its hold on her. Madly, desperately, she struggled to free her foot and calf, but she sank deeper. It was as if the ground had truly embraced her. It was holding her tightly, drawing her down. Even as she struggled, its grasp on her became more secure. She clutched at the grass nearby, but succeeded only in cutting her hands. The suction grasping her increased in pressure, and in abject horror she realized that it was sucking her surely downward; the black, oozing muck was up to her waist now, and with each movement it rose higher . . . and higher . . .
“I told you not to be a fool!” The soft drawl came to her from the mangrove tree.
Brent McClain had propped one booted foot against a root and casually leaned one elbow against a thick branch. A flicker of amusement glinted in the gray of his eyes, and his teeth flashed white against the dark tan of his features as he offered her a charmin
g smile. But the hardness was still fully about him; she could sense the sparks of angry tension emanating from him like heavy, threatening ripples of heat lightning, charging the distance between them.
For several horrible moments Kendall was certain that he intended to lean back with that satisfied smile cruelly curling his lips as she sank and sank until the mud swallowed her completely, choking off her air, crushing her lungs like dry tinder.
“Do you know, madam—excuse me—Mrs. Moore, you do look a fright. I wonder if I would have been taken in so easily last December had I seen you covered with mud rather than garbed in that lovely receiving gown. Silver. Yes, that was the color. I remember it so well . . . Of course, I remember removing it, too. What a perfect seductress you were! And what a clever trap you set. A bit dangerous, though. Had I been your husband, I could not have let things go so far—not even if I believed I could rid the Confederacy of General McClellan himself.”
Kendall was alarmed by his bitterness and his certainty that he had been the target of an ambush. She momentarily forgot that the muck was encroaching higher and higher on her body. No, it wasn’t encroaching higher and higher; she was sinking lower and lower, closer to death. And he still believed she had seduced him with the sole intent to set him up for an assassination . . .
He was going to let her die. And he wouldn’t have to raise a finger. He could watch with relaxed enjoyment as nature doled out what he must surely consider fitting justice.
Suddenly anger flooded through her in a white-hot flash. How could he be so damned arrogant and judgmental? He had been an arrogant son of a bitch that long-ago night, too.
“You are an unmitigated ass, Captain McClain!” she lashed out, then quickly paused in horror. He was her only hope for life at the moment. She softened her tone quickly, noting the caustic arch of his brow as her voice softened to that of a well-bred Charleston girl. “I didn’t trick you, Captain I was desperate to get away—”
“From your own husband?” The query was scornful.
Kendall took a deep breath and tried not to quiver. The muck was up to her breast now, and her smallest movement seemed to make it rise even faster.
“Captain McClain,” she pleaded in her softest drawl. “I swear to you that I’m innocent. I—”
“Spare me, please!” he drawled, a hard ring of steel beneath his mocking gallantry. “Lawd, honey, I’d expect any woman with a whit of intelligence to plead innocent while she was mired in a pool of quicksand. And, Mrs. Moore, I never did take you for a fool!”
“Well, you can’t possibly have taken me for a Yankee!” Kendall burst out.
“Oh, no, Mrs. Moore. You’re too well versed in the ways of the southern belles for me to have made such a mistake. However, you are married to one of the most notorious Yankees in the South . . .”
His voice trailed away as he doffed his coat and rolled up the sleeves of his shirt. Kendall caught her breath as he squatted down to balance on the balls of his feet, wondering if he intended to pull her out or push her head beneath the surface of the muck.
“What are you going to do?” she whispered sickly.
He smiled again, but Kendall didn’t like the tight twist of his rugged jaw, or the glitter that touched his narrowed gray eyes.
“Am I going to let you go down?” he queried softly. “Not on your life, Mrs., Moore. I’ve a score to settle with you. I won’t allow a pit of quicksand to rob me of my vengeance!”
He suddenly flattened himself out over the roots, digging the toes of his boots into the earth. He stretched out his arms to her, his broad powerful hands forming a vise over her upper arms. Instinctively Kendall wrapped her fingers around his arms, grateful for her reprieve, but shivering nevertheless as she touched him. She could feel the strain and bulge of his biceps, the frightening, hot power within them. She caught his eyes, close, so close to hers, and she bit her lip to keep from crying out. He was so calm, controlled, and yet she sensed a violence in him so volatile that his very control made her tremble anew.
“Pull!” he commanded tensely.
She pulled. His fingers bit into her soft flesh with such intensity that the pain was excruciating, but still the muck refused to release her. His face tightened further with the strain; he clenched his teeth and ordered again, “Pull!”
Kendall tossed back her head and cried with pain as the earth’s suction constricted tightly about her. The tug-of-war on her body was almost more than she could bear. She was about to beg to be left to die when suddenly—so suddenly that she felt she flew into the arms of the hostile Reb—the quicksand released its hold and catapulted her from the earth. Together they rolled over the mangrove roots and into the field of cutting grass.
For moments they both lay panting beneath the burning sun. Kendall closed her eyes, not noticing the bruises and scratches she had received in her gratitude at being free of the clutching, smothering black ooze.
But she was covered with the stuff. From her breast to her now bare feet, she was blanketed in it. Spatters of the black muck smudged her face and tangled into her hair; it was even clogged in her eyelashes.
She stopped thinking about her condition and bolted upright as she heard Brent McClain move, rising in a swift and agile cat-curl to his feet. He strode the few feet toward her, and Kendall warily attempted to back away on her haunches, but it was futile. Mindless of the mud clinging to her, he bent down and grasped her arm, rising again with a grunt as he crudely tossed her over his shoulder. Hard bone and muscle butted into her abdomen and she gasped at the indignity in panicked protest, pounding furiously against his back with clenched fists.
“Let me go! Let me be!” she wailed. “This is kidnapping. There are laws!”
He stopped short, delivering a stinging open-palmed blow to her backside. “Mrs. Moore, there isn’t a law in the world that can help you now. I heartily suggest you shut that sweet southern mouth of yours, unless you want to pray nice and soft.”
He started walking again with strides so swift and purposeful that her dangling head smacked roughly against his back. Kendall braced herself, clenching her teeth and closing her eyes to keep from bursting into a humiliating storm of tears.
“I don’t deserve this!” she hissed defiantly.
“This? Darlin’, you haven’t seen half of what you deserve yet!”
“I’m telling you that you’re an ignorant ass!” Kendall wailed, her fight returning with his soft words of ruthless menace. Frantically she struggled against him, writhing, kicking, pounding, scratching. Suddenly both of his hands spanned her waist and he set her down. She stared at him wildly, then realized they had reached the clearing.
An audience awaited them. Like a center-stage attraction, they were ringed by the Seminoles—and by the Confederates.
Kendall knew she would receive no help from the Indians. But what about Brent McClain’s crew of Confederate Navy men? Surely they wouldn’t allow even their sacred captain to attack a young white woman of breeding. She spun about, searching out white faces. “Help me!” she cried. “Dear God, help me! This man has gone insane!”
Her voice trailed away as she realized she stared into stony faces and unblinking eyes. Of course! she thought sickly. These men had been with McClain last December in Charleston! Some of them had been attacked aboard his ship, left to lie where they fell.
McClain’s hand suddenly descended on her shoulder. Again she was cornered, and like a frantic, caged animal, she lashed out, clawing wildly as she hurled herself at him. She managed to rake her nails across his face, scratching so fiercely that she drew a line of blood from his eye to his chin along the rugged plane of his bronzed cheekbone.
“Dammit, you little vixen!” he swore, his jaw then clamping with serious intent as his gray eyes narrowed to slits. Kendall paused at the sound of his harsh voice, and instead of attacking, decided retreat would be the better part of valor. She spun about to flee, but screamed instead as his fingers wound into her hair and jerked her back. She did not kn
ow, as Brent McClain did, that a man would have to handle such a situation quickly and deftly or lose face with the Seminole braves; she knew only that she had pushed him to a truly dangerous point, and she was so terrified that she would gladly have returned to the quicksand.
He sank down on one knee, and she screamed as he pulled her hair viciously once more, drawing her down to him. Kendall flailed her arms wildly, but to no avail. He released his hold on her hair and grimly and silently secured her wrists; then, before she quite realized how, she found herself crudely tossed over his knee. She struggled, but her fight was useless against the power of his hold. He jerked up her skirt, tossing it so that it fell over her head, momentarily blinding her. And then she screamed out in humiliation and raw pain as his palm truly lit into her, the blows hard and determined and shattering, with only the thin material of her pantaloons to protect the bare rounded flesh beneath . . .
How long did it go on? Nine purposeful swats? Or ten? She had lost count at five, so mortified and furious was she. But that wasn’t to be the end. Just as smoothly and swiftly as he had begun, he ceased, rising so suddenly that she pitched to the ground in a sprawled heap, tangled in her own clothing, her hair a sodden and muddied plaster about her face. She couldn’t see the loathed face of the Rebel captain who towered above her like some pagan lord; she only heard his contemptuous voice as he called to several of the Seminole women. He spoke in English, but apparently they understood him as they rushed toward her.
“Clean her up, will you? She’s filthy.”
Kendall saw his booted feet spin smartly and stride away. Then she closed her eyes as the Indian women knelt down around her, offering her support to rise.
There was no escape.
Chapter Four
Brent McClain looked ruefully at his reddened palm as he strode to the chickee of his friend, Red Fox. He hadn’t meant to strike with such force, but, damn her cunning little hide, she was like a wildcat, and she had left him no choice. He had been so stunned to see her, and when he had heard her soft, cultured voice with its melodious southern drawl and turned to see her wealth of shining golden hair, her delicate, aristocratic features and wide, guileless eyes, something within him had snapped. An explosion of fury like a bursting shell had raked through him, and he had shuddered with the intensity of his rage.
Tomorrow the Glory Page 8